Even Liberal FOX News

FOX News has a story that David Kay's report on WMD in Iraq has so far produced little or nothing. What I find most interesting is that there is no author listed for this story other than "Fox News" and that the following was included in the report:

The United States and Britain made their case for war arguing that Saddam's weapons program was an imminent threat to their national security.

Couple this with the fairly tough questions asked of Condi Rice by Bill O'Reilly, one has to ask, has FOX News turned on Bush? I know, I know, they have always been "fair and balanced." (Cough, Couch) The only other possibility I can fathom is that Al Franken infiltrated the GOP News headquarters and spiked someone's coffee.

Seriously for a second, I think FOX News can no longer consider that they, in their own minds of course, are even remotely objective or "Fair and Balanced" if they don't report the fact that Bush's main reason for going to war was that Iraq was a threat to the USA through the existence of WMD and a future threat with on going WMD programs. If there are leaks from the administration that David Kay has found neither WMD nor any serious ongoing WMD programs, then Bush may be losing some of his conservative support. No one likes to be lied to. Liberals did not like being lied to be Bill Clinton, but in the end his lies did not harm anyone outside his family so it was easier to overlook them. Bush misleading people on this did cause harm to others, and that is unforgivable, even for one of his fellow Republicans. They will still support the ends of the Iraq war and defend Bush on that, but they will not be able to refute the lack of WMD, and thus loose one edge in the debate on Bush’s foreign policy.

This is really wishful thinking on may part for FOX News. I hope this is their tact, even if just for one day it is still a nice respite from the propaganda. The rest of the conservative media will likely still rattle on by downplaying the importance of WMD to Bush's threat claims or by just ignoring it all together. And so it goes.

UPDATE: What was I thinking? I am a sucker. FOX suckered me, well a little. I missed a key word in the excerpt I used above, "weapons programs." I missed the "programs" part and just read weapons, and thought it meant WMD. I should instead be screaming about the clear bias in this story, but it is a shock they even ran it. I guess Bill O'Reilly should get the praise still, even thought he did not really follow up with Rice when she failed to answer the WMD questions.

UPDATE#2: Nothing yet from the 800-pound gorilla nor the Corner on this story. If is from a source they can't claim is "biased," now can they?

Hats Off to Todd Portune

Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, the only Democrat on the commission, has been the GOP's political enemy here for many years. People on the right really don't like his politics and his political tactics. Todd has been going through some very difficult health problems that have left him in a wheel chair. He still has long road ahead before he will be able to walk again, but for now he goes forward and now is able to get around town on his own. I hope people can look at Todd, no matter his politics, and admire the man for this kind of effort. He gets a lot of flack from people, and often it is not underserved, but I tip my hat to him for his courage, ability to face life head on, and his strength to keep on working towards walking to work real soon.

Concealed-Carry: Tradition Rules the Day

It is odd. This has been a law for 144 years, in one form or another, and yet "conservatives" want to change it. I am please that the State Supremes did not go off the deep end and rule that guns owners have more rights than those seeking freedoms of speech, the press, or of religion.

This supports my belief. You have the right to own guns and keep them on your property nearly in way you want to. If you take them off your property, then you can be regulated by the State. That is fair. It is also constitutional for the State legislature to change the laws on Conceal-Carry, which the GOP controlled government wants to, but they are playing to much politics with it to agree on a reasonable type of law. I hope the Taft camp and the extremist camps stay at odds. That will keep more idiots from carrying a gun under their coats this winter. The fewer, the better.

For the gun nuts out there, guess what: no matter how much you try and invoke the tainted studies by Mr. Lott or anyone else, you will not gain much ground with me, so don't bother. I am for the current Ohio gun laws. Keep your guns on your own property if you don't want the State to get involved, otherwise quite your whining or get your GOP leaders to compromise with each other. We liberals are not to blame for the State government here in Ohio. The conservatives have control, they don't care about what we think anyway, so why blame us?

The Enquirer's editorial is odd too. They seem to be saying "Damn you Supreme court, why couldn't you have been an activist court? We hate activist courts, mind you, but when they benefit our side, we'll just looking the other way, and ignore the hypocrisy." I'm reading between the lines, so don't nit-pick please. I wonder how many gun nuts will blame the liberals on the court for this adherence to precedent.

Cats and Dogs Living Together

The apocalypse meter must be rising because I agree with Peter Bronson's column from yesterday. Peter ripped into the past of John Elkington who the Mayor and Councilman John Cranley are trying to get as a consultant/developer for some type of vaguely defined Main Street project.

The only problem I have with this column is that it should have been written by Maggie Downs. She has written a lot about Main Street, she knows the people involved, and she is perfectly capable of getting the same quote from Louisiana and Georgia as Peter did. Why did she not do the column? The only reason is that Peter wanted to, and the Paleolithic columnists always get their way or that the Paper wanted to see this issue fail, and Peter can help reach the right people (those with the money) to help pull the carpet out from under any development of OTR, or at least any under the current Mayor. Why would Bronson really care what happens on Main Street? Would he ever even go there? Maybe if they started a Solid Rock Church instead of a Hard Rock Café he might.

Ohio in Play for 2004?

The latest UC poll suggests that Ohio is not a lock for Bush in 2004. Ohio is a bell weather state for politics. So goes Ohio, and more often than not, so goes the election. A 55% approval rate, down from 76% is a big hit. Iraq policy is only part of the cause. The Economy is surely the main reason for the drop. This poll is fickle, as are Ohio voters, so come next summer, this poll should be a good indicator of what is to come.

Miami-X

The Miami University student body president has invited, with the approval of the Sports Department, all Xavier University students to attend this weekends Miami-UC annual battle for the bell football game. No doubt this will piss off the Bearkitten faithful, but intercolligate relations has never known a better gesture. This is a great PR story, and surprise, surprise it is a positive story about Miami in the Enquirer. Well, it was written by Mark Schmetzer who is the semi-official Miami University beat writer for the Enquirer.

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A fun week with even more on McMain Street. Elkington does not come off to wonderful in the various references in the column. No picture this week, I did not take my camera with me to Oktoberfest as promised, and I wish did. I missed quite a few bizarre pictures. The people with the Cole and Malone stickers on might have been the most interesting. I guess drunk people will wear any kind of stick, if you just ask.