Right Wing Nut House

If Joe Biden didn’t exist, some stand up comic would have to invent him.

During this morning’s round of questions, Senator Biden (in 08!) prattled on about the NSA intercept program, wondering aloud whether or not the President had the authority to carry it out when all of a sudden out of the clear blue sky he asked Albert Gonzalez, the Attorney General of the United States, “When will this war be over.”

I half expected Gonzalez to start singing that old Civil War campfire tune, “When This Cruel War is Over:”

Dearest love, do you remember
When we last did meet,
How you told me that you loved me
Kneeling at my feet ?
Oh! how proud you stood before me
ln your suit of blue,
When you vowed to me and country
Ever to be true.

(Chorus) Weeping, sad and lonely,
Hopes and fears, how vain! (Yet praying)
When this cruel war is over,
Praying that we meet again.

The AG looked a little perplexed. He must have first wondered if the Senator had mistaken him for some 5-Star, gold braided yip-yip from the Pentagon. Then he must have considered the possibility that the Senator was pulling his leg since the smile on Biden’s face only seemed to get broader and toothier - the Senator’s facial cue that he was being very, very serious and that he was asking a very, very important question.

Finally, Gonzalez decided that Biden wasn’t kidding and had not mistaken him for the Secretary of the Army and gave a simple, declarative sentence that any boob could understand:

When al Qaeda is destroyed and it no longer poses a threat to us.

Not. Good. Enough. What? No specific date?

Andy McCarty at the Corner has this prescient comment:

The same, one imagines, might have been said about the Nazis in 1941 or 1942. Biden’s point, of course, is the oft-stated complaint that the war on terror has no definite end-date. Has there ever been a war that has?

Yes, as long as al Qaeda is still a threat, there will never be a time when we would not want to know what its operatives are saying when they communicate into and out of the U.S. Why is that an offensive concept?

The problem, Andy, is that in order to understand that concept, the interlocutor has to acknowledge the fact that we are at war in the first place, something that most Democrats like Biden either fail to acknowledge or don’t really believe.

And this guy wants to be President?

Lights! Camera! Meltdown!

The hearings on domestic spying that will get underway today had the potential to actually answer some very fundamental questions about executive power in wartime and the limits that should be placed on government spying. Too bad that Democrats have to be involved. And it’s also a shame that this is an election year.

Put those two factors together and instead of a serious debate all we’re likely to see is some more off the wall antics by Democratic Senators and, by necessity, over the top responses by their Republican colleagues in defense of the President.

The fact that this does a huge disservice to our democracy will be lost in the overheated rhetoric by Democrats who will set the stage for potential impeachment hearings next year if the Dems get control of the House. The following is intended to give the readers some hints of what to look for during these hearings:

1. Whichever Democratic Senator gets to lead off the questions, I will bet a week’s wages that the name “Nixon” will be spoken within 2 minutes. And I will bet an additional week’s wages that the ex-President’s name is raised by Democrats more than the current President’s.

2. Much will be made of the charge in the Washington Post yesterday that “only” 10 or 20″ terrorist suspects were caught in the NSA digital dragnet while 5000 or so American citizens had snippets of their communications looked at by NSA analysts. I really hope the Democrats take this tack because it will highlight the fact that the program actually works. Those are 10 or 20 terrorist suspects that we didn’t know about before.

3. Democrats will go nuts over AG Gonzales rationale for the program. They will say that when they voted to give the President broad powers to protect the nation after 9/11, they really didn’t mean it. They were for expanding the powers of the executive before they were against it. And we know how well that meme works, don’t we?

4. Ted Kennedy will be incoherent.

5. Arlen Specter will have one foot firmly planted on each side of the issue until the polls tell him which way to jump.

Speaking of Specter, the Pennsylvania Senator came out yesterday and said the NSA intercept program was illegal…without knowing much about it. He said it was “in flat violation” of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). Unless the Senator, who is not a member of the Intelligence Committee, has been seeing a soothsayer lately, he really can’t make such an extraordinarily broad claim.

6. Count the number of blue ties worn by Senators. I will bet that more than half of them will be wearing ties of that color.

7. Joe Biden will have a perpetual smile on his face that will need to be surgically removed by the end of the hearings.

8. Diane Feinstein will be wearing a red dress. No word on whether or not Chuck Schumer will also wear a red dress or whether he will go with something more subdued - like a clown suit.

There will be serious questions asked about the NSA program. But since no one can give the kind of technical details that would enlighten the members about whether or not the program is legal and constitutional, the issue will not be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. Because in the end, there is no alternative but to trust the President that what he’s doing is right.

This is an impossibility for liberals and getting to be a chore even for many Republicans and libertarians. But unless we want our intelligence secrets plastered all over the front pages of the world’s newspapers (or at least more than they are already), no definitive word can emerge that will allow us to judge the efficacy of the program.

The one thing that has struck me about this program and the response by lawmakers is that even Democrats like the ranking House Intelligence Committee member Jane Harman have not called for the termination of the program and indeed, have not even pushed much on reforming FISA to bring the program retro-actively under its auspices. This seems to be a dead giveaway that the program is both necessary and probably technically legal. At least, that would be my reading of the Democrat’s reaction.

Don’t expect too many fireworks between Senators although if the AG proves too much the moving target, Democrats may get frustrated and begin to weep.

I hope they brought their blue hankies with them today.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin rounds up blogger previews on the hearings. And Mark Coffey has an excellent primer that looks back at how this imbroglio came about.

Lori Byrd and I are on the same wavelength this morning (Not about the blue ties and hankies…about how useless they will end up being.)

I was surprised by the mild reaction to my post yesterday about what I see as the unnecessary infliction of pain on devout Muslims by republishing the cartoons.

Just goes to show I’m an idiot to underestimate the intelligence of my readers.

The comments were almost all thoughtful, insightful, and made me think. I can certainly understand why some would take my forbearance as a sign of weakness and the point is well taken. However, there are aspects to this war against radical Islamists - and by their silent assent to the tactics of the terrorists, the rest of the Muslim world - where we are still feeling our way. And I think it important to make a couple of points before I leave the subject for a while:

* There is an extraordinary amount of ignorance on the part of Muslims about how we in the West live our lives. The concepts of freedom and liberty as we understand them are so far outside their ability to comprehend that they may as well originate on another planet. I am not talking about the demonstrators in the streets and the evil men egging them on and who have probably carefully planned this “uprising” for months. I am talking about the hundreds of millions of ordinary people who are in Islam’s thrall, mindlessly following the diktats of their holy men who keep their flocks mired in the distant past. There is a school of thought that Muslims seek the accoutrements of the modern world - flush toilets and electric lights - without the concomitant ideological imperative of having to absorb modern ideas. If true, the imams and the mullahs, like the Soviets before them, are in for a big surprise.

* There is an almost equal ignorance on our part in how Muslims actually view the world around them. The fear and suspicion with which we look upon Muslims is not healthy and actually makes the radicals job easier. Until we can see beyond the bloodcurdling rhetoric of the terrorists and their enablers and try and understand ordinary Muslims, we will be unable to enlist them in any meaningful way in this fight. Before it’s over, they are going to have to choose sides. Will they join us if we continue to condemn an entire religion for the actions of a few? By engaging in such sweeping condemnations, it only becomes easier for the terrorists to show which side the bulk of Muslims in the world should be on. And I’ve got news for those of us who persist in such folly - there are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. We can’t kill them all.

* We absolutely must continue to stand up for freedom of speech. In fact, I am convinced that the only way to reach the majority of Muslims in the world who should be our natural allies in this war is by showcasing our “secular religion” of liberty. If Muslims are willing to die for Allah what do you think the effect on ordinary people will be if they realize we are willing to die for an abstract idea like freedom? I think if we can ever penetrate the propaganda, the lies, and the hate generated by Islam’s leaders against the West and prove by example that our beliefs are as powerful as theirs, the tide will begin to turn. The President sees this in his belief that by bringing at least the outward manifestations of democracy - free elections, free speech, and the free exchange of ideas - the rest will follow. History will prove him right or wrong in this approach. But at the moment, it looks like the best bet we have.

I have thought very carefully about what to say in this post regarding the cartoon controversy. This is due to the fact that it will upset most of my regular readers as well as many on the right who have, in my opinion, been pouring gasoline on a fire where water was called for. Despite the best of intentions - the desire to stand up for our precious liberties - we have deliberately and unnecessarily made a bad situation worse by not only reprinting cartoons that 1.3 billion people on the planet find agonizingly offensive but that we have criticized people and institutions for exhibiting a kind of decency and empathy toward others that in almost any other case, any other circumstance, we would be offering praise instead.

The ability to satirize or mock religion - any religion - is well within our rights as American citizens and indeed, is a right in many (not all) countries that we generally consider part of what we used to define in the days before political correctness and cultural relativism as “Western Civilization.” The set of values and precepts that have emerged from 500 years of western thought have been based on the central idea that a human being, made in the image of the Creator, set upon this earth with a free will and free mind, is endowed at birth with certain “natural rights” that no government, no other man can take away. These natural rights to life, to an ever evolving and changing idea of liberty, and to what Jefferson called “the pursuit of happiness” but is actually a Lockean notion of being free to use reason in the search for truth have given us freedoms that few humans have enjoyed in all of recorded history.

How have we used these freedoms? Here in America, we invented an entirely new way for human beings to live together. We willed into existence a government. We forged a new kind of relationship between the people and that government. And we did all of this to protect what our ancestors saw as something so basic it was “self-evident” - by the simple virtue of being born human, people have the right to live and breathe free.

These are things we rightly take for granted. But by not giving our freedoms a second thought, it becomes difficult to imagine what other people in other cultures with entirely different ideas of what freedom is and what it means, think about this riot of confusing and oftentimes contradictory precepts. The kinds of freedoms that we see as absolutely essential are, in some parts of the world, viewed with suspicion and fear. Our idea of freedom of the press is an anathema to people who would see a publication like The National Enquirer as a threat to the stability of their culture. The fact that we consider this wrong headed and dangerous to our idea of liberty doesn’t mitigate the fact that others can no more imagine living with that kind of press freedom than we can imagine living without it.

Which brings us to the current controversy and how we are responding to it. In all of our calls for solidarity with the Danes and criticism of the ignorant hordes who have taken to the streets calling for the death of their fellow man over a series of cartoons, we may have lost sight of something so basic, so self-evident if you will that all of our posturing and chest thumping in support of free speech and freedom of the press has overridden our ability to see it.

Muslims don’t just find these cartoons offensive. They consider them so far beyond the pale that the fact they exist in the first place is an affront to Allah and by not doing everything in their power to wipe the blaspheming cartoons out of existence, they would be complicit in the sin.

Yes there are many in the Muslim world who are using the controversy to stir up hatred at the west. President Assad of Syria, who didn’t try very hard yesterday to prevent the torching of the Danish and Norwegian embassies, is even using the depth of feeling generated against the cartoons to unite his people and consolidate his hold on power. Other religious/political leaders in the Muslim world are also shamelessly using the issue to raise their own profiles or advance their political careers. But for hundreds of millions of ordinary Muslims, the cartoons and, just as importantly, the reaction in the west to their protests (republishing the caricatures far and wide), have caused pain - real physical discomfort - to people (not a religion or the bastardization of it advanced by the jihadists) who have done nothing to us.

I have tried to imagine anything similar in my own experience that would cause me the kind of pain being experienced by Muslims who feel so violated by the publication of these cartoons. The closest I can come would be watching as the flag is abused and burned by my fellow Americans. I get physically ill when watching people desecrate the flag. It isn’t just feelings of impotent rage and the desire to lash out at the perpetrators. There is also a feeling of nausea, a physical manifestation of contempt and disgust. It’s like peeling something a dog left on the street off the bottom of your shoe or cleaning up a drunk’s vomit off the floor of your house.

It doesn’t help me to be reminded that the protesters who desecrate the flag are exercising their right of freedom of speech. In fact, it makes me feel worse as I recall that millions have served under that flag, have protected it, and that such scum as these are spitting in their faces by carrying out their desecration.

Similarly, we are not reminding Muslims of the profound differences between our two cultures when we throw the caricatures in their faces and challenge them to be tolerant. We are, at bottom, causing them enormous pain. And for that, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Yes we have the freedom to mock religion and satirize other people’s belief systems. And I would fight and die to maintain that right as I’m sure most of you would. But must we lose our empathy in the process? Must we be deliberately hurtful in order to get our point across?

By condemning the publication of the cartoons anywhere and everywhere, it is not a question caving in to those who seek to destroy us by using our freedoms against us. Pat Curley has said it most succinctly: “We can defend their right to publish the cartoons without saying, ‘They are right to publish the cartoons.” This simple idea is the essence of freedom of speech in that it illustrates the fact that there are two sides to almost every issue and that by acknowledging one’s right to speak their mind, we also acknowledge a responsibility to take into account the feelings of others.

I reject the notion that there is no responsibility attached to freedom of speech. For the rational among us, it is simple, common decency to think of how one’s words will impact others before uttering them. This doesn’t mean we have to necessarily moderate what we say. But it does mean that idiots like Julian Bond and others who refer to their fellow citizens as “Nazis” or “Hitler” are being irresponsible and should be taken to task not only for the meaning behind their words but also for deliberately causing another human being unnecessary and unconscionable discomfort. There is no difference between calling a Republican “Hitler” and pulling the wings off of a fly - both are done to deliberately inflict pain. And if this were pointed out each and every time it was done, I daresay such comparisons would dramatically diminish.

The forbearance of the major networks and newspapers in not publishing the cartoons is, I’m convinced, an act not of “dhimmitude” but of simple. common decency. It is also an editorial decision made in the interest of both the news entity as a business and a responsible member of the community. Can the decision be questioned? Of course it can. But to criticize based on the unwarranted speculation that they are somehow fearful that publishing the caricatures will cause them physical harm is beyond the pale. Calling into question the editorial judgment of a news organ is perfectly legitimate. Questioning their physical courage is simple, playground name calling, not worthy of being part of a debate over the sacred rights that we seek to protect and promote.

There is a clash of civilizations going on as I write this. I happen to believe the civilization I live in represents a way of life and thinking that offers the best hope for all of humanity to live as they were intended while extending material benefits that prolong life, hold out the promise of good health, and enjoin its members to achieve a state of being that allows for common people to realize their hopes and dreams both for themselves and for their children. If we are to win this fight, it will not come by force of arms but rather by the strength of our commitment to the battle itself. We don’t give anything up by empathizing with others when pain is inflicted. We do however, lose ground when - whether intentionally or not - we force feed our views of freedom on people who have no cultural touchstone that would enable them to understand what we are trying to accomplish.

I appreciate the fact that I’m swimming against the stream on this issue. But the behavior of many of my friends on the right - people I respect and admire - has been disappointing to me. I don’t expect to change many minds. But if I cause you to think before you next call someone a “dhimmi” for not agreeing with your take on this issue, I will be content.

RADICAL ISLAMISTS STORM THE DANISH EMBASSY IN DAMASCUS PROTESTING AGAINST THE SCREENING OF THE 13TH WARRIOR

Enraged film goers stormed and torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus following a showing of the 1999 movie The 13th Warrior which stars Spanish born Antonio Banderas as an Arab diplomat. The film follows his rollicking adventures with a group of hard drinking, hard fighting Vikings,

Shouting “God is Great! Banderas Sucks! several hundred jihadist movie enthusiasts were objecting to the portrayal of the poet/diplomat by Banderas, based on characters in Michael Crichton’s novel, as “unrealistic and a disgrace to Islam.”

The plot centers on the banishment of Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan Ibn Al Abbas Ibn Rashid Ibn Hamad (Yes, that’s really the name of the character played by Banderas) for falling in love with the Shiek’s daughter. Falling in with a motley collection of Viking warriors, he is enlisted to go to war against some cannibals who have been plaguing the Norseman’s kinsmen. Ahmed acquits himself well enough in the ensuing war and earns the respect of his Viking friends despite his prissiness and arrogance toward those who he considers his inferiors.

Some rioters seemed more interested in carrying away Havarti cheese and Norwegian cod cakes from the embassy’s kitchens rather than in protesting what others saw as a negative portrayal of Arabs by Banderas.

Munching on the contents of a can of King Oscar Sardines, one rioter complained that Banderas didn’t even look like an Arab.

“He looks like what an American thinks an Arab should look like,” said Saad Sadr, a taxidermist who lives in Damascus. “Look at me. I could have played that part with ease. I sort of look like Banderas plus I’m a real Arab.” Mr. Sadr added that he would have been very good in the action sequences since he has had recent experience wielding his sword against “infidels.”

It should be noted that Mr.Banderas is 5′ 9″, is ruggedly handsome, and has all of his teeth. Mr. Sadr is barely 5′ 4″ and in desperate need of major dental work.

Other rioters were upset with the portrayal of Arab horses compared to Viking horses in the film with some protesters complaining that the horse ridden by Banderas had an underdeveloped character and that more could have been done with the budding love story between the horse ridden by the Viking warrior Buliwyf and the beautiful white Arabian.

Apparently the main bone of contention of the rioters was that the Vikings were portrayed as far superior fighters to the smaller, weaker Arab played by Banderas.

“It is an insult to portray Arabs as smaller than infidels,” said Abu al-Assad, an unemployed “security consultant” in Damascus. “It is typical of the west to show Arabs as being small and weak. And for this, a fatwa should be issued against all westerners who participated in the making of this film.”

The theater owner who screened the offending film canceled the showing of the matinee feature Lawrence of Arabia.

“Allah knows what these madmen would have done if they found out that Anthony Quinn was born in Mexico,” he said.

As I have written many times, what appears to be media bias can instead actually be an institutional laziness on the part of reporters or even groups of reporters. In these cases, there is little effort made to explain an issue or event and put it in context so that the reader is left with an entirely different impression of a story than one would ordinarily perceive.

This is especially true of stories that involve nuanced, multi-layered statements from politicians and diplomats. We may have joked about John Kerry being “nuancy boy” from time to time in reference to the Massachusetts Senator’s penchant for long winded and rambling answers to questions. But in truth, Kerry’s problem with the English language was nothing compared to the problem of reporters trying to crystallize his answers and boil them down into a few. well chosen paragraphs. Of course, Kerry’s “nuances” involved issues that most Americans saw as pretty straightforward, black and white matters like who we are fighting in the War on Terror and why. But on other issues like our relations with Russia where the Senator actually had a position that was well thought out, the press in general failed to report the subtleties in the Senator’s position, reducing the complexities of the issue to mindless generalities.

We have also seen this deficiency when wondering if reporters know anything about the internet and have ever heard of Google. How many stories has the blogosphere - right and left - totally debunked simply by using a search engine?

I bring this up today because of the horrible job done by reporters who wrote about the statement yesterday by the US State Department regarding the Danish cartoons. The official statement on the matter came from spokesman Sean McCormick at the daily press briefing. Here, the Department issues a ringing defense of freedom of the press:

Our response is to say that while we certainly don’t agree with, support, or in some cases, we condemn the views that are aired in public that are published in media organizations around the world, we, at the same time, defend the right of those individuals to express their views. For us, freedom of expression is at the core of our democracy and it is something that we have shed blood and treasure around the world to defend and we will continue to do so. That said, there are other aspects to democracy, our democracy — democracies around the world — and that is to promote understanding, to promote respect for minority rights, to try to appreciate the differences that may exist among us.

We believe, for example in our country, that people from different religious backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, national backgrounds add to our strength as a country. And it is important to recognize and appreciate those differences. And it is also important to protect the rights of individuals and the media to express a point of view concerning various subjects. So while we share the offense that Muslims have taken at these images, we at the same time vigorously defend the right of individuals to express points of view. We may — like I said, we may not agree with those points of view, we may condemn those points of view but we respect and emphasize the importance that those individuals have the right to express those points of view.

For example — and on the particular cartoon that was published — I know the Prime Minister of Denmark has talked about his, I know that the newspaper that originally printed it has apologized, so they have addressed this particular issue. So we would urge all parties to exercise the maximum degree of understanding, the maximum degree of tolerance when they talk about this issue. And we would urge dialog, not violence. And that also those that might take offense at these images that have been published, when they see similar views or images that could be perceived as anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic, that they speak out with equal vigor against those images.

(HT: LGF)

I see no backing down on the issue of press freedom whatsoever. And as Hugh Hewitt points out in one of the more thoughtful takes on this controversy, whether we like it or not, the cartoons were offensive to Muslims:

The cartoons were in bad taste, an unnecessary affront to many of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, just as Joel Stein affronted the military, the families and friends of the military, and as Toles did the same to the wounded, and their families, friends and admirers. Of course each of them had the absolute right to publish their screed, and the Danish (and now Norwegian) governments must reply to demands that these papers be punished with a steely refusal to be dictated to as to their culture of free expression and the protection of the vulgar and the stupid.

But don’t cheer the vulgar and the stupid.

So just where did the State Department get it wrong? They stand up for free speech. They recognize that the cartoons offended Muslims. They tell the idiots in the Middle East to look to their own portrayals of Jews and Christians before going off half cocked about the Mohamed cartoons. And they call upon everyone to settle down.

But all we got from press reports was the fact that the State Department seems to be condemning the Danes and other European publications for running the offending cartoons and an obligatory nod to the First Amendment. This is from Reuters:

“These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims,” State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. “We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.”

(HT: Powerline)

Note that according to Reuters, the statement is given by Kurtis Cooper. Cooper is listed as a “Press Officer for AF, DRL, HIV/AIDS, S/WCI, T. Did the Reuters reporter just corral someone in the hall outside the briefing room? What would a press officer whose job was to liaise on HIV be doing talking about the cartoon imbroglio? And what was the problem with the official US statement on the matter? And what else did Mr. Cooper say that the Reuters reporter isn’t telling us?

This is almost the exact same blurb via AP but from Janelle Hironimus:

While recognizing the importance of freedom of the press and expression, U.S. State Department press officer Janelle Hironimus said these rights must be coupled with press responsibility.

“Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable,” Hironimus said. “We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.”

I don’t doubt that Ms. Hironimus is a very nice lady but she isn’t even on the State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs personnel listings for the press office. Again, what was the problem with the official US Statement which was pretty inclusive of the issues that needed to be addressed?

Finally, one more statement from another State Department “spokesman.” This time it’s Justin Higgins doing the honors:

“These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims,” State Department spokesman Justin Higgins said when queried about the furore sparked by the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish newspaper.

“We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility,” Higgins told AFP.

“Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.”

Mr. Higgins is also apparently another low level press liaison as he isn’t listed on the organizational chart either.

This is not to say that these press officers are contradicting Mr. McCormick when he gave the official US statement on the controversy. But instead of the nuances and subtleties contained in the official US statement, the reporters have each latched on to what they consider to be the most “newsworthy” part of the statement at the expense of what the State Department was actually trying to say. Is this bias or laziness? From my point of view, it’s just lazy reporting not to even try to put into context that paragraph as it relates to the rest of the US statement.

It is not entirely the fault of reporters. I recently looked at some of the historic newspapers I have in my possession including the Kennedy Assassination, the moon landing, and Nixon’s resignation. It was an eye opening experience. The meatiness of those 30 and 40 year old publications is in stark contrast to the fluff we get today from the “dead tree” press.

The difference is even more striking in the news magazines Time and Newsweek. Where today those publications rarely have a story longer than 3000 words, the depth of coverage contained in those old issues is remarkable, with stories sometimes running more than 7,000 words (7 -8 pages).

But this only accounts for part of the problem. Because at bottom, today’s journalists are just plain bad writers.

I get carried away on this site at times and ramble on about this or that. But that’s the difference between journalism and writing for a blog. Reporters and editors seem to have lost the ability to write succinct articles that give the facts in a clear and concise manner. This is the problem when practicing so called “advocacy” journalism. In order to be an advocate, you have to use too many adverbs and adjectives - a subjective style of writing. This may make great copy but given that a reporter is given only so many column inches to report on a given story, those extra words add up and something has got to go. And that something is usually facts and/or context.

As newspapers and magazines continue their slide into irrelevancy, will this necessitate a change in the newsroom culture? As more and more inches are given over to advertising, it may be that the age of advocacy journalism is waning and something closer to what journalism used to be all about will re-emerge.

UPDATE

Bird Dog at Maggies Farm has an excellent, reasoned take on the entire controversy:

Our opinion is that people, in the “free world,” have and should have the freedom to mock, criticize, and satirize anyone and anything: Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Indians, atheists, whites, blacks, hispanics, Poles, Norwegians, and every other human category. All are fair game.

We do not particularly enjoy it when such things are done in rude, crude or socially unacceptible ways, but that’s just too bad: hypersensitivity is the problem of the hypersensitive and, as they say in AA, “Feelings aren’t facts.” Besides humor, expressions of anger and hate need to be permitted. When Julian Bond terms all Republicans “Nazis,” some folks just laugh, some are upset, and some are deeply disturbed. But freedom means freedom to be a dumb jerk, and to express hate, however loony or untrue. Thankfully, we have the freedom to talk back and to satirize such malignant idiocy.

Amen.

It may be that someday, historians will look back on the “Holy War Against Cartoons” as something of a turning point in the larger conflict between Muslims and the west. This is because at bottom, the controversy has now moved far beyond the original complaints of Muslims against the portrayal of their religious icons in what they consider to be a disrespectful manner and has entered the realm of what shooting wars are usually about - facilitating or preventing change.

The hysteria being whipped up by Muslim religious leaders against the west (and shamelessly exploited by Islamic political leaders) is a glimpse into the soul of Islam itself and how it is a cultural imperative for the guardians of that faith to prevent at all costs this supposed slur from going unanswered. To do so would allow a tiny crack in the wall that separates Islam from the modern world. And like the unbending dogmatic faiths that have ended up in history’s dustbin before, it has always been a tiny crack which proved to be the impetus for cataclysmic change, sweeping away the old order and bring on the new.

Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the wall of a church was much more than the act of a tortured conscience rebelling against the corruptive influence of absolute power by the Roman church over the individual. It was a harbinger of the modern world itself, a clarion call for the needs of an independent mind to triumph over the slavery imposed by history, by dogma, and by a tradition that made some men masters over others thanks to their selection by the Almighty as conduits through which ordinary people might achieve paradise. Luther’s complete rejection of this cultural bête noire started a revolution he neither sought nor, in the end, supported. But his simple act cracked open a door to a brave new world that led directly to a political revolution that created more secular nation-states in Europe that were independent of Rome.

Similarly, near the end of the 20th century, the leaders of Soviet Communism were desperately trying to maintain their total control of a restive populace by trying to limit contact with western values and ideas. Enter Mikail Gorbechev who mistakenly thought he could reform communism by importing a few western concepts about freedom. To Mr. Gorbechev’s amazement, his reform measures rather than tamping down dissent actually let loose a flood of discontents that eventually led to the destruction of the Soviet state as well as his own personal downfall. Gorbechev made the mistake of thinking that he could control the forces of change that, once unshackled, swept the dogmatic Soviet system away.

All it takes is a crack.

This idea has not been lost on the mullahs, the imams, and the holy men who have whipped their flocks into paroxysms of hate at European governments that dare to allow independent newspapers published in their countries to run the offending caricatures. Because for anyone to challenge the authentic word of Allah as it is revealed in the Koran is to invite questions. As history has shown, asking questions is the first step in the destruction of dogmatic faith. And since the enemy of dogma is independent thinking, once the human mind is free to inquire into one aspect of one’s faith, there is nothing to stop it from further enlightenment. For the religious tyrants who seek to control the thinking of their charges, there can be nothing worse.

There has been much debate as to whether or not Islam can co-exist with the idea of a secular society. Our experience in America would seem to answer that question in the affirmative. But America is very different than Europe both in its tolerance for religious differences and its sheer size that tends to allow small minorities to simply disappear into the vastness of its culture. Recent studies show that there may be only 3 million Muslims in America or about 1% of the total population. Compare that to the 7 million Muslims in France that make up more than 10% of its population. I daresay that if there were 30 million Muslims in America instead of 3 million, the influence of Islam on our secular society would be much greater. And our reaction to the current controversy would probably be very different as well.

Despite our protestations that we in the west are not at war with Islam but rather a “perversion” of the religion by radicals, the fact is our enemies have no such illusions. They correctly see the conflict as one between the modern world (as represented by Christianity and Judaism) and the world as it is revealed to them in the Koran. This is why there is so little outrage by the rest of Islam’s 1.3 billion adherents to the barbarities carried out in the name of Allah by the jihadists. While the overwhelming majority of Moslems may in fact fret over the image of Islam as it is presented to the world by the radicals, they nevertheless offer silent assent to their tactics and the war itself. No amount of obfuscation, no apologia can alter that basic fact; worldwide, Moslems are on the side of the jihadists and against the west.

What can be done? Can Islam “reform” in any meaningful way so that it can co-exist with societies whose members don’t buy into the Koran’s view of the world? The answer today has to be a resounding no. Unless and until Islam releases its stranglehold on the minds of its adherents, it will be a threat to the ideas embodied in western civilization that realizes that in order to free the soul, one must first free the mind.

UPDATE

Go immediately to Michelle Malkin’s site and see what the we’re up against. She has a series of outrageous photos of ordinary Muslims in full cry against the concept of free speech as it is practiced in the west

Jeff Goldstein:

Orientalism (in the sense Said envisioned it), in short, has become a convenient de facto intellectual totalitarianism—one that, when combined with our western history of guilt over colonial adventures, manifest destiny, imperialism, cultural hegemony, and our status as the world’s sole hyperpower, provides a powerful liberal (in the non-partisan sense) impulse for granting autonomy, and for promoting a soft cultural relativism.

Unsurprisingly, this whole philosophical movement—insofar as it was based first on essentialism and then, once the group could be defined down that way, to the excommunication of apostates to the official narrative of the essentialist who won the internal battle over defining the official ethnic and political narrative—was destined to end in a will to power. Which is what happens when universalism—even in its softest and most agreed upon form (for instance, it could simply be a contractual, contingent universalism, to satisfy the sensibilities of post modernists)—is discarded in favor of the notion that individualism (the base point at which human universalism as an ideal is at its strongest, the point that Bush has cleverly made over and over again in his speeches) is to be surrendered to collectivism (the point at which the will of the most powerful within the group is always ascendant, and where apostacy, which we might call disagreement, is a legitimate offense), comes to mimic a kind of individualism by united front: “The Arab Street.” “The Jihadist.” Etc. These are types taken as individuals.

I don’t like to be too gushy, but Goldstein is a treasure, a precious resource of clear, logical, and incisive thinking. Reading his entire critique, one is left with a soaring heart and joyous soul. He is Saint George doing battle with the dragons of deconstructionism and relativism. It is a tragedy that his is such a lonely voice for we need an army of Goldsteins to combat those whose prideful spite at the civilization that has nurtured them and given them so much should now go AWOL in her hour of need.

The vote is in for this week’s Watchers Council and the winner is newbie Done with Mirrors for “Chaos or Community.” Finishing a strong second was Dr. Sanity for her searing portrayal of her meeting with President Reagan in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster entitled “Ronald Reagan — A Personal Recollection.”

In the non-Council category, Winds of Change walked away with the competition with their post “Just a Second — It’s Not That Dark Yet (And We Have a Really Big Flashlight).”

If you’d like to participate in the Watchers Council weekly contest, go here and follow instructions.

Today, I am taping a segment for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio show “High Definition” that will feature a little back and forth with MSNBC’s Craig Crawford. We’ll be discussing Jack Bauer’s influence on American attitudes toward torture and Jack’s place in the culture generally.

At least that’s what I hope we talk about…

Actually, I plan on having loads of fun. It will be broadcast on February 11th. Watch this space for broadcast times and a site that will stream it.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Watching the President’s State of the Union speech one could be forgiven for coming away with the impression only one side of the House chamber was grounded in reality. The contrast between what the President was saying on the podium and the pouting, grimacing, dour faced Democrats, who resembled squirming little children getting antsy during a long church service, was extraordinary.

It only served to highlight the opposition party’s need for an intervention of sorts – one that would save them from their own folly and bring them back into the mainstream of American thought.

In fact, one could compare the plight of the Democratic Party with the problems associated with children whose schools are so bad that federal intervention is necessary in order to correct the situation. It is in that spirit that I propose a brand new federal program geared toward helping our friends across the aisle catch up to the rest of America in their attitudes toward security, the war, and perhaps most importantly, what decade we live in.

Entitled the “No Democrat Left Behind Act,” such a program would serve the dual purpose of bringing Democrats gradually into the 21st century as well as disabusing them of several inaccurate historical analogies that only serve to impede their progress toward becoming useful, contributing members of society.

For indeed, it is history itself that has left the Democratic Party in the dust. The march of freedom across the globe, that began in the 1980’s with democracy’s triumphs in Latin American as well as the fall of the Wall, was opposed by that Party virtually every step of the way. From opposition to Ronald Reagan’s successful efforts to bring freedom to Nicaragua and El Salvador to their refusal to support our defense buildup that eventually helped bring down the Soviet empire, Democrats have consciously and deliberately placed themselves on the wrong side of history.

They have preferred maintaining the status quo rather than support the revolutionary tides that have swept across the planet bringing freedom to hundreds of millions of people.

It will be a challenge to bring Democrats up to speed on what is really going on in the world. After all, a party whose symbol could very well be changed from the donkey to an ostrich almost by definition refuses to engage the truth on any meaningful level. Where most of us see opportunity, Democrats see failure. Where the majority of Americans understand what is at stake in places like Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and other spots where democracy is slowly taking root, the Democrats whine about how hard the process is, how much work needs to be done.

Can anyone imagine Franklin Roosevelt complaining about the uphill battle faced by America as she tried to lift herself out of a searing economic depression not to mention defeating the Nazis, the most powerful military machine the world had seen up to that point?

In this respect, the Democratic Party has truly lost its way. The historical titans Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy all understood in the marrow of their bones that liberating the human soul by working tirelessly for freedom and justice was a goal worth pursuing for a great Party and a great nation. Nowadays, their successors have made cowering in the face of threats, genuflecting to tyrants, and timidity in engaging the world beyond our shores a large part of their party’s platform.

For the Democrats, it’s almost as if the world stopped spinning sometime in the 1970’s when the Party was at the pinnacle of its power. Dominating Congress, the courts, the culture, the media, and the national conversation, Democrats were in a position enjoyed by no party in American history except perhaps the post Civil War Republicans, whose similar domination of the Reconstruction Era not surprisingly produced similar results: a Party whose reason for being went from trying to effect change to trying to hang onto power.

This doesn’t necessarily explain why history passed the Democrats by except that it revealed what happens when a party’s energies are directed toward maintaining power rather than trying to solve the nation’s problems. For Democrats, the 1980’s made them painfully aware of the destructive nature inherent in their statist solutions to poverty, the economy, and foreign policy.

For example, to accept “The Reagan Doctrine” which supported anti-Communist insurgencies wherever they might be would have meant admitting that their opposition to American victory in Viet Nam was mistaken. So too their opposition to the arms build up of the 1980’s which took federal funds earmarked for rapidly expanding the social “safety net” and not only ate away at the notion that these programs were working as intended but also transferred federal priorities to national defense.

Their dire warnings of nuclear holocaust and starving children came to naught. Like two ships passing in the night, they never realized that the world they had dominated and were familiar with had changed forever.

They were vouchsafed a breathing spell in the 1990’s when the world allowed America a short respite from her responsibilities during the Clinton years. Intervening militarily in places like Bosnia and Kosovo where there were no real American interests contributed to the illusion that only the selfless application of American power could be justified. Meanwhile, heads were rolling in Rwanda and Osama Bin Laden took the mettle of America in Somalia and found us wanting. Engaging the Palestinians and their terrorist leader Yasser Arafat did nothing to assuage the anger of radical Islamists who saw our support for Israel as well as the world domination of our culture and ideals as a threat to their own hold on power. So while Democrats diddled, Bin Laden planned.

Even attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, the Khobar Towers in 1996, our embassies in Africa in 1998, and the USS Cole in 2000 failed to move the Democratic Party toward embracing a security posture consistent with the threats faced by the United States. They continued to support President Clinton’s drastic cuts in defense spending which went from over $320 billion in 1987 to $288 billion in 2000. At a time when our enemies were gathering forces to attack us, we were unilaterally disarming, enjoying a “peace dividend” that not only proved ephemeral but an unconscionable danger to our republic.

It is a mystery why 9/11 did not rouse the Democrats and bring them, however unwillingly, into the modern world. Their support for the invasion of Afghanistan as well as the initial invasion of Iraq involved little more than the cold calculation of power politics. They realized that voting against either of those operations would be used against them by their Republican opponents come election time.

This fig leaf has now been removed and their fecklessness regarding both of those operations has been revealed as just a continuation of their mindless opposition to the broad application of American power. In retrospect, it is hard to imagine what kind of a world we would have if a few votes in Florida hadn’t been counted for George Bush. Given recent evidence that Saddam’s contacts with Osama Bin Laden were more extensive than first realized, could Osama, like the terrorist mastermind of the Achille Lauro incident, Abu Abbas, have taken up residence in Baghdad following an operation to oust him from Afghanistan?

And what of the Taliban? Would a President Gore have gone all the way for regime change in that cesspool of terrorism and tyranny? Alternative history scenarios are fraught with uncertainty. But given the Democratic Party’s historic myopia involving Islamic fundamentalism, there is a good chance that a Democratic President would have settled for simply kicking Bin Laden out of Afghanistan and scrambling his command structure. Where that would have left the Afghan people would not have entered his mind.

Our fictitious federal program to help Democrats adjust to their status as a minority party and drag them into the 21st century would necessarily involve much pain and suffering. It would mean our leftist friends would have to give up cherished beliefs and a wrongheaded worldview. But this would only be a first step. For in trying to relearn the history of the last 30 years, Democrats would be forced to confront the consequences of their obstructionism. And perhaps, just perhaps, at the very least they could learn how to get out of the way of history rather than trying to hamper our efforts to change it.