This should add yet more excitement to this year’s already hysterical presidential race.

Foes of the president are salivating over a description of Kitty Kelly’s forthcoming tell-all about George Bush and his kin. “The Family: the Real Story of the Bush Dynasty” goes on sale Sept. 14, and the description on Amazon.com promises that Kelley — who made international headlines with her scathing Nancy Reagan bio — will reveal “the matriarchs, the mistresses, the marriages, the divorces, the jealousies, the hypocrisies, the golden children, and the black sheep” of the first family.

Perfect timing. I’ve never been a fan of Kelley and her voyeuristic tell-alls, but I may just shell out the cash for a copy of this one.

You may be surprised.

“I believe Jim Rassmann when he says that Kerry saved his life by pulling him out of a Vietnam river while under fire. Rassmann is a former Green Beret, a former police officer and a long time registered Republican until earlier this year. If he says John Kerry is a hero, nobody should doubt it. Rassmann has earned the right to be trusted and insulting his testimony is way out of line …

“It is absolutely wrong for Americans to condemn Kerry’s war record because he demonstrated provable valor. However, those who distrust him do deserve to be heard although facts not emotion should be demanded.

“I think the Swift Boat political advertisement calling Kerry a charlatan is in poor taste, and if this kind of thing continues it might well backfire on the Kerry haters. Most Americans are fair minded, and bitter personal attacks do not go down well with folks who are not driven by partisanship.”

Answer can be found here>. He must have been drinking.

In addition, today Josh marshall blasts the SBVFT in one of his angriest posts ever, citing an exchange between Slate’s Jacob Weisberg and Will Saletan.

What Weisberg also makes clear is how ridiculous it is to even compare the Swift Boat ad with those now being run by Moveon.org. One has demonstrable falsehoods, while the other contains two statements which are certainly true and have been reported by newspapers around the country (viz, that Bush got into the Guard with family connections and was later grounded) and another that is almost certainly true but not provable from available evidence (viz, that he ‘went missing’).

There is a great desire among journalists to appear even-handed in such cases and create equivalences where there simply are none. And this is a great case of that.

This is the sort of character assassination that our domestic Falange specializes in, the sort of effort that the standard Washington types usually lament as a grievous wrong several years after it happens, but never at the time. The effort is being put together by the president’s supporters. He is benefitting greatly from it. And he and his aides have gone out of their way not to criticize it in any way.
….

As Weisberg puts it, “The ad is a carefully crafted lie … beyond vile.”

Unfortunately, lies like this, once uttered, are impossible to counter in their entirety, just as mud thrown against a wall makes a terrible mess even though it doesn’t stick. The only way to counter such misdeeds is to shine a light on those cynical and deceitful enough to seek to gain from them. That would be the president and his supporters. But on this front most of the media are content to act as indifferent bystanders to the offense.

If you read nothing else today, read Marshall’s post.

As Christmas-in-Cambodia-obsessed Republicans high-five one another over embarrassing Kerry with dirt that only they can see, some old-fashioned record-checking shows beyond doubt that at least one of the Swift Boats Cretins for Bush, Larry Thurlow, is a bullshitter.

Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry’s most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.

In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry’s claim that the Massachusetts Democrat’s boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day. But Thurlow’s military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to “enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire” directed at “all units” of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat “despite enemy bullets flying about him.”

As one of five Swift boat skippers who led the raid up the Bay Hap River, Thurlow was a direct participant in the disputed events. He is also a leading member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group of Vietnam veterans dismayed by Kerry’s subsequent antiwar activities, which has aired a controversial television advertisement attacking his war record.

Read the article for yourself, and see how Thurlow’s statement in the SWBFT affidavit (“I never heard a shot”) directly contradicts his military records. The article also makes it pretty clear that his fury over Kerry stems from Kerry’s anti-war activities.

One day, when we can all be a little more clear-eyed about this nonsense, we will look back at this and see one of the most shameful episodes in America’s political history. Certainly the most shameful I’ve ever witnessed.

In the movie Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, one of the heroes contracts malaria at his re-education camp, and they treat him by hitting him repeatedly with sticks of a special wood. I was intrigued by this, as I’d never heard of such a treatment and it seemed to cure him quickly. Now I see that this cure was developed by the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution and is now becoming internationally accepted as the disease becomes increasingly immune to traditional treatments. It may well revolutionize our approach to dealing with malaria.

I enjoyed browsing through this new expat blog. from an English-teacher in Xi’an. It shows promise. (And he agrees with me that the CCP’s banning of the Chinese Peasants’ Survey is a bad thing, so he’s obviously smart!) Have a look.

Modernization and the Three Gorges Dam are among the catalysts for vanishing dialects and greater adoption of putonghua.

The original 27,000 residents of Shenzhen, a former sleepy fishing village, have melted into today’s metropolis of four million – and so has the local dialect they used to speak.

Similarly, mass migration of entire villages along the Yangtze River to make way for the Three Gorges Dam project and the scattering of their residents, has sounded the death knell for the villagers’ local dialects.

Modernisation is posing a greater threat to China’s more than 1,000 dialects than the government’s efforts to popularise putonghua or Mandarin since 1955.

‘The modernisation process is a main reason for the decline of dialects,’ said assistant professor Jing Wendong of the Central University for Nationalities.

The popularisation of putonghua – the national language based on the Beijing dialect – only quickened the pace of decline, he added.

So is this a good thing or a bad thing? It’s always sad to see aspects of local culture be wiped out by the bulldozer of progress. But in this case, I have to lean toward thinking this is a good thing. Ideally, those affected would be able to retain their dialects and adopt putonghua — just like the Shanghairen have done.

That’s the topic of discussion in this wonderful post that has apparently kicked up quite a storm in the blogosphere. Quite remarkable, how the writer approaches this emotionally charged subject with clarity and objectivity. The comments are eye-opening; I can only conclude the Little Green Footballers heard about the post and attacked en masse. Go see just how nuts these guys can be.

Link via Instapundit (yeah, I read him now and then).

The three most controversial decisions that Li Peng made. including crushing the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, were not his decisions at all, but were forced upon him by Deng Xiaoping. That’s according to an article Li wrote — one of the only times in writing he’s referred to the TS crackdown.

Li’s article was among several from former leaders published in the journal to mark the centenary of Deng’s birth, the Post reported.

But it was the only one to refer directly to the 1989 military crackdown.

“In the spring and summer of 1989, a serious political disturbance took place in China,” Li wrote.

“Comrade Deng Xiaoping — along with other party elders — gave the party leadership their firm and full support to put down the political disturbance using forceful measures.”

….

Li also revealed some of his feelings when he was appointed premier in 1988, describing himself as a timid apprentice who needed encouragement from Deng, the Post reported.

“Comrade Xiaoping said, ‘What I am worried is that you are not bold enough to carry out your work. You have to learn hard and train yourself in work in order to make yourself more mature,'” Li wrote.

Li also wrote that it was Deng who ignored opposition in Hong Kong — which neighbors Guangdong — and pushed for the building of the Daya Bay nuclear plant.

Additionally, Li described Deng as the “main decision maker” behind the Three Gorges Dam project.

Based on all I’ve read about Li in the past, including but not exclusive to how he was the leader most detested by the TS students, I am highly skeptical. Li always struck me as the ideal lackey, eager to delight his masters by going the extra 9 yards, no matter how ghastly his assignment. If he thinks this is going to get him off the hook….

UPDATE: A better piece in terms of explaining the origins of the article and when Li wrote it can be found here.

I always found it intriguing, the way Catholic priests in Beijing have to swear their allegiance to the CCP and not the Vatican. Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao is, in effect, their pope. And it’s strongly recommended you don’t rock the religious boat.

A U.S.-based Christian rights group says China has detained eight Catholic priests who are loyal to the Vatican.

The U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation says Chinese police swept through a small village in Hebei Province last week looking for priests who support the pope.

A statement released by the foundation alleges that 20 police cars surrounded the town, and police then went door to door until they captured the eight men, along with two seminary students.

…..

Separately, Reuters news service quoted the Buddhist Foundation of America on Wednesday as saying China had arrested a “living Buddha” for violating Chinese policy on religious practice.

The religious leader was reportedly jailed during a ceremony celebrating a recently renovated Buddhist temple in Inner Mongolia.

Mr. Becquelin says Chinese laws restricting religious activity are all-encompassing, and punishment for violators can be severe. “Technically, anyone who practices religion outside of the state control system is liable to punishment, including administrative detention, sentence to labor camp or even criminal sentences,” said Nicolas Becquelin.

I know, I know, things are getting better (well, at least some things). It just bothers me, to see a country making such magnificent strides in so many areas to continue to repress its people like this.

Dave Neiwert puts the whole thing in perspective, as usual

The “Swift Boat Veterans” topic is on all the lips of the conservatives. Just like Vince Foster’s suicide, the rabid right thinks that it has finally latched onto just the right personal smear (the kind in which it specializes) for bringing down John Kerry.

It’s all that conservatives want to talk about, at least among themselves. This weekend, my brother-in-law — a Mr. Oxycontin fan and a guy who roots for politicians like he roots for football teams — and his equally clueless cousin were exchanging verbal high-fives over all the Swift Boat talk.

I got angry and told them this was the scummiest kind of politics I could remember seeing in a long time, which was saying a lot. “You want to see scummy politics,” the cousin told me, “just wait till Kerry gets going.”

Right.

Problem is, the Kerry people aren’t even punching back. Yet.

Look, I understand. What we should be talking about in this election is the fact that we lost over 2 million jobs in the USA under this administration. We should be talking about a federal deficit that has ballooned to a record $435 billion. We should be talking about the diversion from a serious “war on terror” in invading Iraq and how it has harmed our national security. We should be talking about the outing of CIA agents, and the setting of energy policy by consulting with corporate interests, and the concrete degradation of environmental standards.

But we’re not. We now have a thoroughly trivialized press corps, which is now busliy feeding the maw of a conservative movement that demands attention to truly insignificant personal smears whose entire purpose is to attack liberals and non-conservatives. Serious issues are “boring” and do little for your ratings.

This should be the No. 1 issue to all of us bloggers: the disgraceful trivialization of the media, which refuses to call the administration on issues that really matter, and instead spends countless hours going over non-issues planted by PR people to distract us all from the government’s malfeasances. Ann Richards is a lesbian. John McCain had an illegitimate black child and wasn’t really a war hero. Al Gore said he invented the Internet. John Kerry’s recollections of a 33-year-old incident in or near Cambodia are inconsistent (heavens!). Kerry once said it was medals he threw in protest 30-some years ago but later said they were ribbons (must be a congenital liar, no?).

As Dave says, by dwelling on such idiocies, debate on the issues that really matter to us — health care, education, the environment, that war in Iraq (remember?), etc. — are stifled, and the political discussion is reduced to meaningless drivel. Like, how dare Kerry use the girlie word “sensitive”? (Never mind the context.) And that is what our political dialogue has been reduced to.

This didn’t just happen in a vacuum. It’s not just that the media have become trivialized; they have allowed themselves to be trivialized. It was a deliberate, carefully architected strategy implemented by our friends Karen Hughes and Karl Rove, and our media have only rarely demonstrated the cojones to fight back.

This is a topic I plan to expand upon as soon as I finish the new book I’m reading, All the President’s Spin, by the fellows who bring us the invaluable Spinsanity site. There’s only one thing I’ll say about their book for now: it’s a masterpiece.

Update: Another great Kevin Drum post on this kerfuffle.