INTERESTING ARTICLE ON black conservative bloggers.

TOM MAGUIRE warns Kerry critics not to get carried away with side issues (in this case, a reported John/Teresa spat).

That’s good advice — and I should note that people are stuffing my inbox with reports that John Kerry went to Red China! Er, on a trade mission, which Senators do all the time. Unless I’m missing something, there’s no there there.

There are plenty of genuine questions about Kerry, without descending into moonbattery. Leave that to the Michael Moores of the world.

RACINE RAVE UPDATE:

RACINE – When the City of Racine dismissed more than 400 municipal citations it had given people for attending a rave-like party, it was done to head off a possible class-action civil rights lawsuit.

In return for that, and other steps taken by the city, the American Civil Liberties Union agreed not to bring or help bring such a lawsuit against the city.

Jason Witheril was not part of that deal. . . .

Since the lawsuit was filed, the city tried to keep out as evidence the fact that it had dismissed 440 citations issued at the party. All those citations, save for Witheril’s, were irrelevant to the lawsuit, the city claimed.

Packman disagreed, saying the mass issuance, and later dismissal, of citations is crucial to Witheril proving his civil rights were violated, and the city’s liability for it.

More background here.

MEDPUNDIT SYDNEY SMITH has more on stem cells, suggesting that my criticism of President Bush is overstated. There’s more here, too.

THE NATIONAL DEBATE REPORTS that Amazon has been hacked again. Money quote: “And they want my credit card?”

Ouch.

STEPHEN GREEN’S “GAME PLAN” ESSAY has been revised and published over at TechCentralStation.

NOTHING ON THE KERRY/CAMBODIA STORY in either the New York Times or the Washington Post this morning — I just searched both sites. Even though the Kerry Campaign has now admitted that Kerry’s oft-repeated stories about being in Cambodia on Christmas Day, 1968 aren’t true. The Post did find the time to condemn the Swift Boat vets, though, without admitting that one of their charges has already been borne out.

They’re spending another chunk of their diminishing credibility to help this guy. Hope they still think it was worth it in a few years.

UPDATE: Well here’s a report:

For the first time, Sen John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, has been left floundering by allegations that he invented a key episode of his decorated wartime service in Vietnam – a central plank of his election platform. . . . the Kerry campaign was left in verbal knots after a new book accused the senator of inventing stories about being sent, illegally, over the border into neutral Cambodia. . . .

In newspaper articles, interviews and at least one Senate speech, Mr Kerry has claimed that he spent Christmas 1968 inside Cambodia, at a time when even the US president was publicly denying that American forces were inside that country.

He has cited the missions as a psychological turning point, when he realised that American leaders were not telling the truth to the world about the war in south-east Asia.

The Kerry campaign responded, initially, that Mr Kerry had always said he was “near” Cambodia. Then a campaign aide said Mr Kerry had been in the Mekong Delta “between” Vietnam and next-door Cambodia – a geographical zone not found on maps, which show the Mekong river running from Cambodia to Vietnam.

Michael Meehan, a Kerry campaign adviser, told ABC Television: “The Mekong Delta consists of the border between Cambodia and Vietnam, so on Christmas Eve in 1968, he was in fact on patrol . . . in the Mekong Delta between Cambodia and Vietnam. He was ambushed, they fired back, he was fired upon from both sides, from the Cambodian side of the border and the Vietnam side during that day in 1968.”

The map accompanying the story makes short work of that geographical absurdity. I hope that if Kerry’s elected, he’ll find some advisors who can read a map — and who understand the difference between “parallel” and “perpendicular.” (You can see a bigger, and clearer, map here, if you’re interested.)

UPDATE: Harold Eddy emails:

The new “spin” seems to be that the Mekong Delta runs into Cambodia and, as a result, Kerry could have been near Cambodia or accidentially gone over the border. However, that “explanation” is non-responsive to the fundamental basis for the criticism of Kerry. He alleged, again and again, that the US knowingly, intentionally, secretly and duplicitously sent him into Cambodia as part of US policy, while denying the same publicly to the world. . . .

If, now, he is forced to admit that his recollection is untrue, it makes a mockery of over 30 years of his use of his war record. What does this say about his ability to lead? Moreover, how can he criticize George Bush for relying on faulty war intelligence when he has been willing to base policy on his own faulty recollection?

And Craig Henry observes:

Did Kerry vote against key weapon programs? How dare you question the patriotism of a man with three Purple Hearts. Is he too willing to defer to France and the United Nations? How dare you doubt the loyalty of a man with a Silver Star. Faced with this, does the press write about the voting record or about the “hard ball tactics” of the GOP?

Kerry didn’t just use his Vietnam experience to enhance his stature as a man or leader. His campaign used it to shut down debate on his Senate record. They made the biography the issue.

Yes, they did.

More here: “And the Post manages to write an entire editorial about the veracity of the Swiftvets without even noting that their first charge scored a direct hit this week.”

And Will Collier has a survey of the Big Media outlets that are ignoring this story:

Looks like that American Spectator blurb from a couple of days ago was accurate: beyond Fox News, the press is in full cover-up mode for Kerry on this one.

Yo, Media: Your candidate has apparently lied, repeatedly, over the last 30 years. He did so to embellish his credentials, and in the pursuit of various political ends. His campaign is putting out false spin that doesn’t pass the laugh test. Does this say anything at all about his fitness for higher office?

Not to some people, I guess.

THE DOOR PAINTING from the back door of the former location of my brother-in-law’s coffee house, Cup-a-Joe. (The two images represent different Aspects of Joe.) I just happened by, saw that the new owners had left it up, and snapped a picture with the Sony that I had in my pocket.

MICHAEL TOTTEN writes on being American in Tunisia: “Anti-Americanism isn’t quite what it’s cracked up to be.”

UPDATE: Interestingly, today also brings related thoughts from Bulgaria.

SOME LEGAL ADVICE FOR KENNETH BAER: Worth reading.

UPDATE: Related post here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Tom Huheey emails:

On MSNBC at 10:30-10:40pm Lanny Davis. trying to defend Kerry, did the worse job I have ever seen him do. He held up well through all the Clinton scandals but he appeared to be holding a losing hand tonight.

I didn’t see it, but my sense is that this has the Kerry folks pretty rattled, as well it should. I think that Kerry was planning on using his Vietnam record as his main weapon in the debates, and now that’s likely to backfire.

MORE: Reader Logan Wright saw it, and observes:

Lanny Davis was worse than terrible in that MSNBC appearance. He accused John O’Neill of knowingly and intentionally lying in his account of John Kerry’s third Purple Heart. Davis’s argument was that Kerry received the third Purple Heart for saving Jim Rassmann’s life, and that O’Neill was a bald-faced liar by denying this. I was practically screaming at the TV that he received the Bronze Star for saving Rassmann’s life, not the third Purple Heart (after all, Kerry wasn’t wounded in the incident). O’Neill had his own version of the Rassmann story. If there were a logical, rational explanation of Kerry’s actions, I think we would have heard it by now.

It’s unfortunate that the press has had so little interest in looking into these things. But maybe they’ll pick up the ball.

MORE: Here’s the transcript from MSNBC. Highlight:

JOHN O‘NEILL, SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH: If John Kerry can prove that he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of 1968, he should go down and sue me tomorrow morning.

It‘s a lie he‘s told over and over and over again. It libels everybody that commanded him. It‘s the typical prototype sort of war crime charge that John Kerry makes that is a lie.

I think that when a veteran trial lawyer invites a lawsuit, it would probably be a mistake to file. . . .

A BUSH PLAGIARISM SCANDAL: Boy, the dirt just won’t stop flying. . . .

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT: “An Amtrak conductor has been suspended without pay for telling his train passengers that they should vote against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. . . . Farr told The Associated Press that he used the train’s public address system to tell passengers they would be delayed because of Kerry’s train and then quipped that they should vote accordingly in November.”

It’s surely John Ashcroft’s fault, somehow.

KERRY THE HERO: Here’s a true story of Kerry’s heroism:

On July 12, 1988, Hecht was attending a weekly Republican luncheon when a piece of apple lodged firmly in his throat.

Hecht stumbled out of the room, thinking he might vomit but not wanting to do it in front of his colleagues. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., thumped his back, but Hecht quickly passed out in the hallway.

Just then, Kerry stepped off an elevator, rushed to Hecht’s side and gave him the Heimlich maneuver — four times.

The lifesaving incident made international news, and Dr. Henry Heimlich, who invented the maneuver in 1974, called Hecht to say that had Kerry intervened just 30 seconds later Hecht might have been in a vegetative state for life.

“This man gave me my life,” the 75-year-old Hecht said Thursday.

Good work!

UPDATE: Boy, everybody’s a critic. Reader Norman Hughes takes me to task for running this: “So saving Hecht removes all doubt about the other recent truth’s that have been revealed!?! Ergo, all other witnesses are liars! Is that what you are saying?”

Er, no. I just wanted to post something positive along with the negative, for a fuller picture. Meanwhile Jeff Jarvis takes me to task for paying so much attention to the Kerry/Cambodia story, comparing it to his own Howard Stern coverage.

I think that I have a ways to go before I catch up to Jeff’s Stern coverage in terms of either volume or tone. But I promise to quit covering this issue so much as soon as the major media — who certainly didn’t ignore the Stern issue, or the bogus Bush/AWOL claims — start carrying the ball.

ANOTHER UPDATE: In an update to the post linked above, Jeff says that I’m snarking at him, and that I belittled Matt Welch in this post. I certainly didn’t mean to be either snarky or belittling — I was aiming for polite disagreement, and thought I’d achieved it. I like both Jeff and Matt a lot. But I think that this is an important issue, and I would have thought that two champions of the blogosphere like Matt and Jeff would have approved my work to bring in original documents and material not available on the web, and make them part of the conversation. And given that the Kerry Campaign now seems to be admitting that the Christmas in Cambodia claim is false, I don’t think I can be accused of raising phony issues. I appreciate Jeff’s call to “move on” and address other issues, but I’ve done that too. I just think that — given the importance Kerry has placed on all of this stuff — this sort of dishonesty is worth noting, and I’m disappointed that the big media seem to be covering for him.

BILL HOBBS HAS ROUNDED UP a bunch of interesting galleries of photographs from Iraq.

KERRY/CAMBODIA UPDATE: I promised a while back to see if I could get a look at the October 14, 1979 Boston Herald story — where Kerry says he remembers spending Christmas, 1968 in Cambodia and hearing President Nixon deny that troops were there — in original form. The quote’s genuine, and here’s an image. Sorry it’s a bit hard to read: it’s a scan of a fax of a photocopy of a microfilm, sent to me by a helpful reader who works at the Herald.

But what’s really interesting is the context — see the full scan here — which is all about Kerry’s Vietnam experiences as they relate to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Unlike Al Gore and Love Story, Kerry doesn’t claim that the movie is about him — but he sure draws parallels. In fact, the passage that everyone has been quoting actually reads like this, when you include the prior sentence that people haven’t been including:

On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in “Apocalypse Now,” took my patrol boat into Cambodia

In fact, I remember spending Christmas Day of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese Allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real. But nowhere in “Apocalypse Now” did I sense that kind of absurdity.

So Kerry’s Vietnam experience was like Apocalypse Now, only it was more so.

How much this adds to the debate isn’t clear to me — but in case anyone was doubting the provenance of this particular quotation, well, I’m satisfied now that its authenticity, if not its veracity, is pretty clear.

Presumably, some big-time journalists are even now interviewing people and combing the records to see if this version of Kerry’s 1968 Christmas was correct. (For other, inconsistent, versions, click here.) And for those — apparently unclear on my age and suspecting me of draft-dodging — who want to know where I was spending my Christmas in 1968, it was in Heidelberg, Germany. I got a train, and an SST model kit.

UPDATE: Reader Garnet Girl emails:

If Kerry really wants to avoid talking about Cambodia, he probably ought to take the word out of the meta tag on his service page.

And sure enough, if you go here and click “view source” you’ll see this:

meta name=target content=”military record, cambodia, vietnam, military service”

Bizarre.

UPDATE: The Kerry Campaign is backpedaling now. Guess the memory wasn’t that “searing” after all. “Near” Cambodia? Just modify the quote above, or this one, to reflect that Kerry wasn’t in Cambodia, but “near” it, and see how that plays.

MORE: Reader Brian Berry emails:

The specificity of the phrase “five miles across the Cambodian border” kinda knocks the explanation of confusion (…maybe he was just near the border and got confused) right out of the picture. If Kerry had said that he was simply “in Cambodia,” I think it plausible to say at a later juncture that the statement might have been a bit too concrete and that what he meant to say was that he was near Cambodia– perhaps he could even claim that he did not know what sovereign territory he was in but fudged it a little for emphasis. However, by claiming to be “five miles” in Cambodia, Kerry created a specificity he can’t back out of so easily. His statement suggest he knew exactly where he was, or, exactly where he wanted to claim to have been.

Yep. Expect the spin to seque to the “so what if he lied?” line shortly. And the answer to that comes from reader Daniel Aronstein:

WHAT IF… Porter Goss had lied about going into Cambodia during the Vietnam War repeatedly, over a few decades, in different media, and on the floor of the House)?

Would we want him as DCI? Would he get confirmed? NO WAY!

We should not hold Kerry – who is running for CIC – to a lower standard.

Indeed.

MORE: Michael Demmons observes: “You know? It’s come to the point where I’m almost ready to believe that Kerry may never have even been in Viet Nam.”

DANIEL MOORE says I’m (partly) wrong on stem cells.

INTERESTING REPORT FROM NAJAF: Funny that this stuff isn’t getting more attention.

CHRISTMAS IN CAMBODIA: James Lileks comes up with the proper analogy:

Hugh Hewitt interviewed a shipmate of John Kerry’s on his show today; the transcript is here. Why this happens on a radio show and not in the Washington Post is a question I’ll let you decide. It’s not like these guys live in the Fortress of Solitude, accessible only by messages relayed by carrier pigeon.

It has to do with Christmas in Cambodia – the only aspect of the SwiftVets story I care to comment on, for reasons I think I stated before. If Kerry’s story is a lie, it’s significant, but not because we have a gotcha moment – gee, a politician reworked the truth to his advantage, big surprise. This is much larger than that. This is like Bush insisting that he flew an intercept mission with the Texas Air National Guard to repel Soviet bombers based in Cuba, and later stating that this event was “seared in his memory – seared” because it taught him the necessity of standing up against evil governments, such as the ones we face today. In other words, it would not only be a lie, but one that eroded the political persona he was relying upon in the election. . . . What sort of man bedecked with genuine decorations feels compelled to manufacture a story like this one?

Yes. (Emphasis added.) More thoughts here. I think that the Big Media hang-back on this is significant. It shows that there’s not an easy explanation — how can there be, when Kerry has told different, and mutually inconsistent, stories — and that they think it will really hurt him.

Covering for him, though, will really hurt them. In fact, it already is, as Evan Thomas’s statement is repeated throughout the land.

UPDATE: Reader Bob Kagan emails:

If you think there is a problem with Kerry using his four months as a Swift boat commander as the seminal experience of his life, what do make of George Bush’s “born again” experience as the seminal experience of his life, which up to that point, had consisted of a mediocre academic career, mediocre (being kind) business career, and serious problems of alcohol abuse. Say what you will, agree with him or not, Kerry has been trying to make a difference in the direction of American policy since he was a young man. He did it on his own. He has earned his place in the debate. GWB is a Jonny come lately to the party. No one would ever accuse him of policy depth (although he does have “principals”) and he spent his formative years trying to find out what it means to be formed.

The Swift boat charges would have substance if they just dealt with the issue of Kerry coming back as an anti-war protester. That is a legitimate debate. The commercial is deceptive and non substantive on its face although as a matter of political theatre it is extremely effective

Well, I haven’t heard anyone suggest that Bush’s Christianity is insincere. In fact, the rap on Bush from the left is that he’s too sincere, making him some sort of an aspiring theocrat.

As for Kerry’s “making a difference” in the years since 1968 — so why isn’t he talking about that?

MY EARLIER COMMENTS on the free wi-fi at Panera Bread bring this testimonial from reader Mark Rushton:

Thanks for the tip on Panera. I found one on the Plaza in Kansas City while my wife and I are on vacation. Sure beats the $12.95 a day net access offered by the hotel, or Starbucks’ weird situation (“if you’re a T-mobile user you can get blah blah blah…”) – and the cheese croissant was excellent.

I was there again yesterday. If the competition in this heats up (and Atlanta Bread is now also offering free wi-fi) I wonder how long those T-Mobile deals will last.

UPDATE: Reader Todd Lemmon emails:

While driving back from a business trip in Indianapolis, I needed to check email and decided to give my friend Matt in Santa Monica a call. Why? Because I was on the road on I-65 and I wanted him to do a wifinder.com search for West Lafayette for me. I was hoping a Panera would pop up since I use the Panera in Evanston (forget the Starbucks 3 doors down; they CHARGE for wi-fi!).

Sure enough, there was a Panera in town so I drive in, had a great snack and got my emails and checked out my blog line-up. There’s even a Panera in Merrillville just up the road and I stopped there, too, for 90 minutes while waiting for Chicago area traffic to subside.

Panera has the model: Wi-Fi should be no different than air conditioning or Muzak, free. Why can’t other places realize that they can monetize the tiny investment by offering tasty treats, coffee and other beverages?

Beats me, but I’m a Panera man, now.

The model’s working!

I PRAISE KERRY SOME MORE: Over at GlennReynolds.com.

THE KERRY CAMPAIGN: STILL NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME:

The Kerry campaign first asserted that the Massachusetts senator never said that he was in Cambodia, only that he was near the country. But when presented with a copy of the Congressional Record and asked about Kerry’s letter in the Boston Herald, the campaign said it would come up with an explanation. After repeated phone calls, there was still no clarification.

Tom Maguire notes more developments, and offers advice to both Kerry critics and Kerry supporters.

ANOTHER FAILURE FOR MULTILATERAL DIPLOMACY:

The “EU-3” were trying to convince Iranian officials to honour an earlier deal to suspend its controversial uranium enrichment programme, which is ostensibly designed to make fuel for nuclear power stations but could also be used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs.

Iranian officials refused point-blank to comply, saying they had every right under international law to pursue “peaceful” nuclear technology.

They then stunned the Europeans by presenting a letter setting out their own demands.

They’ve got Chutzpah — or, at any rate, an accurate sense of how little the Europeans are prepared to actually, you know, do.

UPDATE: More thoughts on what’s going on here.

RACINE RAVE UPDATE: I’ve been writing about the botched drug raid in Racine, Wisconsin for quite a while. Most of the resulting lawsuits were settled quite some time ago, but Progressive Racine reports that one is still going forward.

MY TECHCENTRALSTATION COLUMN IS UP: It’s an Andy Rooney-esque rant about newspaper website registration.

MATT WELCH SEEMS OFF BASE TO ME HERE. He quotes this passage from one of my posts regarding threats to release divorce and psychiatric information about the Swiftboat Vets:

Indeed, if people start dishing dirt about these guys instead of offering factual refutations, it will pretty much serve as an admission that the charges are true.

Matt’s question: “Is There a ‘Pretty Much’ Legal Standard?”

I don’t know why we need a “legal standard” here, since the only court involved is the court of public opinion. (Why is it that journalists are so anxious to turn political questions into legal ones?) As I said in another post, “Kerry has faced specific criticisms and questions. His campaign is responding with ad hominems and generalities.” And surely threats of personal blackmail against whistleblowers don’t cut in Kerry’s favor.

I don’t see where legal standards enter the picture here. But I’ll give it a try. If I were in court and saw a defendant who made inconsistent statements about what happened that were contradicted by others who were there, and when the defendant’s response was ad hominems and generalities, I think I’d be entitled to be skeptical. Juries are entitled to draw inferences from a witness’s demeanor.

And while I agree with Welch that I’d rather be talking about other stuff, it’s Kerry who has built his campaign around his four months in Vietnam (and, he says, Cambodia!) rather than, say, his record in the Senate. We can draw inferences from that, too.

For more on why this might matter, read these comments by my colleague, law professor (and Vietnam veteran) Tom Plank.

UPDATE: More specifics here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Bob Gleason emails:

I’ve always been lead to believe that the standard taught by law professors is: If you have the facts, argue the facts; if you don’t have the facts, argue the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound your shoe.

OK, so it’s hackneyed. But that seems to be the paint-by-numbers Kerry defense at this juncture.

Which is most surprising, considering that he could clear all this up by simply releasing his full military records.