Sharpton Shows His Colors

Speaking at a church service in South Los Angeles Sunday, Al Sharpton provided us with this gem while urging calm after the tragic death of a 19 month old baby:

"We want this family to know we love them," Sharpton said at the church service. "If Suzie had been black we'd a been there. If Suzie had been white, someone would have been there. We are there because Suzie should not have suffered what she suffered." (emphasis mine)

Suzie is Hispanic but if she was black, Al still would have been there. If she was white, well, someone would have been there. We're not sure who, but someone.

The local KABC Los Angeles website was the only report I could find that mentioned Sharpton's raced based preference. The wide spread AP report omitted it.

Spoke Too Soon

I guess I spoke too soon yesterday when I compared W. Mark Felt with Jennifer Wilbanks. The runaway bride has now sold her story. Maybe she'll use some of the profits to pay back the city of Duluth but I won't hold my breath.

Felt Pulled A Wilbanks

In a turn of events that would make runaway bride, Jennifer Wilbanks, proud, The Nation magazine has revealed that W. Mark Felt himself led FBI investigations into who "Deep Throat" might be.

According to originally confidential FBI documents--some written by Felt--that were obtained by The Nation from the FBI's archives, Felt played another heretofore unknown part in the Watergate tale: He was, at heated moments during the scandal, in charge of finding the source of Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate scoops. In a twist worthy of le Carré, Deep Throat was assigned the mission of unearthing--and stopping--Deep Throat.

This placed Felt, who as the FBI's associate director oversaw the bureau's Watergate probe, in an unusual position. He was essentially in charge of investigating himself.

It is estimated that Jennifer Wilbanks' stunt cost taxpayers $40,000 to $60,000. I wonder what it cost the FBI to search for Deep Throat in relative dollars. Wilbanks was prosecuted, pleaded no contest, and was "sentenced to two years of probation, 120 hours of community service and ordered that she continue mental health treatment. She also must pay the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department $2,500 in restitution." In contrast, W. Mark Felt will not be prosecuted and his family stands to reap huge rewards for his stunts.

If only Wilbanks could have held out for 30 more years.

Only One Year?

Michelle Malkin is by far my favorite blogger. She is smart, witty, timely, and doesn't take any crap. Today I learned that her blog recently turned one and my first reaction was, "Only one?" Maybe it's that I have been reading her Townhall column for much longer than a year or maybe her blogging prowess gets mistaken for years of blogging experience. Either way, all bloggers should aspire to accomplish what she has in one year. Just check out her impressive stats. With all the time she probably spends writing, blogging, and reading emails, I find it amazing that she is one of the very few A list bloggers who distributed trackbacks. It's all very humbling.

Congratulations, Michelle. May your blog continue to be the benchmark for others to shoot for.

Angels In Iraq

I've been easing into blogging, doing more reading than writing right now. This post, however, should be spread at least as quickly as any scam-ridden chain e-mail. Here is an excerpt from an email sent to Hugh Hewitt by a soldier in Iraq, LtCol Jacques "Jackal" Naviaux II:

Every day starts to seem the same here. However, today was not like the others. Today was different. Today was real.

Our mission today was to extract Army soldiers from the field. They had been conducting operations to quell insurgent activities in their area of operations. Our Operations department had briefed us that the soldiers had been out patrolling for over two weeks. I knew the soldiers would be tired, dirty, and more than likely a little ripe! I also knew the soldiers would be very appreciative on getting a helicopter ride back to their base camp as they could get a well deserved hot meal and a shower. As a Marine, I like to give the Army a hard time. The Army seems to enjoy giving it right back at me. This is just good-natured professional rivalry. Every service likes to think they are the toughest, smartest, and best-looking troops in the world. I was looking forward to making a few pointed remarks to my fellow warriors over the intercom system and listening to their replies. However, I never got the chance.

Our mission was changed while in route. The extract was cancelled. Instead, we were to land at their base camp and pick up five Angels. An Angel is the brevity code we use to describe the deceased. Instead of picking up hungry and tired soldiers, we now were going to be flying out the same soldiers who were just recently sharing a laugh with their friends.

Read the whole thing, please.

Ending The Guantanamo Ridiculousness

I have not yet had the time to express my opinion on the ridiculous Amnesty International claim that the prison camp at Gitmo is the equivalent of a gulag. Luckily, Charles Krauthammer said all I had to say in his Washington Post article.
(HT: LittleGreenFootballs)

"We know that al Qaeda operatives are trained to charge torture when they are in detention, and specifically to charge abuse of the Koran to inflame fellow prisoners on the inside and potential sympathizers on the outside.

In March the Navy inspector general reported that, out of about 24,000 interrogations at Guantanamo, there were seven confirmed cases of abuse, "all of which were relatively minor." In the eyes of history, compared to any other camp in any other war, this is an astonishingly small number. Two of the documented offenses involved "female interrogators who, on their own initiative, touched and spoke to detainees in a sexually suggestive manner." Not exactly the gulag.

The most inflammatory allegations have been not about people but about mishandling the Koran. What do we know here? The Pentagon reports (Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, May 26) -- all these breathless "scoops" come from the U.S. government's own investigations of itself -- that of 13 allegations of Koran abuse, five were substantiated, of which two were most likely accidental.

Let's understand what mishandling means. Under the rules the Pentagon later instituted at Guantanamo, proper handling of the Koran means using two hands and wearing gloves when touching it. Which means that if any guard held the Koran with one hand or had neglected to put on gloves, this would be considered mishandling.

On the scale of human crimes, where, say, 10 is the killing of 2,973 innocent people in one day and 0 is jaywalking, this ranks as perhaps a 0.01.

Moreover, what were the Korans doing there in the first place? The very possibility of mishandling Korans arose because we gave them to each prisoner. What kind of crazy tolerance is this? Is there any other country that would give a prisoner precisely the religious text that that prisoner and those affiliated with him invoke to justify the slaughter of innocents? If the prisoners had to have reading material, I would have given them the book "Portraits 9/11/01" -- vignettes of the lives of those massacred on Sept. 11...

...Then we should get over it, stop whimpering and start defending ourselves."

The only thing I disagree with is Krauthammer's crime scale. Mishandling the Koran is not even a crime and, therefore, should rate below jaywalking.

Read the whole thing.

Boston Globe: Valedictorian Can't Afford College

Wizbang brings us the story that the Boston Globe is pushing about a Massachusetts high school student who can't afford college.

"This morning's Boston Glob has a sob story about the valedictorian of Assabet Valley Regional Vocational High School in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Juliano Foleiss is a stellar student, loved by his teachers, but will be returning home to attend college because he can't afford to go to school in Massachusetts."

Young Mr. Foleiss must return to his native Brazil where college is free and, oh yeah, where his citizenship lies.

Before you start a "Send Juliano To College Fund", you must realize that Mr. Foleiss and his family are illegal aliens. The residents of Massachusetts have already footed the bill for 5 years of his education. Thousands of people around the world are waiting in line to come here legally, pay their fair share of taxes, and enjoy our state run educational facilities. Valedictorian or not, Mr. Foleiss should not be able to cut in line and get a free ride.

As If Hollywood Democrats Need Unifying

From the LA Times Style & Culture section:

"Conservatives may strive to portray New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as a polarizing figure, but she unified Hollywood Democratic political donors at a series of fundraisers that netted an estimated $1 million in a single evening, hosts estimated Thursday."

It's a good thing Hillary came to Tinsletown. Those Hollywood Democrats were starting to warm up to President Bush and the conservative agenda.

No More Excuses, Dial-Uppers

If DSL is available in your area and you are still using a dial-up connection, shame on you. SBC Yahoo DSL is now only $14.95/mo.

Where Is The Top Level GOP Dean Bashing?

Howard Dean's weekly rants are becoming legendary...if you know where to find them. The right side of the blogosphere is all over Dean and his hysterics (see AnkleBitingPundits, Hugh Hewitt, Powerline, for instance) but Republican officials are silent. If the kind of verbal vomit that Dean spews came out of GOP leaders' mouths, the Democrats would have the press ready the next morning for the pepetrator's canned apology. Here's a small sample of Dean's comments from this week's Take Back America 2005: The Conference For America's Future:

"You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever and get home and still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well Republicans, I guess can do that. Because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives."

"The Republicans are all about suppressing votes."

"We've suffered a couple of serious defeats. But we're energized. because we know that our vision for America is much better than the dark, difficult and dishonest vision of the Republican party offers America."

Jackson's Junction has the video.

Isn't it time for Republicans to fight fire with fire and call Dean and the Democrats on their hate-filled speeches? Taking the high road while your opponent is attacking with low blows does not work when the media won't give you credit for doing so. My only consolation is the thought that maybe the GOP is smarter than I think and is letting Dean rant away, knowing full well that Dean isn't winning any new Dem recruits and that the Michael Moore crowd who attends his speeches can not be swayed anyway. Furthermore, as Michelle Malkin points out, Dean isn't breaking any fundraising records with his rhetoric.

Go ahead, Howie. Take all the rope you need.

Stay Tuned

THE SMITH PAGES is just getting warmed up. Stay tuned for intelligent opinions on just about everything once our administrative priorities are taken care of.

Much more to come...

The Lying Is Already Starting

If there is one thing I'll remember about the Bill Clinton presidential legacy, it is that I could never believe what he was saying. Politicians are trained to sidestep questions, and I'll admit that is a smart tactic given the bloodthirsty press, but outright lying is supposed to be met with disdain. Clintonian lying seems to be mostly immune to this law of nature. Here we find Hillary Clinton picking up where her husband left off with this whopper (via Hugh Hewitt):

Senator Clinton, on CNN's Inside Politics Today, with host Judy Woodruff:

JW: "08? When do you have to make a decision on that?"

HRC: "I am not even remotely thinking about that."

Right.

Who Is Mr. Smith?

We may never know.

This blog is anonymous for many personal reasons, most of which have to do with the fact that blogs can very well create what we all dreaded in grade school...a "permanent record". I was always told not to discuss politics, religion, and money with friends and family and for the most part, I have heeded that advice. This blog is an extension of that wisdom. Future employers, friends, in-laws, etc. may come across what I have to write here and be offended, disgusted, shocked, or appalled. While I am definitely not against offending people, losing a friend or career is not worth my desire to share political opinions.

If the time and circumstances are right in the future, I may pull a W. Mark Felt and reveal my secret identity, which you would not recognize anyway. But until then, Mr. Smith I shall be. I hope you understand.

You may contact me by emailing thesmithpages at gmail dot com.

Welcome

Welcome to THE SMITH PAGES.

THE SMITH PAGES is my opinion about everything in life. The pages will be filled mostly with politics because I can't get enough of it, but anything is fair game. You can expect at least one original essay style post a week on a topic of my choosing, like a weekly web-columnist would submit. The rest of the posts will be filled with opinions, links, and fun. I encourage disagreement and debate in the comments and promise to only edit out profane language and off color remarks. I hope you enjoy THE SMITH PAGES.

You may contact me by emailing thesmithpages at gmail dot com.

P.S. I envision THE SMITH PAGES to be a group blog in the future. Please contact me if you are interested in contributing. The only requirements are that you are a conservative and are not hostile to the Christian faith. I will not promote anti-Christian or leftist ideologies.