This article originally appears on Newsreal Blog.

Jack is back! The eighth season of 24 got underway last night and promises the usual chills and thrills for fans of the long running drama.

But it is the character of Jack Bauer that fascinates us - has fascinated America - in that the changes undergone by Bauer in the previous seven incarnations of the show have mirrored our own conflicts and doubts that have arisen since the debut of the show a few weeks before 9/11/01.

Jack Bauer, is one of the most consequential fictional characters ever created for dramatic television. He has been the subject of numerous cover stories and articles in Time, Newsweek, and other news magazines, while being featured in long articles for publications as diverse as The New Yorker, and Mother Jones. He has even been the topic of scholarly dissertations and was even used as a subject for a Heritage Foundation symposium.

If that weren’t enough, Bauer may very well be the only fictional character ever accused of inspiring war crimes. Indeed, the US army’s professional interrogators were so concerned about Bauer’s impact on their men that they sent a high level delegation to the set of 24 last year, pleading with the producers and writers to portray the results of physical torture more realistically. Their point; that torture doesn’t work, but that Bauer’s continued successful utilization of the tactic was having a bad affect on their men:

The third expert at the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq. He told the show’s staff that DVDs of shows such as 24 circulate widely among soldiers stationed in Iraq. Lagouranis said to me, “People watch the shows, and then walk into the interrogation booths and do the same things they’ve just seen.

But it is the evolution of the character of Bauer that has been the most remarkable gauge of how America sees itself and the War on Terror over the last decade. The fictional hero has gone from a super-patriot with a telling devotion to duty and fanatical desire to win, to a conflicted man, burdened by conscience, whose forays into the deepest recesses of the corrupt American state are animated more by personal vengeance than national security.

Some of this is certainly a result of how Jack’s adversaries have changed over the years. The show has gone from being one of the only dramas to portray extremist Muslims as the true terrorist enemy to having Jack face off with rogue elements in the American government and big business.

Many of Bauer’s foes today are the same enemies that liberals believe are ruining the country; neo-cons, corrupt, power hungry officials, and greedy businessmen. Last season’s biological attack during the show was planned by a Blackwater-type private security firm worried about losing Defense Department contracts. The premise was so laughably and outrageously unrealistic that even critics panned it for its idiocy.

The presence of a shadowy, military-industrial complex with contacts in the executive branch, the FBI, and other government agencies who facilitate their lawbreaking breathes life into liberal conspiracy theories that have dominated since the early Bush years. Stand ins for not only Blackwater, but Haliburton have been used. Even a Nixon-like president, ordering assassinations and terrorist attacks on his own country, was utilized as an evil Bush twin.

But through it all, Jack Bauer has persevered. The enemy is not as consequential to Bauer as much as winning has been. Defeating the designs of evil men by bending, stretching, and even breaking the law has been a hallmark of Bauer’s crusade and that is not likely to end this year, despite the fact that our hero is now a grandfather and desperately wants to stay out of the game.

In last night’s premiere, Bauer was pulled back into action by both his sense of duty and his loyalty to an old friend. These are qualities that have endeared him to conservatives in the past. And while it is doubtful the show will give us a realistic portrayal of our enemy, many of us will continue to watch if only to follow the exploits of Bauer who remains, despite everything, the iconic post 9-11 hero.

I just deleted 1000 words of a blog post on terrorism and the Obama administration. The reason is simple; it was crap.

First of all, it was a crappy subject. In fact, any subject lately that requires a touch of nuance in understanding has been a waste of time in writing. To say that Obama is doing some good things in the fight against terror and some not so good things may be close to the truth but who wants to hear that?

Secondly, it was crappy thinking. I tried to draw a parallel between Obama’s policy and “Sitzkrieg” in World War II. Not even close. To say I tortured logic in trying to connect the two is an understatement. The connection is more in attitude than action which is difficult to quantify and impossible to expose.

Third, it was crappy writing. I’ve already forgotten everything I wrote so I can’t even quote from it. Suffice it say, it was brutally inane and without any of my usually redeeming snark.

Finally, I couldn’t end the piece. It just kept going and going like the Energizer Bunny as I desperately looked for the off switch. I couldn’t sum anything up because I didn’t really say anything.

I suppose I could blame all of this on my illness. But some of my best stuff was written when I crawled out of a sickbed to write, skewering someone or other for this or that with invective that would have made Tom Paine wince. Or perhaps I could point the finger at holiday ennui, where I could really give a good goddamn about anything or anyone. That excuse too, falls flat when I look at past years and see some mighty tasty writing between Christmas and New Year’s.

I am going to chalk this up to something that hits every writer - some more frequently than others.

Simple, unmanageable, incoherence.

There are days when I can get up and polish off 1500 words in an hour, effortlessly segueing from topic to topic, my thoughts pouring out organized like dominoes all in a row; elegant, logical, powerful, and eminently readable.

And then there are days like today.

To quote the great Chief Dan George from Little Big Man; “Sometimes the magic works. And sometimes it doesn’t.” Today, Houdini wouldn’t have been able to transpose my gibberish into something acceptable that I would put on this site.

You all should thank me that I had the perspicacity to spare you the ordeal of having to read something so awful. Tips are accepted and you can find the Paypal button below the comment box if you feel inclined to express in a more tangible manner what I’m sure is your overflowing gratitude.

Rick Moran
Proprietor

When I was in grade school (St. Raymond, Mount Prospect, IL), there was a ritual that we looked forward to every Friday afternoon.

Along about two O’Clock, the nuns would herd us into the church so that the good priests (and they were good) could hear our confessions.

Now I don’t know how confession is done today in the Catholic church, having lapsed into first apostasy, then agnosticism, and finally atheism. But back then, you went into a closet sized little room with a wall separating you and the priest where you were supposed to spill the beans on all the sins you committed for the past week.

I should mention that if we were really lucky, confessions would last until three O’Clock which meant no more school for the day and an early start to the weekend. (In 8th grade, a few of us rowdies would make sure of this by spending 5 minutes listing our sins, thus assuring a glacial pace to the proceedings. One of the priests caught on and, although amused, asked us not to commit such sacrilege against the sacraments again.)

To be honest, I hated the whole idea of confession. I thought back then that it was one of those little tortures the Catholic Church invented to control their flock. The priest, after all, knew damn well who most of the penitents were - especially in my case since we lived 3 doors down from the rectory. What better way to control another than know their sins?

At any rate, the way I “confessed” was tell the priest stuff like “I sinned against the 2nd commandment 10 times, the 6th commandment 5 times, the 7th commandment twice…and I had impure thoughts 3 times!”

“Impure thoughts” at my age was making goo-eyes at Rene Russo and wishing I could see her with almost no clothes on while kissing her - on the lips! Our nuns (Sisters of Mercy) were very, very big on impure thoughts and constantly warned us how such could lead to hellfire and damnation.

It was all made up anyway. As a 14 year old, you probably have “impure thoughts” three times a minute much less in a week. And counting the transgressions against the second commandment of taking God’s name in vain would have required a room-sized computer to properly calculate.

Anyway, it’s a good thing some Republicans are on the ball when it comes to those in the party who might be thinking “impure thoughts” and thus transgress against the “principles” for which the GOP stands:

The battle among Republicans over what the party should stand for — and how much it should accommodate dissenting views on important issues — is probably going to move from the states to the Republican National Committee when it holds its winter meeting this January in Honolulu.

Republican leaders are circulating a resolution listing 10 positions Republican candidates should support to demonstrate that they “espouse conservative principles and public policies” that are in opposition to “Obama’s socialist agenda.” According to the resolution, any Republican candidate who broke with the party on three or more of these issues– in votes cast, public statements made or answering a questionnaire – would be penalized by being denied party funds or the party endorsement.

The proposed resolution was signed by 10 Republican national committee members and was distributed on Monday morning. They are asking for the resolution to be debated when Republicans gather for their winter meeting.

The resolution invokes Ronald Reagan, and noted that Mr. Reagan had said the Republican Party should be devoted to conservative principles but also be open to diverse views. President Reagan believed, the resolution notes, “that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent.”

Looking over the list, I am happy to report that I support at least 8 and maybe 9 of the litmus test positions. (Long time readers might have some fun by guessing which one - or two - I can be considered “impure” for not supporting):

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

A few quibbles; what is “effective action” against Iran and North Korea (#7)? I don’t support military action unless they are an imminent threat to us or Israel (or South Korea).

Also, “rationing and denial of health care” (#9) is already with us in private insurance company decisions. Is it the GOP position that it is ok for private industry to ration but not government? Tell that one to the old folks.

Of the rest, I think DOMA has got to go. Otherwise, I score well on this test and demand my copy receive a Gold Star and that I get an extra ration of chocolate milk at lunch.

But what’s the point? About 99% of Republicans support 8-10 of those litmus tests. Probably 90% support all 10. Instead of silly, stupid gimmicks, why not just come out and say, “Snowe, Collins, Crist, and the rest of you RINO’s get squat from us!” Why go through the rigmarole of pretending to weed out apostates by giving grown men and women a childish “test” of purity?

I will answer that by saying simply that we have a bunch of idiots in charge of the party. They - the elites - think they are being quite clever by trying to satisfy the base by showing that they are getting tough by denying funds to those who don’t quite measure up to “conservative principles.”

You want conservative principles” How about prudence? How “prudent” is it to brand the Obama administration “socialist?” What about “probity?” Integrity and honesty is lacking in a party that tolerates its members festooning bills with earmarks. What about “variety” which is a Kirkian principle of eschewing systems that promote a “deadening conformity?” What are these litmus tests but the very definition of conformity?

What about the principle “that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.” I see quite a bit of “permanence” in those 10 litmus tests, but no room for the American virtue of “change.” It’s the same old, same old in this stale repetition of talking points, not a reaffirmation of the viability of conservatism in American society.

Yes, deny funds to those who make a mockery of party principles and conservative ideas. This isn’t rocket science. Everybody knows who they are and party leaders are only making the GOP look ridiculous by making candidates act like 10 year olds, forcing this kind of conformity in the form of a “purity test” on them.

The nuns at St. Raymonds would no doubt have approved, however. Nothing they liked better than sniffing out “impure thoughts.”

Perhaps the next missive from national party leaders will contain the “penance” that must be performed before the transgressors get back in their good graces.

Five “Our Fathers” and whole recitation of the rosary ought to do the trick.

Andrew Sullivan was something of a pioneer at one time - a blogger who inspired a lot of people to get take up the obsession and join the conversation that was just starting to take off. He made a name for himself saying it with style, poking a sharpened stick into his targets, repeatedly drawing blood. There was a zest about his writing - witty in a Dorothy Thompson sort of way - a one man Algonquin Roundtable who could spout about any issue from nuclear deterrence to women’s hemlines.

He still has a rough kind of integrity. I say that because he feels he is being true to himself even if he can’t see what a monumental spectacle he is making of himself. And as long as a writer feels he is doing that, who are we to say he “lacks integrity?” Writing is such a personal craft, a bare naked exposition of one’s soul on paper, that only the writer, in those secret places he visits for approval or condemnation in his own mind, can say if he has remained true to the vision he keeps of himself in his imagination.

Sullivan has lost all respect on most of the right. I still find some of what he writes about conservatism compelling if only because his criticisms echo some of my own. But he has lost objectivity and can rarely summon the kind of clear thinking and hard eyed pragmatism that would allow his critiques to blossom into serious, reflective observations.

Oh Andrew. Quo Vadis, my friend?

This is only the second time in its nearly ten-year history that the Dish has gone silent. The reason now is the same as the reason then. When dealing with a delusional fantasist like Sarah Palin, it takes time to absorb and make sense of the various competing narratives that she tells about her life. There are so many fabrications and delusions in the book, mixed in with facts, that just making sense of it - and comparing it with objective reality as we know it, and the subjective reality she has previously provided - is a bewildering task. She is a deeply disturbed person which makes this work of fiction and fact all the more challenging to read. And the fact that she is now the leader of the Republican party and a potential presidential candidate, makes this process of deconstruction an important civil responsibility. We take this seriously as we always have. We want to be fair to her, and to her family, and to the innocent people she has brought into the spotlight. And we are not reporters. We are merely analysts trying to make sense of evidence already in the public domain, evidence that points in all sorts of directions, only one of which can be true.

Since the Dish has tried to be rigorous and careful in analyzing Palin’s unhinged grip on reality from the very beginning - specifically her fantastic story of her fifth pregnancy - we feel it’s vital that we grapple with this new data as fairly and as rigorously as possible. That takes time to get right. And it is so complicated we simply cannot focus on anything else.

There are only three of us.

I would first note the towering arrogance to believe anyone - even avid Sully fans - needs to read 440 words of explanation for why the Daily Dish would not be publishing anymore that day. Unless one were so totally in love with themselves to the point of being addicted to practicing self-fellatio, I would think about 2 sentences could have sufficed.

And to make this exercise in vainglorious blogger self promotion even more bizarre, Sully makes himself out to be a liar by posting an update to why he is not writing anything else on the blog for the day.

That’s right. He wrote on the blog to tell us that he was still not going to write anything on the blog.

I will leave it to my honored enemy Ace to deliver the coup de grace - with a very rusty, very dull scimitar:

Anyone else know of a blogger whose guest bloggers come in to say “Please excuse the insanity demonstrated by my host, he means well enough and he is, as far as we can tell, not a threat to himself or others”? Gotta be a first, right?

And yet here s/he is squawking about Palin’s “unhinged grip on reality” (nice wordsmithing there, by the way: Don’t you hate it when your grip becomes unhinged? I hate when my grip comes off its hinges).

And of course also engaging in extraordinarily tasteless, oblivious self-revelations about his/her twisted psychology. I have never in my life heard a man/woman rant so angrily about a woman’s vagina.

Palin’s vagina, in Andrew Sullivan’s telling, is a member of the Bavarian Illuminati. They’re all there — the Bildergsbergers, the Medicis, the Pope and the Jesuits, the Ghost of Richard Milhouse Nixon, and, of course, Sarah Palin’s genitalia.

You would just think that a professional homosexual like himself would have the good sense to refrain from unhinged-grip (whatever) pronouncements like “it’s the worst form of torture for interrogators to pretend to smear a suspect with fake menstrual blood” and “Sarah Palin’s vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy.”

Just, like, whoa, dude. Maybe better to keep that mask on, eh? Maybe better to be a little more self-aware, and self-protective, than to keep on with this too-much-information jihad against female genitalia.

We get it. Girl parts are icky and apparently capable of well-nigh-superhuman levels of fecundity. They’re just sort of low-brow and workin’ class. Crude and boorish and devious things, these female genitals.

We get it. Please stop. Please stop.

I don’t have the vision or the desire to look into Sullivan’s heart and glean his intent in all of this. Michelle Malkin believes he is mentally unbalanced and has suffered an episode. She’s not the only one. Who knows? Reading what he wrote above and the “update” I wouldn’t discount anything at this point.

Judging from the bloggers who are writing about this episode, none of Andrew’s erstwhile friends on the left seem to be coming to his defense, or sharing in his anticipation of whatever “subjective reality” Andrew will view Sarah Palin’s book through. Reminds me a little of Cindy Sheehan who was lionized by the left for having the “moral authority” to hate Bush because he killed her son. We noted at the time that the more bizarre Sheehan’s behavior got and the farther left she lurched, her former allies tiptoed away hoping no one would notice that they were previously comparing her to Mother Teresa and Rosa Parks.

Has such a moment arrived for Sullivan? Has he gone so far off the deep end with this Trig birther nonsense that his credibility has been shot even on the left?

A shame. A crying shame, it is.

The news that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried in New York City kind of shocked me yesterday. It has cheered some, worried others, and made some on the right white hot with anger.

Those who see this as a “triumph of the American Justice system” are blowing smoke out of their ass - including Obama. Let’s face it - he is gambling with the lives of God knows how many New Yorkers that we can stop any terrorist attacks occurring during the trial. Some on the right are accusing Obama of not thinking about this possibility, but that is certainly not true. The government is going in to this situation with their eyes wide open and the fact that we are bringing KSM to New York when he easily could have been tried in exactly the same manner at Guantanamo (or out in the middle of the Mojave desert for that matter) shows us that they wish to make some kind of grandiose statement about American justice.

This then is the calculated risk being taken by the president; that it is worth the threat to innocent Americans to prove our justice system is capable of handling even the most dedicated and evil enemy combatant. I don’t deny that this is a worthy goal. But weighed in the balance against what it might cost us, I believe, quite simply, it is a monumental mistake.

Not only are innocents at risk, but how sure is the administration that this trial won’t degenerate into the kind of idiocy we witnessed during the Simpson trial? Would that prove the efficacy of our justice system? Or would it be remembered as a shameful moment in the history of American jurisprudence?

Can any judge anywhere prevent this trial from becoming a media circus? Not unless they want to lock up half the journalists in America or censor their work. Is it even remotely possible that this trial will not be televised? Fat chance. Can both the defense attorneys and prosecutors resist the temptation to grandstand, to play to the TV audience rather than the jury? How about the judge?

The belief that this trial will show-off the “American justice system” in all its solemnity and seriousness is a laugher. And again, the government is not stupid. They know this will happen. This will be the OJ trial on steroids - the highest rated legal series on TV since Law and Order was in its heyday. And yet, despite the real possibility that terrorists - even the lone wolf Nidal Hasan variety - will try and grab the limelight by slaughtering a bunch of innocent New Yorkers, the government is insisting on idiotic posturing rather than protecting the people.

At bottom, this is a political decision, not a legal one. The Wall Street Journal:

Please spare us talk of the “rule of law.” If that was the primary consideration, the U.S. already has a judicial process in place. The current special military tribunals were created by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which was adopted with bipartisan Congressional support after the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision obliged the executive and legislative branches to approve a detailed plan to prosecute the illegal “enemy combatants” captured since 9/11.

Contrary to liberal myth, military tribunals aren’t a break with 200-plus years of American jurisprudence. Eight Nazis who snuck into the U.S. in June 1942 were tried by a similar court and most were hanged within two months. Before the Obama Administration stopped all proceedings earlier this year pending yesterday’s decision, the tribunals at Gitmo had earned a reputation for fairness and independence.

As it happens, Mr. Holder acknowledged their worth himself by announcing that the Guantanamo detainee who allegedly planned the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole off Yemen and four others would face military commission trials. (The Pentagon must now find a locale other than the multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art facility at Gitmo for its tribunal.)

Taking the side of the administration, the New York Times praises this “return” to the rule of law (the military courts, as the WSJ notes, were operating under rules passed by a bi-partisan Congress which means that the Times agrees with the tea partyers that Congress can act unlawfully.)

Putting the five defendants on public trial a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center is entirely fitting. Experience shows that federal courts are capable of handling high-profile terrorism trials without comprising legitimate secrets, national security or the rule of law. Mr. Bush’s tribunals failed to hold a single trial.

The fact that defense lawyers are likely to press to have evidence of abuse aired in court — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was tortured by waterboarding 183 times — is unlikely to derail the prosecutions, especially given Mr. Holder’s claim to have evidence that has not been released yet.

I don’t think there is a debate that our courts are completely unable to handle terrorist cases, or other sensitive trials where national security is a concern. I would note that the Times, while taking John Cornyn to task for the senator’s characterization of the government’s action of trying KSM and his friends as “common criminals,” makes the same mistake with KSM; they assume he is a “common terrorist” and that previous court cases prove that justice can be served.

KSM is a “common” nothing and the Times is being disingenuous throughout that entire editorial. If ever there was a special case where exceptions to the rule are in order, it is this one.

I am not concerned that KSM may be acquitted. I’m sure the charges will be sufficiently broad to allow him to be convicted of something. I am also sure that he will never see the outside of a cell in his lifetime.

The question is one of intelligently balancing the need for security and the need for justice - something that the left accused Bush of failing to do by pointing out that he bent over backward toward the goal of security while justice suffered.

Isn’t President Obama doing exactly the same thing? Aren’t we now putting the concept of justice far ahead of security? If justice was the goal, a New York venue for the trial would not have been necessary. There is no rational argument that makes it so without also making the point that security should be a secondary consideration.

This is what the administration has done.They have consciously made a choice to put the lives of American citizens at risk for what is, in effect, propaganda - to show the world (and satisfy his domestic liberal base) that American justice is a superior system, or, in the words of the Times, KSM will be “…tried in a fashion that will not further erode American justice or shame Americans.”

I’ll believe that when I see it. This trial has all the potential to “further erode American justice and shame Americans.” Legal circuses usually have that effect.

No, Limbaugh is no racist. He’s a blowhard. He’s a conservative poseur. He’s a racial provocateur. He’s a rabble rousing polemicist.

But Rush, God love him, would find no advantage to being a racist and hence, doesn’t even try to play one on the radio. In fact, it is amusing that as always, Limbaugh knows exactly what buttons to push that sends his enemies into orbit.

Now, it is apparent his foes have gone a smear too far and actually invented some “Rushisms” out of whole cloth - with predictable results, as Limbaugh has been able to use the lies about him to both instruct his listeners in media bias (you’d think after 20 years his audience would get it), as well as generate sympathy from people like me who can’t stand him but hate the rank dishonesty and evocation of nauseating racial politics of some on the left even more.

But the real kicker in this brouhaha over Limbaugh’s purported effort to become an NFL owner is the uproariously funny spectacle of NFL owners and players solemnly opining on Limbaugh’s supposed divisive words and bad behavior.

When did the NFL become the gold standard of tolerance and diversity? And since when did the NFL Players Association and its nearly 200 members who have been charged with felonies in the last decade become the arbiter of moral wholesomeness?

The National Football League was the last major professional sports organization to hire a black coach. Art Shell was hired in 1988 to coach the Oakland Raiders. It took them 4 years to hire a second - Dennis Green of the Vikings. All told, there have been 10 African American coaches in the entire history of the league. That compares to 49 black coaches in NBA history and 22 in Major League baseball.

And these guys are worried about Limbaugh?

The NBA and pro baseball had programs in place to seek out minority hires in management about a decade before the NFL even broke the color barrier. It took the league another decade to reluctantly adopt a policy to promote minorities on the field. It was ordered that any head coaching vacancy would require at least one minority candidate to be interviewed. Predictably, there were loud complaints that the whole policy was a dog and pony show because the number of black head coaches never increased.

It was left to individual do gooders - Bill Walsh was prominent in the movement to increase minority hires - to take it upon themselves to do something about this embarrassingly shameful situation. With no help from the owners, black assistant coaches began to slowly fill the ranks of NFL teams and got their shots at the big chair.

So when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell can actually face the cameras with a straight face and say something like this, my hypocrisy meter starts going off the scale:

Commissioner Roger Goodell said here Tuesday that it would be inappropriate for the owner of an NFL franchise to make the sort of controversial statements attributed in the past to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

“I’ve said many times before we’re all held to a high standard here, and I think divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about,” Goodell said at an NFL owners’ meeting. “I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL, absolutely not.”

Limbaugh has acknowledged being part of a group bidding for the St. Louis Rams.

Goodell and several owners said Tuesday that the Rams’ sale process is in its early stages and the league is far from considering a potential bid by Limbaugh and Dave Checketts, the chairman of hockey’s St. Louis Blues.

But any proposed franchise sale would have to be approved by three-quarters of the owners, and Goodell’s comments signaled that it perhaps would be unlikely that Limbaugh’s bid would be ratified by the other teams.

“Divisive comments?” How about Falcons owner Arthur Blank on the prospects for the return of convicted dog torturer Michael Vick?

“If Michael makes a mistake and eats fried chicken and French fries in prison every day and comes out at 250 pounds, he’s not going to be able to play football,” Blank said. “

Now, anyone in public life who utters the words “fried chicken” as it relates to a black man is usually skewered over an open spit. The racialists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton scream bloody murder. But because no one wanted to be in the position of defending the monster Vick, Blank got something of a pass. (As well he should have.)

Well, since he’s part of the club already, Blank doesn’t get called on the carpet. But the fact remains that only liberal universities have a worse record at hiring African American coaches. As of today, there are exactly 4 major college coaches out of 119 schools.

And what of the professional sports criminal element? I’m speaking of the NFL players - 471 and counting have been arrested since 2000. For any of them to open their mouths about Rush Limbaugh and judge him is too absurd for words. The resistance by the NFL Players Association to ferreting out illegal steroid and other drug use puts them in no position to be commenting about anyone’s morals.

Late word is that Limbaugh will apparently be dropped from the Checketts group. Just as well. Limbaugh may very well have embarrassed the league at some point as he pushes the envelope of outrageousness ever farther in search of ratings and ad revenue. But for the hypocrites in the NFL to worry about Limbaugh’s racial agitation when their own sorry ass record is so profoundly disturbing, it gives a whole new meaning to the “pot-kettle” analogy.

As far back as 1999, it was apparent to anyone who listened closely to what he was saying that George Bush was not much of a conservative. This despite the lip service he gave to some conservative ideas (I wouldn’t say he was a study in advocating conservative principles), and his ability to excite the party’s evangelical base.

True, he was “more conservative” than Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. But so was about 70% of the country. It took about 5 years for the scales to fall from the eyes of many conservatives (some have never lost their true belief) for them to see that George Bush was a crony loving, big government elitist whose tangential connection to conservatism was more for convenience and political calculation than any belief in the efficacy of its principles.

Were we taken in? Partly, yes. But an honest appraisal of my former support for the man must include the fact that I was fooling myself more than anything. The writing was on the wall all along regarding the man’s faux conservatism - not to mention his many screw ups including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the prosecutors fiasco, justification for torture, and his curious habit of promoting and appointing incompetents for important jobs in government who also happened to be big campaign contributors or other cronies.

Now a book has been written by a former Bush speechwriter which has pretty much confirmed what most on the right now think of the ex-president. Matt Latimer reveals Bush to be an arrogant, self centered, elitist who looked down his nose at the conservative movement:

Latimer is a veteran of conservative politics. An admirer of Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, for whom he worked for several years, Latimer also worked in the Rumsfeld Pentagon before joining the Bush White House in 2007.

The revealing moment, described in “Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor,” occurred in the Oval Office in early 2008.

Bush was preparing to give a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The conference is the event of the year for conservative activists; Republican politicians are required to appear and offer their praise of the conservative movement.

Latimer got the assignment to write Bush’s speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic.

“What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?” the president asked Latimer.

Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement — the movement that gave rise to groups like CPAC.

Bush seemed perplexed. Latimer elaborated a bit more. Then Bush leaned forward, with a point to make.

“Let me tell you something,” the president said. “I whupped Gary Bauer’s ass in 2000. So take out all this movement stuff. There is no movement.”

Bush seemed to equate the conservative movement — the astonishing growth of conservative political strength that took place in the decades after Barry Goldwater’s disastrous defeat in 1964 — with the fortunes of Bauer, the evangelical Christian activist and former head of the Family Research Council whose 2000 presidential campaign went nowhere.

Now it was Latimer who looked perplexed. Bush tried to explain.

“Look, I know this probably sounds arrogant to say,” the president said, “but I redefined the Republican Party.”

Yes, Mr. Bush. You certainly “redefined” the Republican party by showing the GOP could be even more careless with the public purse than Democrats, as well as being a political cynic of the first order by pandering to the base of the party - the “movement” - while sneering at what it represented.

The charge of “patrician” made against his father back in the day should also be applied to the son. Here, the blue blood shows why you can’t trust elites. At bottom, their arrogance directed toward ordinary people is so profound as to cloud their judgment.

Given everything we now know about Bush, would I have pulled an Andrew Sullivan and voted for Kerry in 2004? Definitely not. But, as I did in 1992 when his father ran for re-election, the chances are pretty good that I would not have voted for president at all.

True, Bush’s fiscal profligacy was known back then, but weighed against the war on terror and what most of us believed was a slowly improving situation in Iraq, it would have been enough to dissuade me from voting against him.

Now we have a different story - that of Bush the hypocrite who had few, if any, guiding principles save “Whatever’s best for George Bush, is best for the party and the country.” That kind of selfish conceit may be endemic among presidents - it certainly was for Nixon, and probably Johnson - but it explains a lot as far as Bush’s cronyism as well as his cozying up to Wall Street, his sticking with Rumsfeld long after he had outlived his usefulness, and other stubborn acts that many conservatives still mistake for resolve. Quite simply, it didn’t matter if all the wise heads in government were telling him to change course in Iraq. He, George Bush, knew better. And the United States paid a bitter price in blood and treasure because of this hubris.

And, it explains Karl Rove to some extent. No doubt that Clintonites like James Carville had vast knowledge about the intricacies of American politics. But Rove is a human computer - a veritable font of information about the most arcane, and fractional tidbits of political trivia. There may never have been his like in the White House.

But Rove was decidedly not a creature of ideology. He possessed a burning desire to win as all good political consultants have. Beyond that, Rove eschewed the idea of using the movement for anything except what he termed a “permanent Republican majority” that combined massive numbers of evangelical Christians energized by relying on “wedge” issues like gay marriage and abortion to turn them out, as well as the foreign policy hawks. Fiscal conservatives could come along for the ride if they wished but it was clear that neither Rove nor Bush gave a tinker’s damn about them. Add supply siders and libertarians and Rove believed he had his “permanent” majority - a majority not based on conservative issues as much as on political expediency.

The results were predictable; a fracturing of the “permanent” coalition within two years of his 2004 victory. The corruption, the spending, and the war between libertarans and evangelicals over the Terri Schiavo matter exploded any hope that Rove’s makeshift, rickety political construction would outlast his boss.

So here we are in the wilderness with many conservatives still clinging to the notion that Bush made some mistakes but was still a good president. I have said in the past that fingering Bush as the “worst president in American history” is ridiculous. In the bottom ten, yes. But I abhor those who would use history for political purposes and the facts simply do not bear that judgment out.

Until conservatives can let go of Bush and his checkered legacy, we will not learn the lessons from supporting him and probably end up voting for someone similar. That is the mistake Democrats made when they were in the political badlands and we would do well not to repeat it.

(Note: Please do not crow in the comments “I told you so.” What - you expect me to listen to partisan lefties at the time? That’s unreasonable and you know it. Your verdict on Bush was reached looking through the prism of partisanship just as mine was. Just because the left was right about some of Bush’s shortcomings does not mean they had - or have today - a corner on truth when it comes to criticizing him. I would also add that their hate of the man - as virulent a hate directed against another politician I had not seen before, even against Clinton - disqualifies most on the left from making any rational judgment on Bush that a reasonable person could agree with.)

I’m with the left all the way on this one. What Joe Wilson did by screaming, frothing at the mouth, and rabidly drooling while accusing the president of lying is the most destructive, the most ill mannered, the MOST UNPRECEDENTED occurrence in the history of this planet or any other.

“YOU LIE! the crazy man screeched at the top of his voice. Only his colleagues holding him back prevented him from assaulting the president in the House chamber with a bloody ax he had just used on his child.

What has happened to our country when Republicans, who obviously knew what he was going to do before hand, failed to stop this goober chewing yahoo from interrupting Jesus Christ on the cro…oh, wait. I mean President Obama during his VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, important speech on socialized (oops! sorry) I mean government mandated health insurance?

Surely we must come back to civility in our public discourse. Surely forms of etiquette must be preserved. Surely it should be a crime punishable by 20 lashes to not stare in doe eyed worship and hang on every word that our Glorious Leader imparts to us masses.

Absolutely. But please don’t call me Shirley.

I fully back efforts to investigate this rogue, this roue, this dunderheaded clodsop of an inbred Congressman who thought he was at a Gamecock football game and not the Sermon in the House Well. (”Blessed are the bureaucrats for theirs shall be the Kingdom of Obama.”).

How dare he? No one has ever, ever, ever interrupted another president or booed him, or called him a liar, or accused him of going to war for bloodlust and oil. What political party could possible countenance such evil?

If it were up to me, I’d banish him. Exile the fool. Send him to another country like…like…Utah or Montana or some other foreign country where his discourteousness would go unnoticed and he could mingle with those other bible thumping, straw eating, sister loving, gun toting, immigrant hating yahoos.

And while we’re at it, let’s send his friends with him; you know, the ones whose fear mongering and lies about GL’s perfect health care reform bill are causing the rubes out in rubeland to scratch their balls, spit, and then scream at their Democratic Congressman?

This kind of demagoguery is outrageously unacceptable. We shouldn’t stand for it - not for a second. DON’T THEY KNOW THAT PEOPLE ARE DYING BECAUSE OUR GLORIOUS LEADER - WHO TRULY LOVES US ALL AND WISHES ONLY THE BEST FOR US - CAN’T GET HIS HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL PASSED? It’s a crisis, I tell you. A crisis. Forget war. Forget Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Floods, Wrack and Ruin. Forget Manmade Natural Disasters that we used to call acts of terrorism but don’t anymore because Our President has banished that scourge - or at least the word - from the face of the earth.

This is a REAL crisis - not a made up one like that other fellow had.

Perhaps we should consider executing Wilson. Hanging’s too good for him of course. Tar and feathering is environmentally unfriendly (Didn’t you know that tar is made from the Devil’s Brew - OIL? Besides, little birdies might eat the feathers and be unable to crap. Horror!). Waterboarding is illegal (but wouldn’t it be fun?) And guns…EWW!

I think Wilson should be sentenced to listen to our Glorious Leader’s inauguration speech - 10,000 times. It wouldn’t be torture. We’d give him one hour’s sleep every day and only make him stand for 12 hours at a time. Cheney said that kind of thing works wonders.

And after all, he’d be transformed. I’ve listened to it about 500 times and there’s nothing wrong with me - fit as a fiddle and twice as twangy. Listening to GL’s words of emptiness and nothingness fills the soul with sublime hollowness. It’s done wonders for my digestion and my bowels are as right as rain. Better than a high colonic in cleaning out the system. You should try it.

People like Wilson need to get out of the way and let our Glorious Leader fulfill his destiny. All of this talk is worthless and should be outlawed somehow. After all, we won, didn’t we?

No 9/11 remembrance post for me this year. I’ve done four 2000 word articles about where I was when it happened, how it impacted my thinking, how the attacks changed America - I even wrote a 9/11 post on 9/10 Democrats.

In other words, I’ve said it all. I’ve got nothing original to add. About the only thing I feel on 9/11 anymore is a wearying sadness to the bone brought on by the realization that it is going to happen again because we haven’t learned a damn thing. The borders are still porous, the enemy is if anything, more determined to cause us pain (yes - even with Barack Hussein Obama as president). And I’m still waiting for an intelligent discussion regarding civil liberties and security. The absolutist position taken by both sides is depressing to me as we careen wildly between too much in the way of security that infringes liberty and not enough which invites disaster.

So we are going to get hit again - not because Bush isn’t president and Obama is. Not because liberals are in charge and not conservatives. Not because anyone wants it to happen. And not because one side or the other in our childish and destructive politics is incapable of protecting us.

It will happen because our enemies are determined to make it happen. They are willing to die to make us bleed. That makes them impossible to stop. We can foil their plans a hundred times. They only need to succeed once. Torture doesn’t make us safer. Phone taps won’t make us safer. Increased cooperation with other countries won’t make us safer. Prosecuting terrorists - if any survive - after the fact won’t deter them or make us safer. Bringing economic development to poor countries won’t create fewer terrorists or make us safer - not when most terrorists attacking the west come from well to do, middle class families. Negotiating with them won’t make us safer.

Using law enforcement and international cooperation to break up their cells may give us the illusion of safety but for everyone we bust, of how many are we unaware? How many take their place?

The temptation to say “kill them all” is great, despite the fact that we couldn’t do it, even if it was politically viable. And we’d only end up creating an even bigger problem when the inevitable civilian body count inherent in such a strategy skyrockets. For proof of that theory, I present Afghanistan/Pakistan where we are making more enemies daily by striking at the heart of the jihadis.

For the time being, we just have to get used to the idea that there are some things beyond our control in this world and one of them is the timetables and plans of terrorists. It’s either that, or sacrifice our liberty in ways that aren’t necessary to survive as a nation - yet. Once the terrorists get their hands on weapons of mass destruction and use them on us - something almost every expert is predicting will happen - that will almost certainly change.

This may be pessimistic but I think it is well justified. We can’t kill them all, we can’t realistically stop them, and we can’t trade liberty for security in any way that might actually matter. We refuse to guard our own borders, or treat them enemy as “the enemy,” or prevent nations like Syria, Iran, Yemen, or Pakistan from harboring the very terrorists that might strike us at anytime.

If you can come to any other conclusion except we will be hit again, I’d be interested in hearing it.

Please take a moment today to remember the fallen. The least we can do is recall their deaths and vow never to forget how it felt to be an American that awful day.

John Cole of the blog Balloon Juice and I used to have a rather cordial relationship back in the day. A few angry back and forths later - not so much anymore.

Cole’s party switch over torture and the mismanaged Iraq War (along with GOP corruption and the excessive ideology of the base) endeared him to some on the left but I think even they may be uncomfortable with his demonstrated independence from orthodoxy from time to time. Sadly, his blog has morphed by and large into a collection of bitter denunciations directed at most conservatives who fail to meet his rather stringent ideological standards for relevance and correct thinking.

That said, now that he is a self-identified Democrat, Cole himself can be guilty of being as nasty a partisan as any on the left:

Rick Moran is a libertine the same way Glenn Reynolds is a libertarian. They are both Republicans. Moran occasionally chastises some of the obviously crazy nonsense on the right, but only when he can also include a false equivalency about the Democrats. It sometimes seems like he is making sense, but ignore his schtick of not being a party man. Ask him if he voted for McCain or Obama? For Bush or Kerry? For Bush or Gore? For Clinton or Dole?

I read him for years and finally gave up reading him regularly, because the only core principle I could ever find from him was “The Democrats are worse.”

First of all, I am a libertine the same way the dictionary defines the term:

1. One who acts without moral restraint; a dissolute person.
2. One who defies established religious precepts; a freethinker.

adj.  Morally unrestrained; dissolute.

The first definition could certainly have been applied to my behavior in my dissolute youth. And my atheism would meet the definition of defying “established religious precepts.”

But it is a large part of my self image that I consider myself, and strive to be, a “freethinker.” I make an effort to eschew a dogmatic approach to life and politics - not always succeeding but finding that it is in reaching for the goal that we learn the most and better ourselves. Some may glimpse sophistry in such an admission - nothing I can do there. You either take what I write as being what I think and feel or not.

In Cole’s case, he views my writing through the prism of partisanship. By dismissing my attempts at fully vetting a subject by presenting both sides, or pointing out that whatever nuttiness has been perpetrated on the right finds an equal or almost equally loony counterpoint on the left, Cole himself is guilty of dogmatic thinking.

It is the idea that I am guilty of “false equivalence” that betrays Cole as a less than neutral - and honest - observer. I will admit that there are times that I may, in fact, stretch to make the equivalence point. But does that make it “false?” Only if you have an agenda beyond trying to be objective. I have never knowingly perpetrated a fraudulent analogy and don’t think I ever have. Sometimes, it’s not possible to find an exact counter to the idiocy one side has engaged in. I expect if you were to really examine my 3,200 posts, you would probably find some inexact correlations on both sides. Demanding perfect symmetry is unrealistic and proof that Cole is unwilling to accept the fact that the excessive ideology and hatred of the opposition he so rightly condemns is a mirror image of the same idiocy found among his friends on the left.

Any reasonable analysis of “movement conservatives” and “movement progressives” would find a vast kinship in paranoia, the use of logical fallacies, slippery slopes, strawman arguments, as well as a quest for ideological purity, and other manifestations of a kind of absolutism regarding their political opposites that has infected our politics and made it extraordinarily difficult for presidents over the last 20 years to get anything done.

Guilty as charged, on occasion. I am not immune to emotionalism and spite and I apologize for being human. But it is dishonest for Cole to issue a blanket condemnation of my writing based on his idea of “false” equivalence when I take both sides to task for acting idiotically or saying insane things. You can nitpick my analogies and no doubt find differences in the examples I utilize to make my point. But substantively, I don’t believe you can argue that there isn’t at least a rough symmetry involved in my analyses. Denying such marks one as a partisan more concerned with scoring minor points in disagreement than in taking a hard look at the actions and beliefs of one’s own side to discern the truth.

By the way, why not voting for Clinton makes me a party man is beyond me. And Holy God almighty what conservative in their right mind would have voted for Kerry? Cole certainly has a limited idea of what does or does not constitute blind party loyalty. Perhaps John hasn’t voted much in his life. Most ballots I’ve marked in the polling booth have contained dozens of candidates for dozens of political offices. If Cole’s end all and be all definition of “party man” starts and stops with who I voted for president, that is pretty shallow indeed.

I did not vote for president in 1972 or 92, I wrote in Reagan’s name in 1976, did not vote in 88. I voted for Paul Simon twice because he was the most honorable politician I ever saw (Wellstone runs second there). I have voted for local Democrats for town and township races in the past although not in the last couple of election cycles. I vote for Democratic judges every few election cycles based on the theory that judges should not be career politicians.

I may vote for Rep. Debbie Halverson if the GOP runs Ozinga again (”Everyone in America has health care. All they have to do is go to an emergency room.”). She seems harmless enough and is thought highly of here in Streator, IL. She got on my good side when she introduced legislation when she was state senator that would have effectively killed the white elephant of an airport out in Peotone being pushed by Jesse Jackson Jr.

No, I am not a party man. I am a nominal Republican in that the GOP fields candidates more regularly who reflect my views. Give me a Democrat who does so and I will seriously consider voting for him/her as I have in the past.

For Cole, it would be interesting to find out the last Republican he voted for since he switched sides.