BIG SPACE NEWS:

WASHINGTON – The government on Wednesday awarded a California aviation company the first license for a manned suborbital rocket.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced that it gave a one-year license to Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., a company founded by aviation maverick Burt Rutan. His goal is public space travel within 10 years.

Let it be so.

ANOTHER BLOG INFLUENCE RANKING: This one by John Hawkins.

TIM BLAIR SAYS “France Rocks!” No, really.

MORE ON DODD: Eric Muller has the full text of Dodd’s remarks up on his blog, and observes:

On balance, I think the comparison to Lott’s praise of Thurmond is fair. What clinches it for me is when Dodd says, “Some were right for the time. ROBERT C. BYRD, in my view, would have been right at any time.” Here, I think, Dodd makes clear that, unlike the views of some, which may have seemed right in their moment but were later revealed to be mistaken, Byrd’s views have been timelessly correct.

Yeah, that’s how it looks to me, too. Which makes the disparate treatment of the Dodd and Lott affairs particularly troubling.

UPDATE: Jim Lindgren sends this on Dodd:

Some commentators on Dodd’s praise of Robert Byrd assume that Byrd is so completely reconstructed that the Senator Byrd of the last twenty years, no longer the KKK leader he once was, would have been an asset projected back to the Civil War. But Byrd, while now criticizing slavery, refused on at least one important occasion to criticize the South’s entry into the Civil War and defended the motives and honor of those who fought for the South–this from a Senator representing West Virginia, a state that owes its existence to the loyalty of its people to the Union side.

In 1993, Byrd joined with Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms to defend Congressional protection of the confederate flag as part of the insignia of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, opposing Carol Moseley Braun.

Byrd on the floor of the Senate, 1993:

Many informed people believe that the 11 states that comprised the Confederacy stood on solid constitutional ground.

Abolitionist sentiment in the North changed the terms on which legal questions had originally been settled in the old Union. John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, in what is now West Virginia, made a peaceful settlement of the slavery question nearly impossible.

Interestingly, only an estimated 5 percent of the population of the South owned slaves. Yet, hundreds of thousands of Southern men – most of them slaveless and poor – answered the call of the Confederate government to defend the sovereignty of their states. In West Virginia, it broke down about 2-to-1, I suppose, with about one-third supporting the Confederacy and the other two-thirds supporting the Union. Those men – brave and patriotic by their rights, almost to a fault – are the ancestors of millions upon millions of loyal, law-abiding American citizens today.

In the classic Ken Burns Civil War series on public television, historian Shelby Foote recounted a discussion between a Confederate prisoner and his Yankee captor, who asked the Confederate soldier, “Why are you fighting us like this?” To which the Confederate soldier replied, “Because y’all are down here.”

That was not racism. That was not a defense of slavery. That was a man protecting his home, his family and his people.

We are who we are today largely because of the War Between the States.

Americans of Southern heritage need not defend slavery in order to memorialize the legacy of which they are a part.

The Washington Times, August 7, 1993, WHAT DID EMBLEM SYMBOLIZE?, LEXIS/NEXIS.

While such carefully measured statements–praising those who fought for the South while criticizing slavery–[are] not disgusting, I hope that this is not the sort of leadership that today’s Republicans and Democrats would have wanted in the Civil War, especially from a person who has been called the “political king” of West Virginia, a Union state. One must remember that most of the pro-slavery arguments, at least before 1830, admitted the immorality of slavery as the starting point. The question for many in both the South and the North was not slavery’s immorality, which was widely (though not universally) admitted, but what if anything to do about it.

Interesting.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Robert Burg has more thoughts. Click “More” to read them.

(more…)

STUART BENJAMIN has the Condi testimony reactions script already.

JAMES LILEKS compares what Ted Kennedy is saying now with what he was saying not long ago and notes a contradiction. Don’t you know that’s “neo-McCarthyism,” James?

Meanwhile Eugene Volokh has additional posts here and here on the Kennedy / Vietnam controversy. It seems quite difficult to argue that Kennedy has been treated unfairly over this.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt says that Lileks has done more spadework than the New York Times’ crack political reporters. That’s news?

PEOPLE SEEM TO BE NOTICING Sen. Chris Dodd’s racially insensitive comments, as the story is breaking into traditional media:

WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) — A mini-scandal has erupted in Congress as some Senate Republicans question whether comments made by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., were racist.

In a speech on the Senate floor last Thursday marking Sen. Robert Byrd’s 17,000th vote in the body, Dodd said the West Virginia Democrat, member of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office and opponent of the 1964 Civil Right Act, “would have been right during the great conflict of Civil War in this nation.”

Dodd’s comments struck some as similar to remarks made by former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., that led to his losing the position.

Read the whole thing. Strangely, though bloggers on the right were swift to condemn Trent Lott’s comments, bloggers on the left don’t seem to be condemning Dodd’s with anything like the same degree of energy. As Jeff Goldstein notes, some are even trying to defend Dodd’s comments. And Joe Gandelman has a roundup.

UPDATE: More here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More from Chris Dodd, here. Has Dodd said anything about this that I’ve missed?

Like Lott, he could have shut this down early with a simple statement that he didn’t mean that the U.S. would have been better off with a Grand Kleagle in charge during the Civil War. How hard is that?

WINDS OF CHANGE has a lengthy and interesting post on what’s going on in Iraq, and what the United States’ response should be:

Ultimately, the success or failure of the Iranian strategy with regard to the US in Iraq will depend on whether or not the United States and its allies retain the collective national will to defeat the insurgents. The question of whether or not Iraq will become a second Vietnam (i.e. a US defeat) is probably best answered, “No, and it won’t be as long as we don’t let it.”

Andrew Sullivan has thoughts, too:

But the response to this cannot be withdrawal. Military power still matters; and the coalition has the overwhelming advantage. In some ways, perhaps, the war has now entered the most critical phase – more critical than Afghanistan or the war against Saddam. This war is for the future against the past, for representative government against a vicious theocratic dictatorship from the Leninist vanguards of the Sadrists. The president needs to tell the people this. His failure to communicate what is actually going on, why we’re there, what we’re doing, and what the stakes are is the prime current fault of the administration.

Indeed. There’s a useful roundup at Oxblog, too, where we learn that Senator Robert Byrd — no doubt encouraged by Chris Dodd’s fulsome praise — has jumped on the Kennedy / Vietnam bandwagon.

This is electoral poison for the Democrats.

UPDATE: Steven Den Beste has a lengthy analysis of the situation, and thinks that, despite the problems at the moment, this is actually a strategic opportunity if handled properly: “In other words, it will be just like it was last year in March and April, before and during the invasion. And it will make just about the same difference, i.e. “not a lot” in the long run.”

When the action is at this stage, of course, all that we here at home can do is hope that it will be handled properly.

UPDATE: More thoughts here.

READER DAVID STERN EMAILS: “Nine midday hours without a post — are you okay? Your fans are concerned.”

Heh. Yes, I’m okay. Had a free day (or at least, a day I could free) and decided to give my mind and body, which are suffering from different kinds of repetitive stress, a break. Took a long, camera-toting drive up US 27 and Tennessee 52 to Rugby, then came back on 62 past Frozen Head and through Oak Ridge. More blogging later.

UPDATE: Okay, actually it’s photo-blogging. You can see photographs and commentary in this gallery I set up over at the Exposure Manager site.

ANOTHER UPDATE: D’oh! No sooner did I link than the site stopped. I don’t know if it was the traffic or just a coincidence, but I’m taking the link down for now. Sorry. You can see smaller versions of a couple of pictures here and here.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Taking the link down didn’t make an immediate difference, but it seems to be working now, so I’ll put the link to the gallery back up. Cross your fingers!

Later: Everything’s working fine.

MORE: Boy, you never know who’s reading InstaPundit, as reader Joe Jones emails:

Thanks for posting the picts of Morgan County. I grew up in Sunbright (in fact, you drove between my parents’ house and my Grandmothers’ when you went through on US27) and I don’t get back up there often enough – so the pictures are a real treat.

The man in the photos in R.M. Brooks Store in Rugby is my uncle, Bill Jones. His In-Laws used to own the place and Verda (Brooks) ran it until she passed away several years ago. Bill and Linda also own a bed and breakfast (Grey Gables) not very far from the store. If nothing else, I highly recommend going there for a meal. While I admit that I haven’t been there in a while, the meals have always been wonderful. Honest truth here…I’m not above disparaging a family member’s cooking. Seriously, they have always been excellent cooks –family dinners were always good…
mmmmmm).

You should try to get back up that way during the Fall when the leaves are changing. The first time I went to the Smokies I wondered what all the fuss was about. Morgan, Scott, and Fentress counties were much more colorful.

I’ll do that.

STAY HEALTHY OUT THERE:

Frequent sexual activity may reduce a man’s risk of prostate cancer, according to a study in the April 7 Journal of the American Medical Association.

Don’t take any chances, men. (More here.)

UPDATE: Doesn’t this call Ashcroft’s anti-porn crusade into question? He’s putting America’s health at risk!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader “Mathgirl” emails:

In considering your post regarding sex and health, I have been wondering why politicians don’t pick the low-hanging fruit in their campaigns. If I were John Kerry, I would cite this new study and say, “When I am President, I will not only end John Ashcroft’s wasteful anti-porn crusade, I will use the freed-up funds to include Viagra in the new Medicare prescription drug benefit.”

Since the senior citizen’s lobby is the largest on Capitol Hill, this should be a surefire way to increase Kerry’s poll numbers, no?

I’m sure that Shrum is on top of this.

OVER AT TECHCENTRALSTATION, Jay Currie and Ilya Shapiro have thoughts on what’s happening in Iraq. You can follow the news at The Command Post, where it’s being reported that Syrian fighters have been captured among the “rebels,” and a top aide to Sadr has been killed.

UPDATE: Austin Bay has a column on this, too:

It’s no Mogadishu, it’s no Tet — in fact, the ugly, baiting murders in Fallujah and Muqtada al-Sadr’s made-for-Tv rebellion may be an extraordinary opportunity for the United States and Iraqi democrats, if the military operations and politics are handled with finesse. . . .

The Fallujah massacre and al-Sadr’s riots are calculated, violent acts orchestrated by desperate thugs confronting imminent loss of power. An Iraqi democracy threatens the sorry lot of them, so they’re taken their best shot at halting the process. . . .

It’s now up to U.S. forces in Iraq, and available Iraqi security units, to provide a new televised precedent, an icy “city and neighborhood squeeze” documented on camera. In military terms, the U.S. and Iraqi forces will be conducting large-scale cordon and search operations (in Fallujah and in Sadr’s alleys), supported by raids and limited attacks on diehard strong-points. Politically, the operation becomes a peculiar “show of force”: Post 9-11, the challenge of thugs angling for “body bag” media victories will be met and trumped.

The Marines’ Operation Vigilant Resolve in Fallujah appears to have this strategic goal in mind.

Read the whole thing.

AIR AMERICA is being blasted for lack of diversity in The Final Call, the Nation of Islam’s house organ. I believe, though, that the piece originally appeared in The Amsterdam News.

UPDATE: Here’s another piece sounding the same theme, from Alton Maddox, in The Amsterdam News:

Air America Radio’s takeover of WLIB-AM is the final nail in the coffin of the right of Blacks to access the airwaves. . . .

This is worse than a badge of slavery. It is cultural genocide. This want of outrage to cultural genocide on the part of Blacks is rooted in a lack of knowledge of our culture and our history. Dr. Carter G. Woodson described this malady in “The Miseducation of the Negro.”

The whole piece is rather, um, overheated. But it suggests that Air America is doing some damage with a key constituency.

AS PAUL BOUTIN NOTES by email, someone had to say it: “I really think that if Jesus were around today, he would have a blog.”

A PROGRESSIVE DISORDER: Military blogger Jason Van Steenwyk, just back from a stint in Iraq, is deeply unimpressed by Barbara Ehrenreich’s latest article on soldiers. He points out numerous errors, noting at one point:

Had the Progressive happened to have a veteran somewhere in their office–from any service– he would have known Ehrenreich’s figures were wrong.

Read the whole thing.

A BLOG GOSSIP COLUMN? Why not?

MISPLACED PRIORITIES: With a war on terror underway, the Justice Department is planning a war on porn.

I blame John Ashcroft. No, really, this time I mean it. And if the Administration thinks that this is a good use of their “computer forensics” experts, then they must have decided that terrorists aren’t a threat any more.

This is so ham-handed and sure to blow up in the Administration’s face, making them look like stooges for the religious right while accomplishing nothing, that one almost suspects a Democratic mole in their ranks.

UPDATE: More on this lousy idea here and here. Lots of background and links.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:

I voted for Bush and donated to his campaign and have been looking for reasons to support his reelection. But when I saw your post, I snapped. I just made a small donation to the Kerry campaign…and, living in Massachusetts, I have no reason to be thrilled about Kerry.

Somebody commented somewhere on the Web that never had he seen a President so contemptuous of his supporters as GWB.

While Bush is my first choice to prosecute the war (on terror, not on pornography), McCain’s comments reassure me that Kerry would do an adequate job.

As I said, this is a big mistake. Though I wish I could be as confident about Kerry regarding the war on terror, notwithstanding my praise of him today.

UPDATE: Reader Jorge Del Rio thinks the emailer above is bogus:

Do I think its stupid what the justice department is doing? Probably. What’s even more scary are the other stupid things the government does that we don’t know about. However, I’m writing about the email comments you posted on the issue about the former Bush supporter who’s mad at this and will now support Kerry, thanks in part to McCain. Now, this guy may be legitimate. However, I’d be care about some emailers using the Moby trick. It just sounded to perfect. A guy who knows Kerry and voted for Bush but was swayed by the media darling McCain. Again, you may know him and he may be legit, but it seemed a little too perfect.

But the original reader emails back: “I saw your cautionary comment about Kerry and the war. Point taken. This is an important election and a symbolic donation to Kerry doesn’t determine what I’ll do in the future.”

Take it from me: This is a dumb move by the Administration.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Harvard Republican blog observes:

The Baltimore Sun article quotes Attorney General John Ashcroft saying that porn “invades our homes persistently though the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet.” No, Mr. Ashcroft, that’s incorrect; Americans persistently invite porn into our homes through the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet. According to Eric Schlosser’s Reefer Madness, Americans spend between $8 and $10 billion per year on adult entertainment, about as much as on first-run (non-porn) movies. Show me a videocassette that forces itself into an American’s home at gunpoint, ties him to the couch, and plays itself, and I will concede that your claim makes sense; otherwise, you’re wrong.

Indeed. Justin Katz, on the other hand, thinks I’m wrong to be concerned.

Jeff Jarvis has a roundup of blog reactions, all negative.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Clark Taylor emails:

Wow, if you don’t delete this e-mail right away, I’ll be impressed. I have to agree with you that if the FBI is spending serious resources going after regular porn, it is probably pretty stupid. However, my guess is they are going after things that are truly illegal, such as child porn. Chances are, from my take on things, this is a non-story, i.e. what the Justice Department has been doing for a while anyways, but the reporter really needed a story.

The story says they’re making a big across-the-board anti-porn push, even going after soft-porn in hotels and on cable TV. I suppose it could be wrong, but it’s pretty straightforward. And I seldom delete email, though given the firehose quantities I receive it often goes unreplied-to, or even unread, depending on how much time I have.

CHRIS DODD’S REMARKS ABOUT ROBERT BYRD, which many in the blogosphere have been comparing to Trent Lott’s remarks about Strom Thurmond, are starting to get some Big Media attention.

Background here, here, and here. And here’s the Kennedy School study of the Trent Lott affair, for those who would like to make a detailed comparison.

ED MORRISSEY has posted a summary and commentary on the Clinton 2000 National Security report and how it relates to current discussions.

UPDATE: Read this post, too.

USEFUL FOOLS says that Ted Kennedy is trying for a Tet rerun, with help from the media and Iraqi extremists. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

UPDATE: Dave Johnson says the terrorists have launched a “Ted” offensive.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Colin Powell Rebukes Kennedy in Rare Political Foray.”

Kennedy’s remark is certainly getting a lot of play around the world, and it can only embolden our enemies and imperil our friends. And as an old Washington hand, Kennedy must have known that it would get that kind of attention, and have that kind of an effect. No wonder Powell is upset.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: More in this editorial from the New York Post:

Kennedy & Co. – abetted by many in the national media – are working overtime to transform Operation Iraqi Freedom into what the senator terms, again, “George Bush’s Vietnam.” . . .

But while this tack is not likely to work in November, it stands to sow confusion:

* Among America’s enemies, who will be unduly encouraged by it, and

* Among America’s friends, who have historic cause to wonder about this nation’s willingness to honor commitments.

Really, haven’t Kennedy & Co. done enough damage?

Indeed. The best scenario I can come up with — assuming that this isn’t as cynically manipulative as it appears to be — is that the Democrats shouldn’t let Kennedy out in public anymore, because he’s lost it. But he ought to know better, and I suspect that he does.

MORE: Gary Farber emails that I’m misinterpreting Kennedy’s speech, and that if you read the whole thing in context, Kennedy doesn’t look as bad.

I read the speech, and I disagree. When Ted Kennedy puts the words “Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam” on the first page of a speech delivered with lots of press around, he knows — or should know — that the story coming out of that speech will be, well, just what it was (follow this Google News link to see that it’s playing exactly that way). Which is why Colin Powell is criticizing him.

Kennedy’s been around Washington too long not to know that no matter what else you say, if you put the words “Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam” in a speech that’ll be the take-away point for the press, and, in reading the speech, I don’t think that the reporting is unfair. You can read it yourself and see what you think — but if Kennedy didn’t mean for his words to have these consequences, then, well, he’s lost it. I also note that if Kennedy thinks that his remarks have been misunderstood by, well, pretty much everyone who reported on them, there’s been plenty of time for him to point that out. I can’t find any sign of that, and there’s nothing on his website, either.

Compare Kennedy’s remarks to those of John McCain.

STILL MORE: I see that Eugene Volokh is responding to a similar defense of Kennedy by Mark Kleiman. Volokh observes:

I can’t read Kennedy’s mind. Nor would I say that he wants to see the U.S. defeated, though it doesn’t seem implausible that he wants to see the U.S. withdraw as soon as possible, and hopes that the perceived problems in Iraq will help build pressure for such a withdrawal.

But when one uses a metaphor that’s so closely tied in people’s minds not just to deceit but to defeat, and when one is an experienced politician who knows how much of the surrounding context is likely to be vastly compressed by the media, one ought to expect the metaphor to indeed be seen as a prediction of defeat. And that suggests that this was indeed likely (though of course not certain) that Kennedy intended the metaphor to be understood precisely that way, as predicting defeat as well as condemning what he sees as the Administration’s deception.

(Emphasis in original). I agree.

SINCE WHEN DID SUICIDEGIRLS start running essays on Arab culture?

LT SMASH REPORTS that the weekend A.N.S.W.E.R. counterprotest has borne fruit.

ROGER SIMON is admiring Orianna Fallaci.

VIRGINIA POSTREL is tomato blogging.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

I don’t want to hear anyone complaining about the deficit unless they immediately begin to list ways of taking things away from old people and making them work harder and longer. Otherwise you aren’t really bothered by the deficit at all.

(Via Tyler Cowen).

RALPH PETERS: “Our notion that patience and persuasion are more effective than displays of power has made the country deadlier for our soldiers, more dangerous for Iraqis and far less likely to achieve internal peace. ”

UPDATE: This article is worth reading.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Read this, too.