Thursday Thoughts

Republican candidates debate tonight on Fox News. I'll watch but don't expect much. What can really be said at this stage of the game with them? The debate description is just wrong. There is no debate. There are soundbites and glib shots at each other.

Bill Richardson dropped out. Big deal. He's not one who will be missed. He has a lot of government experience but is still clueless as to what this country needs, especially in foreign policy. Like Obama, he thinks we just need to talk to everyone and it'll all be hugs and kisses. Now he'll be free to work on the VP appointment he's been pining for.

I think the administration he was last associated with proved that to be a fatally flawed notion.

John Kerry is endorsing Obama. Was anyone laying awake at night wondering who Kerry liked? Most of his speech was all about himself, as usual. Does Obama really want endorsements from dinosaurs like Kerry who represent entrenched old Washington when he is all about the word of the month, change?

McCain is up in the polls in South Carolina over Huckabee, who was ahead in the polls before New Hampshire. I hope it continues. Huckabee needs to be stopped. Ron Paul will be allowed into the debate tonight. That always brings a little entertainment into the evening.

If Huckabee is so popular with the homeschoolers, why was he endorsed by the NEA? He is the first Republican they have ever endorsed. They endorsed him along with Clinton as a two party endorsement move this time around. Maybe the evangelicals will wake up and realize the country bumpkin minister is not as he seems to them. There was an interesting few sentences I read quoting his sister that he didn't want to remain a pastor because he knew politics would be more lucrative. Maybe this explains the number of ethical investigations surrounding him.

Fred and Geri Thompson are all over Fox today. I find the whining of the Fred supporters and Fred himself concerning the alleged lack of support of the network to his candidacy puzzling. I see him on the channel all the time, plus he is a frequent guest on Hannity's radio show. The both of them were on the radio with Hannity this afternoon. Fred hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire with campaign energy so maybe he should look at this own schedule choices.

NBC's reporters have admitted their enthusiasm for Obama and how hard it is to be objective in covering his campaign. Ya think? Chris Matthews and Brian Williams, et.al have all but sworn him in already. On CNN's Reliable Sources show I heard a 'reporter' from one of the weekly news magazines say Obama will be the next president. He stated it as though it is fact. There have only been two voting opportunities so far with two states. That guy proclaimed Obama the national winner before New Hampshire voted. But, I'm sure his reporting will be impartial of any candidate. Yeah.

The Wall Street Journal had an editorial about the Lancet's study of the Iraq war casualties. Remember they published the findings three weeks before the 2006 elections? The Lancet is a British medical journal. They claimed the deaths in Iraq were above 650,000 since the invasion.

This number was roundly denied by the Pentagon and the administration but the far left loons and those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome continue to quote the number as though it is absolute fact. The truth is out now and hmmm, not any press coverage on it. What a surprise.

The study was funded by whom? George Soros' Open Society Institute. What a surprise. Two of the co-authors were Gilbert Burnham and Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins University, who openly told reporters that they opposed the war from the start and sent the report to Lancet "on the condition that it be published before the election." Roberts opposed removing Saddam from power and he ran for the Dem nomination for N.Y.'s 24th Congressional District in 2006. So, no axe to grind there.

All of this is in the current issue of National Journal, with Neil Monro and Carl Cannon reporting. They also say the Lancet Editor Richard Horton "agreed to rush the study into print, with an expedited peer review process and without seeing the surveyors' original data." More junk scientific data. Who are they working for now, Al Gore?

And, finally, they show the key person involved in data collection was Iraqi researcher Riyadh Lafta. He failed to follow customary scientific practices of making data available for inspection by other researchers, known as peer review. Oh yeah, he was an official in Saddam's ministry of health, too, as Saddam was trying to end the international sanctions. He is credited with writing articles exaggerating deaths from cancer and other diseases caused by spent uranium shells from the Gulf War.

Just what the history books need. More revisionism.