CARACAS, Venezuela -- On Monday afternoon, August 16, dozens of people assembled in the Altamira Plaza, a public square in a residential neighborhood here that has come to symbolize nonviolent dissent in Venezuela. The crowd was there to question the accuracy of the results that announced a triumph for President Hugo Chávez in Sunday's recall referendum.

Within one hour of the gathering, just over 100 of Lt. Col. Chávez's supporters, many of them brandishing his trademark army parachutist beret, began moving down the main avenue towards the crowd in the square. Encouraged by their leader's victory, this bully-boy group had been marching through opposition neighborhoods all day. They were led by men on motorcycles with two-way radios. From afar they began to taunt the crowd in the square, chanting, "We own this country now," and ordering the people in the opposition crowd to return to their homes.

All of this was transmitted live by the local news station. The Chávez group threw bottles and rocks at the crowd. Moments later a young woman in the square screamed for the crowd to get down as three of the men with walkie-talkies, wearing red T-shirts with the insignia of the government-funded "Bolivarian Circle," revealed their firearms. They began shooting indiscriminately into the multitude.

A 61-year-old grandmother was shot in the back as she ran for cover. The bullet ripped through her aorta, kidney and stomach. She later bled to death in the emergency room. An opposition congressman was shot in the shoulder and remains in critical care. Eight others suffered severe gunshot wounds. Hilda Mendoza Denham, a British subject visiting Caracas for her mother's 80th birthday, was shot at close range with hollow-point bullets from a high-caliber pistol. She now lies sedated in a hospital bed after a long and complicated operation. She is my mother.

[A review of Hugh Hewitt's book, If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat , originally posted on Amazon.]


The results of this year's presidential election boil down to one simple question: does America want to win the war against terrorism? The choice between the two political parties will determine the answer. All other issues are beside the point if we cannot defend ourselves. If America votes Republican, it chooses to keep up the fight and America will win. Should it vote Democrat, America will suffer unspeakable loss of life and liberty because the Democrats won't take the fight to our terrorist enemies.

Given the high stakes involved, everyone who cares about the country's defense should get this book. This reviewer ex-Democrat turned Republican reviewer strongly recommends it. Consider this book the serious voter's guide to the 2004 elections.

Gaylan King is Director of Security & Business Development for Gulfconsultec, Ltd., a business consulting firm based in Kuwait. I think you’ll his description of doing business in Iraq fascinating -JW


...We drove on to reach Baghdad by dusk. In late afternoon we stopped at a regular truck stop to eat a late lunch; our Iraqi passengers recommended it. The single room was large, clean and filled with 100-150 young Iraqi truck drivers. I was the only obvious Western in the room (I doubt they see many of us at this place). The room quieted and then someone gave me the, "thumbs up", signal, which I returned. Then everyone started smiling and saying, "Welcome!" and so on.

That is really a gratifying experience; no one was frowning in the corner and whispering. The food was delicious. Iraq has the best-tasting vegetables and fruit and meat; this is an accepted fact. The waiters immediately cover the whole table with every kind of salad, pasta, vegetable and fruit imaginable, plus several kinds of Arab bread, which is simply delicious! After enough time this is removed and the main course is served. Mine happened to be a large chicken leg on a bowl of really delicious rice. It was the perfect size for a perfect meal.

Just then, our waiter, a good-looking 25 year-old man with crew cut hair, no beard or mustache, and a great smile, leaned down to me, gave the "thumbs up" sign and said, "George Bush good!" He then flipped the thumb to the down position and said, "Kerry bad!" We both laughed hysterically! All of his buddies were watching and agreeing it was a great moment.

I shook every one of their hands before we left; it was great fun and this kind of humor is one of the reasons I enjoy the Iraqis so much; they are educated, intelligent people and their land is the probable location for the very beginning of everything human. They were never wandering nomadic herdsmen as were the Gulf Arabs.

In driving around the country over the past year with my 12 year-old son Jackson to complete his Nifty Fifty quest (to experience and learn something memorable in each of all 50 states), I’ve noticed two things. First is the proliferation of cell phone towers that have sprouted everywhere - and second, how few of them are connected to Sprint.

From the beaches of Oregon to the farmlands of Iowa, from the shores of Maine to the Gulf Coast of Alabama, from literally scores and scores of locations across the breadth and width of the US, my Sprint phone blinks “Searching For Service.”

Leslie Chase tells me inside activity is positive and there are several buys out on Sprint stock. Maybe that’s in anticipation of Sprint being bought out and merged with a competitor. If a merger turns out to be a chimera, then I’d say Sprint is a short for sure. No matter how many ads with the guy in a black overcoat Sprint runs, they won’t make up for lousy and nonexistent service.

All indications are that the Swiftees’ offensive against Hanoi John is severely damaging the Kerry/Edwards candidacy. The television ads by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the #1 bestseller on Amazon, Unfit For Command, have credibly assaulted the basis for Kerry’s campaign: that his self-proclaimed status as a “war hero” during 4 months in Vietnam qualify him to be President of the United States.

However… in the famous words of Al Jolson: “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” The Swiftees have prepared an October Surprise for Hanoi John that is going to blow his candidacy out of the water. I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you the television and radio ads have already been taped, and they are going to have an impact like an elephant sitting on a donkey.

The Swiftees have three things in abundance: money, brains, and balls. They know exactly how to go for the jugular, they have the dough to do it, and they are saving their best shot for last. The Democrats will not know what hit them and will not know how to retaliate. Get set folks. The Kerry Train Wreck is not going to be a pretty sight.

When John Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971, he admitted that he had probably broken the law by going to Paris and meeting with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong leaders. (From page 188 of the hearing record: "I realize that even my visits in Paris . . . in a sense are on the borderline of private individuals negotiating, et cetera. I understand these things."

The prohibition against private individuals negotiating--which has been on the criminal statute books since John Adams was President--is contained in 18 U.S.C. Section 953 and is a felony.)

I was serving my second tour of duty in Vietnam at the time, and while I was painfully aware of the lies Kerry was telling Congress and the American people about what was happening in Vietnam (pretending to speak for "all" Vietnam veterans, calling us "war criminals," saying 60-80 percent of us were "stoned" twenty-four hours a day, and the like), I was unaware until recently that he was also involved in exploiting the families of American POWs in Vietnam.

The Kerry Democrats have in reality proposed the platform most contrary to economic growth and jobs creation in U.S. history. They are betting the news media will be too dumb or willfully blind to notice and the Republicans too incompetent to explain the reality of the Democrats' proposals to the American people.

The Democrats have handed the Republicans a golden opportunity to set forth a true economic growth and jobs creation plan. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear the Bush administration and the Republicans have the skills and bold thinking to take advantage of the opportunity presented.

The Democrats are good at selling falsehoods, and the Republicans are lousy at selling the truth.