To those of us of a certain age, the year 1980 will be marked forever as the beginning of a gilded age in politics as conservatives streamed into Washington full of energy and enthusiasm ready to do battle on behalf of Ronald Reagan and his revolution with the staid, established interests who were strangling the country with their attitudes of defeatism and ennui.

Trying to explain what it was like to someone in their twenties or thirties is usually an exercise in futility. The reason is that those born after the revolution or who were very young while it was fought have no conception of the kind of country Ronald Reagan inherited from Jimmy Carter and the Democrats in that fateful year of 1980.

How do you explain 12% inflation to someone who has grown up in a virtually inflation-free era? Telling them that the prices you paid for food at the grocery store went up noticeably every week draws blank stares of incomprehension. Or trying to give a young adult today an idea of what it was like to try and buy a car when the prime rate was 18.5%? Or the feeling that America’s best days were behind her and that we may as well get used to the idea of decline. Or that communism was the wave of the future?

This was America when Ronald Reagan took office. His prescription for the country – cut taxes, revitalize the military, cut the bureaucracy, and rein in spending – triggered an explosion of ideas the likes of which Washington hadn’t seen since FDR’s first term. These were heady times for young conservatives who were more than ready to explore ways to bring the thoughts of conservative thinkers into the political conversation and make theory a reality.

I first remember hearing Lyn Nofziger at a breakfast meeting of the National Chamber of Commerce back in 1981. He didn’t give a speech as much as he simply “harrumphed” his way through his presentation. He was gruff, funny, down to earth, and very wise. He didn’t talk about conservative ideology as much as he talked about “the movement.”He gave a brief rehash of the 1980 election and then showed with devastating clarity why the Republicans would win most national elections far into the future. Demographic electoral trends in the south and west were going to heavily favor Republicans for decades to come. He believed that the Democrats could only win national office if they ran a moderate southerner who was identified with the pro-military wing of the party, a fairly prescient analysis given that Mr. Nofziger had no clue that the Soviets were to collapse in less than a decade.

At that breakfast, Nofziger demonstrated a clear understanding of the idea that politics is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. And in this interview published in today’s Washington Times, it appears that Mr. Nofziger has not forgotten that one salient fact:

“They’ve been in power too long,” Mr. Nofziger says of Republicans. “Any time you put any political party in power for too long, it becomes corrupt. It loses its focus. It forgets why it came there.”

When it comes to the so-called neoconservatives surrounding the president, he says, “?’Conservative’ is a word that doesn’t mean anything. It can mean what you want it to mean.”

This is what I see as the major problem of the Bush Administration. Their conservatism is defined electorally not ideologically. It is ridiculous to talk about this Administration as the left does as “ideological” in a conservative sense. I truly believe that if 9/11 had not occurred, there would have been little to ignite the passions of Bush and his people and they would have governed as centrists in both domestic and foreign affairs. Their cautious approach to the flap over the collision with the Chinese fighter was indicative of the way Bush would have managed foreign affairs; consensus over confrontation.

But as he waxes nostalgic in the interview, Nofziger reveals the reason why conservatives today seem lost:

“To me, conservative means believing in a minimum amount of government and a maximum amount of freedom—and keeping government out of people’s lives and business—and leaving people alone,” Mr. Nofziger says. “I recognize you have to have national defense and have to finance the government. But government does not have to be the be-all and end-all.”

The question isn’t if this definition of conservatism has been invalidated by the Bush Administration but rather what does it really mean?

How do you translate that classic definition of conservatism and have it mean anything relevant when trying to govern a 21st century industrialized liberal (dictionary definition) democracy?

Simply believing one wants “small government” is a meaningless exercise in wishful thinking. Do we get rid of the FDA? How about the FTC? Or the EEOC?

These agencies aren’t superfluous bureaucracies, they are vital to the functioning of a government that wishes to protect the food and drugs consumed by people, ride herd on gigantic corporations who do not have the interest of the majority of the people at heart, and protect the rights of formerly oppressed minorities. But in order to carry out their mandates, they must insinuate themselves into “the lives and businesses” of people.

Can they be run better? Can they be made more responsible to the people we actually elect to run these agencies? The answer is yes. But how that is accomplished without some kind of revolution (with a concomitant upheaval that would endanger those agencies abilities to carry out their mandates)?

I’ve only begun to explore these questions. I would be curious to hear other people’s thoughts on how to translate the Nofziger definition of conservatism into something that would reflect the realities of government today.

Ever since fanatical Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was installed by the Guardian Council last June via a questionable election, nearly every step taken by the former Commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s foreign assassination outfit has been designed to either solidify his hold on power by purging those in the Iranian government deemed not “revolutionary” enough or making it clear that he seeks confrontation with the west and Israel over the Iranian nuclear program.

Many analysts questioned Ahmadinejad’s victory in the runoff election against long time Iranian politico Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani whose loss to the little known former mayor of Tehran occurred under suspicious circumstances. Prior to the run-off, there were several charges of corruption, including the unleashing of 300,000 Revolutionary Guards to mobilize support for Ahmadinejad. Two newspapers who dared to print a letter outlining the charges from a reformist politician were summarily shut down. Then, in the subsequent run-off between Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad, ballot box irregularities were reported as a sizable segment of the population boycotted the election. Polling places that were deserted on the day of the election ended up showing thousands of ballots cast for the former hard-line mayor.

It is important to understand that the President of Iran is on a very short leash. His decisions must be ratified by Iran’s Supreme Leader who also controls the ruling Guardian Council which has absolute veto power over laws passed by the Iranian parliament as well as access to the big stick in Iranian society; the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). The Council is made up of 6 clerical members and 6 lawyers, all of whom are appointed by the Supreme Leader. The Council also has absolute authority in matters involving elections, determining who can run and, as we have seen, who wins and who loses.

The Supreme Leader of Iran is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A former two-term President during the time Ayatollah Khomeini served in that position, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Khomeini in 1989. Since then, Khamenei has gradually radicalized the Council by appointing hard-line Islamists to the clerical positions. This move has stifled whatever reformist impulses were generated by the election in 2000 in which a group of (relatively) more moderate politicians swept into parliament and the presidency. Former President Mohammad Khatami who was extremely popular among students and some of the more secular parts of Iranian society, ended up being emasculated by the Council who saw to it that even some of the more modest reform proposals were shot down.

It also became apparent that the reform politicians engendered something that the Guardian Council could not deal with; hope for a more secular and freer Iran. Demonstrations – some of them violent – broke out in support for some of Khatami’s proposals which were ruthlessly suppressed by the real power center in Iran; the IRGC. These fanatics are under the direct control of the Supreme Leader who functions as their commander. It would not be too much of a stretch to say that the election of Ahmadinejad was a recognition by the Guardian Council that reformers like Khatami were dangerous to the stability of the Islamic Republic not to mention their own stranglehold on power.

So what are we to make of Ahmadinejad’s actions over the past 5 months? Here’s a partial list of what he has said and what he has done since the election:

• Before even taking office, he said the Islam will conquer the world: “Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world,” he said. “The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world.”

• Denied taking part in the takeover of the US embassy in 1979 despite bragging about his involvement on his website.

• Restarted the Iranian nuclear program while negotiating with the EU to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

• Reiterated his belief that “Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.”

• Continued to support the terrorists killing our troops in Iraq.

• Vowed not to stop the conversion of uranium into bomb-grade material no matter what the Europeans and Americans did.

• Promised to share nuclear technology wit the rest of the Islamic world.

• Promised to to abandon co-operation on nuclear matters if his country was threatened with penalties due to its work on making a nuclear bomb.

• At an anti-Zionist conference, he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

• Defended those remarks and engineered massive protests in support of them.

• Offered a solution to Iran’s stock market crisis by saying that “if we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever.”

• Continued to purge perceived moderates from his government, especially in the foreign service.

• Has now closed all nuclear sites to UN inspections.

(Very big Hat Tip to Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs whose website made the previous extremely easy to document).

A cursory examination like the one above of what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said and done since his election should make even the most casual of observers sit up and take notice. This is no “business as usual” run of the mill Islamic theocrat. He is a radical anti-Semite, a dyed in the wool America hater, and an experienced terrorist who personally was involved in the July 1989 execution-style murders of Abdul-Rahman Ghassemlou, leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (which opposed the mullahs’ regime), and two others in an apartment in Vienna.

And very soon – if not already – he will have his finger on a nuclear trigger.

The big question is why? Why would Supreme Leader Khamenei place the future of his country not to mention the world in the hands of someone like Ahmadinejad?

Ignore the mainstream press who have downplayed the more outrageous statements made by this terrorist by saying it is for “domestic political consumption.” Neville Chamberlain said exactly the same thing about Hitler.

The point is this; Ahmadinejad appears to have the experience, the temperament, the zeal, and ideological purity for one thing and one thing only – to confront Israel and the west and go to war if necessary in order to secure the regimes future. And that future and the future of the Islamic world as Iran sees it lies in their building a nuclear arsenal.

With the United States involved in Iraq, with Israel under siege from both the Palestinians and most of the rest of the world, with defeatism and timidity infecting the governments of western Europe, and with the probability that they will soon have nuclear weapons, perhaps (pure speculation alert) the Iranians feel the time is right for confrontation. After all, the military situation heavily favors them at the moment as only a massive invasion would probably be able to slow their march toward acquiring nuclear weapons. Their nuclear sites are not only spread out over many parts of the country, but those sites have also been placed underground making them almost inaccessible to all but the largest bombs in our arsenal.

Ahmadinejad’s election makes sense only in this context. If you are going to opt for confrontation, would you rather have a relative moderate like Rafsanjani who was in favor of negotiation with the west over Iranian nuclear ambitions or an Ahmadinejad who has proven track record as a military commander and has demonstrated himself as tough as nails in negotiations that more and more look like a sham, a stalling tactic while Iran continues to enrich enough uranium to build bombs?

The ball is now in our court. Will we allow Iran to realize its nuclear ambitions? Common sense says no. But in the end, there may not be very much we can do to stop them.

UPDATE: 11/28

The Captain has some sober thoughts on Ahmadinejad’s administration. I think that Ed fails to carry through his analysis to its logical conclusion by not asking the question: Why?

Why would Khamenei support someone like Ahmadinejad whose governing style and rhetoric are so beyond the pale of civil discourse between nations and civil society? Why doesn’t he mind that Iran is becoming increasingly isolated internationally?

I tried to answer that in my post above by speculating that the next few months will be crucial to the regime in that they will likely face military action of some sort either by Israel or the US for their continued instence to develop nuclear weapons. In light of that, isn’t Ahmadinejad the kind of man you want leading Iran?

Chicago Bears defensive end Alex Brown (L) sacks Carolina Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme during the third quarter of yesterday’s game. The Bears sacked the hapless Delhomme 8 times.

There was a time that the Chicago Bears were the New York Yankees of the NFL. During the initial 3 decades of the NFL’s existence, the Bears appeared in 14 championship games, winning 8 of them and dominating the nascent league with a combination of hard nosed defense and an in-your-face running game.

Owned and coached by George “Papa Bear” Halas for most of their existence, the Bears became known as “Monsters of the Midway” following a 73-0 shellacking of the Washington Redskins in 1940. That game featured the birth of the “T” Formation – a radical departure from the old “Single-Wing” formation that up to that time had been the standard way for teams to line up behind the center. Where the old Single Wing featured two or three backs lined up on a “strong side” who then shifted right or left, the “T” Formation was truly revolutionary. Two running backs (sometimes three) would line up on either side of the quarterback with the QB having the option of faking to either or both backs. Also, one back could “lead” through the hole for the other back changing the blocking scheme for the entire offensive line.

Until the advent of the “I” formation in the 1970’s, the “T” was used by almost every college and pro football team. And about the time the “T” Formation began to fall out of favor, the Chicago franchise became a laughingstock of a football team. An aging Halas never adapted to the radical changes that occurred in the NFL during the 1970’s and his teams looked it. This was the era of “Air Corryell” and the brilliant offense created by Tom Landry in Dallas. It was the era of the sophisticated defensive formations of Chuck Knoll’s Steelers. The entire game changed while Halas – both as coach and later as President – refused to acknowledge that singular fact.

His scouting operation was run on a shoestring which explains why despite getting consistently high draft choices, the Bears failed to improve. In fact, Chicago players never failed to point out the flintiness of Halas saying “He tossed around nickels like they were man-hole covers.”

One of Papa Bear’s last official acts before his death was hiring former Bear Mike Ditka in 1982 whose teams dominated the league for the next decade. The Superbowl Champion team of 1985 is generally considered one of the best teams in NFL history.

But then came the 1990’s and the Monsters became pussycats. Showing an offensive ineffectiveness that had fans booing almost before the team stepped on the field, a succession of coaches, quarterbacks, and General Managers all proved unable to bring winning football to the victory starved fans who turned out for December games that often had the team playing in weather more fit for ice fishing than football.

Then last year came the nadir for the team. In one of the worst displays of ineptitude in the team’s history, the Bears began the Lovie Smith era by losing 5 of their first 6 games with an offense that was the laughingstock of the league. But then, in a reversal of fortune not anticipated by anyone, the team’s defense began to mature. First year players Tommie Harris and Nathan Vasher proved that they could not only play in the NFL but that they could excel. And even with two of their best players injured for most of the year – All-Pros Brian Urlacher and Mike Brown – the quickness and spirited play demonstrated by the youngsters on defense augured well for the future.

And now, with a healthy Urlacher playing Middle Linebacker like a demon possessed and the rest of the defense throwing their bodies around the field with awesome quickness and a brutality not seen since the glory days of two decades ago, Chicago fans are beginning to wonder; is it time to start believing again?

Clearly, the offense is, well, offensive. A better than average runner in Thomas Jones can’t offset what can only be charitably called an “anemic” passing attack. But for 6 straight games, the offense has done enough – just barely enough – to win ballgames. Using two and sometimes three running backs has perked up the offense just enough so that the defense can stay off the field long enough to catch its breath.

How well will this formula will work against a team with a truly good offense remains to be seen. But the very fact that the team has won 6 in a row has Bears fans whispering among themselves a word not heard in more than a decade…

“Superbowl”...

This late, late edition of the Carnival is dedicated to Nyquil, Actifed,, Robitussin, and my sainted Irish grandmother’s concoction of one part Lipton Tea, one part (Irish) whiskey, and one part barley soup. Of course, Irish whiskey is one of those libations that goes well with just about anything – with the exception of barley soup. But my grandmother, God rest her, believed that barley cured everything including headaches, nausea, goiter, chilblains, croup, and the odd cancer. One thing is certain; don’t drink her remedy on an empty stomach.

Be that as it may, this past week has given us evidence yet again that cluelessness knows no party or ideology. Like a force of nature it simply exists, ready to erupt like a volcano and explode onto the public consciousness with triphammer force.

Witness if you please the total cluelessness of the French who continue to try and appease the unruly mobs that have caused auto insurance rates in that country to skyrocket. Or how about Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, shown up by Watergate hero Bob Woodward whose pooh-poohing of the Fitzgerald investigation can now be seen in a slightly different light – as in Woodward wanting to stay out of jail. And then there’s al Zarqawai, the deadliest cluebat around, who decided it would be a good idea to crash a wedding party in Jordan with guests attired in both traditional garb and the latest fashion in bomb belts. The ploy didn’t work very well as evidenced by 200,000 Jordanians who took to the streets of Aman to tell the Merry Beheader that crashing weddings is very bad manners.

But I guess it’s no secret who the Cluebat of the Week had to be for this edition of the Carnival; the oldest political party on the planet, the Democratic Party of the United States.

I suppose I could have narrowed it down to Representative Jack Murtha. But Mr. Murtha’s position on Iraq has been well known for a year now. The fact that the MSM recently discovered this and decided it was news is irrelevant to our discussions. Because the cluelessness of the Democratic party was not evidenced by Murtha’s position on the war but rather by their somewhat comical and desperate response to the Republican gambit of making them go on record supporting that position.

Oh! The humanity of it! Watching the Democratic reps squirm like little kids during a boring Sunday sermon, the Republicans laid the wood to them but good. To see them reduced to trying to differentiate between “immediate withdrawal” and “immediate redeployment” was a side-splittingly funny demonstration of hair splitting. In the end, their entire cowardly party caved and, with the exception of 3 brave and forthright souls who voted for the unofficial party position of immediate withdrawal, all opted for hypocrisy in order to keep their chances for re-election secure.

Sic semper Moonbattis!

Here are 30 more examples of similarly confounding cluelessness. Click and enjoy!

The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.
(John Dryden)

Hey John! Great line on Democratic party reaction to the Iraq withdrawal resolution!
(Me)

*******************************************************************************

Equuschick (yeah, baby!) at The Common Room has the story of a dog owner who is not only clueless, but deserves a good thrashing.

Cluebat Hall of Famer Jesse Jackson is the well deserved target of two Carnival regulars this week. Mark Coffey has the blowhard dead to rights as his “Jackass of the Week” while Josh Cohen gives Jesse a few well aimed rhetorical slaps – both for Jackson’s intercession on behalf of last week’s Cluebat finalist Terrell (“I am not selfish”) Owens.

Giacomo has some prescient analysis on the various political moves undertaken by clueless Democrats and Republicans recently.

Wonder Woman has a real jaw dropper about how and why kids will not be able to sit on Santas lap in Switzerland.

More Democratic party hypocrisy on the war shown the light of day, this time by Duncan Avatar.

Jimmie K looks at some media reports on the French riots and gives them a good fisking.

Gullyborg has a post that wins in the “Article most likely to raise your blood pressure” category. Its about a clueless judge and what to do about him.

Jack Cluth at The People’s Republic of Seabrook (nice to have them back in the Carnival) has the liberal bill of particulars for the “Bush Lied” case.

Here are two pieces posted at Stop the ACLU blog. The first is by Kender the Magnificent who devastates the moonbats at ACLU by taking their positions on separation of church and state to their logical conclusion. Then Jay has some comments on the head scratching ruling of the 9th circuit on teaching Islam in schools (btw, don’t forget to vote for Jay and I in the “spades” category for Aaron’s Deck of Bloggers)

Miriam has a hilarious conversation with the Dish Network over her canceling their service.

Nickie Goomba has a funny bit on a new car for the clueless French. Hell, I didn’t even know the French still made cars. Does anyone still work in that country?

Our favorite street walker, Feisty Republican Whore, takes down (no, not like that!) Senator Rockefeller for his clueless comments on pre-war intel recently.

Ever see an elephant cry? Those pacific pachyderms at Elephants in Academia are saddened to find that some lawmakers they respected end up having feet of clay.

Bow deeply to Gajinbiker and thank him for this post skewering ID proponents, including Pat “Thunderbolt” Robertson.

If you haven’t been following the story of the capture of Jack Idema and his Task Force who are caught in an endless maze of bureaucratic red tape, you must go to Cao’s Blog (pronounced “key”) and find out the details to this shocking story.

Ogre has the scoop on the French surrender to the Islamists. Almost too ridiculous to be true. Alas, it is.

The Maryhunter has the facts regarding what is really going on at the US Civil Rights Commission and how politics is played in Washington.

If there is there anyone who can slay moonbats with a lethal combination of wit and sagacity better than Van Helsing, I haven’t found him yet. Read this piece on Algore’s latest outrage.

Here’s your weekly dose of outrageous Carnival satire, expertly penned by Carnival regulars The Nose on Your Face and In the Right Place.

Name one person that consistently demonstrates more cluelessness than Michael Newdow - who now wants to take God off of our money – and you win a cookie. Raven is rightly disgusted.

Newbie Neddy’s Palavar has the skinny on the blogosphere imbroglio that erupted recently with the “outing” of a federal prosecutor who writes a gossipy blog on the courts. Democrats asking “Is it real or is it Memorex?”

One of the more interesting new sites I’ve come across thanks to the Carnival is Slu-dog-O-Rama. This “R” rated post on some cluelessness at the US Postal Service is a must read.

GOP and the City takes the Democrats apart for highlighting their “leadership” on Iraq. Apparently, the clueless Dems think that losing politicians are their best spokesmen.

AJ at The Strata-Sphere shows just how big a cluebat Zarqawi really is for the attack he pulled off in Jordan.

Fred Fry illustrates some banking cluelessness on the part of Chase and why he’ll never have dealings with those worthies again.

Ze’ev at Israel Perspectives highlights some real stupidity on the part of what he calls “elites” in Israeli society when it comes to dealing with the Palestinians.

Finally, here’s my post on the cluelessness of the Pentagon with regard to the millions of documents that have been unearthed in Iraq and how they are not being publicized.

The Republican sponsored “Sense of the House” resolution that calls for the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and that will be defeated in a few minutes is a brilliant political maneuver with three major benefits:

1. It gives our troops in the field a boost by showing that the Congress is not going to withdraw them willy-nilly from Iraq.

2. It stops Zarqawi’s victory party in its tracks.

3. It shows the Democrats to be hypocritical fools – an admittedly easy task but one that has been beyond the capabilities of GOP Congressmen.

As John Cole points out, the Dems are screaming bloody murder:

This is what you guys want! You have been telling the public for a year now that we have lost in Iraq, and Armando spends everyday calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and now we are going to have a vote on it, and you tell your folks not to vote? Gimme a damned break. You want the troops out- here is your damned vote.

Watching CNN, poor Lou Dobbs is acting like some illegal immigrant has come in and sat right down next to him on the set. The pudgy anchor is beside himself, grilling the CNN White House correspondent on whether or not the White House is behind the effort.

And as Cole points out, Kos is acting like an old woman who’s discovered there’s a cockroach in the pound cake:

Funny how the Republicans in the debate keep referring to the “Democrat resolution”, even though they introduced it and it bears ZERO resemblance to the actual Murtha resolution.

Why are Republicans afraid to bring Murtha’s actual resolution up to a vote, rather than this nakedly political piece of shit? And why do they insist on calling their own resolution a “Democrat” resolution?

What a bunch of liars.

Oh, really? I guess when Murtha said this he was talking about some other war:

My plan calls for immediate redeployment of U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces, to create a quick reaction force in the region, to create an over-the-horizon presence of Marines, and to diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq.

And here’s the guts of the resolution:

RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

Watching the debate has been fun. The Democrats are twisting, twisting, slowly in the wind as Republicans skewer them by reading emails from soldiers at the front pleading with their Congressman to allow them to finish the job.

Not to many military emails from Democrats. Just a lot of twisted, angry faces as Republicans are going to force them to tell their base of Kossacs, Moorites, and Moveoners that all their tough talk about getting out of Iraq is just that – talk. As Polipundit pointed out in this brilliant post this morning, cutting and running may be popular in the liberal salons of New York and Hollywood cocktail parties, but political poison all over the rest of America:

There is a historical parallel we can use for this conclusion: Vietnam.

Americans aren’t quitters. Throughout the Vietnam War – even as 57,000 Americans sacrificed their lives – support for the war remained strong, and antipathy towards “anti-war” protesters remained high. At the height of the conflict, peacenik Democrat presidential nominee George McGovern went down in an electoral defeat of unprecedented magnitude.

Democrats are repeating history.

Like a trout dangling on the end of a hook, Democrats are desperately trying to get away from this political trap set by Republicans. About the only choice they have is whether they want to be served with lemon or lightly breaded and sauteed in olive oil.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Forgive me my pessimism today. I made the mistake of reading reaction in the mainstream media to Representative John Murtha’s (D-PA) tearful tirade against the Iraq War on the floor of the House yesterday. The fact that he said the war was “unwinnable” last year apparently isn’t newsworthy. Was it the dramatic image of the old war hero tearing up when talking about his admirable visits to see wounded veterans? If so, why weren’t the images of Iraqis weeping for joy after voting in the first free elections in their lives also considered fodder for the front pages and cable talk shows that now breathlessly report on the latest “turning point” in the American people’s support for the war?

We’ve had so many “turning points” in this war that we’ve damn near gone around in a circle. Why should the lamentations of one Congressman, albeit a respected voice on military matters, cause such a stink? Of course, Murtha’s diatribe has not occurred in a vacuum. It follows closely on the heels of an effort by Republicans in the Senate to try and outdo their Democratic colleagues in proving that election to high office does not necessarily mean one is blessed with common sense and wisdom. In fact, the “Cut And Run But Not As Quickly As Michael Moore Would Have It” version of a “Sense of the Senate” resolution on Iraq supported by Republicans only proves that, quite simply, the words “sense” and “senate” used in the same sentence when referring to that august body is a misnomer.

And don’t forget those poll numbers that show 57% of the American people believe that President Bush misled the country about intelligence in the lead up to the war with a similar majority believing the war was a mistake. Funny, but it never seems to make it into the same paragraph in stories reporting those grim statistics that 2/3 of the country is in favor of staying in Iraq “until the job is done.” That would seem to cut the chocks from underneath the cut and run crowd except their allies in the mainstream press have better things to do than reporting anything that would upset the delicate imbalance they try to maintain when reporting war news.

Murtha may be forgiven his apostasy. The man has served his country in war and peace with a dedication and selflessness rarely seen these days. But so did Marshall Petain. (HT: Ed Morrisey). The French hero of Verdun and head of the collaborationist Vichy government believed that Nazism was the wave of the future and in order for France to survive, cooperation with Hitler seemed to be the most logical course. The fact that he was tragically wrong both about Nazism and the cost to France that such cooperation engendered has made history’s judgment of his actions an object lesson for the Murthas of this world. For like the Nazis, the implacable Islamists currently blowing up our boys in Iraq will attack us wherever and whenever they choose. It doesn’t matter if we are in Iraq, not in Iraq, setting a timetable to pull out, or simply wringing our hands over the whole mess. Their goal is death. Their agenda, mayhem.

It may be that this moment is indeed a turning point of sorts. The inconstancy of the Republican Senate about the war is reflective of something deeper abroad in the land. Call it a crisis of spirit or a loss of confidence on the part of the nation’s political leadership but the sad truth is that the closer we get to outright victory in Iraq with our troops coming home in triumph the more we hear that the effort has been a failure and that only by leaving the field of battle to our enemies can we make the situation right.

The Iraqi government is facing enormous problems. Internal security, civil rights, factionalism, foreign interventionism, sectarianism, infrastructure; the list goes on and on. But forgotten in all of the naysaying and dire warnings of catastrophe is the fact that progress is being made – fitfully and not as quickly as we would like but progress nonetheless – on all of those problems. In just a few weeks, the people of Iraq will hold an election under their newly minted constitution that, on paper, is a marvel of compromise and idealism. What kind of government emerges from these elections may not be very satisfying to the United States. But that is not the point. It will be the kind of government that the Iraqi people want. And that is what more than 2,000 American boys and girls have died trying to establish; a democratically elected government set in the heart of jihad territory. The Iraqis are about ready to spit in the eye of Osama bin Laden and all our weak kneed, faint of heart “nervous nellies” can spout about is how much of a failure the war has been and how we should leave these courageous people to the tender mercies of al Zarqawi and his Merry Band of Beheaders.

Only recently has the President begun to refocus the country’s attention on what is at stake in Iraq, something he should have been doing religiously these past two years but a task in which he has failed miserably. The belief by the White House that the American people wouldn’t believe the lies and distortions about the justifications for the war by his political enemies has proven to be as bad a blunder as the Administration has ever made. Their concurrent strategy of relying on surrogates to define and restate our war aims has also been inadequate. For when it comes right down to it, the American people could give a damn what Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman or even a respected Senator like John McCain says about the war. They need to hear it from the President himself.

The White House can perhaps be forgiven for not holding regular press conferences given the temperament and political leanings of the White House press corp. But that doesn’t preclude the President from barnstorming the country, treating the war like a political campaign, hammering his opponents who are calling him a liar while urging, even begging the people for their support. Such a campaign probably wouldn’t have much affect on his opposition – except perhaps to drive them into even more comical fits of apoplexy – but it would almost surely put some backbone into his wavering supporters in the Congress.

Whatever the President does, he must do it now and it must be a sustained effort. One reason for his low poll numbers despite a humming economy, falling gas prices, and real progress in Iraq is the sense among a majority of people that the country “is on the wrong track.” By not getting up on his hind legs and fighting thus leaving the field to his political enemies, the President has allowed the opposition to not only define the issues but also supply a skewed narrative to go with those issues. The President, who has in the past demonstrated a reluctance for the attack, must now fight back as only a President can; by dominating the news day after day from the bully pulpit, shaming his enemies and encouraging his supporters. Otherwise, the tepid support demonstrated by Republicans of all stripes recently will continue with the very real danger that an anti-incumbent backlash in 2006 will cost the Republicans the Senate.

If this is the nadir of the war it is because the President has failed to keep Iraq in the forefront of the nation’s consciousness. The fact that we are in a war for our survival and that Iraq is currently the major front in that conflict makes the President’s reluctance to engage his political enemies all the more troubling. However, it is still not to late to retrieve the situation. The President must demonstrate in a sustained and coherent manner the passion and leadership that he exhibited at the start of the Iraq campaign. His recent speeches would seem to indicate that he understands this which is heartening. But unless his focus remains firmly fixed on a defense of his decisions that took us to war as well as a patient approach to explaining why we must see the task through to victory, he stands to lose even more support in the Congress. In short, he must regain control of the debate over the war.

Following a disastrous defeat for the Union army at Fredericksburg, President Lincoln, for the only time in his Presidency, gave in to a feeling of hopelessness. He covered his face with his hands and said “What will the country think?” The fact is, the country by that time had been conditioned to the fact that the Civil War was going to be a long conflict and that setbacks were inevitable. The reason they were conditioned was because of Lincoln’s steadfast belief in victory and his inspiring defense of his policies.

President Bush has the most powerful bully pulpit on the planet with a megaphone much larger than anything Mr. Lincoln could ever have imagined. The question foremost on the minds of his supporters should be, when is he going to start using them?

Everyone knows the ending to the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. After finding the Ark of the Covenant, Indy hands his prize over to the US government who then proceeds to catalog the Ark, crate it up after stamping a rather large number on it, with the very last scene showing the crate being moved by a dolly in a gigantic government warehouse to be placed with thousands of other crates that look exactly like the one that contains the Ark. The clear implication left with the viewer is that somewhere, in some forgotten government warehouse, the United States is storing a find of immense historical importance.

Could something similar be the case regarding proof that Iraq WMD’s were moved to other countries prior to the US liberation in 2003?

The rapid victory of American forces over Saddam’s military took most of the world by surprise. In fact, it caught Saddam’s bureaucrats unawares as well, evidenced by the fact that literally millions of pages of incriminating documents were not destroyed prior to the fall of Hussein’s government. And as Stephen Hayes points out in this Weekly Standard article, the treasure trove of knowledge contained in those papers – most of them unclassified – could hold the key to unraveling the mystery of Iraq’s missing WMD’s as well as further illuminate evidence of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups:

For two years, I have been working to obtain copies of unclassified documents discovered in postwar Iraq. My reasoning is simple: If we understand what the Iraqi regime was doing in the months and years before the war, we will be better able to assess the nature of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and, perhaps, to better understand the insurgency. It’s not a light subject, to be sure.

But the quest for the documents, while frustrating, has also been highly amusing. It is a story of bureaucratic incompetence and strategic incoherence. It is also a story—this one not funny at all—about the failure to explain the Iraq war. Two years after I started my pursuit, I’m not much closer to my goal.

Why? I have been told countless times by officials of the executive branch that there is no need to reargue the case for war, that what matters now is winning on the ground, that our intelligence professionals don’t have time to review history, so occupied are they with current intelligence about current threats. I’m sympathetic to at least part of that thinking; it’s hard to insist in the face of new and evolving threats that intelligence analysts should spend their precious time evaluating the past.

Apparently, despite these documents political importance to the Administration’s efforts to justify the Iraqi liberation in the eyes of the world and American citizens, a pitifully small number of analysts have been assigned to wade through this mish mash of documentation in order to obtain whatever nuggets of useful information that can be gleaned from their contents.

What’s even worse is that the intelligence agencies in charge of this effort have a vested interest in seeing that no information comes to light that contradicts their conclusion that Iraq destroyed its WMD program following the first Gulf War. John Tierney’s interview in Frontpage Magazine has some interesting thoughts along those lines:

On the post-war weapons hunt, the arrogance and hubris of the intelligence community is such that they can’t entertain the possibility that they just failed to find the weapons because the Iraqis did a good job cleaning up prior to their arrival. This reminds me of the police chief who announced on television plans to raid a secret drug factor on the outskirts of town. At the time appointed, the police, all twelve of them, lined up behind each other at the front door, knocked and waiting for the druggies to answer, as protocol required. After ten minute of toilet flushing and back-door slamming, somebody came to the front door in a bathrobe and explained he had been in the shower. The police took his story at face value, even though his was dry as a bone, then police proceeded to inspect the premises ensuring that the legal, moral , ethnic, human, and animal rights, and also the national dignity, of the druggies was preserved. After a search, the police chief announced THERE WERE NO STOCKPILES of drugs at the inspected site. Anyone care to move to this city?

The search for documentary evidence of Iraqi WMD’s must also be placed in the context of the war being waged by many in the intelligence community against the Administration. While it is highly unlikely that any “smoking gun” evidence of WMD is being deliberately withheld, one can speculate on the reason why people like Stephen Hayes are having such a hard time getting access to unclassified documents. Could it be that there is some fear that Hayes and others would find something exculpatory of the Administration? This points up the real damage done by the opposition of the CIA, DIA and other intelligence agencies to the Administration’s policies; we simply can’t trust them to be honest and forthright when it comes to any work they do on Iraq’s WMD’s.

This brings us to the continuing, almost comical efforts by Hayes to get straight answers to simple questions regarding the documentation:

Because I’d been told that these documents are all unclassified, I requested copies from the Pentagon press office. For reasons I still do not entirely understand, the Pentagon would not provide them. Captain Roxie Merritt, the director of Pentagon press operations, suggested I file a Freedom of Information Act request. I did so on June 19, 2005. Two weeks later I received a letter from the Pentagon’s Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review.

The information you requested is under the cognizance of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). We have referred your request to them at the address provided below requesting they respond directly to you.

Mr. Hayes then gets a bureaucratic runaround reminiscent of a Keystone Cops routine in a Buster Keaton silent movie. As the spooks play hide and seek with Mr. Hayes, directing him to inquire at other agencies for permission to view the documents, one is left with the distinct impression that the bureaucrats would just as soon have Mr. Hayes run along and mind his own business. But Hayes makes a good point; if they don’t want to take the time and trouble to examine the documents, why not let others have a crack at them?

One of the documents, “Iraqi Efforts to Cooperate with Saudi Opposition Groups and Individuals,” had been provided to the New York Times last summer. Thom Shanker, one of the Times’s best reporters, wrote a story based on the document, which was an internal Iraqi Intelligence memo. The Iraqi document revealed that a Sudanese government official met with Uday Hussein and the director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 1994 and reported that bin Laden was willing to meet in Sudan. Bin Laden, according to the Iraqi document, was then “approached by our side” after “presidential approval” for the liaison was given. The former head of Iraqi Intelligence Directorate 4 met with bin Laden on February 19, 1995. The document further states that bin Laden “had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative”—a comment that suggests the possibility had been discussed. (According to another Iraqi Intelligence document, authenticated by the DIA and first reported on 60 Minutes, the regime considered bin Laden an “Iraqi Intelligence asset” as early as 1992, though it’s unclear that bin Laden shared this view.)

According to a report in the Times, bin Laden requested that Iraq’s state-run television network broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda; the document indicates that the Iraqis agreed to do this. The al Qaeda leader also proposed “joint operations against foreign forces” in Saudi Arabia. There is no Iraqi response provided in the documents. When bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan in May 1996, the Iraqis sought “other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of his current location.” The IIS memo directs that “cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement.”

What kind of cooperation resulted from this discussion and agreement?

You’d think the U.S. government, journalists, and policy types—not to mention attentive citizens—would want to know more. You’d think they’d be eager.

Meanwhile, John Tierney in the aforementioned interview by Frontpage Magazine dropped a few bombshells of his own, not the least of which is his crystallizing much of information about the real possibility that Saddam may have moved his stockpiles of WMD to Syria prior to the war.

FP: Let’s talk a little bit more about how the WMDs disappeared.

Tierney: In Iraq’s case, the lakes and rivers were the toilet, and Syria was the back door. Even though there was imagery showing an inordinate amount of traffic into Syria prior to the inspections, and there were other indicators of government control of commercial trucking that could be used to ship the weapons to Syria, from the ICs point of view, if there is no positive evidence that the movement occurred, it never happened. This conclusion is the consequence of confusing litigation with intelligence. Litigation depends on evidence, intelligence depends on indicators. Picture yourself as a German intelligence officer in Northern France in April 1944. When asked where will the Allies land, you reply “I would be happy to tell you when I have solid, legal proof, sir. We will have to wait until they actually land.” You won’t last very long. That officer would have to take in all the indicators, factor in deception, and make an assessment (this is a fancy intelligence word for an educated guess).

In fact, in a little noticed story back in April, the CIA admitted there was “sufficiently credible evidence” that Iraq WMD had been moved to Syria:

But on the question of Syria, Mr. Duelfer did not close the books. “ISG [Iraq Survey Group] was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war,” Mr. Duelfer said in a report posted on the CIA’s Web site Monday night.

He cited some evidence of a transfer. “Whether Syria received military items from Iraq for safekeeping or other reasons has yet to be determined,” he said. “There was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer, and ISG received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved. In the judgment of the working group, these reports were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation.”

Given all the uncertainty surrounding the question of what happened to cause every major intelligence service in the world to be fooled into believing that Saddam did in fact have WMD’s, might it be a case where, given ample time in the lead up to America’s invasion of his country, Saddam, with the help of Russia was able to both destroy and spirit out of the country his stockpiles of WMD?

The answer may be contained in those documents that Mr. Hayes and others want to get a look at. At the very least, those documents should be examined and publicized for what they can tell us about the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein.

The precedent for this was the remarkable example found at the end of World War II. The rapid collapse of the Nazi regime meant for the first time in history, huge caches of documents, diaries, and other historical artifacts fell into the hands of a conquering army. What we found in those documents was absolutely chilling; plans for the systematic murder of millions of innocents. The “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was a plan to make Europe “Jew free” by shipping the continent’s Jewish inhabitants to death camps were they were to be exterminated by the millions. We know this to be true because of the meticulous records kept by both German government and businesses whose plans and calculations for cold blooded murder would be unbelievable if they weren’t put down on paper for all to see.

My guess would be that contained in those millions of Iraqi documents is similar evidence of planned, systematic atrocities against the Shias and the Kurds. For this reason alone, those documents should be examined by dozens of teams of experts from around the world in order to wring whatever information contained therein which would bring the perpetrators of Saddam’s horrors to justice. History demands it. And there will be no justice in Iraq until the full story of Saddam’s tyranny is brought into the light of day where history’s judgment can be meted out to Saddam and his cutthroat band of murderous gangsters.

American forces have raided a prison run by the Ministry of Interior in central Baghdad that would seem to be operating independently of oversight from the Iraqi government:

U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a secret Iraqi detention bunker run by the Ministry of Interior in central Baghdad and freed 173 Sunni prisoners who had been tortured with electric shocks and drills, Iraqi and U.S. officials said yesterday.

The Ministry of Interior in the Shi’ite-led government has been repeatedly accused of allowing extrajudicial detentions and abuses, including operation of anti-Sunni hit squads.

A Baghdad police official said officers from the Shi’ite-led Badr Brigade, which answers to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) political party, were manning the bunker when the U.S. and Iraqi forces arrived.

“The army searched the bunker and found many prisoners there,” said the police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “They found prisoners who had been treated inhumanely, tortured with warm water, electricity and drills in their bodies.”

Herein lies the seeds of destruction for the new Iraqi state. Because of the nature of the insurgency and the inability of both American and Iraqi forces to protect the population, dozens of Shia militias have sprung up over the last few years. Some are small adjuncts of tribal and village councils and operate sometimes as death squads, targeting Sunni inhabitants who may or may not support the insurgency. Others like Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army engaged in operations against Americans until soundly defeated last year in Najaf and Sadr City. Al-Sadr has since laid down his arms and several of his followers have joined the new government.

But by far the largest and most problematic militia has been the Badr Brigade (renamed the Badr Organization of Reconstruction and Development ) which controls large areas in southern Iraq and is closely associated with the largest political party, the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The militia dominates police and government offices in several southern provinces where they have attempted with varying degrees of success to establish a strict Islamic code of law.

There are several worrying aspects to the Badr Organization not the least of which is their close ties to the Revolutionary Guards organization in Iran who have armed them and funded their activities. It was an offshoot of the Badr organization with close ties to the Interior Ministry known as the Wolf Brigade that may be responsible for running this extra-legal prison:

What is the Wolf Brigade?

The most feared and effective commando unit in Iraq, experts say. Formed last October by a former three-star Shiite general and SCIRI member who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Walid, the Wolf Brigade is composed of roughly 2,000 fighters, mostly young, poor Shiites from Sadr City. Members of the group reportedly earn as much as 700,000 Iraqi dinars, or $400, per month, a large sum in Iraqi terms. They dress in garb—olive uniform and red beret—redolent of Saddam Hussein’s elite guard; their logo is a menacing-looking wolf.

How did the Wolf Brigade earn its reputation?

Last December, the Wolf Brigade—backed up by the Iraqi army and U.S. military—achieved notoriety after launching a series of counterinsurgency operations in Mosul, a Sunni stronghold northwest of Baghdad. Their popularity was further buoyed by the success of Terrorism in the Grip of Justice, a primetime show on U.S.-funded Al Iraqiya television that features live interrogations of Iraqi insurgents by commandos. In one recent show, Abu Walid questioned around 30 shabbily dressed suspects, some clutching photos of their victims, waiting to confess their crimes.

American forces have actually used the Wolf Brigade and commando units from other militias in counter-insurgency operations with much success. These are highly motivated, well trained and well led units who have proven themselves in fighting in Mosul and other rebel strongholds.

The problem is who controls them? The Minister of the Interior is one Bayan Jabr, a former Badr Militia commander who fled to Iran when Saddam cracked down on Shi’ite political groups and ended up in Syria running the SCIRI office prior to Hussein’s overthrow. If Jabr controls the Wolf Brigade (that has been accused by Amnesty International of murder and torture) to what degree is the Interior Minister trying to carve out a separate sphere of influence for the Iranian-influenced Badr Organization? And how much control does Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari have over one of the most important ministries in his government?

In the elections next month, it’s clear that the SCIRI will once again dominate. Will the leaders of the party who say they speak for Iraq – especially the Grand Ayatollah Sistani – try to rein in and control the elements of the party apparatus that are currently operating outside of the control of the Prime Minister?

The new government of Iraq is moving toward the most dangerous period so far in its existence. And we Americans can do little except sit on the sidelines and hope for the best.

Alright, alright…It’s been weeks since I linked to the Watchers vote results. Because of this, I must wear sackcloth and ashes, practice self-flagellation (with a cat ‘o nine tails), knee-walk all the way to Kathmandu, and prostrate myself before the Council and beg for forgiveness…

Actually, all I have to do is give results of the weeks that I missed:

October 28th Results

Council Category:

1. Syria and the Hariri Conspiracy from Right Wing Nut House (that’s me!)

2. Don’t Secret Cabals Have To Be… Well… Secret? from The Sundries Shack

T3. Kiss Them Goodbye, Your Highness from Gates of Vienna

T3. The Name of Plame Makes Everyone Insane from Dr. Sanity.

Non Council Category:

1. Race and the Unconscious from ShrinkWrapped

2. Separation from The Unrepentant Individual

3. The Trial of Saddam Hussein from The Belmont Club

November 4 results.

Council Category

1. Wilson-CIA Cover Up? from The Strata-Sphere

2. Command Hallucinations from Dr. Sanity

3. Egypt and the Copts: “Kith and Kin” from Gates of Vienna

4. 2,000 U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq from The Glittering Eye

Non Council Category

1. And Another Thing from Cathy’s World

2. The Cicero Articles from Winds of Change.NET

3. 3. A Civil War Underway in Old Europe from The Brussels Journal

And here are the results from this past week’s voting:

Council Category

1. The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today’s Left from Dr. Sanity

2. Crime, Punishment, and Debts to Society: The Concept and Practice of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws from Wallo World

Non Council Category

1. The Arm of Decision Vodkapundit

2. “Husaybah Has Been Cleared and Secured”—An Interview With Col Davis from The Fourth Rail

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

Blogbud Jay at Stop the ACLU and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit have apparently agreed to disagree regarding the ACLU and the degree to which the liberal political organization is a menace to American society.

Jay’s interview with Mr. Reynolds is a must read. One quote caught my eye in particular:

13. Do you really put puppies in blenders?

Reynolds: I like puppies.

Please notice the rather non-committal answer here. When Mr. Reynolds says he likes puppies does he mean he likes the taste of them? Or that he likes putting them in blenders and watching as cute little doggies are mashed into an unrecognizable lump of bone, sinew, and flesh? Perhaps he meant to say he likes the sound puppies make as they are twirling and swirling inside his Proctor-Silex?

A better question would have been “How many puppies have you murdered today, Reynolds?”

At any rate, Jay didn’t hold it against him as he has re-blogrolled Instapundit on his site.

And if you are wondering what all this puppy stuff is about, here is Frank J’s post that started the Reynolds-puppy-in-the-blender meme.

Quite simply, it is the funniest thing I’ve ever read on the net.

UPDATE

Bryan Preston who is guest blogging at Michelle Malkin (How’d he get that gig?) also noticed Mr. Reynold’s obtuseness regarding that last answer:

It’s kind of a non-denial denial on the whole puppy blending controversy.

I believe an investigation is in order. Hell, if we can bring down Dan Rather…