Rudy turned in his usual solid performance during last night’s Republican presidential debate in Orlando, FL, but Sen. John McCain (AZ) won hands down. All that testosterone on stage, and McCain was, without a doubt, The Man. At one point in the debate, asked about President Bush’s naivete in dealing with the Russians, McCain said, "When I looked into Putin’s eyes, I saw three letters: K … G … B."

FOX News' Chris Wallace had the first round of questioning, and led off by asking Rudy whether he was more conservative than Fmr. Sen. Fred Thompson (TN), Rudy declined to throw the first punch, and spoke of his mayoral record governing as a conservative in one of the most liberal cities in the country. When Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) was asked whether he was more conservative than Thompson, he, too, pulled his punches, speaking of rebuilding the Reagan coalition.

Asked by Wallace to respond to the other two candidates, Thompson ignored Romney and hit Rudy with a series of jabs: "Mayor Giuliani believes in federal funding for abortion. He believes in sanctuary cities. He’s for gun control. He supported Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat, against a Republican who was running for governor, then opposed the governor’s tax cuts when he was there. So I simply disagree with him those issues. And he sides with Hillary Clinton on each of those issues."

Rudy – famous for his pugnaciousness - didn’t take the slur lying down and gave Thompson a right hook: "Fred has problems, too," adding that Thompson was "the single biggest obstacle to tort reform in the United States Senate. … Fred Thompson … blocked tort reform over and over and over again." Wallace segued back and forth between Rudy and Thompson so they could finish duking it out.

Wallace then pitted McCain and Fmr. Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) against each other. McCain took Romney to task for his answer in the last debate about seeking legal advice before initiating a military action: "Those are the last people I would call in. I’d call in my wisdom, my knowledge, my background, my experience and my ability to lead this nation." He then called Romney out on fooling people about his record and said, "I don’ t want you to start fooling them about mine. I stand on my record … as a conservative. … I don't think you can fool the American people."

Romney had to spend precious time explaining his "lawyer" comment in the previous debate, and was unable to address McCain’s charge that he is trying to pull a fast one on voters.

When it was his turn to answer a question Fmr. Gov. Mike Huckabee (AR) turned to Rudy, Romney, Thompson and McCain and said that he was "more than content to let you let them fight all they want tonight, shed each other’s blood."

But the candidates also stopped beating up on each other long enough to smack Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) around a bit. This time, Romney outdid Rudy in taking on Hillary: "I don’t want her as commander in chief. … She hasn’t run a corner store. She hasn’t run a state. She hasn’t run a city. She has never run anything." Romney then used a loaded term when downplaying her experience: "The idea that she could learn to be president as an internship doesn’t make any sense." Ouch!

Rep. Ron Paul (TX) managed to work his opposition to the Iraq War into a question on healthcare – and in question after question he implicitly or explicitly blamed the war for just about every domestic and foreign policy problem this country faces. Paul reminded the audience that President Bush ran and won in 2000 on a pledge that America would have a more "humble" foreign policy and not to get involved in nation-building or the internal affairs of other nations – but that was then, and this is post-9/11. As a tone-deaf Paul kept pressing the same irrelevant point over and over, the audience started to boo him.

The highlight of the debate was McCain getting a Standing O when he singled out a $1 million earmark for a Woodstock Concert Museum in New York being pushed by Clinton as an example of wasteful government spending, recalling: "I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time," referring to his imprisonment in the Hanoi Hilton while the flower children were frolicking.

And Huckabee, who was in top form last night, came out with a line that brought down the house. Talking about healthcare reform, he noted that 10,000 Baby Boomers are signing up for Medicare every day and said: "When all the all those aging hippies find out they can get free drugs, just wait to see what that’s going to cost."


And This Is A Problem … Why?

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times ran articles this week-end lamenting tighter post-9/11 tighter visa requirements requiring in-person visits to U.S. consular offices for foreign performers, and proof of citizenship for Americans returning from a tip to Canada or Mexico.

On Saturday, the WaPo reported that to get a "P-1" visa, a foreign performer must prove that (s)he has achieved "sustained international recognition," and that applications must be made in person at a U.S. consular office so that artists can be interviewed in person – sometimes even asked to do their thing, so officials can gauge whether they’re legit – and undergo electronic fingerprinting and facial-recognition scans.

These common-sense precautions that help insure terrorists aren’t infiltrating the U.S. disguised as, say, plate spinners are apparently too big a hassle for some:

The WaPo acknowldeges that "[i]t is unclear how many foreign groups have canceled their tours because of visa problems." So what it comes down to is that an unknown number of artists want entry rules relaxed ‘cause they can’t quite get it together to follow them.

For its part, The New York Times reported on Sunday that as of January 31, Americans crossing the border into the U.S. will no longer be waved through, but will be required to show proof of citizenship. Since August, in a dry run of the new procedures – approved by Congress in 2004 as part of an antiterrorism package – customs agents have been asking U.S. citizens to show a photo ID, and have been checking larger numbers of travelers against criminal, immigration and antiterror databases resulting in long waits at the border:

In 2006, 234 million travelers crossed the southern border into the U.S. entered the United States, and these delays are expected to persist until more entry stations, border station agents to staff them and new screening tools are in place – which could take several years. Yes, it’s inconvenient for travelers and businesses alike, but security should trump shopping.

A Vodka Drinker Tries Scotch

It’s not that The Stiletto has never drunk Scotch before. It’s that she can only get the stuff down if it is mixed with ginger ale or diluted with ice water. In an attempt to educate The Stiletto’s palate, The Heel (an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm and occasional contributor to this blog) invited her to the "Johnnie Walker Journey, an exclusive multimedia tasting experience" at which participants sample various blends of Johnnie Walker under the guidance of "an expert Johnnie Walker ambassador."

In between sips of Johnnie Walker Black Label, Red Label, Gold Label (served chilled), Green Label and Blue Label, the expert described how the various blends are created, the aromatic and favor signatures of each blend and useful information (for instance, in a 12-year old blended Scotch whisky the youngest single malt has been aged 12 years).

Of all the blends, The Stiletto liked Gold Label best – even better than the much hyped Blue Label – because chilling smoothed out the harshness that she objects to in Scotch. This is one blend she can sip neat - especially between nibbles of a high-end bittersweet chocolate, a combination that was highly recommended by the expert.

Having said that, The Stiletto still prefers vodka (third item), but she’s not going to close the door on Scotch until she’s had the chance to try Johnnie Walker Swing and several single malts.
 

Historians Weigh In On The Armenian Genocide

One of the especially specious arguments against the Armenian Genocide Resolution was that Congressmen are not historians, and are unqualified to determine whether the systematic slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks constitutes "genocide."

For the sake of discussion, let’s accept this sophistry and agree that Congress should take its cue from historians whose job it is to know these things. Earlier this month, scholars and academics of genocide studies gathered at McGill University (Montreal) for the Global Conference on Genocide Prevention signed a petition urging Congress to recognize the Armenian Genocide by approving floor votes on HR/SR 106.

In his opening remarks, symposium chair Payam Akhavan, S.J.D. noted, "The 20^th century has been described as the Century of Genocide. It opened in 1915 with the mass killing of almost 1.5 million Armenians in Eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire." Among those who signed the petition: Roméo Dallaire, former commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda; Yehuda Bauer, Holocaust historian and scholar, Yad Vashem and Hebrew University; and Dr. Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch.

The Wall Street Journal published not one, not two, but three editorials against HR/SR 106 in the space of two weeks (perhaps more than one of the genocide deniers on its staff wanted his own crack at it). The paper also sacrificed G-d knows how many trees to allow Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan a platform to spew anti-Armenian propaganda and genocide denial:

Erdogan asks, "why the Republic of Armenia is obstinately evading Turkey's offer to establish a Joint History Commission to examine together the events of 1915 through bilateral dialogue - all the while openly supporting efforts to defame Turkey."

The truth is, Erdogan can’t handle the truth. Like all Turks, he has been brainwashed from childhood to believe that "many Turks lost their lives during the mutual killings." It goes without saying that the word "genocide" never appears in Turkish schoolbooks – but then, there are no references whatsoever to the mass murders. Instead, schoolchildren are taught that "the events of 1915" – a code term used only by Armenian genocide deniers – were attributable to "treacherous" Armenians who had joined the Russian Imperial army in attacks on the Empire.

Conservative pundits who know as little about Turkish culture as they do about Ottoman Turkish history marveled that Turks would be "insulted" by a symbolic resolution passed by the government of a country a world away – even as they scrambled to scotch the resolution so that the bratty tot would get what he wanted and shut up. The Stiletto can explain: Every morning in school, Turkish children recite an oath that inculcates them with the idea they are a superior breed of human:

Hard as it may be for right-thinking people to believe, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that Erdogan sincerely believes that Ottoman Turks did not - and are too decent and honorable to - commit genocide. Unfortunately for Turkey, the governments of 22 nations worldwide and 40 states here in the U.S. know different because their schoolbooks and newspapers aren’t censored, and their writers and journalists aren’t prosecuted (or murdered) for telling the truth.

It is Turkey that needs to constitute historical commissions to undo decades of lying to and brainwashing its citizens. Armenians know all too well the truth of the matter. They need a stinkin’ "Joint Commission" like Jews need Mahmoud Ahmadinejad telling them whether there was a Holocaust.

Editorial Note: The Stiletto has tried to keep pace with the spate of editorials that The Wall Street Journal has published against the Armenian Genocide Bill, in part to honor journalist Hrant Dink, who paid the ultimate price for telling the truth in a country that has a long history of killing Armenians. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not likely to schedule a vote on a symbolic resolution that is doomed to fail, The Stiletto Blog will soon be returning to its regularly scheduled programming.