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TENET’S TANTRUM

In December 2001, I participated in discussions between two Pentagon officials and Iranians who claimed knowledge of Iranian-sponsored efforts to kill Americans in Afghanistan. We met in Rome, Italy over several days. The discussions were approved by Stephen Hadley, the deputy national-security adviser, and the two Defense department officials' travel was approved by their superiors. The American ambassador in Rome was fully informed in advance, and fully briefed afterwards. The conversations produced detailed information about the identities, locations, and plans of Iranian-trained terrorists in Afghanistan. This was passed on to the proper authorities at the DoD, and I was later told by military officers that the information likely saved American lives. Now comes the former DCI (director of central intelligence), George Tenet, with several pages about the meeting in his new book.   His every word, it seems, is meant to justify the chilidish tantrum he had over the meeting.

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THE ANTI-WHOREHOUSE T-SHIRT

anti-whorehouse_t-shirt Want to send a powerful - yet discrete - message to Islamofascists?  Or a message of encouragement to moderate Moslems who oppose them?  Wear our Anti-Islamofascist T-Shirt.  Although we don't label it as such - it's officially called The Anti-Whorehouse T-Shirt. The greatest insanity of Radical Islam is its adherents blowing themselves up to slaughter "infidels" as a ticket to Moslem heaven, where they believe, six dozen eternally virginal whores await to satisfy their every desire. Yet you'll note that our t-shirt says nothing - nothing - about Islam or Moslems.  Who could object to its message?  Someone who thinks heaven is a whorehouse?  Someone who condemns it as "anti-Islam"?  But how can it be anti-Islam when there's no mention of Islam at all? So here it is.  There's an order link in the right side bar.  Order one today and wear it proudly - get one for your friends.  The belief that heaven is a whorehouse for murderers is what sustains Islamofascism.  Do your part in denouncing this evil conviction.

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CHINESE WISHES

You'd think the Chicoms would pay attention to their culture's repository of proverbial wisdom.  Specifically to the ancient Chinese proverb:  Be careful what you wish for - because you just might get it. More than anything else in the world, the Chicoms wanted to host the Olympic Games in their capital of Beijing.  It was to be their great coming-out party to the world, the ultimate showcase of Chicom success on the global stage, proof of their moral acceptance as members of the entire international community. So they are getting what they wished for.  But now it's looking like their dreams of prestige and glory may become a nightmare.  It's not just that the Beijing Olympics of 2008 has started being compared to Hitler's Berlin Olympics of 1936.  It's that the candidate best able to skillfully exploit Chicom vulnerabilities during next summer may be the one who gets elected president next November.

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A HIDDEN COLLEGE TREASURE

The experience FBI Director Robert Mueller had two weeks ago when he tried to give a speech at Harvard seems typical of many colleges campuses these days. "Mueller, who was set to speak before a full crowd managed by tight security detail, had just begun his prepared remarks when the first protestor interrupted with screams," reported the Harvard Crimson. Yet recently I went to a college campus to hear a controversial speaker on a hot button topic in a lecture hall packed with students. The speaker (my friend Ralph Peters) had no security, and needed none. No attempt was made to disrupt his remarks.  The questions the students asked were polite, respectful, and intelligent, indicating both a familiarity with the topic and a desire to learn more about it. Obviously, I wasn't at Harvard - or, say, at Columbia, where the administration let off with wrist slaps students who physically assaulted a speaker last semester.

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TENET’S WHINE

Washington memoirs tend to be self serving, but ex-CIA Director George Tenet's At the Center of the Storm is remarkable even for the genre.    Michael Scheuer, the first head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, said the book "seems designed to rehabilitate Tenet in his first home, the Democratic Party."  Mr. Tenet's reputation is in need of rehabilitation because it was he who assured President Bush the case against Saddam on weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk."  And there was that 9/11 thing the CIA missed on his watch. None of this was his fault, Mr. Tenet assures us.  It was the neocons who screwed up Iraq.  Intelligence collection and analysis about 9/11 would have been better if President Clinton hadn't slashed his budget.  Book stores should serve cheese with this whine.

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THE TO THE POINT SALON

One of the basic contributions of France to civilization was the salon, where the most intelligent and literate of Parisian society would gather in elegant relaxation to courteously discuss any matter of interest. The founder of the French salon was Catherine de Vivonne (1588-1665), known as the Marquise (for she was married to a French noble or Marquis) de Rambouillet.  In 1618, she began receiving guests in her salon bleu of the family home, the Hôtel de Rambouillet on the Rue St. Thomas-du-Louvre in Paris. There were nobles like La Rochefoucauld, cardinals like Richelieu, generals, scholars, poets, artists, wits, and the most cultured ladies of French aristocracy.  There was good cheer, good manners, discussion flourished, and erudite conversation became an art. I am in no way going to compare myself to the Marquise (or TTPers to Richelieu!), yet we may be witnessing the emergence of a salon that she might appreciate on To The Point.  I am referring to the massive response - 70 posts - to Beatles in Baghdad in our User Forum.

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THE SHAME OF CONDI, CAUGHT IN BED WITH THE MULLAHS

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose tenure at Foggy Bottom began with such energy and fine language about support for freedom in the Middle East, is begging the Iranian foreign minister to come to a "future of Iraq" conference in Egypt next week. She told the Financial Times that it would be a "missed opportunity" if Minister Mottaki didn't show up. In the same interview, she denied ever thinking about regime change in Iran. Our Iran policy, according to the secretary, is to "have a change in regime behavior." Some day she will perhaps explain how any rational person can believe this cast of characters capable of changing behavior that has been constant for 28 years. We are back to the days when Madeleine Albright went to international meetings hoping to get a one-on-one with an Iranian minister so she could apologize for past American sins and get on with the glorious business of striking a grand bargain with the mullahs.

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BUMBLING DEMS

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are demonstrating they are not ready for prime time.  This could cloud what looks now like rosy Democratic electoral prospects next year. Democrats in Congress have sent to the president a supplemental appropriations bill calling for withdrawal of troops from Iraq beginning in October, which they know he will veto, raising substantially the already high profile of the issue. It's remarkable that Democrats, as a matter of policy, are siding with America's enemies in time of war.  It didn't work so well for them when they did that during the Civil War.  And it is questionable political strategy to make a swift retreat from Iraq the centerpiece of their legislative agenda.  But more remarkable is how clumsily Democrats are executing the strategy they've chosen.

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KITTY AND ME

Okay, it's time for a fun story.  It is, of course, not fun when someone passes, as Kitty Carlisle did last week (4/17) at age 96.  But it prompts me to reveal how I met her, as it was pretty hilarious. She was a Broadway and Hollywood actress, but she became a household name as a panelist on the TV show To Tell The Truth, which first aired in 1956.  It was three years later, at age 15, that I was a guest on the show. You know the setup.  Three contestants, each claiming to be the same person;  four panelists interrogating them and guessing who's real.  Each wrong guess was worth $250.  When I met my two impostors before the show, I asked them: "Isn't the object of this game to fool the panel, fool all the panelists so we can win the most money, which is $250 times four or $1000?" I asked.  "So what would be the best way to do this?  I think it would be by my pretending to be dumb.  I have to tell the truth, the rules are that I can't lie, but I can pretend to stumble and be unsure.  You guys act confidant. If all the panelists fall for it, we get all the dough." They both thought this was a great idea.

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THE DDT PARTY

Everyone "knows" that DDT -  Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane - is a terrible poison.  It isn't, of course (see, for example, the Harvard Nurses Health Study).  Yet because everyone is so sure it is, some folks on the Republican National Committee figure it might as well be used to poison the Democrats. So don't be surprised if you hear the party of Lost Harry Reid and Pelosi Galore, of Shrillary and Barack Hussein being called The DDT Party - the party of Defeat, Death, and Taxes. Defeat - as in surrender, wanting America to lose, waving a white flag at America's enemies. Death - as in promoting a culture of death, of the murder of millions of unborn children, of hysterically opposing any attempt to prevent their murder. Taxes - as in always advocating more and higher taxes as the answer to any problem.

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