Jed Babbin

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Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense during the first Bush administration in the United States, and the author of the political book Inside the Asylum as well as "Showdown" and "In the Words of Our Enemies."

He is a conservative commentator, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, and a contributor to National Review Online. Mr. Babbin is also a frequent guest host on Talk Radio WMET in Washington, D.C. He is the online editor of Human Events.

Babbin is an ardent detractor of what he describes as the "527 Media", which he considers to be composed of The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS and NBC. Babbin considers those outlets as nothing more than an extension of the Democratic National Party and charges that they willfully distort truth to pursue their own agenda. Furthermore, Babbin argues that the only way to disrupt the 527 Media's "narrative" is for elected Republican officials to tell the "truth" about current situations (such as the conflict in Iraq) without it being passed through the filter of the 527 Media.

[edit] Quotes

"The UN is more of an international criminal than a dispenser of legitimate international law."
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless, noisy baggage behind."
(As stated on Hardball with Chris Matthews in January, 2003.)
"I am willing to kill as many people as necessary to take out Hezbollah."
(As stated on CNN's Paula Zahn Now July 28, 2006.)
"In the last days of the campaign, the 527 Media will continue producing October surprises right up to election day... [t]hey've proven that they, not the Democrats, are the opposition party."
(From his op-ed piece Will the Media Drown in an 06 Election 'Wave'?, October 26, 2006)
"[I]t's apparent that there's something more than political beliefs propelling people such as Kerry to make outbursts, DNC Chairman Howard Dean to scream and the DailyKos to conduct an online jihad against Joe Lieberman. Diagnosis: anger. But anger is not a political ideology and it's not enough to win American elections."
(From his op-ed piece Countdown to Tuesday (and Wednesday), November 2, 2006)
"There's about 30 million Iranians out there who want to just be friends with us. What we have to do is bomb the right people. And for that you not just need smart bombs, you need brilliant bombs."
(As stated on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, January 31, 2007)
"Look, the Belgians and the French they are genetic..., they have this problem, we can't do anything about it."
(As stated on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, in reply to the humorous question Is Belgium looking for an ass-kicking?, August 1, 2007)
"When the Army was asked what it would take to destroy the terrorists in Afghanistan, Shinseki responded that the entire XVIII Corps — about 50,000 men — would be needed, and would require several months of training, mobilization, and deployment."
(National Review Online 03/06/03)
"But Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki insisted that almost the entire army had to be deployed to do it, and that would take several months."
(realclearpolitics.com 12/07/06)
"In November 2001, Rumsfeld asked Shinseki what it would take to defeat Iraq. Shinseki assured him it would take a huge number of troops — a number, in fact, that actually exceeded the active-duty strength of the entire Army... Any general officer — especially one as political as Shinseki — would have corrected the question before answering it, because the very premise of an extended "occupation" is antithetical to President Bush's policy of liberation. (It also plays right into the hands of opponents in Europe and the Middle East who claim that our real objective is only to occupy Iraq and seize its oil.)"
(National Review Online 03/06/03)