Right Wing Nut House

Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer is a very brave fellow. He’s also a glutton for punishment.

Lt. Col. Shaffer is the man who is about to be engulfed by the storm of controversy surrounding the Able Danger revelations. And by engulfed, I mean eaten alive chewed up, and spit out in little pieces by the most powerful forces in government; the national security establishment.

What the left refers to as “The Military-Industrial Complex” is actually a much more complicated network of people, of law firms, lobbying concerns, and career bureaucrats who more or less are responsible for the safety and security of the United States. They make up the backbone of any Administration’s national security apparatus - Republican or Democratic. They fill almost all the appointed positions in the bureaucracies as well as sit on the numerous committees, commissions, advisory councils, and ad-hoc study groups (many of which most of us have never heard of) that decide on policy recommendations, weapons systems, international treaties, and the subtleties of diplomacy, not to mention the monitoring of our intelligence agencies.

And Lt. Col Shaffer has just run afoul of this group by 1) exposing a top secret data mining operation that used information gathered by the extraordinarily secret National Security Agency; and 2) opened up several members of the national security establishment who sat on the 9/11 Commission to embarrassing revelations that they may have missed a key element regarding the attack in their final report.

What Colonel Shaffer did was confirm the information that has been reported since last week; that 9/11 Commission staffers were told back in October, 2003 about Able Danger’s discovery of an al Qaeda cell here in the United States more than a year before the attack. We’ve already discussed the embarrassment such a discovery can cause the Commission. But it was Able Danger’s methods that may ultimately prove most damaging to Col. Shaffer’s prospects for continued advancement in the service of the United States army.

Part of Able Danger’s methods included using information gleaned from NSA intercepts. Anyone who has ever read James Bamford’s intriguing books Puzzle Palace or Body of Secrets : Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency knows that the NSA avoids publicity like the plague. And if one of their operations is outed, they become downright nasty. How many “tell-all” books from former NSA employees have you seen? This is due to incredibly strict non-disclosure forms signed by all employees as a condition of employment. Violation is not just grounds for firing; you can go to jail for a very long time if you’re caught talking about the NSA with anyone. That goes double for writing about the Agency.

Since Able Danger was not strictly an NSA operation (it was an operation carried out by Special Forces Command) Lt. Shaffer, as far as we know, is not subject to any non-disclosure agreements. However, any operation that features involvement by the NSA and is subsequently highlighted in national media will not sit well with the national security establishment. Expect the pushback to begin today when, as Junkyard Blog reports, the Pentagon will have a lot to say about Able Danger, none of it earth shattering. The next step will be to make available to some respected national defense correspondent for either the New York Times or Washington Post an actual Able Danger team member to refute Col. Shaffer’s charges.

Shaffer was not an actual Able Danger team member. He was liaison to the team for the Defense Intelligence Agency:

Colonel Shaffer said that his role in Able Danger was as the program’s liaison with the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, and that he was not an intelligence analyst. The interview with Colonel Shaffer on Monday night was arranged for The New York Times and Fox News by Representative Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Republican who is vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a champion of data-mining programs like Able Danger.

Colonel Shaffer’s lawyer, Mark Zaid, said in an interview that he was concerned that Colonel Shaffer was facing retaliation from the Defense Department - first for having talked to the Sept. 11 commission staff in October 2003 and now for talking with news organizations.

Mr. Zaid said that Colonel Shaffer’s security clearance had been suspended last year because of what the lawyer said were a series of “petty allegations” involving $67 in personal charges on a military cellphone. He noted that despite the disciplinary action, Colonel Shaffer had been promoted this year from the rank of major.

While this certainly put Col. Shaffer in the loop, it’s barely conceivable that the 9/11 Commission may have justified discounting his revelations due to his position as being one step removed from the actual operation. And note how Col. Shaffer’s lawyer puts his client’s dirty laundry on the table immediately. Any hint that the Colonel is airing these allegations to put his superiors in a bad light as revenge for past slights is countered by full disclosure.

Where Col. Shaffer’s real problem is that he’s ruffling the feathers of some very well connected people. I might mention that the national security establishment, contrary to what the Noam Chomsky’s and Alexander Cockburn’s of the world say, is not some gigantic conspiracy of right wing cabalists who run the government from an office at the Pentagon. It is rather a loose network of individuals who’ve known each other for years, see each other at conferences, socialize together, and make it their business to watch each other’s back. Far from being an organized conspiracy, it’s more like a club.

In fact, right wing paranoia over the Tri-Lateral Commission, although silly and misplaced, is probably close to the truth, at least as far as there being a few places like the TLC, Bohemian Grove, and the Council on Foreign Relations where large numbers of the establishment come together to socialize. To say there’s a conspiracy presupposes common aims among a large number of them which is demonstrably untrue. Politics, ideology, and personality divide the establishment as much as it divides any other large group. To posit conspiracy out of this is, well, loony.

But that won’t stop the pushback from a Defense Department that wants to cover its arse over an allegation that it let a bunch of lawyers dictate national security. Nor will it stop a similar effort by 9/11 Commission staffers. The Executive Director of the staff is now one of the most powerful people in Washington, a top aide to Secretary of State Condi Rice Philip Zelicow:

The Able Danger papers shown to the 9/11 Commission at the Pentagon after the Afghanistan meeting did not feature anything mentioning Atta. So the 9/11 Commission says. So either the Commission staff is lying. Or no paper mentioned Atta and Shaffer is just wrong. Or the Defense Department misplaced the paperwork mentioning Atta. Or somebody at the Defense Department deliberately didn’t give the Commission the material.

In the first case, if the 9/11 commission staff is lying, the hell to be paid is going to be colossal. Among other things, it could shake the current State Department to its foundations, since the 9/11 commission staff director, Philip Zelicow, is one of Condi Rice’s most trusted aides.

In the second case, if the Defense Department withheld critical information on this matter, it’s almost impossible to imagine the intensity of the bloodletting that will follow.

That bloodletting will partly be because of who was commanding officer of SOCOM at the time that Able Danger was in operation:

The current Chief of Staff of the US Army is Gen. Peter Schoomaker. He rose through the ranks of Special Operations Command, and was in charge of that command at MacDill Air Force Base at the time Able Danger did its work. If the Pentagon is reticent to confirm Lt Col Shaffer’s story, you have two data points to consider as reasons why. One, the likely involvement of NSA, the most secretive and most effective (largely because it’s so secretive) intel agency we have. They stay out of the limelight and generally because of that run rings around the CIA. Anything that puts a spotlight on NSA is bad, so that in and of itself could be a reason to pour cold water on Able Danger. The second data point is that it could boomerang around on the Army Chief of Staff if he was in any way involved in bottling up Able Danger in his old command. The Pentagon does not want this scandal, not now and not ever. So I’ll be surprised if they say anything interesting anytime in the next hundred years about Able Danger.

Colonel Shaffer is counting on Congressman Curt Weldon to run interference for him. I’m afraid this is an illusion. And damn Weldon if he was able to convince the Colonel that he could protect him. The Congressman should know better. When it comes to protecting its own, the establishment has a history of closing ranks.

I hope the Colonel has a strong constitution. He’s going to need it.

UPDATE

Austin Bay:

I thought many of the folks serving on the 9/11 panel were weak, pompous politicos — placed there because of personal political connections, not defense and intelligence acumen or reputation for careful analysis. However, Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean have credibility, and they were the men who led the commission. If Able Danger had evidence, I expected Kean and Hamilton to demand to see it and vet it.

Yesterday Fox, the AP and NY Times changed the dimensions of this story. I’m still not certain where the allegations will lead, but we now have an officer involved providing details. How clear and detailed was the Able Danger information? We still don’t know– Weldon’s and Shaffer’s allegations could still unravel if the information amounts to “hearsay.”

Tom Maguire whose skepticism is diminishing…slowly:

Let’s end with an easy question - do people think they have seen enough to merit a Congressional investigation? And do people want the investigation to be in Curt Weldon’s House, or over in the Senate?

My answer - if the Defense Dept. now denies everything, I may not believe them, and if they admit that they sat on Atta’s name, I really won’t believe it - send it to the Senate, start putting people under oath, and sort this out.

Weldon’s credibility is zero. But a joint House-Senate Committee wouldn’t be out of the question. Besides, Weldon would insist on face time for the cameras seeing as its his witnesses who would play the starring role.

Anyone who has the stomach to sit down and actually read all of Adolph Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf is a better man than I, Gunga Din. I picked up a copy of “My Struggle” about 20 years ago in a used paperback book store and thought, why not? If I could make it through Communist Manifesto and it’s convoluted structure and fevered prose, I figured that Hitler’s screed would be a breeze. I had read extended excerpts in William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as well as John Toland’s thoughtful biography of the monster Adolph Hitler so it’s not like I was totally unfamiliar with what I was in for as far as what Shirer aptly termed “turgid prose.”

After the first hour, I realized that Shirer was being kind . “Turgid” is an understatement. “Incomprehensible” would be more accurate. Hitler was laughable as a writer. There’s no organization, no grand concept, no structure to sentences, paragraphs or chapters. In short, it was a mess.

Hitler would have fit right in if he had been blogging (at least on this site).

I got through the first 100 pages and lost interest. But I bring up the book if only as an object lesson in what Hitler’s contemporaries thought of it; they had exactly the same reaction. And because they dismissed it outright, they paid for their shortsightedness with 40 million of their dead.

For contained in its 664 rambling, confused pages was Hitler’s plan to conquer Europe, subjugate the Slavs, destroy Russia, and annihilate the Jews. It was all there in black and white and the snobby intellectuals who looked down their noses at him ended up paying for their incredulity with the most destructive war in European history.

Even Hitler’s rise to power was outlined in the book. The alliance with big business and the army, the use of propaganda, the mysticism, the hearkening back to Germany’s pagan roots - it was all there. Never before in history has a leader offered such an exact blueprint of his rise to power or plans for conquest.

The book was written in 1925-26 when Hitler was serving time in prison for trying to overthrow the Weimer Republic. Ten years later, he began to methodically carry out plans laid out in the book almost as if he was going down a list and checking off items as he went along. Starting with the re-occupation and re-militarization of the Rhineland, through the Anschluss with Austria, the claims made on the Sudentenland, the elimination of a rump Czechoslovakian state, Poland and the Danzig Corridor, and finally the war that he planned to fight with first France, then England, and lastly the Soviet Union.

I point all this out about Mein Kampf because I’ve been struck when reading some liberal commentators who denigrate the very idea of a War on Terror by saying that we shouldn’t really take the Islamists dreams of establishing a Muslim Caliphate seriously nor should we worry about al Qaeda’s desire to start a global revolution that would sweep away the decadent west and put in its place an Islamic political hegemony that would dominate the world.

Is that too far fetched? Only if you’re not paying attention to what your enemy is saying:

With the fourth anniversary of the hot war between al Qaeda and the West approaching, it is interesting to see how al Qaeda’s strategy and objectives have evolved since the United States committed to engaging in open warfare.

The Word Unheard points us to an article in Spiegel Online by a Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein, who is believed to be a reliable source of information on al Qaeda. His main source for this article on al Qaeda strategy is none other than Saif al-Adel, al Qaeda’s military commander who is currently operating from Iran.

al Qaeda’s purported strategy can be broken down into seven “phases” which span from 2000 until 2020, at which time they believe the global Islamist Caliphate will be established and they will achieve “definitive victory.”

(HT: The Fourth Rail)

What’s remarkable about these phases is that so far, they have eerily followed what has happened in the Global War on Terror. For instance, the first phase known as “The Awakening” that was to last from 2000-2003 or more generally, from 9/11 to the fall of Baghdad, Islam was to have provoked the United States into fighting thereby “awakening” Muslims:

“The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaida as very successful,” writes Hussein. “The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target.” The terrorist network is also reported as being satisfied that its message can now be heard “everywhere.”

I realize that many critics of the War on Terror point to this “why wake a sleeping bear” theme as good reasons not to have fought in either Iraq or Afghanistan. By way of an answer, I think it’s pretty clear that the Islamists would have kept attacking us and given a continued safe haven in Afghanistan, would have been virtually untouchable.

The second phase called “Opening eyes” is the period we’re in now and is scheduled to last until 2006:

Hussein believes this is a phase in which al-Qaida wants an organization to develop into a movement. The network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an “army” set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.

I have no doubt that our invasion and reconstruction in Iraq is causing Islamist recruits to pour into that country. The question is, what good is it doing?

So far, the Second Phase has been a failure. The Arab and greater Islamic Street has been essentially silent in its support of al Qaeda. The perception that al Qaeda’s cause is popular as hundreds of Islamists enter Iraq monthly is overshadowed by the tens of thousands of Islamic fighters who enter Afghanistan during the war with the Soviet Union. al Qaeda has generated new recruits, but not nearly enough to replace the experienced operators and managers that have been lost under the American onslaught in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Would that situation change if we were to leave Iraq in chaos? Not only would we destabilize the entire middle east, but we’d risk the scattered cells and small cadres of terrorists coalescing into an army if Iraq became a terrorist haven.

The third phase or “Arising and Standing Up” and last from 2007-2010. Emphasis would be placed on Syria:

The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and — even more explosive — in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaida’s masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.

This, I believe, is where the folly of the left’s critique of the war lies. What we’re dealing with is clearly a trans-national, sophisticated, determined group of fanatics who have a plan and, unless things change drastically in the next few years, will have the funding to carry out those plans. Whatever damage we’ve inflicted on al Qaeda’s infrastructure, their plans are far enough along that elements are already in place to carry on.

The fourth phase will take place between 2010 and 2013 and will target Arab governments:

The estimate is that “the creeping loss of the regimes’ power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaida.” At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.

Bill Roggio points out that phase three and four can essentially be condensed although the hope that democratic reform will blossom in most if not all of those countries could mitigate against al Qaeda’s plan to overthrow Arab regimes. This part of the plan has never been a secret but it should give impetus to both governments and reform movements in the Arab world to quicken the pace of change.

The final three phases of this plan reveal the Islamists ultimate goals:

The Fifth Phase This will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. The plan is that by this time, between 2013 and 2016, Western influence in the Islamic world will be so reduced and Israel weakened so much, that resistance will not be feared. Al-Qaida hopes that by then the Islamic state will be able to bring about a new world order.

The Sixth Phase Hussein believes that from 2016 onwards there will a period of “total confrontation.” As soon as the caliphate has been declared the “Islamic army” it will instigate the “fight between the believers and the non-believers” which has so often been predicted by Osama bin Laden.

The Seventh Phase This final stage is described as “definitive victory.” Hussein writes that in the terrorists’ eyes, because the rest of the world will be so beaten down by the “one-and-a-half million Muslims,” the caliphate will undoubtedly succeed. This phase should be completed by 2020, although the war shouldn’t last longer than two years.

Whether or not you believe that this plan can be carried through to fruition is beside the point. The Islamists believe it. And that’s what makes them so extraordinarily dangerous. While Mr. Roggio points out correctly that the majority of Muslims have so far rejected the idea of a Pan-Islamic movement, I wonder if that attitude wouldn’t change if the United States were to be severely crippled by either one or more nuclear blasts or a biological attack that would destroy our economy. Would such a huge victory for al Qaeda galvanize the Islamic world and unite its factions under the Islamists banner?

I for one don’t want to find out.

The situation regarding top secret Pentagon data mining operation known as Able Danger is at the moment, confused - to say the least.

On the one hand, you have Rep. “Crazy” Curt Weldon backtracking on the story as his main source - a source that the 9/11 Commission admits met with staffer Deitrich Snell on July 12, 2004 and relayed information that Atta was pegged by the Able Danger team a year before 9/11 - has said that he had no corroborative paperwork to back up his contention about Atta.

On the other hand, you have this story in today’s Washington Times which quotes a second source (who met with Commission staffers in Pakistan in October, 2003) as saying that he did in fact inform the Commission that the Able Danger team had indeed uncovered information about Mohammed Atta and that he tried to tell the Commission again in January:

The intelligence official said he was interviewed in October 2003 by members of the September 11 commission staff, including Executive Director Philip Zelikow, and sought to arrange a follow-up meeting that the staff had requested when he returned from Afghanistan in January 2004, but was rebuffed.

“They took good notes and scribbled the entire time I talked. Two staffers took four to five pages of notes each. Other members from Special Ops Command also were in attendance,” he said, adding that he was “shocked” in January 2004 when the staff members told him, “We don’t need to talk to you.”

Mr. Weldon said he wants to know “who made the decision and why was it never mentioned in the final document. … It would have changed the completion on the final 9/11 report.”

I speculated in this post that there were probably two separate sources for the Able Danger information since the 9/11 Commission met with another intelligence officer in October.

To have that source confirm that he talked about Mohammed Atta and the team’s inability to report their information to the FBI throws just a little bit different light on the matter.

Jim Geraghty is pissed at Weldon for his backtracking. But its obvious Geraghty did not see the article in the Washington Times. And Geraghty’s scoop that the Pentagon is going to be releasing Able Danger information that won’t have any “bombshells” is hardly surprising.

What is surprising, is this little tidbit from the Times article that’s pretty much of any eye opener:

But Pentagon officials have said they have uncovered no specific intelligence data from the Able Danger unit concerning an Atta-led terrorist cell, other than a few intelligence analyses that mention his name, and September 11 commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean and Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton disputed the source of the information.

Really? And why no mention of these “analyses” in the 9/11 Commission Final Report? The Captain:

This story has not yet run its course, not by a long shot. Something strange has been going on with Able Danger. Either it did a much better job identifying terrorists than anyone wants to acknowledge, or it uncovered something else that no one wants to release. Either way, Congress needs to start hauling people into the open and start asking for sworn testimony on this program and exactly how much the Commission knew about it.

This second source makes this a whole new ball game.

And let me say again; even with that information in hand, I doubt whether we could have prevented 9/11. Also, it’s tempting to get ahead of ourselves on this story and read more into it than is there. But if the 9/11 Commission staff is lying, don’t you think that’s something we should know? It worries me that the staffers may have pulled a “Sandy Berger” and sanitized Commission records when they were in the National Archives last week. But a Congressional hearing would uncover something like that easily.

Does Weldon have enough credibility left to convene such a hearing? Not if the Democrats have anything to say about it. However, if two different sources come forward to corroborate Weldon’s charges, Congress may have no choice but to use its power of oversight and subpoena to get to the bottom of this.

UPDATE

AJ at The Strata-Sphere has news:

Rep. Curt Weldon said Monday that one or more members of an elite team of military intelligence officers who had identified al Qaeda hijacker Mohamed Atta as a terrorist threat two years before he led the 9/11 attacks are prepared to go public.

“I can guarantee you that you will be able to have one on your show,” Weldon told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity. “You might want to go with your TV show with this, because it will be a major story,” the Pennsylvania Republican urged. “And you can interview him directly.”

Now that’s an interview I’m not going to miss.

I suppose I could have named this week’s Carnival “The Cindy Sheehan Cluebat Hall of Fame Edition.” Judging by volume of posts, she would have been an automatic inductee. Heck, we even could have waived the mandatory 3 year waiting period for membership.

But that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Some people think Mrs. Sheehan is clueless. Others believe she’s a cold, calculating radical who has surrounded herself with some of the more nauseating elements of the anti-semitic and anti-American left.

What do I think? Hell, I just work here. But if someone were to ask me I’d say that we should highlight the gimlet-eyed radicals who have captured her little floor show while asking “Mother Sheehan” some pretty hard questions about some of her kookier ideas. Like, does she really believe that the war in Iraq is a neo-con/Israel conspiracy? In short, we should do the MSM’s work for them given their predisposition to downplay some of the more unattractive aspects of Mrs. Sheehan’s campout while playing up the dramatic confrontation with the President. They don’t seem eager to cash out Mrs. Sheehan’s chips just yet.

That said, fear not! We have plenty of other fodder for this week’s Carnival. The clueless, like the Force, will always be with us. So pop a cold one and browse through this week’s riot of idiocies. You won’t regret it.

Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.
(Scott Adams, Cartoonist)

Hey Scottie! I see you’re familiar with “No Child Left Behind.”
(Me)

Different River has a long, rewarding post on people - including the Israeli government - who are using a double standard in supporting the uprooting of settlers in Gaza. An excellent primer on the issue as well as some interesting perspectives. Well done.

Do not ever get Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy mad at you. Cindy Sheehan comes a cropper of Beth’s towering rant. And if strong language bothers you, as Beth would say “tough.”

For an immediate look at the other side, northstar from The People’s Republic of Seabrook skewers the President for….well, just about everything, including the smirk. “You can’t experience what you don’t feel” is the title of the post.

The Headmistress at the Common Room, as is her wont, gently takes down a customer at a book sale who demonstrates a cluelessness that alas, is becoming more and more common these days.

Matt at Going to the Mat has my vote for a finalist in cluebat of the week. Read the linked article about a man so absent minded that he…well, I won’t spoil it. But like Matt says, the guy will probably be “couch camping” for a few days.

Orac at Respectful Insolence does a calypso dance on top of Harry Belefonte’s clueless head. Judging by Mr. Belefonte’s comments, he doesn’t know his arse from his Adams apple.

Jay at Stop the ACLU brings to our attention the ACLU’s campaign to legalize (not “decriminalize”) drugs. It’s a satisfying emotional argument but the practicality of the proposals are, as Jay points out, “incredibly elitist and irresponsible.”

Bill Martin, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada sends us this link that demonstrates some North of the Border cluelessness about privacy laws and a 15 year old murder case.

The SoCal Pundit gives us a twofer this week, fisking Cluebat Hall of Famer Paul Krugman and clueless columnist Paul Craig Roberts for some querrelous comments on the economy.

Elisa is watching Barbara Boxer at Boxer Watch but this week sends us a curious rant from a blogger that calls Elisa a “McVeigh-loving right-winger.” Methinks that blogger needs a little adjustment of their tin foil hat.

Raven from And Rightly So (posting at Flight Pundit) has one of the stranger nominees this week. It seems the bloodthirsty jihadists at Guantanamo are going ga-ga over Harry Potter. Maybe they see a kindred spirit in some of the monsters.

Pstupidonymous sends us a link to this clueless Republican pol who “argues that people who object to massive pay hikes, bloated
budgets, and tax increases simply don’t understand how Pennsylvania politics works.” Spoken like a true blue cluebat.

AJ from The Strata-Sphere points out that Cindy Sheehan may in fact be harming the Democrats chances for electoral success in 2006 and 2008. Could be why some of the lefty bloggers and pols are keeping their distance from Mrs. Sheehan and her media circus.

How about a little change of pace? Here’s Two-Dogs of Mean ole Meany with one of his expert takedowns of splodeydope John Kerry. “Trust me, I have no Purple Hearts to give away for any shaving nicks that you might have acquired lately.” Yowch!

My home state Senator and cluebat extraordinaire Dick Durbin is back! In addition to denying he ever said anything clueless about comparing our military to Nazi thugs, Dickie now denys that he ever intended to give a religious litmus test to Judge Roberts. Read Maryhunter’s whole piece.

Elephants in Academia have an absolutely fascinating post skewering the press for their mocking of President Bush’s physical fitness and then setting the record straight. Great stuff!

The Nose on your Face has a hilarious post on NARAL’s anti Roberts ad. “NARAL Executives Embroiled In Dead Carnie Scandal” tells you all you need to know.

Mike at Your Republic Blog jumps on the Department of Homeland Security for an inadequate web site. One would think that if there’s a terror alert, the place to go on the web would be DHS, right? Uh-Uh.

Cao at Cao’s Blog (pronounced “key”) has Cindy Sheehan dead to rights with a scathing critique of some of the company she keeps. “Code Pink” should change their name to “Code Red.” Cao also has a link to a Kos poll that she wants everyone to vote in.

Jimmy K. at But That’s Just My Opinion highlights a speech by Mrs. Sheehan at an event honoring the terrorists best friend Lynne Stewart. Says Jimmy: “Moonbat by any other name is still a Moonbat.”

Ferdinand T. Cat of Conservative Cat has a serious take on Sheehan and some thoughts on the “wager” imposed on her by the people who have captured her cause.

Hypnyx from Global Democratic Revolution has a few choice words for conservative columnist Michelle Malkin who believes that “This woman is so full of crap, I can smell her in Chicago.” Hypnyx must have a highly developed olfactory sense because I live in the Chicago area and can’t smell a thing.

Bill at Pirates Cove has a link to a video of Mrs. Sheehan thanking the inmates at the Democratic Underground for their support. Talk about birds of a feather…

Fred Fry at Fred Fry International outlines the Sheehan controversy succinctly and adds that “There are over 100,000 troops currently in Iraq that the President is accountable to,” and points out that the White House hasn’t exactly ignored her.

Giacomo of Joust the Facts has an excellent perspective of the NARAL kerfluffle. ” Oh, come on now. NARAL didn’t want a serious discussion on Judge Roberts, they wanted to demagogue the abortion issue and change Roberts’ name to Eric Rudolph in the public’s mind.” Yup.

Mensa Barbie Blog (best of both worlds, eh guys?) links to an article that discusses the dual role dogs play(misunderstood by one writer for the NY Times) in Iraq with another link to a previous post she did on the subject of doggie warriors in the WoT. Great training video!

Mark Coffey of Decision “08 has a brand new look to his site and welcomes Maureen Dowd back in fine fashion as he fisks the clueless one for her wacky ideas on whether women are better off in Iraq now that Saddam is behind bars and pouting about a lack of Cheeto’s.

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs gives us an example of why she’s one of the best bloggers around. In a post wondering why it took a law suit to release the 9/11 tapes, she also wonders why the gatekeepers in the media try to keep 9/11 under wraps. “If that were me and I went to my office that morning and died that way, I would expect every last American to go to bat for me. To scream my name from the top of the New York Skyline.” Go. Read.

Van Helsing of Moonbattery hunts down original moonbat George Monbiot whose curious ideas about patriotism would be funny if you didn’t realize that he was being absolutely dead serious.

Harvey from Bad Example has link to an email from Blackfive that proves there are some very confused people out there, whose turn of a phrase leaves much to be desired.

Josh Cohen of Multiple Mentality has some thoughts on the stupidity of some teachers when it comes to reading and gives us the benefit of an experience from his own education.

North American Patriot has more on Cindy Sheehan and the emotional outpouring from the moonbats at the Democratic Underground. You really can’t make some of that stuff up.

Mr. Right has an hilarious spoof of the 9/11 Commission listening to testimony of the top secret Able Danger data mining operation. I think he’s got it pegged just about right.

Finally, here’s a post I did on the anti-Semites surrounding Cindy Sheehan. “The Jooooos Did It.”

NOTICE: NEXT WEEK’S CARNIVAL WILL APPEAR ON WEDNESDAY 8/24 DUE TO A PRIOR COMMITMENT TO HOST “BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.”

Check out all the carnivals at TTLB’s Uber Carnival home page.

I’ve been remiss in my duties as a member of the Watchers Council. I neglected to post the results from our vote of August 5.

Yours truly carried away top honors in the Council category with my post on the coming (probable?) bird flu pandemic called “The Coming Catastrophe.

Finishing first in the Non Council category was “The American Islamic Leaders’ ‘Fatwa’ is Bogus” by The Counterterrorism Blog. Finishing a close second was Michael J. Totten’s “Fisking Juan Cole: A Photo Gallery.”

This week’s vote had The Education Wonks coming in first with “Washington’s Wasteful Ways: Alaskan Pork Chops.” Dymphna from Gates of Vienna finished a close second with “Guess What? Anatomy is Destiny.”

In the Non Council category, The Dawn Patrol’s “Planned Parenthood Fantasizes About Blowing Up ‘Anti-Choicers’” won the honors for top post.

If you’d like to participate in this week’s Watcher’s vote, go here and follow instructions.

A few days ago, I wrote that I believed we were at a critical point of the War in Iraq. I discussed several disturbing trends that pointed to a worsening situation on the battlefield as well as a steady erosion of the President’s support here at home. I thought that part of the problem was that the President seems disengaged from the war at this point, allowing surrogates to make his case for staying the course in Iraq for him. I pointed out that only the President can really grab the attention of the American people and hold it long enough to explain what the benefits are if we succeed and the catastrophic consequences of failure.

In short, it appears to me that things have been allowed to slide, to limp along with us pinning our hopes on the idea that an improvement in the political situation will alter the combat situation for the better. This is unacceptable. As is the notion being floated in Washington that political progress will be used as a cover to draw down our troops in what could only be termed a riverboat gamble that the country would then not slide into sectarian conflict, or worse.

Over the next week or so, I am going to expand on the themes I brought up a few days ago. It’s time for those of us who support victory in Iraq - call us “the bitter enders” - to step forward and demand that both the vital interests of the United States and the memory of those who have sacrificed so much in our name be honored in fighting this war to the bitter end and winning through to a clear victory.

THE POLITICAL CRISIS

There are two things the President can do almost immediately to improve the domestic political situation as it relates to the war:

1. Re-engage on the issue by getting in the face of the American people and not letting up.

During the campaign last fall, Bush drove his political opponents to distraction by making the war the central news story of the day every day. While the campaign for office is over, the campaign to convince the American people that what we’re doing in Iraq is vital to national security never ends. In this respect, the American people need to be told the hard truth about Iraq instead of the rose colored glasses version we seem to get when ever Rumsfeld or Cheney opens their mouths about the war. Yes, we like to hear about all the schools being built and hospitals re-opened but we also need to hear about the growing movement for Shia autonomy in the south, the failure of our recent offensives in the Sunni triangle to make a dent - a real dent in the potency of the insurgency, the sectarian militias springing up all over the country that’s so reminiscent of Lebanon of the 1970’s, and the increasing deadliness and sophistication of our enemy’s attacks.

I personally would like to see a little more than stiff, diplomatic notes delivered to Syria and Iran for their meddling in both the politics of the country and their support for the murderous jihadists who are responsible for killing most of the civilians in Iraq. It’s past time that some kind of warning - short of an ultimatum but stronger than the demarches that we dole out on a regular basis - be given to both Iran and Syria. And for good measure, call in the new Saudi Ambassador and remind him that while we value Saudi friendship (and a wide open oil spigot) political reform has a nasty habit of being contagious and that a more intense effort to close their border with Iraq to terrorists would be appreciated.

Being brutally honest is only a start. The President must draw a picture of what a failed state brimming with fanatical jihadists smack dab in the center of the middle east would do both to our regional security interests and security for our homeland. These are the consequences of failure. At the moment, the cut and run crowd is in the ascendancy because there’s no counter to their argument that at least once we’re out, Americans will stop dying.

Henry Kissinger sums up the consequences succinctly:

Because of the long reach of the Islamist challenge, the outcome in Iraq will have an even deeper significance than that in Vietnam. If a Taliban-type government or a fundamentalist radical state were to emerge in Baghdad or any part of Iraq, shock waves would ripple through the Islamic world. Radical forces in Islamic countries or Islamic minorities in non-Islamic states would be emboldened in their attacks on existing governments. The safety and internal stability of all societies within reach of militant Islam would be imperiled.

In other words, failure in Iraq would be a massive blow to our efforts in fighting the Global War on Terror.

2. De-fang the political opposition here at home.

The critique of the Administration’s war effort by the political opposition has now reached a point where their only idea is to get out immediately, regardless of the situation on the ground. If they could be made to look like the fools that they are, there’s a chance that the President can regain some lost ground in approval for his handling of the war.

This is a political problem. As such, it requires a political solution. Past war presidents FDR and Lincoln were never above playing politics when the aim was to help the war effort. In fact, one could say that the President’s political position is much more analogous of Lincoln’s dilemma in 1863 than any period in FDR’s presidency. Support for the war in the spring of 1863 was at a low point following the bloody defeat of federal forces at Chancellorsville. The clamor from Copperhead Democrats to end the conflict and “negotiate” with the South was at its height. Instead of trying to appease the Copperheads, he had their leader Clement Vallandingame arrested and appealed to his most radical Republicans in Congress for support. The crisis passed with Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg later that summer.

Lincoln showed that he was willing to do anything to prosecute the war successfully. He ruthlessly stamped out opposition and appealed to bitter end Republicans out of political necessity. Surprisingly, these strong actions translated into political victory in statehouse elections in Ohio and Indiana later in the fall.

Some kind of bold stroke is similarly necessary now. And the President can start by firing his Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

As readers of this site know, I’ve been agitating for getting rid of Rumsfeld for almost as long as this blog has been in existence. If what we heard was true, that Rumsfeld offered to resign following the Abu Ghraib revelations and the President refused to accept it, then this constitutes the biggest blunder of the War to date. Sacking Rumsfeld for Abu Ghraib, not to mention the breakdown in discipline that led to torture at other detention sites that seems to indicate an endemic problem and not a series of isolated instances, would have gone some ways in defusing the torture issue that despite the President’s nonchalant disregard, seethes below the surface of the political debate.

Greg Djerejian sums up the case against Rumsfeld nicely:

Mr. President, this hubris-ridden, incompetent Secretary is increasingly becoming a major liability to you. Think beyond Andoveran codes of loyalty and such. This isn’t the Andover cheerleading squad or Skull & Bones. It’s really, really important–the ramifications of failure in Iraq are immense–and so the effort must be seen through with steely resolve. If a key member of your team doesn’t understand that an Iraq characterized by civil war or dueling militias is a strategic and moral failure, he must be taken off your team. National interest must trump any residual loyalty. Again, how can we be talking about troop pull-outs when, in the capital city itself, the mayor is sacked in some putsch, one cannot drive safely from the airport to downtown, and dozens of Shi’a police recruits are massacred by Sunni insurgents? Again, this is in the capital itself. Not to mention there is a roiling insurgency throughout the strategically critical Sunni heartland (as well as recent, and very alarming, moves towards Shi’a autonomy in the south of which more later)? Was this meant as some tactical signal to the Sunnis that they need to start playing ball or we will leave them to the bloodthirsty revenge-minded Shi’a? Absurd. Again, an Iraq characterized by large scale sectarian killings will be a strategic defeat for America, as well as a massive moral failure. Thinking conservatives cannot allow this to happen. We supported Bush because we thought he was likelier to provide serious war leadership with the rock-gut conviction to see it through even past ‘08 (hopefully handing off to his successor a project moving in positive direction). If his Defense Secretary is not on this page anymore, his Defense Secretary must go.

Is there a chance that the entire dynamic of the political debate will change as a result of this one move? Hardly. However, a Clintonian stroke of putting someone from the opposition party - someone in the defense establishment whose bona fides are so strong that at the very least, some of the acidity of the debate would dissipate, could split the political opposition into the cut and run camp and the war winning camp. The critique of the war would remain the same, but the dynamic would change as the debate would shift to war winning strategies rather than pure political naysaying.

And if that doesn’t happen? Then at least the President would have gotten rid of someone who should have been canned long ago.

There are other things the President can do to alter the political situation in the country so that the tough, slogging work in Iraq will have the political backing of the American people. But these two things will give the President a head start and can be done immediately.

NEXT: The Military Crisis

Forget about Cindy Sheehan…for a moment anyway. Let’s talk about the Joooos.

You know, the Jooooos. They’re the people who ordered George Bush to invade Iraq. The people who are oppressing those poor, benighted women and children in Palestine. And if you can’t find Palestine on a map, don’t fret. It’s located in the very same place that some country called “Israel” currently occupies. Not to worry because that’s just a typo. The map makers of the world are simply waiting for the heroic Palestinian people to throw off the yoke of oppression encircling their waists like the bomb belts worn by their children. It’s simply a matter of time. There are apparently an endless number of Palestinian children willing to blow themselves to smithereens - and take as many of those evil, occupying Joooos with them as possible. And since there are a helluva lot more Palestinian Arabs than there are Joooos, logic dictates that eventually, the devout wish of those peace loving, misunderstood, day-care-starting-hospital-administering-food-bank-donaters from Hamas will be realized; i.e. the Jooos will cease to exist.

Why, to hear some people talk, it’s a matter of justice, a question of hoooomun rights. The freedom fighters who wear the, er uniform of Hamas aren’t really that violent. Did you know that a grenade launcher has a dual use utility? That’s right. It also makes a great martini shaker.

I bring all this up because the mainstream press refuses to bring the embarrassing truth about Cindy Sheehan and the company she keeps to the attention of the droolers, the half-wits, and Ritalin guzzlers who make up her starry eyed and swooning Greek chorus here in the Shadow Media. I’m talking about Kos, the DU, and the Huff ‘n Puffers who think the nauseating anti-semite camped out in front of the President’s ranch in Crawford is either the second coming of Rosa Parks, or the catalyst to morph the current anti-war movement into a resurrected manifestation of some 1960’s flower-child protest party.

This is why the left is so anxious to bring back those heady days of Viet Nam; they miss the guilt-free, consequenceless sex that made being a hippie so rewarding. In the age of AIDS and other epidemic sexually transmitted diseases, who doesn’t long for those sexually charged times when men were men and women were…well, easy. One would hope that the greying group of long haired, sandal wearing, Viagra swilling ancients would have taken a bath at least once since 1968. Otherwise, the new age youngsters who’ve joined them in the trenches may be a little put off by the aroma.

I did a post a few days ago asking that when opposing Mrs. Sheehan, we understand that she is so stricken with grief that it has warped her judgement. But really, there’s no excuse for this:

“9/11 was Pearl Harbor for the neo-conservatives’ agenda” and declared the U.S. government a “morally repugnant system.” Then she raged:

“We have no Constitution. We’re the only country with no checks and balances. We want our country back if we have to impeach George Bush down to the person who picks up the dog sh-t in Washington! Let George Bush send his two little party animals to die in Iraq. It’s OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons but we are waging nuclear war in Iraq, we have contaminated the entire country. It’s not OK for Syria to be in Lebanon. Hypocrites! But Israel can occupy Palestine? Stop the slaughter!”

This is a mild outburst. And for those who say advocating the Palestinian cause is not anti-semitic, I will accuse you also of being a hater of the Jews. You cannot exist on this planet and not know that the “Palestinian cause” is annihilation of not just the Jewish state but all Jews everywhere. By making common cause with the genocidal thugs of Hamas, you reveal yourself to be as bad as any run-of-the-mill goober chewing, goose-stepping neo-Nazi skin head thug in this country. No difference.

Which brings us back to Mrs. Sheehan and her friends. For the media to glorify this paranoid is beyond belief. She thinks America would be a fascist state if not for the internet:

“This is something that can’t be ignored,” Sheehan said during a conference call with bloggers representing sites like democrats.com, codepink4peace.org, and crooksandliars.com. “They can’t ignore us, and they can’t put us down. Thank God for the Internet, or we wouldn’t know anything, and we would already be a fascist state.”

And again, here’s that mythical place called “Palestine:”

“You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism,” Sheehan declares.

Sheehan, who is asking for a second meeting with President Bush, says defiantly: “My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don’t owe you a penny…you give my son back and I’ll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we’ll put this war on trial.”

“And now I’m going to use another ‘I’ word - impeachment - because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail.”

And Powerline links to some interesting information on her “host” in Crawford; the Crawford House:

Cindy Sheehan has tied her cart to, the Crawford Peace House [Note: The CPH people have deleted the material mentioned in this post from their page, but I have the original. Here is the Google cache. See the update at the bottom of this post.]. They claim to be a house of peace, and Cindy Sheehan’s agenda would seem to be centered on the War in Iraq, but even a cursory look at the CPH’s web page shows a clearly different agenda. As I write this, the word “Iraq” appears on CPH’s front page a total of ONE time. The number of times a certain eastern Mediterranean country’s name appears? Seventeen times. And the single essay on the page is about…Iraq? No. It is about the world’s true demon, root of all evil, Israel.

The probable reason Crawford House took down their Jew-baiting material was the intervention of one of the slickest PR firms around - Fenton Communications - who recently came on board as a hireling of Ben Cohen’s group Truemajority. Mr. Cohen is the moonbat who helped start Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream and who famously used to give a part of his profit to “world peace” including donations to the National Council of Churches which acted as a front organization (unwittingly) for KGB donations in the United States in the 1980’s.

Fenton has their work cut out for them. The ragamuffins attending to the Queen of Grief need to be “handled” so that their anti-semitic rhetoric doesn’t get out of hand. And the fact is, since Fenton came on board, Mrs. Sheehan’s rhetoric has moderated to the point that she just seems a little kooky rather than a frothing at the mouth Jew hater.

Hindrocket at Powerline wonders if she’s “a poor, benighted woman unhinged and rendered irrational by grief, or is she a calculating, vicious anti-Semite and anti-American like the extremists with whom she associates?”

I’m really not sure. But I know in order for her to avoid self-destruction, she’s going to have to be managed by her handlers like a candidate in a political campaign.

Which, of course, is exactly what her little one act play is all about - politics. Her “crusade” has gone beyond grief, beyond anger and has entered the high-tech digitial world of a media campaign. The danger is that word will get out about this, that the MSM will actually start reporting the spin just like they do for a political campaign. Once that happens, her little charade will lose it’s drama value for the nets and Cindy Sheehan will be left with 15-30 second sound bites to spout her hatred.

The closer one looks at Mrs. Sheehan the less attractive she becomes. This is why the big lefty blogs are steering clear of her. They sympathize with her goals but recognize a charlatan when they see one. But as long as Kos and his minions are on board, she won’t lack for internet coverage.

That is, unless she really starts saying what she thinks about the Joooos and how their evil influence is the cause of all the problems in the world.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin links to a fascinating article in Newsweek that tells the story of some of the President’s visits with families of the fallen. I’ve written about the same thing here where Bush visited with familes before going on TV to make his nationwide address on Iraq.

Lori at Polipundit rightly questions some of the editorializing in the article but I think the slant is overwhelmed by the simply humanity of the President revealed in the article.

Read the whole thing.

Q & O picks up on the anti-semitism angle:

Cindy Sheehan has gone from a grieving mother most could feel sympathy for to the ringmaster at a tawdry circus. Of course the anti-war crowd and the MSM love it, not that anyone’s particularly surprised by that.

The one thing the MSM is sensitive about is anti-semitism - at least the kind of nauseating overt variety practiced by Mrs. Sheehan and her enablers at Crawford House. If they start to play that aspect of her “vigil” up, the tide may turn against the sympathy maven.

If you thought that the statement released by the 9/11 Commission on Friday in which they state that Commission staff members thoroughly examined the Able Danger conclusions and found them wanting was the last word on this matter, think again.

“Crazy” Curt Weldon may be just that. But there appears to be one, lone Able Danger team member (maybe two?) who have declared war on the Commission and are challenging their denials that they ignored crucial evidence that would have changed both the tone and substance of the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report.

Here’s a comment left on the site Intel Dump in response to skepticism regarding Able Danger problems in passing their information on Atta to the FBI. The commenter is posting as “Anon” but his bona fides are granted by the author of the post, Jon Holdaway:

OK smart guys - with your “smell tests” and “Thats just flat out wrong” opinions shown above - I hope you don’t mind, but let me clear up a few things - I was there and I lived through the ABLE DANGER nightmare.

First - yes - The lawyers involved in this (and similar projects) did interpret the 9-11 terrorists as “US persons” - so while you can second guess them all you want - but that was their “legal” call as wrong as it was and is. Unfortunately, the chain of command at SOCOM went along with them (and this, I expect, will be a topic that will become more clear in the near future).

And lawyers of the era also felt that any intelligence officer viewing open internet information for the purpose of intelligence collection automatically required that any “open source” information obtained be treated as if it was “intelligence information”…does this sound like idiocy to you? It did to me - and we fought it - and I was in meetings at the OSD level, with OSD laywers, that debated this - and I even briefed the DCI George Tenet on this issue relating to an internet project.

And yes, Virgina - we tried to tell the lawyers that since the data identified Atta and the others as linked to Al Qaeda, we should be able to collect on them based on SecState Albright’s declaration of Al Qaeda as transnational terrorist threat to the US…well the lawyers did not agree…go figure…so we could not collect on them - and for political reasons - could not pass them to the FBI…I know because I brokered three meetings between the FBI and SOCOM to allow SOCOM to pass the information to the FBI. And, sadly, SOCOM cancelled them every time…

Oh - and DATA MINING is not overt or clandestine - it just “is” - it is something that is done with either open source or classified information. ABLE DANGER used an array of both open and close databases…

And here’s an interview with an Able Danger team member made available by Congressman Weldon to Mike Kelly, a columnist for the Bergen Record of New Jersey and a journalist for 40 years:

The story begins a year before the attacks. A top-secret team of Pentagon military counter-terror computer sleuths, who worked for a special operations commando group, was well into a project to monitor al-Qaida operations.

The 11-person group called itself “Project Able Danger.” Think of them as a super-secret Delta Force or SEAL team. But instead of guns, they relied on advanced math training as their key weapons. And instead of traditional spying methods or bust-down-the-door commando tactics, the Able Danger group booted up a set of high-speed, super-computers and collected vast amounts of data.

The technique is called “data mining.” The Able Danger team swept together information from al-Qaida chat rooms, news accounts, Web sites and financial records. Then they connected the dots, comparing the information with visa applications by foreign tourists and other government records.

From there, the computer sleuths noticed four names - Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.

All four turned out to be hijackers. Atta and al-Shehhi took a room at the Wayne Inn. They rented a Wayne mail drop, too, and even went to Willowbrook Mall. Al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi took rooms at a motel on Route 46 in South Hackensack.

(HT: TKS)

And Mr. Kelly has a great question for the Able Danger team member - one that was implied in the Commission’s response to the allegations:

Perhaps just as alarming, even the Able Danger team understood its limits. When lawyers blocked Able Danger’s request to approach the FBI, the team simply went back to its work and kept quiet - even after the 9/11 attacks occurred.

Why? If the Able Danger team was so concerned about U.S. security, why didn’t it approach Congress or even the press to sound an alarm?

When I posed that question in my interview with the Able Danger team member, he fell silent. Listening on a speaker phone, a congressional staffer interrupted: “Have you ever seen what happens to whistleblowers?”

Again, the Able Danger member had no answer.

No one is suggesting that the Commission deliberately tried to cover up information. Rather, in order to achieve consensus, the 9/11 Commission was predisposed to believe or disbelieve certain kinds of information. Anything that didn’t jibe with the narrative (and timeline) was either given short shrift or dismissed outright - as the Able Danger information from the July 12,2004 meeting.

No more blue ribbon commissions. Let’s have Congress look into this. And if the 9/11 investigation has to be re-opened, so be it.

Calling all bloggers!

You have until Monday night at 10:00 PM to get your entries in for this week’s Carnival of the Clueless.

Last week was the best yet with 32 entries from both the right and left side of the political spectrum hammering those individuals and groups among us who are truly clueless.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

Each week, I’ll be calling for posts that highlight the total stupidity of a public figure or organization – either left or right – that demonstrates that special kind of cluelessness that only someone’s mother could defend…and maybe not even their mothers!

Everyone knows what I’m talking about. Whether it’s the latest from Bill Maher or the Reverend Dobson, it doesn’t matter. I will post ALL ENTRIES REGARDLESS OF WHETHER I AGREE WITH THE SENTIMENTS EXPRESSED OR NOT..

You can enter by emailing me, leaving a link in the comments section, or by using the handy, easy to use form at Conservative Cat.

I am taking a well deserved break today from blogging. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not writing. I’m working on a brand new article for The American Thinker as well as an article I hope to have published in a major national publication about Civil War Re-enactors. But Mr. Blog himself will have to go without today.

I’ll leave you with some excellent stuff from other bloggers. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Here’s Varifrank’s latest. As usual, very powerful stuff.

Powerline fisks the Frank Rich piece from today’s New York Times, something I wanted to do but got too lazy. “Defeatist Triumphalism?” Read it.

Pat Curley has pictures of a local moonbat. Well, he’s colorful anyway.

Ferdy the Cat has some thoughts on begging…and pouncing.

Charles Johnson has some PR strategy sessions from Kos regarding Cindy Sheehan. “Mother Sheehan” indeed!

Read this piece that appeared a couple of days ago by Greg Djerejian and realize that when very smart people like Greg start to worry about Iraq, the rest of us better sit up and take notice.

John Cole has his own unique take on the Cindy Sheehan matter. So does Jay Tea at Wizbang.

Even though I linked to this post by Rusty Shakleford yesterday, it’s so good I’m linking to it again.

Michelle Malkin has an unconfirmed report about the pending divorce of Cindy Sheehan.

Hugh Hewitt links to a column on Iraq by one of my favorite historians Niall Ferguson.