MACHINE GUN

HARDBALL STUPIDITY: Chris Matthews showed his liberal behind yesterday during a discussion with Pete Hegseth of Vets For Freedom and Jon Soltz of VoteVets.Org, an anti-war group. Matthews showed his legendary lefty bias in his usual manner, constantly interrupting and questioning the ideas of the conservative (Mr. Hegseth) while allowing the defeatist (Mr. Soltz) to ramble at length without interruption or interrogation. This tactic has worn out its welcome with me, and so has Hardball. The conservative just cannot get a fair shake. When answering, the conservative first has to refute the "fact" Matthews has thrown out as gospel, then actually go on to address the alleged question. It seemed Mr. Hegseth did not have more than twenty seconds uninterrupted to state his views. The lefty just nodded in agreement with Mathews' childish preambles, listened while Chris browbeat Hegseth, and then had unlimited time to respond. Unless someone really interesting makes an appearance, "Hardball" has to be placed in the same category as "Countdown with Keith Olberman": not really news, but rather defeatist propaganda presented in a news format.

PAKISTAN: Musharraf has started to martial some of his forces to battle the Taliban and Al Qaeda vermin infesting his country. There is a bloody showdown coming in the northern mountains, and you can expect a push by NATO forces from the other side (Afghanistan) when the stuff hits the fan. The hammer and anvil tactic has been tried before, but never with real Pakistani cooperation. At this point, Musharraf has a choice: either kill them or they will kill you. With nuclear weapons involved, America has to hope he wins.

TONY BLAIR: The former British Prime Minister has started his Middle East diplomacy tour. I cannot imagine why he would want to take on such a convoluted mess, but more power to him. He will find in short order that negotiating with bloodthirsty savages is impossible. The Palestinian areas are essentially under the control of Hamas and their sad little katyushas. Working out anything would be a miraculous accomplishment. Mr. Blair is a good man trying to help in a very bad region of the world. No doubt his travels will be many.

GERALDO: Why is FNC allowing that smarmy guy with the bad toupee take up more and more airtime? Oh wait, that's Geraldo. Okay, why is FNC allowing far left liberal Geraldo to take up more and more airtime? His job appears to be defending the indefensible for the loony lefties at every turn. My former unit (101ABN) kicked his behind out of Iraq for talking too much. Maybe we can arrange an air assault to swoop into the Fox studios and snatch Geraldo, then drop him over at MSNBC or CNN where he belongs.

JINGOCON