Michael David Barrett, Alleged Erin Andrews Stalker, Gets Bail and House Arrest (VIDEO)

My earlier report is here, "Arrest in Erin Andrews Nude Video Case: Press Release, 'I Will Make Every Effort to Protect Victims of Criminal Stalking'.'

I guess the guy's dangerous enough for house arrest, "Suspected ESPN Video Voyeur Granted Bail":

A magistrate judge on Monday granted bail for an Illinois man accused of surreptitiously taping sports reporter Erin Andrews in the nude and posting the videos on the Internet.

ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was allegedly stalked by a man who posted nude videos of her on the Internet.

Michael David Barrett, 48, will return to California to face a federal charge of interstate stalking.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys agreed Barrett would be released on bail. However, Keys ordered that Barrett be confined to his home and subject to electronic monitoring, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Barrett, an insurance company employee from Westmont, Illinois, is accused of taping Andrews, an ESPN reporter, while she was nude in two hotel rooms. He then made seven videos that he posted on the Internet, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

Barrett was arrested Friday at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. He will appear in court in Los Angeles, California, on October 23, according to a statement from prosecutors in Los Angeles.

Authorities believe most of the videos were made at a Nashville, Tennessee, hotel in September 2008. The peephole into Andrews' room was altered with a hacksaw, and the images appeared to have been taken with a cell phone camera, the complaint said.

Investigators found in hotel records that Barrett had requested and received a room adjacent to Andrews' and used his home address to register for it.

Barrett allegedly attempted to sell the videos to celebrity gossip site TMZ in January 2009. TMZ did not purchase the photos, but employees of the Web site assisted in the investigation, providing information to Andrews' attorneys, authorities said. However, Barrett posted the videos to other Web sites, the criminal complaint said, with labels like "Sexy and hot blonde sports celebrity shows us her all."

"The e-mail (sent to TMZ) was linked to Barrett through a number of methods," the statement from Los Angeles prosecutors said.

Investigators found that Barrett reserved a room at a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, hotel where Andrews was staying in July 2008 but never checked in, according to the complaint and prosecutors' statement. "However, the peephole on the door where the victim stayed during that trip was altered in a similar way to the peephole found in the Nashville hotel," the statement said.

See also, the Chicago-Sun Times, "Man Accused of Stalking ESPN's Erin Andrews Allowed Bail: But Westmont Man to Be Kept on Home Confinement." And, from the New York Post, "Andrews Suspect Out on Bail, Eyed Other Women":

The accused peeping tom who allegedly stalked ESPN sports reporter Erin Andrews and uploaded her images on the Internet also spied on other women, federal prosecutors said today.

Following the hearing, a judge ruled that Michael David Barrett, 48, would have to post $4,500 bond, wear an electronic monitoring device and be barred from accessing the Internet on his computer or cell phone once he is released.

Read The Criminal Complaint Against David Barrett

Read The Search Warrant

Read The Search Warrant Affidavit

Barrett must also obey a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Plus, the Los Angeles Times, "Alleged Stalker of ESPN's Erin Andrews Ordered to Appear in L.A. Court."

Click here for my previous reports.

Queens 'Tin Can' Anarchist Held One Pound of Liquid Mercury

Last Thursday F.B.I. agents searched the home of Elliot Madison of Queens. The search was part of a "text-message and Twitter" investigation surrounding the anarchist G-20 protests in Pittsburgh in September. As the New York Times reports:

The man, Elliot Madison, 41, a social worker who has described himself as an anarchist, had been arrested in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments of crime. The Pennsylvania State Police said he was found in a hotel room with computers and police scanners while using the social-networking site Twitter to spread information about police movements.

This is an extremely interesting story. The police found a number of items during the search, including a photograph of Vladimir Lenin. Most troubling, according to the New York Post, police confiscated one pound of liquid mercury in Madison's home, as well as two boxes of ammunition. Other items, such as machetes, were considered outside of the scope of the warrant and not seized.

It turns out that Madison was working for Tin Can Comms Collective, an anarchist cell with a self-proclaimed mission to destroy the state. According the their website:

Tin Can Comms Collective is a collection of communication rebels seeking to provide useful free tools for activists fighting the State and Capitalism. We are an anarchist group that has come together to help with the communication infrastructure for the the Anti-G-20 protests this September in Pittsburgh, because: People and Information want to be Free!

Also, the Socialist Webzine explains what went down during the events, "G20 Riots in Pittsburgh – How I organized Them Via Twitter." The author of that post writes at his own website, No-State.com. Here's his bio:

I renounced my American citizenship in protest of what has become an American Empire, a nation that I see riding an express train to police state dictatorship with flags flying, anthems blaring and deluded, complicit masses cheering it along the track. Hopefully, others will be motivated to do the same by my example, though I recognize inertia as the most powerful force in human affairs.

My political philosophy — which could be variously termed anarchism, anarcho-capitalism or individualist anarchism — informs this decision, but it is my disgust over what America has become — in bloody, murderous, thieving contrast to what it professes — which motivates it.

The guy has also written:

Where there are those who are subjugated beneath the boot heel of power, by “democratic” means or otherwise, I shall support their resistance, their condemnation, their denunciation and their renunciation.

All this helps put the significance of the Queens raid in perspective. Liquid mercury is used in bomb construction. It is used in ignition switches and electrical contact triggers for explosive devices. In some bombs liquid mercury serves as a detonator for motion-activated explosions -- that is, should someone touch and move a suspicious package, the movement would cause the mercury to complete the electical charge and the bomb would explode. This is why explosive devices must be defused without being moved.

It's easy to see why police were alarmed by the discovery. Madison's home is a terrorist supply depot for the anarcho-communists organizing campaigns against "state power." It remains to be seen how large the movement becomes. The Tin Can Comms Collective was first organized for Republican National Convention in 2004, but the anarchists have been holding massive demonstrations since the Seattle anti-globalization violence in 1999.

Firedoglake writes a post in defense of the G-20 anarcho-text-messaging systems as a matter of free speech. Of course, that's to be expected from one of the more hardline blogs of the radical netroots. Like the anarchists, "Hammering" Jane Hamsher's gang is out to destroy America.

Throwing McChrystal -- and Afghanistan -- Under the Bus

From Erick Erickson, "Hiding Behind Synonyms: Obama Begins Campaign to Throw Gen. McChrystal Under the Bus." Note this quote from Erickson: "... we find ourselves staring in the face of military defeat in Afghanistan, which will lead to a cascading series of events up to and including a collapsed Pakistan followed by an Islamofascist war against India run out of Islamabad."

Read the whole thing.

Interestingly, take a look at this headline on the war: "Al Qaeda's Diminished Role Stirs Afghan Debate: Hunted by U.S. Drones, Beset by Money Problems and Finding it Tougher to Lure Young Arabs to the Bleak Mountains of Pakistan, Al Qaeda is Seeing its Role Shrink There and in Afghanistan."

The full report is at the Wall Street Journal (link). But note this:

In the political debate, al Qaeda's diminished role has bolstered the argument of those advocating a narrower campaign. They say continuing the drone campaign is sufficient to keep al Qaeda at bay, said Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University professor who has written extensively on al Qaeda. Mr. Hoffman believes that argument is misguided, however, and that if the U.S. pulls out, al Qaeda will return.

"Al Qaeda may be diminished, but it still poses a threat," he said. The debate will move to Capitol Hill Tuesday when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing on confronting al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

And this sidebar quote from the article is perfect:

Al Qaeda has a diminished role? I thought we just lost eight American troops. I guess al Qaeda is diminished as much as the recession.

Administration supporters are pushing a dishonest debate. Recall just last week at the New York Times, "Militant Group Is Intact After Mumbai Siege." And see my report, "Another Mumbai? Qaeda-Taliban-Lashkar Ready to Strike Again."

Leftists will disgregate al Qaeda from the Taliban and local tribal extremists. But the Mumbai attacks showed that the methods of terror had all the markings of an al Qaeda operation, and the home base of operations was the same spot that border attackers launched their missions against U.S. troops over the weekend.

The debate now isn't so much about U.S. success in defeating al Qaeda. It's about precipitous withdrawal.

The Obama administration will lose this war, and blood will be on the Democrats' hands.

Convicts for Convassing: ACORN Hires Prisoners for Voter Registration Drives

From Weasel Zippers, "Nevada Sec. Of State (D) On ACORN: We Can Prove It's Not Just A Few Bad Apples...It Went Much Higher Up On The Food Chain ...":

See also, "ACORN May Face Trial for First Time as Nevada Prosecutors Allege 'Widespread' Criminal Policies":

When ACORN took to Las Vegas and started playing "Blackjack" and "21," the activist group was making a far bigger gamble than it ever guessed, according to Nevada prosecutors.

There's nothing wrong with playing the tables in Vegas, but authorities say ACORN was using the names of those casino games as a cover to illegally pay workers to sign up voters as part of an illegal quota system.

A preliminary hearing Tuesday in the downtown Clark County courthouse has put ACORN on trial for the first time as a criminal defendant.

Until now, prosecutions for voter registration fraud have focused on ACORN workers, and authorities have secured guilty pleas from several who admitted to falsifying voter registration forms.

But when investigators from Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller's office raided the ACORN Las Vegas office, Ross says they found a paper trail that implicated the ACORN organization itself.

"We came across policy manuals that outline their policy of creating a quota system, which is against the law," Miller told FOX News in an interview. "This, in fact, was something that was widespread and something the organization itself knew about, and it's important to hold the organization criminally accountable as opposed to the individual field directors."

These are not nice people.

New Orleans ACORN-SEIU Property for Sale

From Don Surber, "ACORN for Sale, $835,000":

The big news from Big Government is that the ACORN Headquarters in New Orleans is up for sale. The property was also the home of Local 100 of the SEIU, the union that pushed the presidential candidacy of former ACORN lawyer, Barack Obama.

The IRS and the state filed tax liens of $548,000 and $26,026 against ACORN in New Orleans, Sweetness and Light reported.

The asking price is $835,000. The listing is here.

I just like that campaign ad spot above, "No matter how many people rise to their defense, if ACORN becomes politically toxic … game over. "

Hat Tip: Big Government.

Ann Althouse on 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

More anectodal evidence of the popularity of radical ideologies in the U.S. From Ann Althouse, "Some Thoughts on Seeing 'Capitalism: A Love Story'":

Moore shamelessly and repeatedly advocated the violent overthrow of the economic system. It was somewhat humorously or moderately presented — such as through the mouth of a cranky old man who was being evicted from his home — but it came across that Moore wants a revolution. He kept advising the workers — and the evictees — of the world to unite and shake off their chains.

Yeah, and of course Moore's a classic left-wing hypocrite. See Michelle Malkin, "Capitalism-Basher Used Non-Union Labor for Film." See also, "Millionaire Filmmaker Michael Moore: ‘Capitalism Did Nothing For Me’."

Challenges Ahead for Conservatives

From Dean Esmay, "Is Conservatism Becoming More Muscular?":

Eric thinks so, but me, I’m not seeing it. Sure, people who call themselves conservatives are more angry right now, but they also seem a lot less thoughtful and well-informed than the conservatism I remember from 10, 20 years ago. A movement once full of stellar intellectual thinkers is now dominated by the likes of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. And while this may increase the movement’s strength in some areas, it diminishes it enormously in others. When the answer to every question, before you even ask it, is either “the market” or “the Bible,” how coherent can your agenda really be once you take power? If the only thesis of your movement is that our own government is always and everywhere our enemy, what exactly is that movement going to accomplish? It’s increasingly looking to me like conservatism is more of a twitch than an actual intellectual point of view. Which I find disappointing and a little disturbing, because it didn’t used to be that way.

The citation for "Eric" goes to Classical Values, "My biggest problem right now is that I can't stand Obama, but that has not translated into loving conservatism." But I'm just going to stay with Dean's comments above (Eric, a longtime libertarian, can't get in all the way with the conservative agenda). The bottom line for Dean is "what will conservatives do with all that angry energy," because they sure don't have much up their sleeves policy-wise.

I'm not exactly sure of Dean's political orientation, but I'll go with a moderately classical liberal, from what I can see of his writings so far.

In any case, the blogosphere and its media-piggybackers had the huge debate over conservatism late last year and early this one. Indeed, with all the jubilation over Barack Obama's election -- and the not unexpected hubris on the left (especially the condescending attacks on right-wing "knuckle-draggers" that continue today) -- I admit to being a little depressed at the prospects of being in the wilderness for a while. Happily, my confidence in the movement was restored with the April 15th Tax Day Tea Parties, and it's been all speed ahead since then!

Readers know I'm no super-duper philosopher. I go with my gut instincts on things, and I apply the real political science expertise I've developed in my training and teaching. As for my orientation, my initial entry at this blog lays out my transition over the last few years. See, "Welcome to American Power." Also, I don't reflexively hate any and all government, obviously so in the case of foreign policy. See, "Constitutional Conservatism," where I cite Peter Berkowitz, who argues that that those on the right need to reconcile with public-goods structures of the American state. That is, a wholesale roll-back of government is impractical, but a limitation of the expansion of the state is an imperative. Those more in favor of a state-centered federalism -- one way of advocating small-g conservatism -- obviously won't have much truck with the Berkowitz thesis. That said, "constitutional conservatism" is pragmatic and firmly based in classic conservative thought.

I've also previously cited an agenda I called "Core Values Conservatism." There I draw on the best short essay published after President Obama's election: Richard Land's, "Stay Faithful to Core Values." (In Land's model, a conservative agenda starts with the unequivocal support for life -- a total pro-life agenda -- that sweeps all the way to a Reaganite foreign and defense program. To top all of this off, I'd simply remind folks that the best book to read on what the right should be doing is Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative. Writing in 1960, perhaps Goldwater was optimistic that conservatives could actually rollback the size of government. I'm less optimistic than he was, and while Berkowitz's "constitutional conservatism" is more up my alley, Goldwater's ideals would easily satisfy the programmatic goals of those on the political right today -- and I'd happily be on board for scaling back the domestic scope of government in exchange for continued support for a robust foreign policy orientation.

But let me address this backlash we see against Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity (cited by Dean), and not to mention Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh, who also bear the brunt of leftist attacks on the movement:

First, if folks are looking for intellectuals they should go to the library (humor alert -- library or not, we're all online anyway). Actually, there's lots of good deep-thinking conservatism around, though it's out of the limelight of the polarizing debates. Berkowitz writes often at Policy Review, for example. He's joined there by a stable of great writers who straddle scholarship and policy studies. City Journal is also quite an impressive intellectual flagship. I think Heather MacDonald and Abigail Thernstrom, two Manhattan Institute scholars, represent some of the best writing on civil rights and social policy today. But talk radio and Fox News are where the conservative rubber meets the road. And that's where it's at today. We're not going back to William Buckley's urbanity on Frontline. And at that, it's not as if Buckley wasn't one to mix it up now and then: Recall Buckley in 1968 against Gore Vidal: "Now listen, you queer, stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in you goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered." No, the shock jocks on TV are simply partisan, but what they're doing is no different that what Markos Moulitsas did in the heyday of Daily Kos (i.e., hammer a polarizing agenda geared to winning ideological power).

Actually, my issues are what might be termed the right's vulnerability to racial blackmail. The Democratic-left under Obama has established the race card as its main claim to viability. The party's pushing a non-transparent socialist agenda, but to even mention that word in the context of this administration is to be branded a bigot and lynchman. Look what's happened to Robert Stacy McCain just today. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow advanced Charles Johnson's scurrilous "racist" smear on national television. Maddow's no better that the most demonic left-wing Internet troll -- it's despicable frankly. Here's the transcript:

I do think that there's a little bit of reckoning that needs to happen on the right for Sarah Palin's success. I mean, she was the vice presidential nominee, she is going to sell a kazillion books and she is the biggest brand name in Republican politics still right now. And she's chose ... Lynn Vincent, who's written a book with a white supremacist, to write her book, and she's the biggest name in Republican politics.

This is pure libel. But fighting cheap smears like this is costly, and thus she's unlikely to be challenged -- and hence her attacks are even more insidious. Robert Stacy McCain's just a stepping-stone for Maddow to smear Sarah Palin as a bigot. We've been hearing the same lies since last August. It's riduculous. Contrast to the real communists at the top ranks of the president's administration, and it's almost comical the lengths the Democrats will go in with their racist smokescreens and radical coverups.

Unfortunately, while utterly outlandish, there's an efficacy to these attacks that's disturbing. Just to be identified as one one who admires traditional Southern culture is to be attacked as a white supremist, due to the sad legacy of the Civil War and Reconstruction. My sense is that even the most principled conservatives, those who understand that in the post-civil rights era, the South has been the ideological base of the party, while at the same time being that region most thoroughly reconciled questions of race and resentment, would hesitate to claim an openly Dixie-ish ideological heritage (see The Economist, "The Southernization of America"). I have a sense that my good friend Stogie has removed the image of a Confederate cavalryman from his blog's masthead, to be replaced with images of Continental soldiers from the colonial-era, for that very reason. I guess just an image of that history is likely to bring out the race-baiting leftists, who'll defile, libel, and smear good-hearted people without the slightest bit of remorse.

This may well be a problem for conservatives. That is to say, while those of us who are activists engaged in the tea party and online right-roots movements are anti-racist through and through, those few isolated cases of extremism -- often falsely attributed to the conservative right -- are sensationalized as if folks are listening to "Dueling Banjos" all day and calling black folks "boy" or "Auntie" in a throwback to Jim Crow. Of course, the Contessa Brewers of the world world will even lie on national TV in attempting to make the charges stick.

I'd have more to say on this, and to especially to clarify some of the points here, but this post is getting long. Suffice it to say that conservatives are the ones who'll truly lead on those issues Democrats claim as their moral foundation, i.e., civil rights, education, anti-poverty, etc. Conservatives will win debates on these issues because they believe in the power of the individual. But they have to fight hard to beat back down the endless cries of racism coming from the left side of the spectrum. That's all the Democrats have, and they'll attack conservatives with race just like Chicago's Democratic youth thugs beat and killed Derrion Albert last month.

Penelope Cruz in Vanity Fair

Some longtime readers might remember my admiration for Penelope Cruz. See, "Penelope Cruz for Best Supporting Actress - UPDATE! CRUZ WINS!." Well it turns out that the November issue of Vanity Fair boasts a feature article on the Spanish actress, "The Passions of Penélope":

With phenomenal performances in some recent winners, including last year’s Woody Allen gem, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, thanks to which she now has an Oscar on her mantel, Cruz is poised to become a new member of the tiny firmament of actresses who began their careers in a language other than English and went on to become truly international stars: the Marlene Dietrichs, Greta Garbos, Ingrid Bergmans, Sophia Lorens, Anouk Aimées, Catherine Deneuves, Jeanne Moreaus, and Liv Ullmanns. Like some of those actresses, Cruz isn’t cookie-cutter pretty—she even has a bit of a schnoz—but her unusual features come together in a memorable aria of real beauty.

Read the whole thing at the link.

Photo Credit: "The Complete Penélope Cruz."

Sarah Palin Going Rogue AutoMotivation

Just a reminder, folks: American Power's initial post, Sarah Palin: Going Rogue: An American Life, provided the awesome motivation for the Sarah Palin AutoMotivation rage that's spreading across the conservative blogosphere. High fives to Troglopundit, who's got another hot post to round-up the AutoMotivational inspirations. He points us to Carolyn Tackett's, "I Would Stay on Her Good Side":

I'm looking forward to reading Palin's book, and you can pre-order Going Rogue at the link.

Sheryl Crow Nude! Well, Actually Topless, for Cover of Los Angeles Times Magazine

Sheryl Crow has posed for a beautiful topless photo-shoot for the cover of the Los Angeles Times Magazine. See her interview, "Every Day is a Winding Road":

Every day when I went into radiation, I was already in despair because my personal life had taken a crash, and I realized I was being forced to show up for myself in a way I never had to before. I couldn’t have someone else do the radiation for me. I couldn’t have a man come in and save me, save my health, prop me up and make me better. It was me who had to lay there on a metal table with this giant alien-looking machine shooting a beam into my chest. And to lay there and think that this was less about the high-tech machinery, although that was scary, and more about my ability to handle the moment—that was empowering. It definitely jerked me into the reality that we come into this world with an incredible strength, and we learn how to be a victim, or we learn how to approach things from the standpoint that, really, things just happen, and there’s an opportunity in every challenge.

Read the whole thing here. It's almost as good as Carrie Prejean bikini pics.

Obama on Health Care: 'Somehow I'm Not Breaking Through...'

From Elizabeth Drew, at the New York Review, "Health Care: Can Obama Swing It?" She's in the tank for Obama, but always worth a read in any case:

The circumstances in which Obama has had to govern have been daunting. The polarization between the political parties is greater than ever before in modern history—particularly as the shrinking Republican Party has come to be dominated by white conservatives, if not radicals, and it enforces discipline more harshly than in the past. Lacking any real leaders now, the Republicans' vacuum has been filled by the likes of talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, whose job it is to be outrageous, and before whom Republican politicians quaver. Those who stray from the conservative orthodoxy are more likely than ever to face a challenge from the right in their next primary. (When he announced in late April that he was switching to the Democratic Party, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania forthrightly said that he didn't think he could win the Republican primary in 2010.)

The goal of the Republicans is not just to oppose Obama's policies they disagree with but to destroy his presidency. Thus the Republican opposition to health care reform is part of a larger agenda, as some Republicans have been unwise enough to admit openly. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina said in July: "If we're able to stop Obama on this [health care], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Even the Clintons governed in a more felicitous setting; the economy was rebounding and a number of moderate Republicans were willing to make deals with the administration. Now, moderate Republicans are nearly extinct. And back when the Clintons were targets of an effort to undermine Bill Clinton's presidency, the Internet and cable television weren't the instruments for repetitious and vile attacks that they are today.

With nearly all Republicans determined to oppose him, the President is almost totally dependent on the support of his own party, which is itself split between liberals and moderate-to-conservative members.

Moreover, any record of Barack Obama's first year in office has to take note of the fact that this summer, race broke open as an issue. The rise of the "birthers"—who claim he was born outside the US—and the uncommon incivility shown toward Obama by Republicans during his September 9 speech to Congress on health care suggest that a substantial segment on the right doesn't see Obama as a legitimate president. He was not just called a liar by South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson, but also confronted with boos and rude signs; and vicious comments were made about him at the anti-big government (and anti-Obama) rally in Washington the following weekend.

In fact, a number of leading Republicans, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, are concerned about the party's getting too identified, or involved with, the movement on the far right. Vin Weber, a prominent Republican and former member of Congress (and ally of Newt Gingrich when they were backbenchers), says:

There's a fringe out there that's embarrassing. While it can gin up Republican intensity, the party can't get too associated with the nutcases out there. The Republican leadership has a keen awareness of the benefits and the risks of this movement.

It's interesting to read accounts like this because they're exclusively Beltway-centric. It's one of those examples of elite journalists condescending to average folks who just don't know WTF is going on. And I while I omitted the introduction, be sure to check it out. Drew claims that the stimulus is working and she quotes President Obama as saying, "I've got to step up my game in terms of talking to the American people about issues like health care. I've said to myself, somehow I'm not breaking through ..."

Well, actually, the president's getting through just fine. Folks just don't like what they're hearing. See Instapundit, "Fear of Losing Private Health Insurance Trumps ‘Public Option’." Plus, the Blog Prof, "Supposedly Neutral Consumer Reports Running Pro-Obamacare Ads!"

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UPDATE: Linked at Ric's Rulez, "The Nostalgia is Getting Strong."

'Oba-Mao' Shirts Hot Sellers for Chinese Revolution's 60th Anniversary!

From the People's Cube, "Obama Shirts More Popular than Che in China":

Rejoice comrades! Our Dear Leader has been immortalized in China in the form of ObaMao shirts. If the ungrateful American public rejects Obama's progressive policies, perhaps he should move his family to China where he is appreciated.

Rachel Maddow Attacks Robert Stacy McCain as White Supremacist

From Pat in Shreveport, "Rachel Maddow Attacks Stacy McCain":

Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press this morning, called Robert Stacy McCain a white supremacist. I'm thinking she's been listening to Charles Johnson a little too much.

The panel was discussing the Sarah Palin book, Going Rogue, when Maddow offers her criticism of Lynn Vincent, Palin's ghostwriter. Maddow explains that Lynn Vincent "co-authored a book with a guy who is widely believed to be , and I believe him to be, a white supremacist. So she's [Palin] chosen Lynn Vincent who has written a book with a white supremacist to write her book." Robert Stacy McCain and Lynn Vincent co-authored Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party in 2006.

Slide on over to 8:00 for the quote.

Go to this link for the video (opens in a new window).

I've already testified with all my strength to Robert Stacy McCain's goodness, fairness, and racial evenhandedness. I know this is not a racist man. But for whatever statements he's made, or that have falsely been attributed to him, the radical left is using Robert Stacy McCain to score libelously cheap political points.

I've noted as well that Charles Johnson's turned his entire blogging platform into destroying the reputations of others. You can check his page right now on a cached Google copy. I don't see the Maddow video up yet, but he's got running headlines including fabulist tales such as "Sarah Palin's Book Ghostwritten by Associate of White Supremacist McCain."

And to be clear, what evidence does anyone need anymore that Charles Johnson is no longer conservative? From Rachel Maddow to Andrew Sullivan, Little Green Footballs is the go-to libel blogging site par excellence.

And don't miss Saber Point, "If You Just HAVE to Visit "Little Green Footballs,' Here's the Way To Do It."

Also, nothing yet on today's news from Robert Stacy McCain, but see yesterday's entry, "Sometimes You Have to Wonder . . .

Eight U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: Aggressive Attack Shows Insurgents Gaining at AF-PAK Border

It's the big foreign policy story this morning. Both NYT and WaPo have major reports. The fighting took place in the remote eastern section of Afghanistan, in Nurestan province. The news reports describe a brazen offensive featuring tribal militias making cross-border raids. From the Washington Post's report:

The U.S. military said it was not immediately clear how many insurgents were involved in the fighting. The attack involved Taliban fighters and appeared to be led by a local commander of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin insurgent group, which is run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former mujaheddin leader during the Soviet war in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

The attack took place in a sparsely populated area of forested mountains near the town of Kamdeysh. The deputy police chief of Nurestan province, Mohammad Farouq, said the insurgents intended to seize control of the Kamdeysh area and that hundreds took part in the fighting. He said more than 20 Afghan soldiers and police have gone missing since the fighting began and may have been taken hostage.

"Americans always want to fight in Afghanistan," said Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, who took credit for the attack by telephone. "If the Americans want to increase their troops, we will increase our fighters as well."

He said the battle began about 6 a.m. Saturday and involved 250 Taliban fighters. He claimed that dozens of American and Afghan soldiers were killed, along with seven Taliban fighters. Mujahid also claimed that the district police chief and intelligence chief were among the hostages, but that could not be confirmed.

I'm reminded of how I felt in November 2006. Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek's liberal but respected foreign policy analyst, published a heavy-duty essay entitled "The Drawdown Option." The piece threw down the gauntlet on the Iraq war. Go all in or get out. My response, amid the frustrations, was to give the U.S. a year to turn things around. We had face over two years of catastrophic danger in the war, and the radical left had long declared the conflict a debacle. I'm not quite there yet on Afghanistan, but the way the media's spinning this conflict - and the way the Obama administration is positioning itself for a cut-and-run -- I may well soon be.

I wrote of the stakes in Afghanistan last week, following a New York Times report indicating that the Mumbai terrorists were gearing up for a new round of conflict. See, "Another Mumbai? Qaeda-Taliban-Lashkar Ready to Strike Again." It turns out that Dan Twining, at Foreign Policy, wrote a report last week as well, "The Stakes in Afghanistan Go Well Beyond Afghanistan":

The problem with the current debate over Afghanistan is that it is too focused on Afghanistan. There is no question that the intrinsic importance of winning wars our country chooses to fight -- to secure objectives that remain as compelling today as they were on September 12, 2001 -- is itself reason for President Obama to put in place a strategy for victory in Afghanistan. But the larger frame has been lost in the din of debate over General McChrystal's leaked assessment, President Obama's intention to ramp up or draw down in Afghanistan, and the legitimacy of the Afghan election. In fact, it is vital for the United States and its allies to recommit to building an Afghan state that can accountably govern its people and defeat the Taliban insurgency -- for reasons that have to do not only with Afghanistan's specific pathologies but with the implications of failure for the wider region and America's place in the international system.

The facts are lost on congressional Democrats and the hardline antiwar left. But as I noted at my report above, a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will invite another attack on America on the scale of September 11. And both security experts and military personnel agree: "This is a moment in history we must not miss." What's missing is a committed and resolute civilian leadership to see to it that America gets the job done.

*********

UPDATE: There's now a thread at Memeorandum. Jules Crittenden's suggests an "Afghan Tet," which means that the insurgents were in fact decimated, but the press is reporting an American debacle:

Sounds a little like the Taliban would like to pull off an Afghan Tet. Rack up some bad headlines, drive down the poll numbers and panic Congress while the president dithers. You’ll recall that in the original Tet, the Viet Cong and North Vietnam won a Pyrrhic political victory. Though decimated, severely compromed as a fighting force going forward and having failed to hold any ground, they managed to turn American public and political opinion. And won.

Either way, American lives were lost, and the stakes are high, as noted above.

See also, Michelle Malkin, "The Deadly Siege at Kamdeysh." And Weasel Zippers, "Afghanistan: Eight More Heroes Die In Day-Long Taliban Attack ..."

Added: Pamela at Atlas Shrugs links, "EIGHT MORE US SOLDIERS DEAD IN AFGHANISTAN, Obama consults Mother Goose for strategy." Pamela questions not the need for the deployment, but the administration's will to fight it:

Obama has no intention of destroying jihad. He just doesn't. The man grew up in a Muslim country, with a Mulsim father and stepfather and does not reject the Islamic view but prefers it. Hence all the outrech to slaughterers.

So why would I want our most precious resource, our finest Americans, slaughtered in a sloppy, ill-conceived, fairy tale war strategy where our girls and boys can't help but end up dead. Under Obama's reckless, feckless anti-commandership, we have experienced the highest number of deaths in Afghanistan month after month since the inception of the defensive military actions in Islam's war on the US.

Interestingly, but I just saw this yesterday from Diana West, " Losing' Our Way to Victory" (via Baldilocks):

This mission demands a new line of battle around the West itself, one supported by a multilevel strategy in which the purpose of military action is not to nation-build in the Islamic world, but to nation-save in the Western one. Secure the borders, for starters, something "war president" George W. Bush should have done but never did. Eliminate the nuclear capabilities of jihadist nations such as Iran, another thing George W. Bush should have done but never did -- Pakistan's, too. Destroy jihadist actors, camps and havens wherever and whenever needed (the strategy in place and never executed by Bill Clinton in the run-up to 9/11). But not by basing, supplying and supporting a military colossus in Islamic, landlocked Central Asia. It is time, as Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely (USA ret.) first told me last April, to "let Afghanistan go." It is not in our interests to civilize it.

Both Pamela and Diana want to win, but they don't see much sense in trying to nation-build Afghanistan, and especially under a Democratic administration that's uncommitted.

To repeat, I'm not there yet. I'm with Dan Twining above who warns of the larger dangers to the international system found in continued AF-PAK insecurity. We're going to fight, sooner or later. (For more on this, see Let Them Fight or Bring Them Home, "McChrystal's Folly.")

Maybe this president will actually come around to his senses and suppport America, and I'm not saying that to be Pollyanna-ish. At the least, Obama wants to be reelected, and I'm confident -- and as I've said many times already -- success mattters, and increasing progress on the war will keep public support high.

The ball is in the president's court. See, "Success Matters: Public Opinion and the War in Afghanistan."

See also, Common Sense Political Thought, "To Fight or Fold, or Let Fester?"

'The Providence Effect': Astonishing Educational Achievement, 'The Way It Should Be Done'

I took my oldest son to Santa Monica last night to see The Providence Effect. The movie is playing this week at Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex (the next block down from the 3rd Street Promenade). Kenneth Turan's review is here. And note this:

The person behind this heartening achievement is the school's president, Paul Adams III, a formidably charismatic individual who is determined to change the culture of American education, to break the cycle of poverty and give poor children the same opportunities as wealthy ones.

A veteran of the civil rights movement, Adams started at Providence St. Mel as a guidance counselor.

When the Chicago Archdiocese threatened to close the institution, he began a fundraising movement that enabled him to buy the building, take the school private, and run it so successfully that President Reagan came to visit. Twice.

Adams says he runs the school the old-fashioned way. Discipline is key for him; he and his staff enforce zero tolerance for drugs. Without discipline, he says, you can't get a student's attention.

Once that attention is assured, Adams counts on his inspired faculty to excite the kids about learning, and judging by the interviews with current and former students and glimpses inside selected classrooms, the method seems to work.

President Reagan's at 1:45 at the trailer above. He praises the students with open arms, exhorting them in triumph, "This is the way it should be done." To see him there, speaking to that school -- an all black school during the 1980s when the social welfare state had reached epic proportion, and when poverty and crime had destroyed the inner-cities -- is incredibly uplifting.

And what struck me, from the perspective of a teacher, was the no BS approach to instruction. There's no sign of progressive education throughout the entire film (and thus no mind-crushing leftist indocrtination). It's straight learning, with in-your-face instructors and administrators who spend time with the kids and in the classroom. Things go so well it seemed almost antiseptic. But as the early minutes of the film show, Chicago had been overrun by gang violence and much of the Westside had been razed in a far-from-finished scheme of urban redevelopment. Interviews with graduates -- kids who grew up to be doctors and bankers, etc. -- illustrated that the school was truly a life-saving institution, and education became the central focus of the child and the child's family.

The Providence Effect website is here. The Providence St. Mel school website is here. The school boasts a 100 percent college entrance acceptance rate, and the homepage states that "The School That Refused to Die -- Now a Model for Urban Education."

And I was thinking exactly that after learning of the death of Derrion Albert in Chicago this week. The Los Angeles Times has a report, "Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan Attend Chicago Teen's Funeral." And from the Chicago Tribune, "Derrion Albert Funeral: There Is No Simple Fix For Problems, Pastor Says; Parents Urged to Reclaim Their Children, City Urged to Educate Kids Closer to Home":

In death, the 16-year-old became the latest high-profile name on the long list of young Chicagoans who have died violently. The teen's brutal beating with two-by-fours was recorded Sept. 24. The attack captured the nation's attention and elicited a response from the White House.

President Barack Obama is sending Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to Chicago this week in the wake of the fatal beating. Obama's spokesman has indicated the administration is preparing an initiative to address the national issues of youth crime and violence.

It's almost tragic that the president's not spending time on these issues -- the crisis in American education -- rather than the year-long ObamaCare fiasco. This is the modern equivalent of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. And while I'm tempted to say something like "I can't see how the president has ignored these issues," that's not true. I know exactly how. The corrupt Cook County Democratic Party machine, thoroughly infiltrated with crooked cronies, all the way down to union hacks, progressive education activists, and community organizing thugs, has consigned to city's poor to perpetual poverty. Michelle Malkin's book, Culture of Corruption, discusses how Michelle Obama milked her connections to lucrative jobs while crying racism all the way to the top. These people are a joke, and the Democratic political establishment is the last entity that's going to solve the crisis of the city's -- and America's -- urban poor.

That's why seeing Reagan in the film was so riveting for me last night. President Reagan was excoriated by the black community in the 1980s for cutting welfare programs, but it's going to be conservatives with the vision to match Reagan's who will lift the hope for America's youth again. And it's going to be the traditional educational methods found at Providence St. Mel that will be the vehicle for greater advancement for those now held back by institutional malfeasance and progressive political corruption.

See also, WitnessLA "The Providence Effect: A Murder & An Answer." There's an interview there with Paul Allen, and this part illustrates my point:

WLA: With all your success, you must have a lot of people coming to you from the Chicago Public School system wanting advice as to how what you’ve done can be replicated in a public school setting.

PA: Actually no one has come

WLA: What do you mean no one? Like not one person from the Chicago School District has come to visit St. Mel’s?

PA: Never. Not one.

WLA: You’re kidding. I’m sorry to press this, but not one as in zero people?

PA: Zero.

WLA: Wow. That is completely nuts.

PA: I think so.

See what I mean?

A 'Major Storm' for Congressional Elections 2010

From Wizbang, "Some More Thoughts on 2010":

There is a tectonic shift at work in American politics today. Regionalism is a part of this shift. But the change movement that is simmering now is the manifestation of larger issues that transcend regionalism, among them individual liberty (ObamaCare), State's rights (Cap and Trade), national security (Holder investigation of the CIA) and a sound dollar (Federal Reserve secrecy). Oh, and unemployment (look at all the charts at the link).

Be sure to read the whole thing.

I especially love Wizbang's citation of Charlie Cook's response to Brendan Nyhan, "Have you been in the South lately?"

Image Credit: Theo Spark.

White Power! Janeane Garofalo Has Revealed My Secret!

Man, she's like a broken record! Janeane Garofalo, on this weekend's Bill Maher show, alleged "it's obvious to anybody who has eyes in this country that tea-baggers, the 9-12ers" are "clearly white power movements” led “by the Glenn Becks, the Michelle Bachmans, the Rush Limbaughs."

Geez, I guess I'm hiding my "white power" alliances pretty good! Don't show Janeane, but here's my picture from last October:

Dude, I'm down with the backwoods boys! Racist! AAAHHHH!!!! Grab the nooses men! We've got a black interloper in the White House!

Seriously, see JammieWearingFool, "Why Garofalo's Comments Are Dangerous" (via Memeorandum).

Carol Browner, Obama's Commie Climate-Czar, Says Tax-and-Trade Bust in 2009

From the New York Times, "Obama Aide Concedes Climate Law Must Wait" (via Memeorandum):

President Obama’s top climate and energy official said Friday that there was virtually no chance Congress would have a climate and energy bill ready for him to sign before negotiations on a global climate treaty begin in December in Copenhagen.

The remarks by the official, Carol M. Browner, during an onstage interview in Washington, were the first definitive statement by the administration that it saw little chance of Congressional passage this fall.

Lawmakers and environmental campaigners have cast similar doubts on the prospect in recent weeks, given the high priority put on health care legislation and the array of hearings that would be needed on the energy initiative, to say nothing of the time needed to reconcile competing versions of it. Climate legislation was introduced in the Senate only Wednesday, a full three months after the House passed its version.

“Obviously we’d like to be through the process — that’s not going to happen,” Ms. Browner said at a conference on politics and history organized by The Atlantic magazine. “I think we would all agree the likelihood you would have a bill signed by the president on comprehensive energy by the time we would go in early December is not likely.”

Good thing.

There's an interesting piece in the latest Foreign Affairs on the Copenhagen Conference, "Copenhagen's Inconvenient Truth." Although the author, Michael Levi, accepts the flawed science of the global warming hysterics, he nevertheless offers an interesting critique of the left's push for cap-and-trade legislation:

Americans accustomed to thinking about climate diplomacy within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol may assume that the obvious next step is to translate reduction goals into emissions caps, put them in a treaty, and establish a system for global carbon trading. But this would be problematic for three reasons.

First, negotiators from developing countries would insist on much less stringent caps than whatever they thought they could meet. Higher caps would give them a cushion by maximizing the odds of their remaining in compliance even if their domestic policies for cutting emissions failed. Likewise, these loose caps would protect them if their economies shifted in unexpected ways that increased their emissions, as happened in China in the early part of this decade and could happen in India in the future. Inflated targets could also let developing countries collect large sums of money in exchange for little effort, if they were allowed to sell surplus emissions permits in a global cap-and-trade system. But potentially enormous financial flows from wealthy countries to poorer ones would make the system politically toxic in the West.

Second, even if a developing country met its agreed emissions cap, other nations would, in the near term, have little way of verifying this, since most developing countries, including China and India, lack the capacity to robustly monitor their entire economies' emissions. This would be doubly problematic if developing countries were allowed to sell excess emissions permits as part of a global cap-and-trade system, since errors in calculating emissions could lead to a situation in which wealthier countries transferred massive amounts of money to poorer ones that appeared to have cut their emissions more deeply than they actually had.

And finally, even if the problems of excessively high caps and poor verification could be solved, simple caps would have little value on their own. Canada is a case in point. Ottawa will soon exceed its Kyoto limit by about 30 percent, yet it will face no penalty for doing so because the Kyoto parties never agreed on any meaningful punishments. The United States and others have essentially no way to hold countries such as China and India to emissions caps short of using punitive trade sanctions or other blunt instruments that would make a mess of broader U.S. foreign policy. Obsessing narrowly in Copenhagen over legally binding near-term caps for developing countries is therefore a waste of time.

The solution to all three problems is to focus on specific policies and measures that would control emissions in the biggest developing countries and on providing assistance and incentives to increase the odds that those efforts will succeed. Such bottom-up initiatives could include, among other things, requiring efficient technology in heavy industry, subsidizing renewable energy, investing in clean-coal technology, improving the monitoring and enforcement of building codes, and implementing economic development plans that provide alternatives to deforestation.

These measures would not be any less binding than emissions caps in practice. Moreover, if designed properly -- and if they add up to deep enough cuts in each country's emissions -- they would be far more likely to work. Actual emissions cuts happen because of policies, not promises, and the simple fact that governments could directly control these policies would increase the likelihood of success. Monitoring compliance would also be easier, since policies, unlike emissions targets, must be codified in law and reflected in specific changes on the ground. Developing countries could focus much of their near-term efforts on specific measures that dovetail with other objectives -- such as reducing oil imports or cutting air pollution -- making them more attractive and hence more likely to be implemented. Moreover, they could be linked to incentives from the outside, such as subsidized sales of efficient U.S. technology, which could be more effective and politically palatable than the simple but blunt financial incentives of a global cap-and-trade system.

More at Memeorandum. And also, the Blog Prof, "What to do as unemployment inches up towards 10%? Climate czar Carol Browner thinks it's time to push cap-and-trade and tax each household at $1,700."

Plus, from the Real World, "THE ACROSS THE BOARD BETRYAL OF 'CAP & TRADE'."

Image Credit: Astute Bloggers, "OBAMA: EXCESSIVE MAN-MADE CO2 is HURTING JOB GROWTH."

Neoconservatives Make a Comeback

Brett Stephens had a great essay last week, "The Neocons Make a Comeback." But check out Dr. Sanity, "NEOCONSERVATIVE REALISM":

Neoconservatism has been pronounced dead by its opponents many times in the decades since its ideas were first formulated. The reasons tha these rumors of its death are constantly exaggerated is due to the fact that the philosophy underlying neoconservative policies is extremely threatening to today's postmodern political left.

Today's left is a nothing more than the hallow shell of what was once known as "liberalism"; and it is held together by the empty and meaningless rhetoric of postmodern intellectual nonsense, otherwise known as political correctness and multiculturalism (or, cultural relativity).

Neoconservatism as an intellectual theory actually arose from the observation in the 1960's that classical liberalism had been hijacked by the left and its essence literally reconstructed to suit the needs of dead-end socialists and communists, finally beginning to realize that the jig was up for them.

All over the world it was becoming more and more obvious that political and social collectivism was an abject failure. Wherever these ideologies were implemented, their policies led to intractable poverty and economic misery; and inevitably the economic policies were accompanied by oppression, tyranny, and the crushing of the human spirit.

I have discussed elsewhere how the recent revival of socialism and its collectivist/totalitarian agenda in the late 20th and early 21st century was made possible by the adoption of postmodern epistemology, rhetoric and politics by western intellectual elites:

The rise of neoconservatism in the latter part of the 20th century represents the only modern intellectual counter and the only known antidote to the infection of postmodernism and its resultant toxic effects on philosophy, politics and rehtoric.

In order to succeed in undoing and undermining the clear and unambiguous evidence of socialism's and communism's utter human toxicity, the totalitarians of the political left had to undermine nothing less than reality, reason, and truth.

Furthermore, they had to deconstruct and invalidate human consciousness, making sure that the everyone understood that the only apparatus available to humans for perceiving reality--the mind--was completely unreliable, and that the evidence of the senses must therefore be discounted. This intellectual strategy has resulted in a pervasive moral and cultural relativism; and an intellectual nihilism that has permeated all aspects of society and intellectual thought.

Words and language are redefined to mean whatever is wanted/needed in the moment to persuade; history is deconstructed--ostensibly to expose it's lies, but really to render it meaningless and irrelevant to the present; and the ideas and values that are the foundation of Western Civilization are mocked and shown by postmodern "logic" to be no better than any other random ideas.

For the left, freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose--and not much different from slavery anyway; democracy is just as much a fraud as tyranny; that which was always considered the good, is really just as evil as evil; and so on. Twentieth century postmodernists thus set themselves up as culturally and morally superior to all other humans in history, and with the postmodern relativistic advantage, they could pass judgement on everyone and everything. Thus from the superior postmodern perspective, there was nothing of value to learn from a slave-holding--and clearly imperfect-- Thomas Jefferson; there is no moral superiority in a system that strives toward increasing individual human freedom and dignity compared to a system that doesn't even recognize the rights of the individual. There is no difference between right and wrong; good and evil--all are suspect, all are hypcritical, all are imperfect; and thus all such concepts are rendered irrelevant.

By disgarding reason and reality; by abandoning the past and embracing moral and cultural relativism, the left has brought us to this place where we are morally and physically paralyzed. We place greater value on beautiful words and rhetoric than on behavior; what is said, instead of what is done; we seem unable to distinguish between the deliberate targeting and killing of innocents and the accidental and unavoidable killing of innocents despite herculean efforts to avoid it; between waging war to give people a chance at freedom and democracy; and waging war for domination and imperialism; between standing up for what is right and accepting the consequences, and abandoning one's values and surrendering with "honor" to the scum of the earth.

Do our current leaders have the moral will to actually win the war in Afghanistan now that the morally bankrupt left is calling the shots? I sincerely doubt it. Even as I write this, our Dear Leader is heading off to lobby for the Chicago Olympics and can't be bothered to meet or discuss strategy with the General he appointed to oversee the war . This more than anything highlights the ridiculous priorities and broken moral compass of the political left.Yet, these are the same political ideologues who have established themselves as the arbiters of moral behavior by enabling and encouraging amoral and immoral behavior; of being "reality-based" without the necessity of having to acknowledge reality; of speaking "truth" to power, without being capable of recognizing truth (isn't all truth relative, after all?).

I put the palecon-libertarians in there along with Dr. Sanity's discussion of the radical left. They've made common cause with our enemies as well.

Image Credit: The Anti-Neocons (Lew Rockwell fan-boys).

Obama's Olympic Failure

From Fred Barnes, "Obama's Olympic Failure Will Test the Washington Press Corps" (via Memeorandum):

Now is the time for the mainstream media to show it’s not totally in President Obama’s pocket. The Washington press corps will never fault Obama for pushing hyper-liberal policies in a moderate-to-conservative country. Ideological criticism by the press is reserved for Republican presidents ....

The thriller in Copenhagen was not just a test of Obama. It’s a test of the media’s willingness to cover the president professionally and honestly when he stumbles. A love affair with a president should have its limits.

Read the whole thing at the link.

See also, Gateway Pundit, "Mmm... Mmm... Mmm... Rush Limbaugh Slams Obama For Failing to Grab the Gold for Chicago."

Plus, Astute Bloggers, "CHICAGO ELIMINATED: WITHOUT ACORN VOTER FRAUD, BLACK PANTHER VOTER INTIMIDATION, SEIU THUGGERY AND AN 8-TO-1 SPENDING ADVANTAGE OBAMA LOSES."

Image Credit: Rush Limbaugh, "The Ego Has Landed: A Racist World Wants Barack Obama to Fail."

Arrest in Erin Andrews Nude Video Case: Press Release, 'I Will Make Every Effort to Protect Victims of Criminal Stalking'

I've been meaning to write about Erin Andrews again. Her interview last month with Orprah Winfrey was especially interesting. See, "ESPN's Erin Andrews Speaks Out."

Even more interesting was the August story at Fanhouse on the foot-dragging progress in the Erin Andrews investigation, "Where's the Truth in Erin Andrews Saga?" For as distraught as Erin Andrews has been --- no one should be violated as she was --- Fanhouse rightly questions whether Andrews' squeaky-clean image is fully justified:

The only thing we've seen of Andrews since late July was a photo spread in GQ. It was shot pre-peephole and was harmless enough.

Well, there was one picture of her standing on top of a Gatorade cooler wearing a tight black skirt. She was surrounded by football players dying to quench their thirsts. You can be sure the photo was not approved by the Association for Women in Sports Media.

As for hearing anything from Andrews, all we've gotten is the tape of an emergency 911 call. Paparazzi were lurking outside her Atlanta-area home, and she was not happy."I did nothing wrong and I'm being treated like (bleeping) Britney Spears and it sucks," Andrews told the operator.

Note to Erin: If you want to stop being treated like Britney Spears, perhaps you should stop posing on top of Gatorade coolers surrounded by tongue-wagging young men.

The Fanhouse piece was the best analysis available in recent weeks. Andrews' interview with Oprah was riveting television, but given her own comfort with posing for suggestive photo displays in mens' magazines, folks might want to reconsider Christine Brennan's suggestion that Andrews deserved it. Of course, I don't think she did --- I repeat, I don't think she did --- but if Andrews wants to continue her aggressive PR agenda as the girl next door, it's hardly helpful to be seen in a locker room with lurking mud-smeared jocks ogling her body.

In any case, check TMZ for the more on the arrest, "Arrest Made in Erin Andrews Peeping Tom":

TMZ has learned an arrest has been made in the Erin Andrews Peeping Tom case -- the one in which the ESPN reporter was secretly videotaped walking around naked in various hotel rooms ... and the suspect has been charged with the federal crime of felony stalking.

48-year-old Michael David Barrett was arrested at Chicago O'Hare International Airport tonight.

According to the FBI, Barrett allegedly stalked Erin "with the intent to harass, to place under surveillance with intent to harass and intimidate, and to cause substantial emotional distress to a person in another state."

See also, Wizbang Pop, "Arrest Made In Erin Andrews Nude Video Case." And, the Los Angeles Times, "Man Arrested in Erin Andrews Nude Video Case."

Plus, the press release from Andrews' law firm, Bingham McCutchen: "Statement on Behalf of Erin Andrews":

"Today's action by the FBI is a welcome step in bringing this investigation to a successful close. We made it clear in our original statement issued on July 17, that we were determined to press criminal charges against those responsible for the invasion of Erin's privacy when alone in her hotel room. Erin and her attorneys have been working closely with the United States Attorney, the FBI in Los Angeles and the private investigation firm of Kroll, Inc. since mid-July to investigate and reveal the full facts surrounding this matter. It is now clear that she was the victim of stalking and invasion of privacy at more than one location. She was not a random victim. She was targeted and violated.

Upon learning of today's events, Andrews said: "I am deeply grateful to Assistant United States Attorney Wes Hsu and Special Agents for their dedicated service; and to ESPN for its support during this difficult time. I hope that today's action will help the countless others who have been similarly victimized. For my part, I will make every effort to strengthen the laws on a State and Federal level to better protect victims of criminal stalking. I am also grateful to those who have expressed their concerns and good wishes for my family and me."

According to attorney Marshall Grossman, "Erin deserves significant credit for the progress made in solving this case. She has worked side by side with law enforcement to reconstruct the events and provide leads which have led directly to today's action. She is committed to seeing this through and do all she can to create a deterrent to others who would even consider engaging in this type of vile conduct in the future.

Click here for my previous reports.