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The lead-up to the Republican National Convention attracted the predictable ad hominem attacks from Democrat mass media strongholds, who did their level best to otherwise ignore the event.

I couldn't find online the recent Phillip Coorey article from the Sydney Telegraph and couldn't be bothered searching for ridiculously hateful Ted Rall item I read the other day, but both featured the type of garbage we will see, and are seeing, from the lunatic left as the RNC unfolds, such as:

- the trained Hollywood parrots that were paraded at the DNC have anti-Bush opinions worthy of respect and emulation, and representative of intellectualism;

- Saddam Hussein was a good guy up to no no good at all (Richard Clarke was in Australia - on the Democrat/Labor campaign trail (?) - being softballed by the left-wing Lateline program on this subject);

- George Bush (Harvard,Yale, MBA, only re-elected governor in the history of Texas, successful baseball team owner, first son of a President since J.Q. Adams to achieve presidential success in his own right) is actually a moron who every idiot in the street should feel superior to;

- Republicans are uncool and Democrats are cool;

- John "F" Kerry is trustworthy, has rock solid views, is a war hero

- Hilary Clinton is a shining paragon of non-corruption and trustworthiness and is a New Yorker

- et cetera, ad nauseum.

It is shaping up as a definitive confrontation. Rest assured that egg will be stuck to smarmy guttersniping faces in the event of a Bush electoral victory.

Perhaps it is to gear up for this possibility, or perhaps it is the realisation that loaded coverage is turning people off the Democrats, that the ABC and Washington Post published this poll forecast online:

"Bush has erased most of John Kerry's gains on issues and attributes alike, retaking a sizable lead in trust to handle terrorism, moving ahead on Iraq and battling the Democratic presidential nominee to parity on the economy — the three top issues of the 2004 campaign.

"Bush also has reclaimed an advantage in being seen as more honest and trustworthy, bolstered his rating for strong leadership and moved to a 10-point lead as better qualified to serve as commander in chief, erasing Kerry's edge in the latter after his convention late last month."


Despite this poll, smear tactics go on seemingly unabated, the most outstanding recent example of course being the "coincidentally" timed CBS Israeli "spy" story, regarding which Ha'aretz had to say:

"The murky waters of this affair will provide ample fishing grounds for political rivals and conspiracy buffs. First they'll land Franklin's boss, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, and then they'll hook the entire group of neoconservatives of which he is one of the leaders. That is the group of Israel's friends, including many Jews, that pushed President Bush to go to war in Iraq.

"The best form of defense being offense, spokespeople for the Israeli government insinuated that anti-Israel elements are behind the affair. Republican representatives point to "Democratic agents" among senior FBI officials who want to spoil things for Bush on the eve of his party's convention."

In yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald there was a report that Australia's ATN7 TV network, the exclusive domestic Olympic broadcaster, has 10-20 people on the ground on Athens.

Their performance is not highly regarded at home, on par with the dreadful quality of their recent World Cup rugby broadcasting, but the numbers give you some idea of how many people are needed to effectively present the Olympic games to a respectably sized national audience. Perhaps, say, double the numbers of ATN7, provided the group is laced with quality personnel and adequate technology.

Compare these figures with those of the BBC and NBC, which have an estimated 400 and 2500 people respectively on the ground in Greece.

According to the article the vast majority of these people are doing little more than twiddling their thumbs and spreading themselves out at potential "hot spots" waiting for a terrorist attack.

Must be great for the morale of the Greek citizens and the athletes. Beyond any subjective general impressions one may have of those two TV networks, this story represents a disgraceful attitude if accurate.

In the case of the BBC, just imagine those lecherous publicly funded poo-bahs sitting there actually HOPING for a terrorist attack to justify the willful splurge of taxpayer money.

There are too many BBC "episodes" like this.

It is said that during the European Soccer Cup in Portugal , over 200 BBC executives flew out for every England game on first class return tickets (about £1200 a pop at the time) and stayed for a one night drinking binge, before flying back again.

Which again gives rise to the question: Is a monolithic, biased, BBC necessary in today's world?

In this morning's Sydney Morning Herald there are at least two articles where the expression "war on terrorism" appears just like that, in scare quotes wherever it is referred to.

It's hard to know if this is simply a prerogative exercised by the editor of this publication only, or otherwise an initiative taken in unison by left and liberal editors wherever thay can, but one suspects it is something like the latter.

We have, unfortunately, become too used to such sinister double-standards.

The perspective of Occidental-Islamic conflict gleaned through big Western media - through much film, television, newsprint and comedic Internet - is that any strong or confrontational position undertaken by George W. Bush or his allies is to be ridiculed or treated with suspicion.

Thus the concept of "war on terrorism" neatly fits into scare quotes, invoking the supposition that there may be no need for war, or no such thing as terrorism; that there was no 9/11 and no need to respond; that all would be well as long as the United States did nothing, receded in power, let other states fill that vacuum, let nuclear weapons and their like proliferate in countries with hostile ambitions.

That the United States and it's allies are responsible for murderous actions that are taken in this world, and that the actual perpetrators may be thus excused. Nowhere is such duplicitous reportage more evident than in relation to the Middle East.

We see, in recent times, the growing media consciousness that something rotten is afoot in Sudan. That 50,000 people may have been murdered there as a result of an ethnic cleansing campaign that has also resulted in the displacement of an estimated 1,000,000 (now impoverished, suffering and homeless) persons (see for example this Telegraph report).

Such figures and the supposition of intense immorality begetting their achievement dwarf what is happening in the Palestinian intifada.

Yet the latter continues, as it has always done in the face of many travesties over the last 50 or 60 years, to disproportionately figure in our news intake replete with such devices and bias as referred to hereinabove.

Molly Moore's recent effort in The Washington Post (Refuge Is Prison For Hunted Palestinian - De Facto Sheriff Is Wanted by Israelis) is typical.

"Islam has a tradition of vigorous interpretation and adjustment, called ijtihad, but Koranic interpretation remains frozen in the model of classical commentaries written nearly two centuries after the prophet's death. The history of the rise and fall of great powers over the last 3,000 years underscores that only when people are able to debate issues freely - when religious taboos fade - can intellectual inquiry lead to scientific discovery, economic revolution and powerful new civilizations."

So says the NY Times' Nicholas Kristoff (August 4, Martyrs, Virgins and Grapes). But if this is true, how then can we interpret the aggressive pretensions to world dominance of the religion-inspired Luddism we know as fanatical Islam?

It would be foolhardy to dismiss Islamic militancy as a non-threat. History is replete with instances of reactionary forces succeeding in power struggles. Such success is more intelligible within the framework of the observation of French writer Victor Hugo that "Power is often no more than a faction ...(and) (f)actions are blind men with a true aim."

This view can be rationalised within Kristoff's supposition. Hatred-based Islamist ideas, like the "love of death" and martyrdom propounded by Sheikh Abu Hamza Al-Masri in a Friday sermon at Finsbury Park Mosque in London provide true aim to the blind man striving for power. But such ideas are, beyond that, not worthy of advancing civilisation or of providing the basis for a powerful new one.


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In fighting against the threat posed by Islamism, Middle East Forum's Daniel Pipes points out (The Triumph Of the 9/11 Commission) that one important aspect of the recent 9/11 Commission final report which passed, by and large, under the mainstream media radar was that it specifically identified Islamist terrorism as the 'catastrophic threat' facing America.

"... (T)he commission has called the enemy 'by its true name, something that politically correct Americans have trouble facing.

"The Islamist outlook represents not a hijacking of Islam, as is often but wrongly claimed; rather it emerges from a 'long tradition of extreme intolerance' within Islam, one going back centuries and in recent times associated with Wahhabism, the Muslim Brethren, and the Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb.
"The commission then does something almost unheard of in American government circles: It offers a goal for the war now under way, namely the isolation or destruction of Islamism.carefully distinguishes between the enemy's twofold nature: 'al Qaeda, a stateless network of terrorists' and the 'radical ideological movement in the Islamic world.' In other words, 'the United States has to help defeat an ideology, not just a group of people.'"

As if to illustrate just how widespread radicalism is within Islam, Pipes provides in another recent article the example of American Muslim Conference founder and long-time chief, Abdurahman Alamoudi, a "Washington fixture" of an organisation described by Catholic bishops as "the premier, mainstream Muslim group in Washington." The Washington Post described Alamoudi as "a pillar of the local Muslim community."

Pipes says Alamoudi:

" ... had many meetings with both Clintons in the White House and once joined George W. Bush at a prayer service dedicated to victims of the 9/11 attacks. Alamoudi arranged a Ramadan fast-breaking dinner for congressional leaders. He six times lectured abroad for the State Department and founded an organization to provide Muslim chaplains for the Department of Defense. One of his former AMC employees, Faisal Gill, serves as policy director at the Department of Homeland Security's intelligence division.

"But the one-time high-flyer last week signed a plea agreement with the American government admitting his multiple crimes in return for a reduced sentence."

Of note in the sentencing are illegal financial transactions suspected of being connected with laundering money in support of terrorism, "his affiliation with a Specially Designated Terrorist (the Hamas leader, Mousa Abu Marzook), and his membership in terrorist-related organizations."

Alamoudi admitted that he "was summoned by Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi to two meetings and as a result of these Alamoudi helped organize the assassination of Saudi crown prince Abdullah. (The plot was foiled.)

"Alamoudi's Palm Pilot, seized at the time of his arrest, contained contact information for seven men designated as global terrorists by U.S. authorities; Alamoudi has at least indirect links to Osama bin Laden through the Taibah International Aid Association, an American non-profit where he served along with Abdullah A. bin Laden, Osama's nephew..."

Remember the days when corruption icon Bill Clinton was called "The Comeback Kid" by his fawning cheer squad at CNN? The ostensible reasoning then was that Mr Clinton's win in the 1996 Presidential contest was considered a comeback from Democrat losses in Congressional elections two years before.

Today the situation is of course a little different.

Whatever the fate of President Bush, the likelihood of CNN, BBC or the NY Times christening him a "Comeback Kid" parallels the possibility of pigs flying to Jupiter. Or, perhaps, of Bush being remembered by them as a great president in the class of Abraham Lincoln.

Polls, including those conducted by the above news organisations that write off the Mr Bush's electoral chances, can be affected by timing, "weighting", question type, audience and environment. Many seem to be slanted in the hope of annointing a trend or bandwagon effect.

Yet even in the face of such polling, and of unprecedented negative campaigning, the incumbent is still in with a good chance of winning in November.

There is a historical precedent in Bush's favour, that set by Lincoln. This precedent shows that a person disdained and disrespected by the media, opponents, national leaders, half a divided nation and opponents in a war can indeed succeed in an election and then as a president.

Today of course, many people view Lincoln reverentially. But the man who became president in 1861 was seen quite differently by his contemporaries.Prior to 1860 Abraham Lincoln was not a terribly high level Republican. He was merely a good "stump" speaker from backwoods Illinois.

His folksy "well, that reminds me of a story...." style of address could captivate an audience. (This line also reputedly drove his cabinet ministers bananas after he became President. It was usually a precursor of circumlocutory drivel that would - ultimately - dovetail mercilessly on a point.)

Lincoln's weird sense of dress was also an outstanding feature on the stump. The tall hat and long beard, on top of his very tall frame, was remarkable even in those days and not, as many tend to assume, simply a fashion of the era.

He was eccentric in other ways, too. He was known to carry documents in his hat, as if it were a brief case. He was also reputedly prone to bouts of depression.

Anyway, I digress. The point is that although Lincoln had some standing he was not the logical choice as Republican nominee for President in the election of 1860.

The fact is that the really high men in the GOP, people like Salmon P. Chase (founder of the Chase bank and, as Lincoln's Treasury Secretary, inaugurator of the greenback), figured that the Democrats had a lock on the presidency that year. So they nominated Lincoln, the ambitious bumpkin from Illinois, as a sacrificial lamb.

The only reason Lincoln then won the election was because the Democrat Party - incredibly - split. Effectively, two Democrat candidates instead of one opposed Lincoln for the presidency.

The Republican then won the election with less than 50% of the vote.

After the shock of his victory had sunk in, the north-eastern US establishment (including the New York media) treated Lincoln with disdain. Never mind, they said: he won't last long.

If you think George Bush has problems today, get a handle on what Lincoln had to face. William Safire's biographical novel "Freedom" gives a superb account.

For starters, Lincoln was confronted with the problem of geo-physics. We conveniently label the US Civil War as a battle between North and South, but in 1860 there may not have been a real "north". Let alone a northern army to defend it.

Many of the border states swung dangerously. Washington itself is situated within Baltimore (a state of dubious sympathies at that time) and just across the river from Virginia.

It is said that when Lincoln first traveled by coach across hostile Baltimore to reach Washington he disguised himself as a woman. He was laughed at across the nation when the press reported on this.

Shortly after he arrived in Washington a Stonewall Jackson-led southern force won a battle at the Potomac and would certainly have captured Washington - and its incumbent president - if they had advanced just a few more kilometres.

Jackson baulked and turned, thinking the then non-existent "northern army" would lie in waiting.

Surviving setback after setback and obstacle after obstacle, Lincoln eventually managed to mould a northern coalition and raise an army.

Some of the key battles along the way to achieving this aim were lost. Others were won by only the breadth of one of his whiskers. The same pattern was true of the war itself, and of the huge number of political and public (and immense personal) battles Lincoln had to fight in tandem with that war.

Cabinet, Congress, the Europeans, the media, the States, his army generals - all had their own agendas and, more often than not, dismissed Lincoln as a mere roadbump on the way to power.

Yet somehow the country bumpkin from Illinois mastered all.

Can George Bush muster a similar political result? Anyone writing him off at this point would seem to be hopeful and premature. At the end of the day, of course, Bush will win if he looks better than his opponent.

So what are the important issues for Americans, with regard to which he and John "F." Kerry will be compared?

Well, one is the war against Islamic terrorism. And as former Democrat New York mayor Ed Koch points out:

"If John Kerry were to win this presidential election, would he stand up to terrorism to the same extent as George Bush has? I don't think so... (M)y party, the Democratic Party, now has a strong radical left wing whose members often dominate the party primaries.

"... Regrettably, he surrendered his philosophical independence ... to prevail over the original darling of the radicals, Howard Dean. Kerry owes his nomination in large part to the supporters of Dean and the support of Senator Ted Kennedy."

Another big issue - many would say the biggest one - involves personality questions. Like integrity and competency.

Kerry is a patriotic American who performed heroically in the Vietnam War.

But, aside from the questions raised by some who fought alongside him, he was seen to first come under the national spotlight as an anti-Vietnam War activist leveraging his experience as a serviceman. He has since his entry to Congress voted against much military spending.

This is the man who would be commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

The Democrat candidate was estimated recently to be worth around $70 million, far more than George W. Bush, and has had his campaign fueled to some extent by the funding of his even richer wife, Theresa Heinz. He has never been governor of a state.

This is the man who asks for his nation's faith and would represent the downtrodden.

Significantly, Senator Kerry had a wonderful opportunity to dispel character concerns with his speech at the DNC, but was afterwards variously criticised across the media spectrum for waffling and hedging positions.

And what of the economy? Many call this George W. Bush's weak point. Oil prices, the deficit, unemployment - blimps like these are too large to pass under the radar, and may yet provide President Bush's undoing. But as George Schultz points out in yesterday's NY Times, the recession George Bush inherited from Bill Clinton has been dealt with quickly and the economy is on the up.

Schultz also recalls that the groundwork for Clinton-era prosperity was laid by Bush's father. Bush the younger's new economic team under John Snow shows promise. We have seen that the President hasn't flinched from firings or shaking up his team where performances have been sub-standard.

Having said that, a lot of issues in this election are borderline. Time will tell how the chips fall.

But the many people rubbishing G.W. Bush at this stage might do well to study their Civil War history a little more closely.


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Did Lincoln intend to abolish slavery? See his letter to New York Tribune editor Horace Greely, 1862

On similarities between Lincoln and Bush regarding the political circumstances of the re-election RNC, see this Opinion Journal item:


"By far the bleakest outlook was at the Republican Convention in Baltimore in June 1864. Abraham Lincoln was thought to be a sure loser: War news was bad, and Grant's army lost 7,000 men in 20 minutes at Cold Harbor just seven days before the convention. Many Republicans wanted to shove Lincoln aside, but he was as shrewd a political maneuverer as he was an inspirational leader, and his agents out in the states made sure that the delegates would back the president. He stayed in the White House and pulled the political strings 40 miles away in Baltimore."

Reports from Washington Times and UPI editor Arnaud de Borchgrave are often breathtakingly sensational. Digestion may require mouthfuls of salt.

One wonders whether his apparently see-sawing slants and views are consistent and defensible, or else a balancing act designed to straddle the perimeters of credibility.

Here is a man who avidly sources from the Arab press and from within the Islamic world, while regularly chatting happily on air with Fox News Channel presenters. His offerings at various times appease or insense boffins at polar extremes of the political spectrum and in between.

Reading him one is reminded variously of the famous CNN admission that it failed to report on certain news about Saddam's Iraq so as to keep in the good books of the former dictator, or else of the old adage about "playing both sides against the middle", or else of the other old warning about the trap of actually believing one's own propaganda.

But this is just a superficial and personal impression.

In his latest item de Borchgrave expands on detail of a "confidential report" from an anonymous but "unimpeachable" source in Pakistan that came to the 9/11 commission's attention "as the commission's own report was coming off the presses."

The report claims that:

- "bin Laden, who suffers from renal deficiency, has been periodically undergoing dialysis in a Peshawar military hospital with the knowledge and approval of ISI (Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence) if not of Gen. Pervez Musharraf himself ... Mr. Musharraf may plan to turn over bin Laden to President Bush in time to clinch Mr. Bush's re-election in November.

- "The imprints of every major act of international Islamist terrorism - as well as major networks of terror that have been discovered in Europe - invariably passes through Pakistan ... virtually all September 11 participants had trained, resided or met in, coordinated with, or received funding from or through Pakistan .. And that is why people like (powerful former Pakistani intelligence chief) Hamid Gul and others very quickly stated the propaganda that CIA and Mossad did it. ..." The outspoken Gul and his many supporters "regard the fight against Americans and Jews and Indians in different parts of the world as legitimate jihad."

- "Pakistan has harvested an enormous price for its apparent 'cooperation' with the U.S., and in this it has combined deception and blackmail - including nuclear blackmail - to secure a continuous stream of concessions."

- "Pakistan has projected the electoral victory of the fundamentalist and pro-Taliban, pro-al Qaeda Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) in November elections as 'proof' the military is the only 'barrier' against the country passing into the hands of the extremists ... in fact, (this has been) substantially engineered by the Musharraf regime, as are the various anti-U.S. 'mass demonstrations' around the country."


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See also WSJ article regarding the: Pakistan-Afghanistan border situation (August 4)


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Today (August 13), further light is thrown on the background to the de Borchgrave report by George Will of The Washington Post :

"(T)he New Republic ... reported that the Bush administration was pressuring Pakistan to deliver a "high-value target" (HVT) in time for the November election. A Pakistani intelligence official says a colleague was told during a spring visit to the White House that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven or twenty-eight July" -- during the Democratic convention.

" ... (T)he Bush administration must take seriously a fact it deplores: Regarding the war on terrorism, a sizable minority believes that the government's words and deeds merit deep skepticism.

"The hard core of this minority is the Michael Moore-Howard Dean cohort of fanatics."