According to this AFP article, a major first step towards national Iraqi reconciliation was taken Wednesday. Couple this news with the show of solidarity Sunni and Shia clerics sent in attending Christmas mass and it’s safe to assume that national reconciliation. Here’s what AFP is reporting:

The Iraqi cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft law that offers a general pardon to thousands of detainees held in US and Iraqi prisons in a bid to boost national reconciliation, an official told AFP.

“The draft law offering amnesty to detainees who are innocent was approved by the cabinet and forwarded to parliament today,” said Sadiq al-Rikabi, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Thousands of detainees, mostly Sunni Arabs, are being held in US and Iraqi prisons without formal charges. Most have been detained for more than a year on suspicion of backing insurgency in Iraq.

Obviously, there’s need to shepherd this legislation through the Iraqi Parliament but it’s a welcome first formal step in the march towards national reconciliation. Here’s what Reuters is reporting on the reconciliation process:

“The cabinet has passed the general pardon law, which will define who is eligible to be freed from all prisons, both Iraqi and American,” spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters.

The law still needs to be approved by parliament.

Iraq’s national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, said earlier this month that the draft law was aimed at boosting reconciliation between majority Shi’ite and Sunni Arab Muslims, locked in a cycle of violence.

If this bill passes, it’ll be a major accomplishment for the Maliki government. It’ll also be a major victory for the Bush administration. It’ll essentially eliminate Iraq as a weapon Democrats can use on Republicans.

Captain Ed is all over this, too, saying:

The National Assembly will probably take this up quickly, but will chew on it for a while to fine-tune the thresholds for release. Everyone knows that the current detention levels are unsustainable, and the question will be who gets released, and when. It will prove another significant step towards reconciliation, something that will cheer Americans …. if they get to read about it.

Whether they rely on the so-called MSM or if they’re getting their news from the internet, the American people will hear about this. It’s simply a matter of when, not if, they’ll hear about it. When reconciliation passes the Iraqi Parliament, rest assured that Rush, Hannity, Glenn Beck and Hugh Hewitt will be all over it. When they jump on that accomplishment, it’ll be all over except the shouting.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Reconciliation, Iraqi Parliament, New Media, Rush Limbaugh

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This International Herald Tribune article calls into serious question Hillary’s experience. It didn’t take long for the IHT to raise questions about her experience:

But during those two terms in the White House, Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti or Rwanda. And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal dragged on.

That’s gotta put a major dent in her image of being a battle-tested co-president. One of the first questions that’s likely to be asked is what this means in terms of Hillary’s supposed foreign policy experience. With the US at war, voters will want to know, first and foremost, that she’s a steady hand in times of trouble.

That paragraph tells the world that she didn’t have much to do with US foreign policy during Bill’s administration. There doesn’t appear to be proof that she played a role in setting policy or making decisions. (continue reading post »)

Hugh can write all he wants about how Mitt Romney is rising. All his spin won’t undo the damage that the Union Leader’s unendorsement of his boy Mitt will do. Here’s what Hugh’s boy Mitt can’t undo:

Like a lot of people in New Hampshire, we wanted to believe Romney. We gave him the benefit of the doubt. We listened very carefully to his expertly rehearsed sales pitch. But in the end he didn’t close the deal for us. Now, two weeks before the primary, the same is happening with voters.

Republicans and right-leaning independents in New Hampshire gave Romney a chance. His events have not been sparsely attended. Nor have they been scarce. He’s made more campaign stops here this year than any other Republican, even John McCain.

And after a year of comparing Romney to McCain, of sizing up the two in person and in the media, Granite Staters are turning back to McCain. The former Navy pilot, once written off by the national media establishment, is now in a statistical dead heat with Romney here.

How could that be? Romney has all the advantages: money, organization, geographic proximity, statesman-like hair, etc.

But he lacks something John McCain has in spades: conviction.

Granite Staters want a candidate who will look them in the eye and tell them the truth. John McCain has done that day in and day out, never wavering, never faltering, never pandering.

Mitt Romney has not. He has spoken his lines well, but the people can sense that the words are memorized, not heartfelt.

I’ve chronicled Romney’s flip-flopping in several posts. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out that Mitt Romney’s never met a position he wasn’t willing to jetison if the situation demanded it. (continue reading post »)

American politicians have been complaining that the Maliki government hasn’t done enough with regards to national reconciliation. This article shows why these politicians, mostly Democrats, need to realize that Iraqis do reconciliation differently than Americans do reconciliation:

Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, leader of the ancient Chaldean Catholic Church and Iraq’s first cardinal, celebrated Mass before about 2,000 people in the Mar Eliya Church the eastern New Baghdad neighborhood of the capital.

“Iraq is a bouquet of flowers of different colors, each color represents a religion or ethnicity but all of them have the same scent,” the 80-year-old Delly told the congregation.

Muslim clerics, both Sunni and Shiite, also attended the service in a sign of unity.

“May Iraq be safe every year, and may our Christian brothers be safe every year,” Shiite cleric Hadi al-Jazail told AP Television News outside the church. “We came to celebrate with them and to reassure them.”

While I realize that this isn’t the formal legislation that Washington politicians are looking for, it’s impossible to argue that this isn’t a significant step towards national reconciliation. Better yet, this is verifiable proof that Iraqis are adhering to their Constitution: (continue reading post »)

I wrote here that Mitt Romney had a ‘figure of speech’ problem. Based on this article, it’s apparent that Gov. Romney’s got bigger troubles than just figures of speech:

Two women contacted the Mitt Romney campaign this week, offering their memories of seeing Romney’s father march with Martin Luther King Jr., in Grosse Point Michigan in 1963. Campaign officials were well aware that the women were mistaken. Yet, they directed those women to tell their stories to a Politico reporter. The motives and memories of the two women are unknown and irrelevant; the motives of the campaign, however, were obvious: to spread information they knew to be untrue, for the good of the candidate.

By getting this story out late on Friday afternoon, heading into the holiday weekend, good luck getting a King historian on the phone before Wednesday, the campaign was pretty well assured that it could keep alive through Christmas their claim that Mitt Romney was mistaken only about “seeing” it, not about it taking place.

Then-governor George Romney did indeed march in Grosse Pointe, on Saturday, June 29, 1963, but Martin Luther King Jr. was not there; he was in New Brunswick, New Jersey, addressing the closing session of the annual New Jersey AFL-CIO labor institute at Rutgers University.

Those facts are indisputable, and quite frankly, the campaign must have known the women’s story would eventually be debunked; few people’s every daily movement has been as closely tracked and documented as King’s. As I write this, I am looking at an article from page E8 of the June 30, 1963 Chicago Tribune, which discusses both events (among other civil-rights actions of the previous day), clearly placing the two men hundreds of miles apart. (continue reading post »)

After Arizona passed some laws with tough employer restrictions in them, it appears that those laws are working. Here’s what the AP wrote about the new laws:

Illegal immigrants in Arizona, frustrated with a flagging economy and tough new legislation cracking down on their employers, are returning to their home countries or trying their luck in other states.

For months, immigrants have taken a wait-and-see attitude toward the state’s new employer-sanctions law, which takes effect January 1. The voter-approved legislation is an attempt to lessen the economic incentive for illegal immigrants in Arizona, the busiest crossing point along the U.S.-Mexico border.

And by all appearances, it’s starting to work.

“People are calling me telling me about their friend, their cousin, their neighbors — they’re moving back to Mexico,” said Magdalena Schwartz, an immigrant-rights activist and pastor at a Mesa church. “They don’t want to live in fear, in terror.”

Martin Herrera, a 40-year-old illegal immigrant and masonry worker who lives in Camp Verde, 70 miles north of Phoenix, said he is planning to return to Mexico as soon as he ties up loose ends after living here for four years.

“I don’t want to live here because of the new law and the oppressive environment,” he said. “I’ll be better in my country.”

He called the employer-sanctions law “absurd.”

“Everybody here, legally or illegally, we are part of a motor that makes this country run,” Herrera said. “Once we leave, the motor is going to start to slow down.”

While Mr. Herrera thinks that the employer-sanctions law is absurd, I’d bet that most Americans think it’s a great solution to the immigration crisis. As far as I’m concerned, they’re just what the doctor ordered. Barbara Banaian recently wrote a column in the St. Cloud Times that sums things up perfectly, saying: (continue reading post »)

A new 527 ad might start changing the political landscape in Iowa and South Carolina. The advertisement is from the American Right to Life Action group. It provides a stunning rebuke of Romney’s insistence that he’s pro life. Here’s the transcript of the advertisement:

Once upon a time there was a man named Mitt who said a very bad thing:
Romney: “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country”
Then he thought of campaigning in Utah and said something different. “I am NOT pro-choice!”
But when he came back to liberal Massachusetts: Romney: “I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose.”
Then in 2004 he magically became pro-life, but only six months later: Romney: “I am absolutely committed to my promise to maintain the status quo with regards to law related to abortion and choice.”
The spell must have worn off.
Now he’s on the campaign trail again, and he’s back to being pro-life.
Romney: “I was pro-choice; I’m pro-life.” … “I changed my position” … “I never said I was pro-choice.”
Narrator: BR: Mitt Romney, willing to sacrifice children, lying for your vote.
Paid for by American Right-to-Life Action.

Here’s how Gov. Romney responded to the ad:

“My record in being pro-life is very clear as the governor of Massachusetts, and my guess is that there is some group that is pulling for another candidate and is trying to find someway to go after me, and that is just the nature of politics,” he said.

That isn’t being clear. That’s a picture of being contradictory on the life issue. How can you be “pro-life…as the governor of Massachusetts” while stating halfways through his only term that “I am absolutely committed to my promise to maintain the status quo with regards to law related to abortion and choice”? (continue reading post »)

I just watched Born Yesterday on Turner Movie Classics this evening. The movie IS one of the finest movies ever made. What made it a real classic this evening were Carrie Fisher’s comments to Robert Osborne during the introduction:

I always love the way they do in films… when they get somebody and want them to look smart they put glasses on them… so William Holden wears glasses and he plays a journalist who interviews Broderick Crawford and then, “You’re a smart guy…” and he hires (Holden) to be (Judy Holliday’s) tutor and really also to train her just about politics and Washington and you could not make this film today… it’s so pro-American and it is the ideals of America and what our country was founded on and it celebrates all of that and, you know, it just would never – you just couldn’t do it.

Why not, Carrie? Why can’t Hollywood’s non-stop freak show make a movie that celebrates the only country on the planet that gives bi-polar coke-addicted has-beens a second chance? And why couldn’t Robert Osborne defend the country where a kid from Colfax, Washington would find success watching movies and talking about them?

The movie was great because the actors, producers, and directors were proud to be American and proud to celebrate this great country. Those patriots would have burned the studios had they known what would infest this town 50 years later.

Then I read that Vanessa Redgrave posted bail for accused al Qaeda terrorist Jamil el-Banna, and understood why.

Emma ‘Billie’ Dawn turned out to be smarter than Hollywood is today.

According to this post on RCP’s blog, Mitt Romney didn’t support President Bush’s 2003 tax cuts. According to this article, people are reminding him of his ‘change in attitude’. First, here’s the central point in RCP’s post:

After refusing to endorse President Bush’s tax cuts when he was governor, Mitt Romney has now made them a central part of his presidential campaign, stirring accusations that he is changing his position to appeal to GOP primary voters.

In 2003, Romney stunned a roomful of Bay State congressmen by telling them that he would not publicly support Bush’s tax cuts, which at the time formed the centerpiece of the President’s domestic agenda. He even said he was open to a federal gas tax hike.

Check out the Romney campaign’s defensiveness when a heckler reminded people about Gov. Romney’s position on President Bush’s tax cuts:

But the McCain comment came back to bite him in the question-and-answer session when a young man grilled him with, “You yourself refused to endorse the Bush tax cuts as governor in 2003, saying you wouldn’t be a cheerleader for a tax break you didn’t support. Isn’t your attack tonight, sir, hypocritical in this respect and is this not another flip flop added to the ones identified by Tim Russert on Meet The Press last Sunday?”

Romney chuckled and gave a hearty “no.” He went on to defend himself from the question, explaining that he was busy being a governor but did the support the cuts and campaigned for Bush in his re-election race.

Based on the RCP post, I’d say he took time out from “being a governor” to argue against President Bush’s tax cuts while proposing a gas tax increase. Now notice how the Romney campaign tried dealing with the question: (continue reading post »)

In a town where jurors will give the benefit of the doubt to people like OJ, Phil Spector, Robert Blake, Cardinal Mahoney and Warren Christopher, I was surprised to read that an LA jury cleared the LAPD of being mean to Mitch Grobeson.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Grobeson, who calls himself Sergeant Mitch, was so preoccupied with his homosexuality that he negated his responsibility as a police officer to promote his personal activist gay agenda. Several gay LAPD officers told me how sick they were about his latest lawsuit against the LAPD, and how he had hurt the reputation and mainstreaming of gay officers.

During his failed career, Grobeson’s gay peers have performed their duties with steadfastness and quiet heroism. Some have been promoted to command positions. They got there not because they were gay, but because they were good cops. Conversely, Grobeson thought he deserved his badge and promotions because he was gay. In the end, even the jury disbelieved him by a wide margin.

Grobeson says he’ll appeal, but overturning a jury verdict is almost impossible. And unless he starts filing age-discrimination lawsuits against future employers, it’s not likely that he’ll darken LA’s doorstep any longer. No longer the gay blade, we can only hope that Mitch will devolve into the bitchy old queen he always was.