And the Iranians take a page from John Kerry's playbook

First, An Iranian lawmaker announced that it was installing 3000 centrifuges at a uranium enrichment plant. Then, an Iranian nuclear official denied it.

What explains the flip-flop? Did Iran actually install the centrifuges before it didn't install them? Or, imagine this exchange when a certain Iran nuclear official pays a visit to a certain Iranian lawmaker as part of damage control.

Simorgh: Alaeddin, have you always had camel dung for brains?!

Boroujerdi: Hossein, what in the name of jihad are you talking about?

Simorgh: Look, Ahmadinejad is as angry as with you as a father would be with his raped daughter. Why did you announce we're going ahead with the centrifuges?

Boroujerdi: Well the whole world knows it, right? Even our friend ElBaradei admits it.

Simorgh: What are you, the son of an infidel? Let ElBaradei talk all he wants, because this Western illusion of an "international community" either doesn't believe him or doesn't care a dinar's worth. Meanwhile, we need you to keep quiet so Ahmadinejad can keep play the stall game.

Boroujerdi: Who needs to stall? Soon enough we'll have nuclear weapons, and Hezbollah can destroy Western cities.

Simorgh: You fool! Didn't you ever think that the Jewish state, which we talk about destroying while thumping our chests, could turn our cities into glass before we know it? So stop braying like such a talkative donkey, before you make the infidels feel really threatened.

John Kerry, again the runner-up

At last night's NYC Young Republicans (the independent group) holiday party, we were honored to hear J.R. de Szigethy, president of the Chappaquiddick Society, announce the 2006 winner of the Society's "Profile in Cowardice" award. Kerry didn't win, but he did win a "dishonorable mention" for his stupid "stuck in Iraq" remark. He'll always be second best, see? (Say that in your best Edward G. Robinson voice.)

The winner is Mike Nifong, that bastard DA in North Carolina who went on a vendetta against the Duke lacrosse players. The state bar has now filed ethics charges against him, which I think are a step in the right direction but for a couple of wrong reasons. "I am convinced there was a rape, yes, sir" should not be held against a prosecutor, because if he wasn't convinced a crime had been committed, then it would be wrong for him to bring charges against the suspect. However, "One would wonder why one needs an attorney if one was not charged and had not done anything wrong" is completely unworthy of any competent practicer of criminal law. The same goes for his not interviewing the alleged victim for months, all the while dragging those poor boys through the mud.

Worst of all:

Nifong was also charged with breaking a rule against "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation." The bar said that when DNA testing failed to find any evidence a lacrosse player raped the accuser, Nifong told a reporter the players might have used a condom.

According to the bar, Nifong knew that assertion was misleading, because he had received a report from an emergency room nurse in which the accuser said her attackers did not use a condom.

"Misleading" nothing. He lied.

Blogosphere quote of the month

Josh Hendrickson: "Apparently Jefferson said the statement right before he didn't."

Read his post, and you'll understand why it's so funny, and so pathetically true about Kerry.

Do Democrats have no shame?

Note what's said in this article about President Bush:

"They had a candidate who dodged the draft, dodged the ...National Guard... And they made that candidate look strong against a guy who was shot three times and won the Bronze Star and the Silver Star for valor. That is incredible."

What's incredible is that the Democrats just can't get over the fact that their candidates in 2000 and 2004 should have been unbeatable, but they beat themselves with their own liberalism, vagueness and inconsistencies. Until Democrats learn to field a real candidate, someone who won't concern enough people to vote against him, they'll have to keep deluding themselves: "Oh, that election was stolen from us at the Supreme Court...the next one was because all the right-wing Christians came out and voted."

If the quote were truthful, the first candidate mentioned would be Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush. President Bush went into the Texas Air National Guard and trained as a fighter pilot. This was hardly dodging the draft, especially with the hazards of flying the dangerous F-102s (several pilots were killed in training accidents during Bush's TexANG service). Regarding the main controversy about the quality of his service, I'm sure we all remember the "fake, but accurate" memos that the blogosphere proved to be forgeries. Does anyone know if Mary Mapes still insists today that they're genuine?

Yes, many young men's families pulled strings, like Clinton's so that he could keep postponing induction. Others got their sons into the National Guard to hopefully avoid active combat in Vietnam (it was no guarantee, because Johnson decided not to use the Guard but could have reversed that decision). There were other options, however, even to young men without means or influence. I knew a putz who liked to remind people how he "served his country," as if somehow that always made him right or wise, but all he did was enlist in the Air Force and hang around a stateside base. I think he was just a technician, an occupation far safer than flying a jet, and he had no one to pull strings for him.

On the other hand, John Kerry's Vietnam duty, as many conservative blogs pointed out during the election, involved things like ordering his Swift Boat to shore (placing it and the crew at grave risk) so he could hunt down a wounded VC and kill him in cold blood, and Purple Hearts for wounds so severe that he didn't miss any significant duty. I'm still trying to figure out his claim of hearing South Vietnamese firing their guns to celebrate Christmas, and that it happened in 1968 while Nixon was president. Then Kerry claimed he threw his "medals" over the White House fence as a protest, but they turned out to be someone else's; his explanation was that he threw away his ribbons, which are technically medals, but that's some rationalization. Can we say that he threw his medals away before he kept them?

But what I always found most hypocritical is his immediately post-Vietnam testimony before Congress. He accused his fellow servicemen of committing atrocities (when the VC were doing far, far worse to our POWs -- ask John McCain), and his use of "we" effectively made it his own confession. Yet years later, he continually harped on his Vietnam service to give himself an aura of honor, when by his own admission he himself had acted brutally. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth exposed this and much more, and they're still the best resource for what Kerry really did.

Heaven knows I disagree with more than one thing Bush has done, but he wasn't the candidate who looked like a slimy opportunist.