Hold page one: McBride gets one right

It's the infinite monkey theorem at work.

When you offer as many opinions a day as Jessica McBride does -- and her blog has deteriorated to where many of the items are one-liners, so there is a daily barrage -- it's inevitable that you will eventually type something that makes sense.

Well, it's happened. McBride, usually Ms. Hard-Line Law 'n Order, speaks up for common sense on the question of allowing inner city youngsters to sell bottled water on the street. The city is cracking down.

Let's hope there are enough monkeys at the keyboard in City Hall and the Milwaukee Police Department to produce orders to leave those kids alone.

Telling it like it is

You have to say this for Illusory Tenant, whoever that may be. He/she doesn't pull any punches. Lead-in to a recent post:

Here's a perfect example of how dumb, irresponsible, lazy, and pandering university journalism "lecturer" Jessica McBride is.

Read it here.

Expanding on McBride Doctrine: If they're for it, we're against it

Jessica continues to explain the McBride Doctrine of foreign policy:

I don't know about you, but my instinct is to support the things al-Qaida does NOT want. That's usually a good idea with a mortal enemy.

We can be thankful that al-Qaida has not come out in favor of building more schools in Iraq. If they had, we'd be forced to be in favor of destroying schools.

But here's a stickier question: What if al-Qaida actually wants US troops to remain in Iraq, with 150,000 bogged down there more or less permanently, at the mercy of insurgents and their bombs?

There is some evidence that's just what al-Qaida wants. They've said as much, that they want the US to stay the course and remain in the quagmire.

Applying the McBride Doctrine, if al-Qaida wants us to stay, we should leave.

Maybe she is on to something.

That liberal MSM again

Here's another example of the kind of liberal bias in the mainstream print media, McBride & Co. argue, that makes people turn to right wing talk radio for balance.

See if you detect any difference between the story and the headline in the LaCrosse Tribune:

Top Doyle donor pleads guilty to making illegal donations

By SCOTT BAUER/The Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. — Millionaire businessman Dennis Troha has always been an equal opportunity giver.

Whether it be to Republican President George Bush or Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, Troha and his family have been frequent, and generous, donors.

But a series of donations between $30,000 and $70,000 to both Bush and the Democratic Party led Troha on Friday to agree to plead guilty to a pair of misdemeanors that could land him in prison for two years.

How did Doyle get in that headline? This isn't even the Journal Sentinel.

The McBride Doctrine: Once an enemy, always an enemy

We have noted previously that when it comes to foreign policy, Jessica McBride makes the Bush-Cheney administration look like a collection of limp-wristed liberals.

She's out-Bushed Bush on Iraq. When Bush said US troops would leave if the Iraqi government asked them to, McBride said she'd keep them there anyway.

She has no problem with plotting the violent overthrow of the Laotian government from the US, and would not prosecute Gen. Vang Pao for doing so. After all, she says, Vang is simply doing what we asked him to do 40 years ago -- fighting communism.

And she blasts Bush for wanting to expand trade with Vietnam while that communist government stifles dissidents and doesn't allow democracy. That post also explains her Iraq doctrine:

(Note: I support the war in Iraq because I believe surrendering would be a victory for al-Qaida and would strengthen the hand of Iran in the Middle East. We also have a moral obligation to finish what we started. The people of Iraq deserve democracy...)

Where to begin?

Maybe by highlighting the irony of saying the people of Iraq deserve democracy, but we should ignore the wishes of Iraq's democratically-elected government when it comes to the question of US troops occupying the country.

Or by observing that al-Qaida was not in Iraq until the US invaded and occupied the country on trumped-up claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and somehow was linked to the 9/11 attacks.

Or maybe by noting that the US prevented Vietnam from having the democratic elections we promised them in 1954, because it was clear they would choose Ho Chi Minh and communism. Twenty years and millions of casualties later, we got the same result: a unified, communist Vietnam.

"Finishing what we started" in Iraq could take another 20 years. And we probably would still not like the outcome.

Finally, we might observe that the right wing loves democracy when it works the way it's "supposed" to. But when democracy "goes astray" and chooses a Salvador Allende in Chile or a Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, the right has no hesitation in trying to overthrow the elected government.

A McBride foreign policy would bring democracy to the world the way the Crusades brought Christianity -- by the sword, whether people want it or not.

Afterthought: We added the second line of the headline in an attempt to summarize the doctrine. That got us wondering: Do you think Japan, Germany, and Italy are still on her list as part of the axis of evil-doers, or have they been forgiven? It seems it's only when we lose that she doesn't think we should ever forget, but you never know. Her doctrine is still a work in progress.

Knowing mind-numbing when you hear it

A new report on talk radio says programming is over 90% conservative nationwide.

Jessica McBride, suffering from chronic and rampant paranoia, sees the report as more evidence that there is a movement afoot to shut up the conservatives.

Whallah! contributor Xoff says progressives have been shut up and shut out, which is the real point of the report.

McBride calls the report "mind-numbing." What's really mind-numbing is the argument that the radio audience wants wall-to-wall conservative programming. If you listen to talk radio all day, you'll know what mind-numbing feels like.

The straight scoop from Iraq

While the Frederic freelancer looks for the good news in Iraq, Doonesbury's Sandbox offers the straight scoop, both good and bad, from bloggers who are in the military and on the ground.

Here's one post that will remind you of the Caine Mutiny.

If we'd had blogs when I was in Vietnam, I'd have been in the brig for sure.

No such thing as a dumb question? Well ...

A new court ruling says Wisconsin's W2 program must provide benefits to people in the program who are employable but can't find jobs.

Paul Soglin gets it:

Think about it. It helps end poverty. Assuming the state does not want to increase the welfare rolls, people who want to work will be given an opportunity to work for a living.

As for increasing the welfare rolls, that is not a problem. The decision does not say "put them on the dole." It clearly says, "provide for job opportunity." Those offered meaningful work who turn it down, do not get welfare.

You know who doesn't have a clue, asking:

Isn't this called "unemployment"?
Don't they already have benefits for that?

As she would say, Umm, no.

Jack Bauer for terrorism czar

What do Jessica McBride and Justice Antonin Scalia have in common? Judicial philosophy? Intellectual curiosity? A love of Cuban cigars?

No, it's a wish that television's fictional Jack Bauer were in charge of Homeland Security.

"Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said at a conference where Bauer's fictional exploits were the topic. Story.

Then there's McBride, who wrote:

One suspects that if [Bauer had] been at the controls before 9/11, the attacks might have been stopped.

They both acknowledge that Bauer is fictional. But they both wish he weren't.

At least McBride's not likely to end up on the Supreme Court.

So many words, so little to say

What do you do when you have an 800-word column due and have only 8 words worth of ideas?

Pad, pad, pad.

Some columnists have been known to write a column about having nothing to write a column about.

McBride's latest Waukesha Freeman column is in that vein, an obvious pad job. As she regales you with statistics about how many dog licenses are issued in the Town of Lisbon, it reminds you of a Senator reading the telephone book into the Congressional Record during a filibuster.

It would be hard to accept any pay for this "effort" with a clear conscience.

Hyperventilating about McGee

Milwaukee Magazine's Bruce Murphy, who generally treats Jessica McBride well, had this not-so-kind observation on the Michael McGee affair:

Last week, former Waukesha DA Paul Bucher filed formal charges asking that McGee be impeached by the Milwaukee Common Council. Bucher doesn’t even live in the city, but he is the husband of Jessica McBride, who, along with her former talk radio brethren, has been hyperventilating for some time about McGee. And Bucher, whose career in public service tanked after his defeat in the Republican primary for Wisconsin attorney general, is presumably looking for any publicity he can get.

Read it here.

Breakthrough -- Talk back to McBride

A new policy and a new blog address for Jessica McBride.

She doesn't say whether the comments will be "moderated" -- screened, in other words -- or not. Let's hope that if people are prepared to put their names on and stand by the comments that she'll have the courage to post them all.

We predict the thin-skinned Ms. McBride will not enjoy this. She already is giving herself an escape clause in case everyone doesn't behave nicely.

Monday, June 18, 2007
Comments

After giving it a lot of thought, I've decided to allow comments on my blog. I will not allow anonymous comments. If you have something to say, I believe you should put your name to it, and be prepared to stand by it.

I do this hesitantly. If you want to know why, read this article. I haven't experienced anything quite like this. However, some postings have come close, and I do relate to it. So, I simply ask that you stick to debating the issues, albeit vigorously. If it degenerates into the sort of thing I've seen on some blogs, I may reconsider.

Unfortunately, there's something wrong with this blog, and it won't let me activate the comment function. I've tried everything, including new templates, to no avail. So, to allow comments I've had to create a new blog.

The new blog address is http://mcbridesmediamatters.blogspot.com/.
...

Meanwhile, Jessica, you are welcome, as always, to comment here, in your own name, with a pseudonym, or anonymously.

To the rescue -- 10 years later McBride, Sykes get it wrong again

A classic example of how things spread on the Internet when bloggers are in such a rush to post something that they don't read carefully.

Jessica McBride on the "thought police:"

James Harris is under attack for quoting an author who said this:

“There is only one force in this world that is capable of controlling a teenage male: his father. Women, you can either let black men rule their households as husbands and fathers or hide in your homes with doors locked as they rule the streets in roving gangs. If you don’t believe me visit any inner-city neighborhood, if you dare.”

Her source was Charlie Sykes , who wrote:

James T. Harris infuriated some state bureaucrats the other day.... actually enraged them. How?

By quoting this:

“There is only one force in this world that is capable of controlling a teenage male: his father. Women, you can either let black men rule their households as husbands and fathers or hide in your homes with doors locked as they rule the streets in roving gangs. If you don’t believe me visit any inner-city neighborhood, if you dare.”

However, if you bother to read what Harris himself wrote, you'll find this:

“There is only one force in this world that is capable of controlling a teenage male: his father. Women, you can either let black men rule their households as husbands and fathers or hide in your homes with doors locked as they rule the streets in roving gangs. If you don’t believe me visit any inner-city neighborhood, if you dare.”

I spoke these words at a black state employees’ convention. It was part of an anti-affirmative action address that I gave for a breakout session.

Yikes!

My words were not well received.

I had to be escorted to the organizer’s room. Every step of the way, from the podium to the sanctuary, was a step through anger. People were pissed off. I got the feeling that I was no longer welcome.

I wasn’t. I left.

Those words, however, were not my own. I borrowed them from the famed sociologist, George Gilder. Mr. Gilder first uttered the same words on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the mid 1980s, and it got him kicked off the show. To this day, I believe Mr. Gilder has the distinction of being the first and only person kicked off ‘The Oprah.’

Oprah apologized to her audience for inviting a racist onto the show.

Here we are a decade removed from my borrowed comments and nearly two decades from Gilder’s original utterances, and as I write this I am looking at yet another story of a little girl shot in the face because she left the safety of her home, to play in streets, ruled by angry, aimless, homicidal black teenage males.

McBride tries to rally the wingnut blogosphere:

As conservatives, we should all speak up when a fellow conservative is under attack by the politically correct thought police for supposed "offensiveness," especially when it deals with race, which is the favorite tactic of the left (cry racism) in its efforts to silence conservatives. If any of us stays silent or mutes our response for any number of reasons, we hurt the conservative cause. I wonder what would happen if Harris said this same thing on his radio show?

My only problem with the passage above is that teenage girls need fathers just as badly. Everyone needs a father. Fathers matter, despite what some cartoonists think.

I strongly support James. Don't let them get you down, James. You are exactly what this community needs.

The fact is that he's not "under attack" and was relating a 10-year-old story.

But never let the facts get in the way of some good conservative outrage over race.

At last, the good news from Iraq

Wayne (The Whole Truth) Anderson -- a person in the mainstream media to admire, according to Jessica McBride -- has made it to Iraq.

Anderson is the part-time weekly newspaper writer from Frederic, Wisconsin who set off to write about the good news in Iraq. It turned out he wasn't exactly who McBride said he was, but he's there and writing his stories, so let's give him some credit and see what he has to say:

His first dispatch was filed from Kuwait City, where he randomly chose three members of the US military to interview. The first two are from Wisconsin:

They are sergeant siblings serving in the US Army with the 1157th Transportation Company. But if they were US senators they said they would vote to immediately pull the plug on funding the war and send the troops home.

Dustin Louden, 28, and Nichelle Louden, 33, of Oshkosh, serve together honorably at a forward operating base in Iraq. Back home, he talked her into joining the Wisconsin National Guard for the good college benefits it provides.

Now this close sister-and-brother team, who came to Iraq together, sees little hope for this sectarian, war-torn country.

“I don’t think the Iraqis will ever be able to take it over, to run this country the way it should be run,” said Nichelle. “They want us here because we do everything for them. So of course they want us here. They don’t have to do anything.”

Her brother agrees in part, but hangs on to a thin thread of optimism suspended above a very complex situation.

“I think we’re doing good for the local populace,” said Dustin. “But there’s so many different religious groups… the government isn’t stable enough because there’s so many feuding groups...”

His other interviewee is more optimistic:

Lt. Col. Joseph Yoswa, a native of St. Paul, Minn., wants to make one thing perfectly clear.

“The war is not lost,” he said.

Despite past senatorial pronouncements, he said the war in Iraq is not lost and is in fact moving slowly towards victory.

Yoswa, by the way, is a public affairs officer. In civilian terms, that's a flack.

So far, that's the good news he's found. Not an auspicious beginning.

Bucher: Have briefcase, will travel

We recognize that Jessica is not responsible for the actions of Paul Bucher, although she did marry him and does seem to espouse many of his political views. We know she shares his opinion of a Milwaukee alderman who's in the news.

Which brings us to Bucher's latest project, since joining the private sector: Impeaching Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee Jr. JS online reports:

Bucher asks council to impeach McGee
The lawyer for Ald. Michael McGee's unsuccessful recall election opponent has filed formal charges with the Milwaukee Common Council to open impeachment proceedings against the jailed alderman.

But Common Council President Willie Hines Jr. plans to reject the impeachment charges from former Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher, because Bucher doesn't live in Milwaukee...

After news of the criminal charges came out, Jordan asked Bucher how to overturn the election, Bucher said today. Bucher said he outlined several options and she told him to pick the fastest one, which is for the council to remove McGee from office. He responded by filing impeachment charges against McGee with Hines.

Both city ordinances and state law provide for the council to remove an errant alderman upon a citizen's complaint. But City Attorney Grant Langley has said the state law supersedes the city ordinance where they conflict, and they conflict on who can file the charges to start the proceedings.

Bucher used the city ordinance, which doesn't specify who needs to file the charges, instead of the state law, which requires the charges to be leveled by "a resident taxpayer." He said he was aware of the state law, but was waiting for Langley or Hines to tell him whether he should use a different procedure...

Hines said through an aide that he will send Bucher a letter tomorrow that cites Langley's opinion about the state law overriding the city ordinance.

Another alternative: Bucher could establish residency in the City of Milwaukee. Maybe he could even do that in McGee's 6th Aldermanic District and run for alderman himself. Jessica, a self-styled expert on the central city, based on writing a few newspaper articles about gangs, could write his platform.

Or maybe this is just the first step for Bucher to expand his practice beyond his Waukesha County base. Any aldermen in Madison that need recalling? How about Minnesota? Canada?

Jessica, was that you?

Someone spotted, in Waukesha on a recent sunny afternoon, a car with this decal on its back window:

Sailah V

Could it be?

Death to the communist pigs! McBride OKs harboring terrorists in US

Jessica McBride is on what seems largely a one-woman crusade to whip up some outrage and support for the Laotians who have been charged, while in the US, with plotting the violent overthrow of the Laotian government.

All Gen. Vang Pao and others were doing, she maintains, is what we asked them to do during the Vietnam War -- overthrow the communist government of Laos.

So, she writes:

Wasn’t overthrowing communist governments once our foreign policy? As California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher put it: "I don’t think that’s anything that should worry Americans, that some people who believe in democracy are trying to overthrow a dictatorship in their homeland."...

After all, the plotters’ cause was ours once, until we moved on to the Islamic fascist terrorism front. Dishonorably, we left the Hmong behind in Laos, where they were slaughtered by the communists for their support of democracy. We brought some of them to America as political refugees. I guess we expect them to drop the cause because we have. We must have sounded really convincing at the time, just like we sounded to Iraqis once. I guess it’s OK to defend democracy only when it’s the Bush administration doing it.

So the real question is why the United States government is indicting a freedom-fighting general, Vang Pao, for trying to overthrow a communist government when the U.S. government once recruited that same freedom-fighting general, Vang Pao, to overthrow a communist government.

As we said in an earlier post, here are a couple of reasons:

The arrest came as Vang and others were allegedly preparing to send hundreds of machine guns, ammunition, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, anti-tank rockets, Stinger shoulder-fired missiles, mines and C-4 explosives to be used against the Laotian government...

"We are looking at conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Twiss said in court.

Supposedly, the United States is a country that would not condone such activity. Even most communist-hating, flag-waving conservatives can see there is something wrong with that picture, which may answer McBride's question about where the right-wing outrage is over Vang's arrest.

The US government normalized trade relations with Laos in 1995. We are hardly at war with the Laotian government.

To condone what Gen. Vang and others were doing is tantamount to harboring terrorists.

Let's try a parallel example and see if that helps. Nguyen Cao Ky, former premier and vice-president of South Vietnam during the US war there, was a swashbuckling anti-communist ally of the US. A refugee at war's end, he wound up running a grocery/liquor store in California. He has since made his peace, it appears, with the communist government of Vietnam. But suppose, instead, he had been raising money to buy weapons to invade Hanoi and overthrow the government. Does McBride think the US should help him, or at least ignore him? (Unfortunately, the answer is probably yes.)

McBride's wingnut brigade blasted Speaker Nancy Pelosi for even talking to the Syrian government. They're ready to invade Iran for allegedly supporting and supplying terrorism in Iraq.

Given that, how could they possibly condone the plot against the Laotian government or turn a blind eye once the US knew of it? Again, that may explain why McBride appears to be in the vanguard, rather than following the party line, on this issue.

McBride misses the days of Oliver North and Iran-Contra, fighting to rid the world of communism no matter what the laws or the constitution say. You can almost hear her humming, "Those were the days, my friend; we thought they'd never end..."

Afterthought: Here's an insightful Boston Globe column on the subject.

And a quote: "We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." -- President George W. Bush, September 20, 2001

Journal Communications and liberals

McBride blogs:

Journal Communications and conservatives

I was just told that a conservative state legislator sent a letter to the editor in support of me to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which they never ran. Pretty telling. Imagine what happened to the conservative voice on various issues in the days before blogs. It just didn't get through the media gate.

Aside from the fact that newspapers always get many more letters than they print, consider this:

McBride has never allowed anyone to post a comment on her blog, and gladly joined Charlie Sykes, Jeff Wagner, and Journal Communications in screening and eliminating nearly all liberal/progressive callers to their talk shows. If you listen, you would think that 90% of their listening audience shared their right wing views -- because those are the only callers who get through. Most liberal listeners have quit trying.

So while you're imagining what used to happen to the conservative voices in the pre-blog days, imagine what happens to liberal/progressive voices on talk radio right now.

News flash: Al Qaida in Iraq! Therefore, US troops must stay?

Our favorite foreign policy analyst, Jessica McBride, continues to write posts suggesting that because Al Qaida is now in Iraq, US troops must remain there.

In McBride's World, Iraq seems to be the home of Al Qaida. Her most recent commentary:

John Edwards admits Al-Qaida is in Iraq

The AP:

"Today, as a result of what George Bush has done, we have more terrorists and fewer allies," Edwards said at a news conference. "There was no group called al-Qaida in Iraq before this president's war in Iraq."

The follow-up question that wasn't asked: Why do you want to leave Iraq to fight al-Qaida then?

Edwards is exactly right when he says that it is the US who brought Al Qaida to Iraq.

The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz team did its best to make people believe that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were somehow in a conspiracy before the Sept. 11 attacks. That falsehood, and the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, helped sell the American public on the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The result of that tragic mistake is that Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists, with members of Al Qaida and other terrorist groups infiltrating the country.

In McBride's twisted logic, as long as Al Qaida is in Iraq, US forces must stay.

Last week, when insurgents claimed they had killed three captured American soldiers, McBride called it "a critical test" for Democrats. She made it sound as though Al Qaida itself had made the claim, when it was an insurgent umbrella group that includes, among many others, Al Qaida in Mesopotamia. In her hysterical response, she asked:

Will Democrats continue to support stripping funding from the troops so they can't track down these murderers?

Do they still support withdrawing our troops immediately?

Do they still support withdrawing our troops by some arbitrary date whether or not we catch these murderers and eradicate al-Qaida in Iraq?

Do they still believe we should redeploy the troops to Okinawa or some other place?

Apparently, the answer she's looking for is that US troops will stay in Iraq forever. Despite thousands of troops searching for weeks now, the missing soldiers or their captors/killers have not been found, and probably won't be.

To suggest that US troops must stay until the last Al Qaida zealot is eliminated reminds us of the argument that we must keep sending more troops to be killed so that those who have already been killed "will not have died in vain."

Neither one holds water.

File under Glass Houses

From my blog on Uppity Wisconsin (Gee, is that racist?)

State Rep. Tamara Grigsby (D-Milwaukee) suggested she might outfit State Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) with a cone hat and a sheet for his opposition to affrirmative action. Which brings Jessica McBride -- who's always big on apologies as long as she's not the one doing it -- to say Grigsby owes an apology to Grothman. Says McBride:

This is a common tactic on the left, and it needs to be called out whenever it's spotted. When a conservative disagrees with a liberal, they often accuse them of being "racist" to shut down debate because they can't win on the merits of their argument.

Oppose illegal immigration? You're a racist. Oppose Michael McGee Jr.? You're a racist. Oppose gangsta rap? You're a racist. Oppose affirmative action? You're a racist. Want to lock up criminals? You're a racist. Criticize Eugene Kane? You're a racist.

Glenn Grothman has every right to express his opinion against affirmative action without being compared to a KKK member.

Spare us the righteous indignation, please.

How would Grigsby's comment compare, do you think, with this radio commercial that McBride's wingman, Charlie Sykes, produced and ran over and over again on his show, comparing Jim Doyle to racist segregationist governors Orville Faubus and George Wallace?

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENT: Fifty years ago the Supreme Court opened the school house doors. But the fight hasn’t been easy. And the fight isn’t over.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENT: In 1957 a governor named Orval Faubus stood in the school house door in Little Rock Arkansas to keep nine African American students from getting an education.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENT: In 1963 a governor named George Wallace stood in the door of the University of Alabama to keep two African American students from going to school.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENT: Now, in 2006, don’t let a governor named Jim Doyle stand in the schoolhouse door again. This time, blocking hundreds of African American students right here in Milwaukee.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENT: Students who just want a chance.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENT: A chance to go to the school of their choice.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDENT: If Governor Doyle doesn’t lift the cap on school choice, he’ll be standing in schoolhouse door, just as surely as Governor Faubus and Governor Wallace.

Governor Doyle. Let Our People Go.

Governor Doyle: Let Our Children IN.

Governor Doyle. Let Our Children Learn.

Governor Doyle: GET OUT OF THE SCHOOLHOUSE DOOR.

Sykes says: (This spot is not authorized and paid for by anybody -- at least not yet. It's free. Mikel Holt, production genius Jim Gilles, and I put this together with the help of students from Messmer High School.)

Doyle's still awaiting his apology.

McBride getting soft on crime?

What happens when you write at 3:26 a.m.?

You produce something like this:

He was convicted of lying to investigators about conversations with reporters he said he couldn't remember well over something that wasn't a crime and that he didn't leak first after an investigation that started out as a partisan and media witch hunt after the administration tried to defend itself against the smears of an ideologically motivated critic.

More worrisome than her incoherent writing style is the evidence that lock-em-up McBride is getting a little soft on crime.

She wants to pardon Libby, who clearly broke the law. What's a little case of perjury among friends?

And she doesn't see why conservatives aren't defending Gen. Vang Pao, charged with masterminding a plot to violently overthrow the government of Laos. The arrest came as Vang and others were allegedly preparing to send hundreds of machine guns, ammunition, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, anti-tank rockets, Stinger shoulder-fired missiles, mines and C-4 explosives to be used against the Laotian government.

McBride says:

I am not sure what the U.S. government should do about Vang Pao. I understand that you can't have people running around engaged in shadow foreign policy...

But I will say this: Ronald Reagan's Justice Department would never have brought these charges.

Here's one reason, or a few thousand reasons, that the U.S. government may have felt the need to bring those charges:

"We are looking at conspiracy to murder thousands and thousands of people at one time," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Twiss said in court.

What Gen. Vang did as a U.S. ally during the Vietnam war does not justify killing Laotians now -- even if the government there happens to be communist. Apparently, even George W. Bush agrees.

Immigrants make her so angry she can't read

There appears to be something about reading about immigrants -- legal or illegal -- that makes Jessica McBride so upset she can't read straight, let alone write about them.

Earlier, she went on a tirade about the city of Santa Fe wanting to hire some Mexican nationals -- legal immigrants -- for the police force. But she was so blinded by her bias that she thought they were illegal immigrants.

Now, closer to home, Waukesha builders, the technical school and a Latino group have joined efforts to offer Spanish-English classes and try to bridge the language gap that exists on many construction sites. McBride asks:

Why don't they just teach the workers how to speak English? Wouldn't that solve everything?

If you moved to, say, Japan, to find work, would your Japanese bosses learn English or would they expect you to learn Japanese if you wanted employment? Wouldn't they expect you to respect the fact that, in Japan, Japanese is the language of business?

Had she read the Journal Sentinel story on which her post is based -- and some of which she reprinted -- she would have learned that the program is "to teach those in the construction industry to communicate with Spanish- or English-only speaking co-workers."

"Latinos are sweeping the nation in construction jobs," said Hortensia Washington, director of operations at La Casa de Esperanza and instructor for the new language course. "This is about us respecting everyone no matter how limited their English is and cutting out the middle person."

She said the program, named after Waukesha County builder Bryce Styza, aims to teach supervisors, workers and contractors basic Spanish and English terms and phrases used in construction work to improve safety and work efficiency in the field.

So it's a two-way street. The goal is to have the Spanish speakers learn more English, and for the English speakers to learn some Spanish.

The first class was made up of all English-speakers. The story says: "The second session is likely to include Spanish-only speakers."

And what, exactly, is wrong with that?

UPDATE: Robert Miranda bids McBride adios on Hispanic Vista.com.

Word for the day: Cowed

McBride on Tommy Thompson's debate quip that he wouldn't name George W. Bush ambassador to the United Nations:

Actually, at least on terrorism, Bush is exactly the kind of person we need at the UN, not someone who will be cowed under by scandal-ridden bureaucrats and European nations with vested interests that undermine our national security.

Cowed under?

We don't want a UN ambassador who would be cowed over, either.

How about just plain cowed? It requires no preposition, even in Wisconsin, land of cows.

New Photo

Like, wow ... Jessica has a new picture of herself and it's really rad. All you boys who don't like her can, like, gag yourselves with a spoon, cuz, it's soooo cool.

The picture is titled "thispic." She had to remind herself this was the picture to use.

Someone's not telling the whole story, but it's not the dreaded Mainstream Media

In a post headlined, "Someone in the MSM to admire," Jessica McBride tells of a man from Frederic, Wisconsin who is on his way to report the "good news" from Iraq:

"Wayne Anderson of Frederic, Wisconsin will be traveling to Iraq today, to witness and then report - firsthand - the good things that are happening in Iraq. He doesn’t have any previous military experience. He’s a former “retired construction contractor, budding vintner and novice beekeeper ” who has his own weekly newspaper in Frederic. He’s also paying for the entire trip himself.

“I have a sense that more is happening in Iraq than bombs exploding. More is happening than death and destruction,” he said. “It’s a weak and fledgling democracy, but by God, it is a democracy. They vote, by God. So I know that there are good, lasting things that are happening in Iraq.”

Anderson will embed with the Army in Iraq and then send back his stories to a handful of area papers, for free, at a time when public support for the war is flagging. He couldn’t get any papers to sponsor him - they were afraid they’d have to pay a ransom if he’s abducted, Anderson said - so he’ll be working freelance. There is no guarantee his dispatches will appear in print back home. He’s also lined up some live calls from the war zone with the Tim McNeil show on Mix 105, a northwest Wisconsin FM

Jessica, while pleased at his willingness to go, is troubled:

It bothers me, though, that no paper would "sponsor him", and no one is willing to print his reports (although I'm unclear why he can't just print his reports himself since he owns a weekly newspaper). But newspapers will print the blathering of politicians who are safely ensconced back at home?

Perhaps the reason could be that this guy is does not own a weekly newspaper of his own, and isn't even really a reporter.

As usual, she hasn't gone to the source.

She cites a blog called Pheistyblog, which is the source for her material.

But the story originated in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, before Pheistyblog got its hands on it. Here's what the actual Mainstream Media newpaper reported:

Anderson, a former reporter who now writes a right-leaning column for a weekly newspaper based in Frederic, says he never sees the "good news" stories on the nightly news.

So he decided one morning a few months ago to become a war correspondent...

It's a far different assignment from his start answering phones at the Fort Worth Star Telegram, he said. His other reporting jobs have included stints at the Rocky Mountain News and Ring Magazine, a boxing periodical.

In the 1990s, Anderson left journalism for construction work in Los Angeles and was able to retire by his 50s after about 10 years of working as a contractor...

In a column that ran last week in the Inter-County Leader, Anderson explained his motivations for going to Iraq:

"I, like you, see the bombs exploding on the nightly news. I know it happens. The media would not lie. It's just I suspect they are not telling the whole truth. Certainly, there is more to this Iraq story than roadside IEDs detonating? I suspect building schools and hospitals is not as newsworthy as blowing them up. But the public should know about both, which is the whole truth. (I think I remember reading about that in journalism school.)"

And then there's this comment, from a veteran war correspondent, which never made it into either McBride's blog or her source's post:

Sig Christenson, co-founder of Military Reporters and Editors and who is the military reporter at the San Antonio Express-News, said Anderson is going to learn quickly the real story about Iraq. He should know: Christenson returned from his fifth wartime trip to Iraq in April.

"There isn't that much good news in Iraq. It's a misconception driven largely by supporters of President Bush who want this war to be a good war. It's a damn mess," Christenson said.

About the only thing that is good in Iraq is the U.S. soldier, the San Antonio reporter said.

"Our troops are highly competent, very motivated, extraordinarily brave," he said. "They are the best that this country has. And that is why it's still worth it to go out there and report on this war. "

Christenson bristles at the idea that war correspondents aren't covering the "whole" story.

"I've been told by a State Department official that rebuilding Iraq is like rebuilding a house that is on fire while people are shooting at you," he said. "The media has done very good work there, at extraordinary risk."

Including that, as the newspaper did, is called telling both sides of the story. Sometimes it's known as balance.

That's some of what Anderson said he remembers from journalism school. McBride teaches journalism, but seems to have forgotten that lesson.

UPDATE: Illusory Tenant chimes in:

For a more substantive piece by Mr. Anderson, see Polk and Burnett County bees are inspected, where, in closing, Anderson offers "For more information on local beekeeping, call 715-327-5525," which turns out to be his own home telephone number.

This is exactly the sort of shenanigan that regularly earns well deserved "Darts" from the Columbia Journalism Review, but to McBride, Anderson is "someone in the MSM to admire"(apparently she normally has little to no admiration for the "mainstream media").

Now Mr. Wayne Anderson may merit some admiration on account of his having been personally selected by God to embed himself with the U.S. Army in Iraq, but I don't think he quite qualifies as a member of the mainstream media.

Jessica joins the humor police

Still stinging from her firing by WTMJ radio -- and still in denial that she said or did anything offensive -- Jessica McBride has begun to peruse the Journal Sentinel on a daily basis for anything that smacks of humor.

Then she tries, vainly, to compare what others have written with what she did, which is too big a stretch even for her.

First it was columnist Jim Stingl, who, writing about Ald. Michael McGee's troubles, said that McGee shouldn't be expecting any sympathy cards from the Sykes family.

Now it's Mike Nichols's reference to Tommy Thompson's screwups on statements regarding Jews and gays.

McBride seems to think that any humor used when writing about a serious topic is now out of bounds, and that one complaint from a Mark Belling listener about Stingl is equivalent to the general manager of WTMJ-AM finding what she did "inappropriate" to be on the air.

Read the columns, here and here. And then listen to her segment. See if you think there is any comparison. One difference is that Stingl's and Nichols's efforts are at least mildly humorous. Hers is embarrassingly unfunny, although she thought it was a laugh riot, judging from her giggles.

M&Ms for dinner?

Jessica McBride can't say enough good things about the Sunday column by State GOP Chair Reince Priebus on why felons should not be allowed to vote in Wisconsin. She calls it a "great piece" and sends readers his way.

This Priebus argument (if you can call it that) was especially noteworthy, in McBride's eyes:

So why on Earth would we trust felons still serving a sentence to take part in our democratic process - to make important decisions that influence how law-abiding citizens live their lives? It's akin to allowing your 2-year-old to choose the dinner meal. If that happened, surely M&Ms and cookies would be on the menu every night.

And if felons could vote -- which they can in some states -- what would be on the menu? Get out of jail free cards?

Something far worse than that, McBride suggests: Felons would vote for Democrats! She links to a story saying Al Gore would have won the 2000 presidential election if felons had been allowed to vote. (He did win, actually, even without their votes, but a funny thing happened on the way to the Electoral College.)

The study posits that since racial minorities and the poor – groups that tend to vote for Democrats– make up a disproportionate number of felons, a hypothetical felon voting bloc would be so overwhelmingly Democratic it could swing national and statewide elections.

74 percent of felons would have voted Democratic in presidential and U.S. Senate elections dating back to 1972...

The other 26 per cent, presumably, are white collar criminals who simply embezzled or ripped off stockholders, or suburban Republicans who ran afoul of the law, like Scott Jensen, and who don't like M&Ms for dinner.

(But think of the possibilities if the GOP had to compete for the felon vote. Jensen could have headed Felons for Bucher, and perhaps advised Bucher against running a Willie Horton-style campaign for attorney general.)

But when you come right down to it, it's the same reason the Wisconsin Republican Party now headed by Priebus wants to make it more and more difficult for minorities and the poor to vote, even if they are law-abiding citizens. They are more likely to be Democratic voters. Even the so-called study got that right.

McBride also likes this argument:

The argument that we shouldn't disenfrancise felons on paper ignores the 14th Amendment, by the way, which specifically states that people can lose the right to vote for participation in rebellion, or other crime.

Priebus puts it this way:

The Supreme Court has long concluded that the 14th Amendment allows states to deny voting rights to these felons because their past acts have proved them unworthy of voting.

It's true that states have the ability to deny felons the right to vote. But the 50 states handle the issue in many different ways, Project Vote reports. In Maine and Vermont, felons don't lose their right to vote. In 13 more states (and DC), felons can vote once they have served their time. In 5 more stations, probationers can vote. In 19 states, including Wisconsin, rights are restored after completion of parole and probation. And in 11 states, some or all felons can lose their voting rights permanently.

It is quite a leap to say that because states can bar felons from voting that Wisconsin should be among the toughest. States also have the legal ability to impose the death penalty, but Wisconsin hasn't had it since 1853 -- not that Republicans haven't tried and failed to pass the death penalty in Wisconsin.

Perhaps it's time for Priebus's party to try a new argument -- that executing felons would get them off the voter rolls for good, and eliminate the possibility that they might vote illegally.

That argument is more cogent than the threat of M&Ms for dinner.

McBride Again and Again

This truly is dumb. From our insipid scribe, Jessica McBride:

Yeah, I'm about to defend Gov. Doyle's former communications director. Stop the presses.

Journal Sentinel: WHEDA gives PR work to ex-Doyle staffer

Madison -- The state housing authority has paid $64,700 in recent years to a public relations firm run by Gov. Jim Doyle's former communications director.

So what? If he's the former communications director to the governor, presumably he's got the required experience in PR, and they know whether or not he does good work. The real question is whether there was anything awry with the hiring process and whether or not the PR work was really needed and whether or not the taxpayers got their money worth.

Absent any attempt to even explore those questions... who cares?

Though one might be tempted to ascribe the kiss of death to her defense of the unknown communications director, a few things are missing from this piece, something a real journalist, or at the least, a competent blogger, would have provided.

Uh, what is the name of the former communications director? It might be helpful.

How about a link to the offending piece, or at the very least, the date the piece was printed.

Shouldn't McBride be up front and state she previously worked for Journal Communications before writing a shoddy rip piece?


Why is she still teaching journalism classes? Stop the presses.

McBride, Again (again)

Jessica McBride displayed her usual lack of depth recently when commenting on the lack of media coverage for the winner of the National Spelling Bee ... a home schooler. Her post consisted of this:

Michelle Malkin on the media's bias by ignoring this angle.

Malkin and McBride must have taken the same classes in blogging. Malkin's post consisted of this:

Spelling bee champ was home-schooled
By Michelle Malkin · June 01, 2007 03:13 PM
But you wouldn't know it from the MSM coverage.

The reporting skills of these two are astounding. The fact is, home school kids have been doing well in the National Spelling Bee for some time now. Back in June 2000, they took the top three spots in the contest. Good for them. But, Jessica ... it is no longer news.