Jawdropper of the day is from Bilmon of the site Whiskey Bar who, it turns out, is a very silly person. In fact, given the level of silliness in this post about the right and “Munich,” as well as some truly funny misconceptions, obfuscations, misrepresentations, relativistic meanderings, and demonstrably lazy thinking, my BS-O-Meter ticked wildly upward to the point that I felt the gentleman needed to have his proverbial clock cleaned so that the record (if anyone cares about such an arcane matter as history) can be set straight.

This is getting to be something of a regular feature at The House, sort of like a daily horoscope except it doesn’t appear daily and a horoscope contains more ultimate truth than anything found on liberal websites. For some reason, my takedowns of David Neiwert, Glenn Greenwald, and other lefties always seems to occur on the weekends. Thus, a tradition is born. It’s almost like my other weekend tradition of making myself hamburgers every Saturday night for dinner except there’s a helluva lot less meat in liberal “Here’s what’s evil about the right” posts.

I actually agree with Mr. Bilmon’s initial postulate; it is silly to compare the Allied surrender at Munich with doing nothing about Iran. The trouble is, no one was doing that. In fact, as I pointed out here, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard took another “road to World War II” moment – the German re-militarization of the Rhineland – and tried to stretch that dubious analogy to cover our inaction regarding Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons. Bilmon gets around to pointing that out but not until he makes a fool of himself criticizing the right for bringing the specter of “a feeble old man standing on an airport tarmac, holding an umbrella in one hand and waving a meaningless scrap of paper in the other.”

As I said earlier, no one has brought up the Munich simile except Mr. Bilmon. What Hugh Hewitt, Bill Kristol, and others were tortuously trying to say by bringing up the re-occupation of the Rhineland was to point out that if the French and British had acted while the balance of forces were so immensely heavy in their favor, Hitler would have been forced into a humiliating retreat that probably would have meant his being deposed by the German army. In my post debunking Kristol, I point out that, in fact, France was not entirely opposed to the notion of a strengthened Germany given that most western democracies saw Stalin’s Soviet Union as the real threat to world peace.

What makes the Munich analogy even more problematic (probably the reason no one on the right has used it) is that by 1938 and the Czechoslovakian crisis, that balance of forces had been redressed considerably by Germany. And while the combined armies of Britain, France, and the Czechs could have ultimately defeated Hitler, the cost would have been infinitely greater than simply pushing the two measly brigades that Hitler marched into the demilitarized zone back a few dozen miles.

Mr. Bilmon must have had Munich on the brain which is the reason for the obvious disconnect. Or perhaps he was making an obscure point about “The Road to Munich” which was a long chapter in Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Either way, it’s idiotic. Curious that Bilmon heads a paragraph “Party like it’s 1938” and then reveals that, in fact, his right wing targets were talking about the Rhineland occupation which occurred in 1936. But we better not tell Mr. Bilmon that. He’s on a roll about Munich and the wrong lessons being drawn by the right about the singular failure of will on the part of the British. And once a liberal gets on a roll (even if he’s laughably wrong) one might as well try and stop Teddy Kennedy from crashing “Dollar Draught” night at the “Coyote Ugly” bar.

Speaking of ugly, here is what passes for deep thought by Mr. Bilmon regarding his analysis of that elfish Iranian trickster, President Ahmadinejad:

“...[W]hile the by-now stock comparison between Ahmadinejad and Hitler is absurd militarily, politically it’s not nearly as far fetched as the normal run of Orwellian newspeak.

I don’t say this because of Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denials or his public fantasies about Israel being wiped off the map. I certainly don’t dismiss those remarks. I’m keenly aware that all too many “sensible” observers (most of them on the political right) dismissed Hitler’s Mein Kampf ravings as merely a carny act to bring in the rubes. But I also know that firebreathing rhetoric about destroying the “Zionist entity” has been a staple of Middle Eastern political hate speech since Nasser’s time if not before – just as talk about nuking Mecca has become an occasional feature of American political hate speech. I take such talk seriously, and I think everybody should, but I don’t automatically assume that those who say such things are actually planning to commit genocide.

No, Ahmadinejad’s resemblance to Hitler – and the reason why I find him a legitimately scary guy – is more a function of his role in the decay of the Iranian revolution, which is starting to take on some definite Weimer overtones.

“Public fantasies” about destroying Israel that he “certainly [doesn’t] dismiss?”

Talk about Orwellian doublespeak! They are either fantasies or something not to be dismissed. Which is it and why undercut their brutality by referring to them as fantasies in the first place? And as long as you brought up my soul brotha Adolf Hitler, has there been the leader of a sovereign state since Der Fuhrer who has spoken so brazenly about the destruction of a neighbor? But of course, after telling us he doesn’t dismiss such rhetoric, he then proceeds to do so by comparing Ahmadinejad’s threats to destroy Israel with some of our mouthbreathers on the right who call for nuking Mecca (Representative Tancredo called for nuking Mecca in response to an Islamic nuclear weapon being detonated on American soil which is a far cry from Ahmadinejad’s threat to destroy Israel without provocation).

I know it must have escaped Mr. Bilmon in all the hustle and bustle of smearing conservatives but I wonder if he happened to notice that President Ahmadinejad is the leader of a nation working to get its hands on nuclear weapons while the mouthbreathers are leaders of their local beer chugging club – a slight but significant difference when talking about being able to “nuke” anyone. Even if Bilmon can come up with more significant examples of conservative cluelessness about nuking Mecca, no American President with his finger on the nuclear trigger has been quoted as saying any such thing.

And by taking the default position that we shouldn’t “automatically assume that those who say such things are actually planning to commit genocide,” Mr. Bilmon gives us a perfect illustration as to why no one will ever trust the left with American national security (except perhaps in extremis given the current crew’s continuing cluelessness about homeland security) until Bilmon et. al. turn that statement around 180 degrees: In a post 9/11 world we must automatically assume the worst.

This, of course, is the chasm between 9/10 liberals and 9/12 conservatives (“neo” or not). This is not the place nor do I have the inclination today to rehash the entire pre-war debate about pre-emption or Saddam’s support for terror groups which are becoming more obvious with every revelation contained in the Saddam documents and notwithstanding Peter Bergen putting his hands over his ears and screaming “NEENER, NEENER, NEENER.” The point being that there is a threat of mass casualty terrorist attacks carried out by enemies of the United States and nothing and nobody should be overlooked nor the threat downplayed as just some political ploy by the party in power.

I would hope that if the left regains the White House in 2008, we on the right never question the chief executive about moves he or she might make to protect us. And please don’t throw Clinton’s questionable military moves during his impeachment troubles up in my face. The last I looked 1998 comes before September 11, 2001 on the calendar.

Bilmon then goes into a long, mostly correct analysis of what Seymour Hersh referred to as Ahmadinejad’s “white coup” that has changed the face of the Iranian government. Instead of radical theocrats turned inward toward oppressing their own people, Ahmadinejad and his allies have overturned the status quo by kicking out the corrupt, established order and installed fanatics. Mr. Bilmon almost gets to the truth in this passage:

In his recent New Yorker article, Sy Hersh calls this Ahmadinejad’s “white coup,” and cites a recent wave of forced resignations in the Foreign Ministry. More importantly, key Revolutionary Guard commanders also have been turning up dead – like the dozen or so who died in a plane crash last December. Some are said to have been leading opponents of Ahmadinejad.

(Update 10:10 pm ET: I should have been more circumspect here. It isn’t clear whether the RG officers who died where enemies or allies of Ahmadinejad. Nor is there hard evidence that the crash was due to an act of sabotage. It is reasonably clear, however, that a subterranean power struggle is under way inside Iran, and that Ahmadinejad’s moves to consolidate power are at the center of it.)

It isn’t hard to see some ominous parallels here. A Marxist would probably say Ahmadinejad is playing the classic Bonapartist role: taking advantage of a political stalemate between social classes to forge a personal dictatorship. Or maybe he’s just the inevitable product of an authoritarian system in terminal decline, like Milosevic in Yugoslavia. Or maybe he’s really only explicable in Iranian terms.

I don’t know. But Ahmadinejad’s combination of demogogic appeal, ideological zealotry and end-times eschatology does make him a much more plausible stand-in for Hitler than an apparachik like Milosevic or a thug like Saddam. Even Juan Cole – hardly a neocon sympathizer – has called Ahmadinejad “essentially fascist.”

Ahmadinejad’s purge was not confined to the Foreign Ministry. Every part of government has undergone a shake-up, replacing radicals with fanatics. In fact, this has been happening for years in both the Assembly of Experts (the body who supposedly oversees the office of the Supreme Leader but who, in actuality have become much more radicalized under Khamenei’s rule) and the Guardian Council whose handpicked members rule on the constitutionality of laws passed by the legislature.

It is unclear whether the “purification” of the Iranian revolution has the complete backing of the Supreme Leader. But it is equally clear that he could put a stop to it if he wanted to. The resistance to Ahmadinejad has coalesced around two disparate personalities; former Presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (who might be said to represent the “old guard” of the revolution) and Mohammad Khatami who has been described in the western press as a “moderate” which means that he didn’t want to murder quite as many innocent Iranian civilians as his predecessors. Both men wholeheartedly supported the secret Iranian nuclear program with Rafsanjani making the initial moves during his first term as President.

All this points to big trouble. Even if the Supreme Leader tires of Ahmadinejad’s pulling the tail of the lion and replaces him, the chances are very good it will be with either one of the gentlemen mentioned above. The Iranian nuclear program would continue apace only this time, without the overblown rhetorical swipes at the west. This will make it extraordinarily easy for the Iranians to drive a wedge between us and our European allies who are looking desperately for a way to avoid a confrontation and would leap at the chance of pretending to negotiate with a “reasonable” Iranian leader. Of course, in practical terms this means that Iran would probably have a bomb by the end of the decade.

Finally, after once again carrying on his lonely crusade in raising the specter of Munich (since no one on the right has done so lately) Bilmon brings up a “missed opportunity” that the Iranians gave us in 2003. He quotes from a piece by a former Bush White House national security insider who says we missed a big chance to make an accommodation with the mullahs:

In the spring of 2003, shortly before I left government, the Iranian Foreign Ministry sent Washington a detailed proposal for comprehensive negotiations to resolve bilateral differences. The document acknowledged that Iran would have to address concerns about its weapons programs and support for anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. It was presented as having support from all major players in Iran’s power structure, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei . . . Unfortunately, the administration’s response was to complain that the Swiss diplomats who passed the document from Tehran to Washington were out of line.

But this side of the story really goes back further, to the Clinton administration’s dithering response to the blossoming of the Iranian democracy movement in the late ‘90s and the 2000 presidential victory of moderate reformer Mohammad Khatami.

The opportunity for detente was out there, but the Clintonites were utterly intimidated by our own hardliners – not least the ones in their own party – and never developed a coherent policy either to engage the reformers or challenge their opponents.

Every meaningful “reform” initiated by President Khatami was either blocked by the legislature or invalidated by the Guardian Council. And these were not earth shattering changes; basic issues like women being able to walk around without being clubbed by Revolutionary Guard religious enforcers and allowing opposition newspapers to publish something critical of the regime every once and a while.

How US engagement with Iranians would have changed this one iota is wishful thinking or worse, a refusal to recognize the true nature of the regime regardless of whether a “reformer” or a fanatic is President. Liberals get all doe-eyed and squishy when it comes to talking with nutcases like Ahmadinejad or that frequent overnighter at the White House Yasser Arafat. They believe that if they talk long enough and persuasively enough, they can change these gimlet eyed radicals into reasonable people.

One more reason to distrust the left with the security of the country.

If that’s not enough, how about this curious case of Bilmon blaming the Bush (“Cheney”) Administration for not accommodating the Iranians who approached us with open arms:

The irony is that the point when America was in the best possible position to dictate a deal (an ultimatum, really) to the Iranians – after the fall of Baghdad three years ago – was also the point when the Cheney administration was least willing to even think about negotiations. Such is the price of hubris. Given what’s happened since then, is it any surprise that the uranium “crisis” – and Ahmadinejad’s defiance – have only boosted his political popularity and clout?

Ahmadinejad doesn’t need Bush to be defiant. After saying that the Iranian President’s rhetoric should be taken seriously earlier, here Bimon seems to be saying that it’s Bush’s fault Ahmadinejad is throwing nuclear spitballs at the White House. Which is it?

And can you imagine the reaction of Bilmon, the left, and the entire State Department to an American demarche to Iran in the form of a veiled ultimatum? This is why people like Bilmon cannot be taken seriously. Heads he and the left win; tails, Bush loses.

And this is what passes for deep thought on the left.

Even though I agree with some of what Bilmon says regarding the current crisis, as is usual with the left, faux analogies, exaggerated rhetoric, false assumptions, and an uncanny ability to obfuscate the truth by exhibiting a blind hatred of all things Bush makes even their most trenchant analysis ring more hollow than the chocolate Easter Bunny I plan on eating with my hamburger tonight.