I've been working on a post, but today
VICTOR DAVIS HANSEN says

EVERYTHING THAT NEEDS SAYING
[hat-tip Jewish World Review]


The other
D-Day

Sixty-three years ago this week, we landed on the Normandy beaches. As on each anniversary of June 6, 1944, much has been written to commemorate the bravery and competence of the victorious Anglo-American forces.

All true. But as we ponder this achievement of the Greatest Generation that helped lead to the surrender of Nazi Germany less than a year later, we should remember that the entire campaign was, as Wellington said of Waterloo, a near-run thing.

Our forefathers made several mistakes. They attacked nonexistent artillery emplacements. Planes dropped paratroopers far from intended targets. Critical landing assignments on Omaha Beach were missed.

Once they left shore, it got worse. Indeed, D-Day was soon forgotten in the nightmare of GIs being blown apart in the Normandy hedgerows by well-concealed, entrenched German panzers.

Apparently, no American planners — from Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall down to the staff of Allied Supreme Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower — had anticipated either the difficulty of penetrating miles of these dense thickets or the deadliness of new German model tanks and anti-tank weapons. So we landed in Europe with the weaponry we had — and it was in large part vastly inferior to that of the Wehrmacht .

The most brilliant armored commander in U.S. history, George S. Patton, had been sacked from theater command for slapping an ill soldier the prior year in Sicily. Gens. Omar N. Bradley and Bernard L. Montgomery lacked his genius and audacity — and tens of thousands of Allied soldiers were to pay for Patton's absence at Normandy.

We finally broke out of the mess, after using heavy bombers to blast holes in the German lines. But again, these operations were fraught with foul-ups.

On two successive occasions we bombed our own troops, altogether killing or wounding over 1,000 Americans, including the highest-ranking officer to die in the European Theater, Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair. The nature of his death was hidden from the press — as were many mistakes and casualties both leading up to and after Normandy.

When the disaster in the bocage near the Normandy beaches ended over two months after D-Day, the victorious Americans, British and Canadians had been bled white.

Altogether, the winners of the Normandy campaign suffered a quarter-million dead, wounded or missing, including almost 30,000 American fatalities — losing nearly 10 times the number of combat dead in four years of fighting in Iraq....

....While we were ground up in the hedgerows, in the Pacific theater thousands of American amphibious troops were lost during the Marianas campaign. True, we kept winning gruesome amphibious assaults, but we didn't seem to learn much from them.

Instead, far worse carnage lay in store at places named Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

All these bloodbaths near the end of the war were characterized by the sheer heroism of the American soldier — who suffered terribly from intelligence failures and poor leadership of his superiors.

What can we learn, then, on this anniversary of the Normandy campaign?

By any historical measure, our forefathers committed as many strategic and tactical blunders as we have in Afghanistan and Iraq — but lost tens of thousands more Americans as a result of such errors. We worry about emboldening Iran by going into Iraq; the Normandy generation fretted about empowering a colossal Soviet Union.

Of course, World War II was an all-out fight for our very existence in a way many believe the war against terror that began on 9/11 is not. Even more would doubt that al-Qaida jihadists in Iraq pose the same threat to civilization as the Wehrmacht did in Europe.

Nevertheless, the Normandy campaign reminds us that war is by nature horrific, fraught with foolish error — and only won by the side that commits the least number of mistakes. Our grandfathers knew that. So they pressed on as best they could, convinced that they needn't be perfect, only good enough, to win.

The American lesson of D-Day and its aftermath was how to overcome occasional abject stupidity while never giving up in the face of an utterly savage enemy. We need to remember that now more than ever.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and military historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. [his website here]

Winefred observes: See the German POW's sitting on the ground in a row. They are not handcuffed or hooded or on their knees. They are disarmed; they wait; their guards look genial. Maybe that's their reward for never having been part of a cell that plotted car-bomb attacks on civilians, never having constructed suicide belts to be worn by their sisters or mothers, never having beheaded anyone and danced in his blood while ululating for a video camera. If they'd been concentration camp guards things would have gone harder for them, but as far as we know they were just grunts on the battlefield.

There are parallels from war to war-- but there are differences too.

LOST LUGGAGE CHRONICLES -- PART DEUX

[AIR CANADA -- BUSINESS AS USUAL]



If I wanted my holiday to end in ruins, they'd look like this:


























Just returned from splendid family doin's, as we graduated the last of


-- four generations represented, lots of pomp and circumstance, toasting and blubbering, ooh-ing and coo-ing, and all the good stuff. Enough good fun to make some among us forget that their flights had been delayed by hours-- but heck, that was all about thunderstorms.

However, it's tough to come away from such good times, to board the little plane familiar from so many trips...

[no, I'm not kidding -- this is it -- the Beechcraft 1900] ...
and have it all come apart. [the travel experience, not the plane -- this time]

The Little Beechcraft Engine That Probably Could holds 19 people. I have never yet been on one filled to capacity-- until today.

The reader will recall that the last unhappy adventure on this same route involved the same plane carrying 6 [SIX] passengers and 6 [SIX] pieces of luggage, of which one [mine] failed to appear. It was eventually reclaimed after much misery about two weeks later.

Today, as noted, the plane was filled. The perky blonde pilot (it's too small for an attendant) approached those sitting at the emergency exits to 'splain how they work. A dignified white-haired gentleman with a thick French accent was clearly distracted and not listening-- he pointed out the window opposite him and said, "The luggage." The perky pilot didn't click to the message right away, so the gentleman 'splained it to her: he had seen his luggage on a motorized cart being driven away from the plane.

Yes, Miss Perky 'splained, getting less perky and more condescending-- you see, when there is a large amount of luggage the plane can't carry all the weight so some of the luggage has to be "bumped."

The explanation is so absurd that it takes a minute or so to grasp what this woman is saying in Anglais: when the plane is carrying 19 passengers, it is unable to carry the 38 pieces of luggage those passengers are legally permitted to check. This is secret knowledge which rarely comes to light because under normal circumstances (a) this plane is never full, and (b) this route caters to business commuters who never bring much checked baggage.

This is secret knowledge to which many people are privy, with the glaring exception of the passengers who have never been informed that their legally permitted luggage isn't actually permitted on this plane.

What ensued was an absurd conversation between Pesky Pilot and gentleman as to what his options were: he could sigh and accept that his luggage was sitting out on the tarmac and would (hopefully) follow him later on the next flight; he could deplane, retrieve the luggage, and take his lumps as to arranging for a later flight. "Is there another flight after this?" He asked. "I don't know-- I'm just the pilot, I don't have any information about the schedule."

That, my friends, was a cool-headed, bald-faced LIE. Pilots assigned to the PVD-YYZ-Beechcraft-run just fly back and forth on that one-leg route all day long. They know exactly when it flies. They may not know if seats are available, or if it will be cancelled due to low reservation numbers. But they know the daily schedule like their own names.

She continued to claim ignorance of anything relevant, and told the increasingly impatient assembled passengers that we couldn't get moving until the gentleman had heard all she had to say about deploying the emergency exit door.

Finally the passenger in question accepted his fate, and agreed to proceed to his weekend convention without any of his belongings. Turns out he was one of several on the plane going to the American Society for Microbiology's 107th Annual General Meeting at the Metro Convention Centre. I suspect they will not be returning for another 107 years.

So we departed PVD with about half a baggage-cart of luggage sitting on the ground. We arrived at YYZ and watched as three full baggage-carts of luggage were removed from our little planette (we sat and watched while we waited 10 minutes for the gate agent to arrive, so she could assist us with deplaning-- presumably by standing outside and pointing to the door-- check out the plane again, above, and try to figure out what else a gate agent might possibly be needed for).

We took the inexplicably long bus-ride to the terminal, passed through Customs fairly quickly, and arrived at the baggage carousel just in time for the buzzer-signal that our bags were about to emerge. The conveyor belt spat out about 6 or 8 bags. That was it. No more. No soup for you.

The majority of the 19 passengers stumbled in disbelief toward the lost luggage desk, manned, as usual, by only two or three harried people. Forms, descriptions, promises, all played out in the ritualistic dance and dialogue of
the deaf. We plan to return to the airport this evening, get our permission slip from Lost and Found, and wait to be escorted, two-by-two, into the sacred spinning precincts of the baggage carousels, and try to reclaim what is rightfully ours: 6 [SIX] checked bags, belonging to three of us, some of which we know were left behind and others of which may just have gone AWOL between the plane and the terminal.

We will face down the typically clueless, helpless, graceless, defensive, rude, and ethically-challenged Air Canada employees who go through the motions of carrying out the business of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority-- neither institution capable of grasping the basic organizing principle behind a police lineup or a Rockettes kick-line.

This blog stands behind its previous pronouncement on this issue:

If the only way to get to Heaven was on Air Canada, I wouldn't go.

When my mood improves, I will wax eloquent on the emotional passage when the last fledgling leaves the nest, and on the the unfathomable cuteness of the Grandchild. They deserve a better frame of mind than this.

PRINCE HARRY TO MISS THE "BIG SHOW"

The word over the wire is that Britain's Prince Harry (Henry-- the Spare, not the Heir) will not get his way on the subject of his military deployment, having been denied the chance to earn his stripes in Iraq.

I feel for the kid-- as a military parent I know that, despite the obvious dangers, there is a sense in which any member of the professional military wants to be a part of the landmark action of his particular era, to be able to say that he did as hard a duty as any of his comrades and will thus always be able to see the lay of the land through that shared lens.

But it is equally clear that Prince Harry's presence would plant an extra bed-sheet-sized target on the back of every British soldier in proximity to him, for kidnap, assassination, and whatever else the beasts of Basra could manage.

We had an interesting dinner a couple of weeks ago with a couple who have between them (and whose children therefore share with them) multiple British Commonwealth passports/nationalities, which explains why these residents of Canada have a military son not in Afghanistan with the Princess Pats and other storied Canadian regiments, but in Basra, Iraq, with the Blackwatch. We shared with them the isolation felt by any resident of a still deeply anti-military Canada who has a son or daughter in uniform, made worse by the fact that ours fight under the flag of a different country. We (us two) at least have the advantage of living just over the border from a good 150 million people who appreciate the honour in military service and understand how we must sometimes fight to the death for certain principles-- not to mention being within arm's length of the huge network of active civilian support of military personnel and their mission.

Our friends with the son in Basra have no connection to any such network, and were so grateful to have people to talk to about the good work of their son's compatriots. I was delighted to be able to point them to the recent articles by Michael Yon, describing, with immense admiration, the hard-scrabble fighting by the Basra-based Brits.

Of one thing our newfound friends were absolutely certain: they did NOT want Prince Harry deployed anywhere near their kid. They were in agreement that a deployment to Iraq would probably be the making of this particular Royal Pain, but his ascent to manhood had every chance of exacting a price, out of the hides of others, far beyond its worth. We're all very sorry that the young fella will miss the Big Show, but that's life-- and we'd like to hang on to it, thank you.

The truth is, if he's really determined, I bet he could find his way into some hot battlefield action without all the damned fanfare-- there's more than one way to carry forward "a little touch of Harry in the night." He'd just have to morph into a real rebel instead of the conventional drinking/shagging/swastika-wearing case of arrested development he has so far been acting out in the tiresome "ne'er-do-well rebel" mode that generations of princes have affected. Instead of disappearing to the family hut in Mustique, he should go to ground for six months or so, and later let it be known that he had disappeared to Mazari Sharif. I bet it could be done. You just have to think outside the Royal Box.

Sorry kid. Better luck next war.

JERRY FALWELL (REV.)












Intellectual and theological featherweight,
physical heavyweight,
political deadweight --

McDead at 73.

Now checking out the whole 72 Virgins thing for himself.

R.I.P.*


* "RATS!!! It's Papist!"

That's right, Jerry. Neener, neener, neener!

But even Falwell probably doesnt deserve a Hitchens obit.

THE LAST WORD...


from Marine Corporal Tyler Rock [who, you'll recall, had a few choice words for Senator Harry Reid -- Rock seen here on his last day in Ramadi, having worked his way through four years of re-enlistments]

its weird not being there anymore. its almost likes ramadi is mine. thats odd to say but like i feel awkward leaving it for someone else to take care of. haha. almost like i dont think they can do the job. granted. i know they can and im glad to not be there anymore but i guess its the whole parent-child thing. all the other guys feel the same.

The New York Post wanted to know if Rock was the genuine article. So in the process of verifying his identity, he got off a few more good shots in the email exchange:

the truth is that we have done much more for the people in iraq than is posted to the people. ramadi was a terrible place in the beginning of this deployment (september). now the police in ramadi are doing patrols everyday and coming back with many, many IED’s and other explosive ordinance. the civilians are coming to us and telling us where the insurgents are. that should scream to the people back home that the iraqi’s want our help. they dont want insurgents in the area. all the insurgents are, are thugs and gangs. just in larger scale and more weapons. they terrorize the people to get what they want and the people are fed up with it. we dont “just blow things up”.

we care about the people here. we want these people to live as free as we do back home. thats why we are here. if we didnt care then why would we be working so hard to rebuild what is destroyed. we give them water. we give them food. and we respect their way of living.

with the other topic. my opinion is what i already stated in the email to pat. i am a marine in iraq that isnt getting the support from a senator that should support his fellow americans. when was the last time he was here. what does he know about us “losing” besides what he wants to believe. the truth is that we are pushing al qaeda out and we are pushing the insurgency out. we are here to support a nation.

Hat-tip for all of this to Young Americans documentarian Pat Dollard, who also provided the following clip from the Neal Boortz radio show. It's got lots of patriotic production values, which are nice but not necessary to the message. Watch and listen-- spread this word. And when push comes to shove, think about making that trip to D.C. if the day comes that we have to march on the chamber and wrestle it free from the turncoats.

SEEN ON DRUDGE:

"Bill Clinton warns of looming disasters"

Here's one:

GOP HOPEFULS DEBATE


AND THE WINNER IS:
RUN, FRED, RUN!

Things in Fred Thompson's favor:

(a) James Dobson has questioned his religious credentials.

(b) Ambassadorable Joseph Wilson the Freakin' Fourth has called him a traitor.

(c) He was smeared by the L.A. Times (for having once played a white supremacist on television).

(c) He drives a red pick-up.

(d) He found a way to stuff it to Michael Moore, Fidel Castro, and Hillary-care all in one article.

The kind of guys who've been hanging around my garden this week:


























The kind of guys who have not been hanging around my garden this week:





However, I did host
a gathering of
blackbirds
recently.

ELVIS MAY HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING...
BUT HIS BLADES OF GLORY ARE ALIVE AND WELL.

Another Saturday night of high cult-chah led us to the subtle comic stylings of Will Ferrell starring in what a former colleague of my spousal-unit might have sub-titled "Poofters on Ice" [his perennial name for certain portions of the Winter Olympics]. In Blades of Glory Ferrell forms a chalk-and-cheese pairing with his totally opposite number, a fair, lithe and easily-bruised Jon Heder, to enter a faux-Olympic event as the first male/male pairs skating team.

The finale takes place in Montréal, where indeed some of the climactic scenes were shot. But Canada provided more than just a location for this film-- without the ground-work of some of Canada's greatest skaters, there would probably be no film at all.

The principal inspiration for Ferrell's outlandish character has got to be none other than Canada's Silver Medal-winning (and Gold Medal deserving) Olympic superstar, Elvis Stojko, the man who proved single-handedly (and perhaps alone in all of history, if things keep on as they are) that being a figure-skating male need not be synonymous with being a puff-sleeved pansy. Elvis packed a great deal into his spandex suits, not least of which was a form and a persona that radiated cojones. A man of singular talent who, knowing he could never compete as one of a corral of pretty-boys, reconfigured the sport to open up a class of his own and cram it full of square shoulders and leather. [costumes by.... his mom.]

The villains of the piece, brother and sister pairs skating team of Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenburg (played by real life husband and wife team of Will Arnett and Amy Poehler), were at least marginally inspired by the sibling ice-dancing team Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay, who, like Elvis (and Toller Cranston before him-- one of the "blue peacock" rather than leather school), skated for Canada and were innovators in their field, sometimes shockingly ahead of their time.









Blades of Glory is another truly dumb-fun way to unwind at the end of a week, and while not as tight and non-stop funny as Ferrell's Talledega Nights, still offered

wonderfully unanticipated sight-gags and skewering skating-world satire, and left its audiences well-wrung out with hoots and howls of laughter.

For those of us in the Great White North (and the many adjunct fans in other countries) it was also an opportunity to reflect warmly (from a weird angle) on the fine Canajun-made skating mavericks who left their mark on the Sport of Flings.


Thanks, Elvis.





We miss ya', Hotstuff.











Addendum: Gracias to my Spanish Editrix, for correct spelling of cojones. I definitely did not mean cajones.

SOME OF HARRY REID'S "LOSERS"






















LOOK 'EM IN THE EYE AND SAY THAT, HARRY.

DARE YA.

[Hat-tip: Department of Defense,
via NationalReviewOnline @ "The Tank"]

WELCOME TO THE DAVID PETRAEUS SHOW TRIAL

General David Petraeus, top commander in Iraq, comes to Washington D.C. today just in time for his own show trial. He won’t be participating, of course, because no one involved in the trial is at all interested in hearing anything he has to say. In fact, half the elected representatives who earn make their living in the halls of Congress are uninterested in hearing the General, for fear of a head-on collision with the facts. But I digress.

The show trial is being presided over by Henry “Ratboy” Waxman, another one of California’s famous fruit exports, and the putative subject of the show trial is an investigation into the difference between The Official Story and the facts on the ground regarding the capture of Private Jessica Lynch in Iraq and the death of Corporal Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. These events took place in March of 2003 and April of 2004, respectively.

Misrepresentations and misapprehensions of the Jessica Lynch saga were thoroughly sorted out by the end of 2003, including one perfectly legitimate explanation for the belief that she had engaged in a gunfire exchange (Iraqi radio chatter had been mistranslated). This was all covered in detail by Time Magazine’s December 2003 issue, in an interview in which Lynch herself held that the genuine dangers involved in her rescue did not support the idea that it was all a “stunt.” The same interview correctly concludes that both the opponents and the advocates of the Iraq war had tried to use her as a poster child, and she was firmly resisting the push of either side.

The fact that Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire was established and made public knowledge by May of 2004. Subsequent inquiries have revealed that false reports of the circumstances of his death were in this case deliberate, and promulgated with approval, if not compulsion, by persons high up the chain of command.

So, with their customary forward-looking sense of public responsibility, the reigning Democratic majority within the House of Representatives has commissioned its Oversight Committee to hold hearings into these two matters to finally (FINALLY!!!) get to the bottom of how the false stories came to be (however briefly) The Official Story.

I’m not going to comment on what this absurdly after-the-fact probe could possibly do for the participants closest to the events: the family of the deceased soldier, and the petite survivor. Four-plus years down the road Lynch seems to have adopted a rather different view of the meaning of her misadventure and the government’s role in it than she had at the time. For the Tillman family, time cannot heal the wound from their loss, but their peculiar take on the eternal phenomenon of friendly fire accidents could only have come to birth in the post-Vietnam era.

(And when did this perennial tragedy come to be called “fratricide”? — is this appalling coinage the work of Waxman, the Tillmans, some oily creep from the MSM?)

The important thing to recognize about the timing of this investigation is that it serves one purpose, and one only—a purpose which is not concerned in any respect whatever with obtaining justice or comfort for Lynch or the Tillmans: the purpose of the investigation at this time is to put out the message that when officials from the military or the Bush administration try to put any development in this war in a positive light, they are not to be believed. They are in the business of whitewashing whatever happens, you see, because nothing that happens can ever be good, or successful, or even a baby-step forward in anything resembling progress. The House Oversight Committee hearing into the Lynch and Tillman cases is the advance party for today’s testimony by General Petraeus, and ought more properly be called the David Petraeus Congressional Catch-22 Leg-hold Bear-Trap.

Impatient with the natural unfolding of events in the David Petraeus show-trial, Senate Majority Leader Harry “Vichy” Reid told CNN’s Dana Bash that he has already determined not to believe anything General Petraeus will say in his briefing to Congress—at least anything positive—because he, Harry Reid, knows better, and knows that nothing is working and everything is lost. (YouTube's version of this is edited-- HotAir is where it's at.)

There is not much to say about Harry Reid beyond the fact that he may well be the stupidest man ever to breathe the rarified air of the Senate Chamber—so stupid he doesn’t know when he is making himself look stupid on national television. I have no trouble deploring almost everything that Carl Levin or Chuck Schumer or Mrs. Clinton have to say, but I would never call them stupid people. I might not even call Ted Kennedy stupid. (Let me think about that.) But Harry Reid is just staggeringly stupid. He is also a traitor, by any definition (if it is legally possible for someone with a mental age of about 8 to be guilty of treason).

On the other hand, he could also be a great gift, if only those he has set about to denigrate and destroy would take up against him the cudgels he so kindly provides. [Ha. And then I wake up!] As usual, the Democrats show their hand by making the war in Iraq the most incendiary issue in their arsenal, and then announcing (as they did at first) that they were just too busy to hear from the General how goes the war they unanimously confirmed him to wage.

Apparently they thought better about that, and will now be showing up for the briefing (minus Granny Pelosi), to be at least present in the room while Petraeus speaks (though if they could plug their ears and sing “la-la-la-la…” while he’s talking, they probably would). It’s kind of a shame that the stupidity of their original posture dawned on them at last—we will now miss the delicious prospect of the impression it would have made on the average Amurrican. Lord knows, if we’d waited for the Republicans to shame these people into behaving like adults, we’d have to camp out with lawn chairs and sleeping bags longer than it takes to get Stones tickets.

While on the moderately-hot-seat with Dana Bash, “Vichy Harry” defended his pronouncement that the war is lost by extracting a few words from a comment by General Petraeus to the effect that “the war can’t be won militarily.”

Damn, I bet that felt good— tasted real good in the mouth while it slithered out. He’s been saving it up, and it was a thrill to let it rip.

One problem: you'd have to be really stupid to think that the rest of us are so stupid we don’t recognize when you’re quoting someone out of context, Harry. What the General said was that “military action is necessary…but not sufficient.” Stuff that under your tinfoil hat and see if it seeps in. It is noteworthy that this same context-free quotation was embraced by one of Vichy Harry’s brothers-under-the-skin, our friends at English Al-Jazeera.

Two people I do NOT want to be preached at by, thank yew:

Separated at birth??

IN THE MIX

Don Imus affair
Why doesn't anyone care that he compared the Rutgers Girls B-Ball team to the Toronto Raptors? Where is the outrage? (I think that's an insult to the girls, not the Raptors...but I've received no help on this.)

A Veteran Speaks
here ....and coins a wonderful phrase for the Left-blog-nutroots/Democratic Party/Mainstream Mediac Kabal: America's Axis of Idiots.

A Marine speaks

It was only a matter of time-- folks in the military are supposed to try and keep out of politics while in uniform, but Pat Dollard, a former self-described "Hollywood pimp" [agent] who sold his stuff, self-embedded in Iraq, and started the documentary tape rolling on our "Young Americans", has become a conduit for a couple of Marines blowing off steam at Vichy Harry Reid.

DUCK! INCOMING!!!!! Read it and WHOOP. Money quote:

yeah and i got a quote for that douche harry reid. these families need us here. obviously he has never been in iraq. or atleast the area worth seeing. the parts where insurgency is rampant and the buildings are blown to pieces. we need to stay here and help rebuild. if iraq didnt want us here then why do we have IP’s [Iraqi police] voluntering everyday to rebuild their cities. and working directly with us too. same with the IA’s [Iraqi Army]. it sucks that iraqi’s have more patriotism for a country that has turned to complete shit more than the people in america who drink starbucks everyday.... and the sad thing is after we WIN this war. people like him [Reid] will say he was there for us the whole time.

Sheryl Crow Kicks Butt
I for one am quite willing to buy that Crow was kidding when she opined on the Puffington Host that we should be limiting ourselves to a single square of toilet paper in order to save the planet. You be the judge. Sure it was a joke-- but the point is, mostly when she opens her mouth it's a joke, even if it's not.

The jig is up on Crow's personal hypocrisy, though, once The Smoking Gun got hold of her backstage requirements when on tour with her band. It's the usual giant sheaf of spoiled brat demands, including an alcohol inventory that means, if nothing else, there's going to be enough peeing to go through many, many single squares of TP.


For Once I'm Kind Of With Alec Baldwin
I could get as disgusted as anyone with Alec Baldwin when I heard the way he savaged his 11-year-old daughter on voicemail-- that is, those brief bits that I heard, because I kept clicking it off every time (and there were many) I ran into it on the tube. It was a revolting [and weirdsmobile] display of what it sounds like when an 11-year-old has a father who's only 7...(even younger than Vichy Harry)

But I can think of something even more damaging than having your father leave a message like that on your phone, and that's having the message played to hundreds of millions of strangers around the world as a news item, either as tawdry gossip or as an opening for self-righteous pundits to lure psychologists into rank malpractice by publicly analyzing people they've never met.

And the person responsible for that happening can only be Mom-- Kim Basinger. Will somebody please take this kid away from these two morons before she is permanently brain-damaged from being their personal tennis ball? Oh, and let's not forget all the media jerks who, fresh from delivering us the mad ramblings of Crazy Cho, decided to humiliate a little girl for the same reason-- "so we can all take a lesson from...." Right.

Road apples. Meadow muffins. BS.