I am not a believer in conspiracies as a general rule.

First of all, they are extraordinarily difficult to prove. Secondly, I tend to follow Occam’s Razor which in essence states “”When you have two competing theories which make exactly the same predictions, the one that is simpler is the better.” Ergo, is it easier to believe a conspiracy of massive proportions in the Kennedy Assassination or that a lone paranoid (not insane) with a gun shot the President of the United States in the back of the head to get attention? Or, is it easier to believe that the President of the United States went to war to enrich his friends in the oil industry and at Haliburton or for reasons having to do with the safety and security of the US?

Just because Haliburton or the oil companies benefited by the United States going to war does not mean that there was a conspiracy to enrich them. All things being equal (or in this case, incredibly unequal), the simplest explanation should rule.

The reason I bring this up is because “conspiracy fever” has begun to take hold on righty blogs and forums regarding the McCarthy story. Not taking anyone specifically to task over this kind of speculation, I feel it important that we not start to degenerate into what the lefties have done with anything and everything about the Bush Administration.

We’re all familiar with their cockamamie conspiracies regarding Plame, the War, WMD, and God knows what else that spouts and spews from their overactive and childish imaginations. And while there are solid investigations and intelligent speculation being done by bloggers like AJ Strata and Spook86 who is ex-military intelligence, the bulk of speculation that I’ve seen on most blogs has approached the surreal.

Most connections being made may, in fact, be entirely innocent or coincidental. Just because McCarthy was hired by Berger does not necessarily make her 1) a “crony” or 2) part of a network of leakers who worked for the Democrats. As AJ Strata points out, that connection certainly bears looking into but beyond that, all we have is the fact they worked together.

A similar argument could be made regarding the very interesting speculation surrounding a possible connection between McCarthy and Joe Wilson as well as another thread that may run to Valerie Plame. This one is very, very tantalizing but once again, a simpler explanation would point to no conspiracy but rather a simple acquaintanceship between Wilson and McCarthy. Much more evidence would have to be revealed including some proof that the two (or three) have had contact in the last few years.

The point? It is much easier to believe McCarthy was a disgruntled partisan stuck in a CIA backwater who leaked out of spite:

You’ll note that many media accounts describe the leaker as an “analyst,” suggesting that she was, at best, a mid-level staffer. That was hardly the case; few analysts make the jump from a regional desk at Langley to the White House. A “National Intelligence Officer” is the equivalent of a four-star general in the military, or a cardinal in the Catholic Church. There are only a handful of NIOs in the intelligence community; they are in charge of intelligence community efforts in a particular area. As a senior officer for Warning, Ms. McCarthy was tasked, essentially, with preventing future Pearl Harbors. Observers will note that McCarthy’s tenure in that role coincided with early strikes by Islamofacists against the United States, including the first World Trade Center bombing, and the Khobar Towers attack. It could be argued that Ms. McCarthy’s performance in the warning directorate was mediocre, at best—but it clearly didn’t affect her rise in a Democratic Administration.

[...]

Aside from her Democratic Party ties (she apparently wrote a check for $2000 to the Kerry campaign in 2004), I also detect the whiff of sour grapes in her motivation for leaking information to the Post. At the time she talked with reporter Dana Priest, Ms. McCarthy was apparently working in the CIA Inspector General’s Office. The agency, citing the Privacy Act, hasn’t divulged her pay grade or title at the time of her firing, but it seems certain that she was not at the NIO level. After the rarefied air of the Clinton White House, McCarthy had been banished to a relative backwater at Langley, and she was likely upset by the apparent demotion.

That last from Spook86 sounds reasonable and logical. Rather than jump to conclusions, best take a deep breath and examine the information as it trickles out. Then we can start putting pieces of the puzzle together (if indeed there is a puzzle at all) in a rational manner. Otherwise, we look like a bunch of cross-eyed, drooling lefties who see Haliburton behind every tree and Rove underneath every bed.

But then again…it is fun, isn’t it?

Yesterday, I played around with the notion that the McCarthy firing at CIA was the result of an internal agency sting operation using a false story about “secret CIA prisons” in Europe that, we found out yesterday, appear either to have been extremely well hidden or non-existent in the first place.

Circumstantial evidence that the prisons exist or existed at one time is compelling:

The European Parliament’s probe and a similar one by the continent’s leading human rights watchdog are looking into whether US intelligence agents interrogated Al Qaeda suspects at secret prisons in Eastern Europe and transported some on secret flights through Europe.

But so far investigators have not identified any human rights violations, despite more than 50 hours of testimony by human rights activists and individuals who said they were abducted by US intelligence agents, de Vries said.

‘’We’ve heard all kinds of allegations, impressions; we’ve heard also refutations. It’s up to your committee to weigh if they are true. It does not appear to be proven beyond reasonable doubt,” he said. ‘’There has not been, to my knowledge, evidence that these illegal renditions have taken place.”

Please note that Mr. de Vries, Chairman of the Commission, has chosen his words very, very carefully. “Illegal” renditions as well as an earlier reference to “no evidence of illegal CIA activities” could very well mean that the detention program existed but that no laws were broken:

Clandestine detention centers and secret flights via or from Europe to countries where suspects could face torture would breach the continent’s human rights conventions.

De Vries told the committee no EU-US agreement authorized secret renditions of terror suspects, that hundreds of CIA flights did not occur over Europe as reported by various media organizations, and that he has no news of European countries using intelligence obtained under torture.

So while there is still a possibility that the entire CIA secret prison story was part of a ruse to draw out a CIA leaker, it appears equally probable that the secret prisons may have existed but that EU investigators simply can’t find evidence beyond the eyewitness testimony of terrorist suspects, admittedly not the most reliable evidence.

I’m walking back a bit on connecting those dots – but I haven’t dismissed the idea entirely. The fact is, the Agency could have given McCarthy some incorrect information on a program that actually existed – such as which countries the prisons were in – in order to trap her.

From here on out, I’m going to take a wait and see attitude toward this aspect of the story.

UPDATE

Steve Sturm makes a good point as to why this is probably not a sting (see his comment below as well):

After going out and getting breakfast (drivethrough at McD’s), I thought that were I running such a sting, I would have immediately released information that the allegations were bogus as soon as the story appeared in the Post. Once Dana Priest ran her article, the leak had taken place, the investigation could have gotten underway, and I don’t see the benefit of letting McCarthy and Priest continue to think that the story was legitimate… especially in light of the PR hit the Bush Administration and its allies in Eastern Europe were taking over these allegations. So, just as the dog not barking was a tip off to one fine detective, so too is the lack of a public rebuttal of these allegations a tip off to me that this was no sting operatiion, but the illegal revelation of a real CIA program.

My response would be that it is possible the sting would not be revealed due to additional damage that would be done to our relations with our allies in Europe plus the fallout I mentioned in my original post on the subject from the MSM who would be fit to be tied if it were revealed that they were the unwitting participants in a disinformation campaign to catch a leaker.

UPDATE II

From Dana Priest’s original story published 11/2/05:

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents. HT: Doss at LGF)

You can see by the highlighted portions that Priest had more than one source for the information about the prisons. This would seem to indicate that the prisons actually exist but that the EU has been unable to verify any of the information from Priest’s article.

Either that, or Priest is lying through her teeth about “diplomats on three continents” and “foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.” Given that all the sources are anonymous, this is a possibility, one that her superiors at the Post are probably asking her about. However, Priest is a top notch reporter, one of the most insightful national security writers out there and I find it difficult to believe she would simply lie outright in fabricating a story that would have such enormous consequences.

The Nixon White House was in an uproar. Plastered all over the front page of the New York Times were some of the most extraordinary examples of “sources and methods” used by our intelligence agencies to spy on our enemies. The revelations were absolutely devastating:

• Information from “Gamma Gupy,” a top secret NSA program that intercepted signals from radiotelephones in Soviet limousines done by the Army Security Agency unit USM-2 in the American embassy.

• Some of the most sensitive documents relating to how the Defense Intelligence Agency was working to uncover a Soviet spy ring operating out of the UN.

• Information on CIA networks in Southeast Asia that gave foreign governments clues on how to roll up those networks.

There was much more, of course. These were the Pentagon Papers. And contained within those papers was incontrovertible proof that the United States government had been lying to the American people about the War in Viet Nam. They also contained some of the most closely guarded secrets in government which is the reason the bulk of them are still classified to this day.

There is absolutely no doubt that publication of the Pentagon Papers grievously hurt American national security. But they also exposed a generation of lies from Administrations of both parties on Viet Nam and led to our eventual disengagement and defeat, at a cost of 55,000 American lives.

Were the Pentagon Papers a good leak or a bad leak? At the risk of exposing my ex-liberal credentials. I would say that the issue is a close call but one would have to say that taken in its totality, Ellsberg provided a service to the American people. He was also a troubled man both by Viet Nam and a personal life that was falling apart largely because of what he knew about the war and his own role in it.

But in the end, Ellsberg’s defiant act was probably necessary to get our troops out of Viet Nam and keep them from suffering and dying in a war the government had no intention of winning. And asking soldiers to fight and die for anything less than victory I still see as immoral today.

There is probably never a purely “good” leak when we are talking about our nation’s national security. There are always trade-offs between the public’s right to know and damage to intelligence operations and sources and methods of gathering that intelligence. But what has been going on since at least the late summer of 2003 with regards to intelligence leaks from Iraq have very little with the public’s “right to know” and most everything to do with trying to discredit the President of the United States by leaking analyses and information that at the very least showed an overweening hubris on the part of the leaker and at worst may have been a partisan attempt by unelected bureaucrats to influence the 2004 Presidential election.

That said, leaks are part of the game in Washington. Nixon was so angered by the Pentagon Papers leak (and another leak that probably originated within his own National Security Council that gave away our “fallback position” on the Salt I negotiations with the Soviets) that he set up the Plumbers – a keystone cops group of loyalists whose criminal activities would eventually lead to his downfall. Other Presidents have dealt with leaks by carrying out internal investigations and trying to cut off offending reporters from access to White House aides.

Despite the fact that our national news media was shocked, simply shocked that President Bush would authorize the release of classified material both to buttress his case for war with the American people and discredit the insufferable Mr. Wilson, such leaking is done all the time, by Presidents of both parties, by partisans of both parties in our intelligence and non-intelligence bureaucracies, and for a wide variety of reasons. And the fact that our media benefits by this cascade of leaks makes them hypocrites of the most crass and disgusting kind. Their caterwauling about the President’s leak overlooks one very important fact; he is elected by the people, they are not. In their overarching hubris, believing themselves to be the gatekeepers of information to the American public as well as the watchdogs of the republic, they constantly forget that they are first, last, and always citizens of the United States and that when the President takes the country to war, it should be he that decides war policy not them.

The flood of leaks from our intelligence community since the Iraq war has been unprecedented. The leaks have not aided the war effort for the most part (although some military bloggers have pointed out that some leaks about inadequate equipment has spurred the Pentagon to do a better job of supplying body armor and armoring up transport vehicles) rather they have been designed to show that one side in the debate on the war is correct and the other side is incorrect. This is partisanship, pure and simple. As I pointed out last night, for every leaked analysis that shows the Administration had differing intelligence from that which they acted upon, there are other analysis showing exactly the opposite. In short, the leaks were nothing more than second guessing, designed to make the Bush Administration look like they “missed” key pieces of the puzzle when in actuality, they were usually acting on what they believed were the summary beliefs of our intelligence community, not the cherry picked analyses of the leakers.

Yes there are times when leaking may be not especially “good” but could be considered “necessary.” So far, I haven’t seen much evidence of this with leaks about what the Administration knew about WMD, or other pre-war intelligence regarding military planning. A case might be made that the Administration engaged in much wishful thinking regarding post-war planning for which the Secretary of Defense should have been held accountable long ago. But given that some of those leaks occurred within the context of the election campaign, it would have required extraordinary care by the news media – care not taken or even contemplated – to explain that context to the American people so that they could make up their own minds about how much weight to give the information in making their decision on who to elect the next President of the United States.

In the end, that’s what the war between the White House and the CIA is all about; the belief by some at the CIA that the wrong man is President of the United States. If we ever get to the bottom of this cesspool of partisan leakers at our intelligence agencies, we may be very surprised where their perfidy leads.

The war between the CIA and the White House took an interesting turn today as one CIA source for the press was rolled up and another came out of the closet.

First, the Agency announced the firing of an employee who has admitted speaking to the press:

A CIA officer has been relieved of his duty after being caught leaking classified information to the media.

Citing the Privacy Act, the CIA would not provide any details about the officer’s identity or assignments. It was not immediately clear if the person would face prosecution. The firing is a highly unusual move, although there has been an ongoing investigation into leaks in the CIA.

“The officer has acknowledged unauthorized discussions with the media and the unauthorized sharing of classified information,” said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. “That is a violation of the secrecy agreement that everyone signs as a condition of employment with the CIA.”

Interestingly, the leak was about the “Secret Prisons” being run by the CIA overseas. You remember the “secret prisons” don’t you? You know, the ones no one seems to be able to find:

BRUSSELS — Investigations into reports that US agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers have produced no evidence of illegal CIA activities, the European Union’s antiterrorism coordinator said yesterday.

The investigations also have not turned up any proof of secret renditions of terror suspects on EU territory, Gijs de Vries told a European Parliament committee investigating the allegations.

The European Parliament’s probe and a similar one by the continent’s leading human rights watchdog are looking into whether US intelligence agents interrogated Al Qaeda suspects at secret prisons in Eastern Europe and transported some on secret flights through Europe.

But so far investigators have not identified any human rights violations, despite more than 50 hours of testimony by human rights activists and individuals who said they were abducted by US intelligence agents, de Vries said.

Can you say “sting?”

It is very, very tempting to connect those two dots. They are begging to be connected. One dot is going so far as to do a belly dance to entice the other. Alas, we have absolutely no evidence at this point so it is pure speculation to say that the entire “secret CIA prison” story was a plant and part of an internal agency leak investigation.

If true, what wailing and gnashing of teeth we will hear from the newsrooms and TV sets of America. There will be outrage that the press was used in this manner. There will be howls for an investigation into a disinformation campaign by the Agency whose purpose was to mislead the American people.

What they’ll really be pissed at is losing a prime source of juicy, anonymous leaks from an agency that in the last 5 years had begun to resemble a rusted out radiator from a 1952 Nash Rambler rather than a top secret branch of the United States government.

Meanwhile, another CIA officer (retired) goes on TV to tell us more of what we already know; that there were some intelligence reports prior to the war that said Saddam didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction – just like there were many, many more that said he did:

A CIA official who had a top role during the run-up to the Iraqi war charges the White House with ignoring intelligence that said there were no weapons of mass destruction or an active nuclear program in Iraq.

The former highest ranking CIA officer in Europe, Tyler Drumheller, also says that while the intelligence community did give the White House some bad intelligence, it also gave the White House good intelligence — which the administration chose to ignore.

The above would be laughable in just about any other context. The difference between “bad” intelligence and “good” intelligence cannot be determined until after the fact! Perhaps the gentlemen would like to explain which psychic the White House should have used to tell the difference before the Iraq War.

You might recall the war between the CIA and the Pentagon over the curious and corrupt Ahmed Chalabi and the role that gentleman played in pre-war intel. The Pentagon insisted that Chalabi was a good source. The CIA believed him to be a charlatan. The White House, in the lead up to the war and eager for regime change, chose to believe the hawks at the Department of Defense. The fact that Chalabi’s “intelligence” (largely from a now discredited source known as “curveball”) turned out to be as reliable as Harry Reid’s word of honor became apparent only after we were in Iraq.

Could the Administration have ferreted out the truth on Chalabi before the war? On WMD’s? On all the other Iraq intelligence that turned out to be false, exaggerated, or misleading?

This, of course, is the bone of contention between the President’s enemies and his dwindling number of supporters. From my point of view, with the White House drive for regime change in Iraq picking up a full head of steam, they began to realize that the CIA was a house of smoke and mirrors.

There is plenty of evidence that a kind of bureaucratic paralysis descended on the agency – and following their spectacular failure on 9/11 who could blame them – which frustrated the White House enormously. For every report that has leaked out since the invasion showing the Administration “missed” something or “failed to act” on intelligence, there is plenty of evidence in the Senate Select Committee Report (SSCR) and especially in the Robb-Silberman Report that shows not only that there were countervailing reports showing the opposite of what was leaked but also the overwhelming problems faced by policymakers and elected leaders in the lead-up to the War in trying to find out what exactly Saddam Hussein had in the way of WMD and how much a danger he was to American interests.

Not that it would have mattered that much. I think most honest observers now understand that Bush had made a decision to invade Iraq , probably as early as September of 2002 and no later than February of 2003. Did this lead to a “fixing” or “twisting” of intelligence? Appearances in this case may very well be deceiving. What the record shows is an Administration being careful with intelligence in some areas – WMD - and careless in others – Iraq’s nuclear program. Saddam could try and purchase all the yellow cake he could get his hands on, the fact is his nuclear program would have needed at least 5 years and perhaps a decade to get started again (The Dulfer Report). At the same time, there was overwhelming evidence (despite what Mr. Drumheller says about his one, lone government source) that Saddam had WMD and was going to use it on American soldiers during the invasion.

The President’s enemies will jump on Drumheller’s interview as more evidence that the Administration lied its way to war. I think it shows more evidence of a culture in the CIA that is arrogantly corrupt and still believes that they are the ones who make national policy, not our elected leaders.

UPDATE

The leaker’s name is Mary McCarthy, former NSC staffer under both Clinton and Bush #41.

Intelligence sources tell NBC News the accused officer, Mary McCarthy, worked in the CIA’s inspector general’s office and had worked for the National Security Council under the Clinton and and George W. Bush administrations.

The leak pertained to stories on the CIA’s rumored secret prisons in Eastern Europe, sources told NBC. The information was allegedly provided to Dana Priest of the Washington Post, who wrote about CIA prisons in November and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for her reporting.

Sources said the CIA believes McCarthy had more than a dozen unauthorized contacts with Priest. Information about subjects other than the prisons may have been leaked as well.

Interesting that she worked in the IG’s office. Federal whistelblower law requires that intelligence whistelblowers must go through the IG’s office to file their complaint. None of the leakers so far as has been revealed have gone through the IG’s office before spilling national security secrets to the press.

And poor Ms. Priest. What happens if it turns out her Pulitzer was for a story that never was?

UPDATE II

Here’s a round up of sorts on both the CIA Leak story and the Drumheller interview:

Bluto posting at Jawa Report:

NBC News has identified Mary O. McCarthy as the CIA officer fired. Interestingly, Fundrace.org identifies a Mary O. McCarthy, with occupation listed as “Analyst” for the U.S. Government as having donated $2000 to John Kerry’s 2004 Presidential campaign.

File that under “The Most Unsurprising Information Ever.”

Kim at Wizbang covers the react from big blogs.

Dan Riehl:

Certainly the inside leakers are the primary concern as Goss tries to instill a new sense of mission and a loyalty which transcends politics within the CIA. But if you want to address the entire problem, then perhaps the MSM would benefit from some of its members being inconvenienced with pesky items like Grand Juries and subpoenas to produce their notes.

This isn’t simply a little graft over a political boondoggle, these are issues of great consequence they’ve been gleefully headlining on their front pages in an almost treasonous way.

Man, I can’t wait for that Libby trial. Seeing Russert sweating on the witness stand may rank right up there with seeing Star Wars for the first time as far as entertainment value is concerned.

Goldstein makes the correct civil liberties argument:

To be clear: I think it is dangerous to stifle a free press; but at the same time, press freedom needs to be tied to responsibility. And printing leaked state security secrets for partisan reasons is not journalism, nor is it particularly brave: instead, it is ideological manipulation using the fourth estate as a way to influence public opinion.

And it undermines the democratic process by ill-serving readers under the guise of neutrality and objectivity.

And when a partisan media is aided and abetted by partisan leakers in our intelligence services, where are we?

Chad Evans is wondering about the “secret prison” story also and covers it from a different angle than I do above.

Ace nails it:

Goldstein calls them tinpot Machiavellianists; I call them Machiavellian Marxists. They’re the worst sort of villain—the villain who thinks his villainy is justified because he’s actually the Hero of the story. At least a mobster knows, in his heart of hearts, what he’s doing is actually evil.

But there is no internal moral restraint in such people. Anything and everything can be done, no matter how underhanded, dishonest, or borderline treasonous, because they serve a greater good than mere law or ethics.

Jay at Stop the ACLU hopes that this is the start of a crackdown on those who leaked the NSA intercept program.

UPDATE III

Michelle Malkin links to some more fascinating information about McCarthy:

The report of the 9/11 Commission notes that the National Security staff reviewed the intelligence in April 2000 and concluded that the CIA’s assessment of its intelligence on bin Laden and al-Shifa had been valid; the memo to Clinton on this was cosigned by Richard Clarke and Mary McCarthy, the NSC senior director for intelligence programs, who opposed the bombing of al-Shifa in 1998.

Al-Shifa was the chemical weapons precursor factory in the Sudan that Clinton ordered hit. No evidence has come to light in the aftermath of that bombing that the plant was anything more than a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility.

And Flopping Aces has a terrific round-up with all sorts of little interesting fact flakes on Ms. McCarthy.

UPDATE IV: 4/22

For some additional thoughts on the theory that the firing of McCarthy may have been a sting by the Agency to trap a leaker, see this post where I take a few steps back from that premise.

It’s hard to know exactly what to make of this diary entry at Daily Kos by “NewDirection” that makes a revealing declaration: “9/11: So Over It.” It’s actually a repost by the diarist from a military forum and, while there may be some who dismiss the author’s thesis out of hand, a careful examination of what he is trying to say tells us something about the state of the American psyche and how that will affect the vote in both 2006 and 2008.

First of all, let me say that I share some of the author’s frustration with the politicization of that day by both parties and for basically the same purpose; to skewer the opposition. In some ways, the author misses the mark when claiming that America was not fundamentally altered as a nation as a result of the tragedy and what he sees as the misuse of 9/11 as metaphor for the War on Terror. But his take on other ancillary issues that put 9/11 in context may be a valuable starting point for a discussion that will place our memories of that date in the proper perspective which, for all intents and purposes, will allow us to “get over” the heavy emotional burden we carry from that day.

Are there any “lessons” to be learned from 9/11? If so, are we taking away the correct ones? Can what happened that day be used as fodder for political attacks without degrading the memory of fallen heroes and tragic loss?

Good questions, those. And the diarist struggles to ask them in the right way:

Yes I want to stop any future attacks, and yes I honor the victims, and all of that. But seriously? “Never forget?” Look, as abominable and shocking as it was, “never forget” is a bit much. I mean it carries the implicit suggestion that if it weren’t taken to heart and repeated, people would forget.

The Marine Barracks Bombing was a pretty big deal at the time. So was the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Granted it’s different getting attacked on your home turf. (And as it happens, not far from where I sit right now.) And perhaps had the right people kept the lessons of Iran and Lebanon, not to mention the first WTC bombing, and OK City, etcetera, foremost in their minds, we’d have had none of this proverbial “clear blue sky” talk… And no need for it.

But as for regular folks? Well, let’s see. Terror. Terror is a set of tactics, but they are defined by their goal: To create the emotion of terror. The assumption that America has accepted is that the goal of the terror is to apply leverage, to cause the target to cower. Cowering is one possible reaction to terror: So is striking out. People seem to assume that we were attacked to influence us, either to withdraw from the Middle East or to get tricked into an escalating conflict in the Middle East. But that’s giving the enemy too much credit, I think. I think they attacked us simply to hurt us.

The author’s near dismissal out of hand that 9/11 was different because it happened here and not overseas is shocking. It brings to mind the “undeclared war” between the United States Navy and German U-Boats in the spring and summer of 1941 prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The US Navy convoyed supplies to Great Britain under the watchful eye of German U-Boats who would occasionally take pot shots at our ships. The USS Rueben James took two torpedoes amidships and sank in March of 1941 while the USS Kearny was heavily damaged later that spring. In addition, the Germans regularly targeted American merchant ships headed for Britain, sinking several with a large loss of life.

For our part, the US Navy gave better than it got, aggressively defending convoys by dropping depth charges on German U-Boats. The loss of life on both sides was significant during this period. But what Roosevelt was looking for – a clear and unmistakable causus belli in order to rally the American people and kindle their “righteous might” – never happened. Not until Pearl Harbor.

What the diarist is saying is that the fact that the 9/11 attack occurred on American soil is significant but perhaps we are making too much of that fact. As a matter of formulating a policy to deal with terror, this may be a useful construct in that most of us who believe we are at war see the attacks mentioned by the diarist as the opening salvos of the conflict. But policies do not exist in a vacuum. Using 9/11 as a touchstone the same way the American people used Pearl Harbor in World War II is useful in giving people a rallying point, an emotional home base where they can return to reflect and rejuvenate the spirit.

Currently, we are not vouchsafed such a luxury by our media in that for the vast majority of the MSM, 9/11 as a topic is avoided like the plague. Images especially from that day are verboten, as if by locking the videotapes in the archives, people will simply forget the horror of what happened. Some would say the media does this because any reminders of that day help President Bush. I think the explanation is a lot simpler than that; the media, collectively speaking, are just plain dumb. They believe that the American people don’t want to see images and be reminded of that day because it’s too painful.

They will be proved wrong a week from today as United 93 opens across the country. From all indications, the movie will be an emotionally shattering experience – so much so that some may be forced to flee the theater so powerful will be the evocation of memory. But many, many, more will remember and will perhaps be once again steeled in their determination to defeat the enemy.

But is there really an “enemy?”

Remember, please, that this was an act of a bunch of punks. Punks that got lucky. Not the larger Islamo-Fascist monolith that some have conjured; that may exist as a useful concept but all evidence points to punks. And frankly it’s a lot easier to credit the well-grounded “punk theory,” because punks behave unpredictably and slip through cracks. The US would have swatted anything larger on the worst of days.

Sure, 9/11 changed the way we protect our country. But should it change our country? I think not. That’s why I’m officially over it. I invite you to realize that you are too. It’s a necessary step in defeating terror.

Being charitable, that’s one way to look at it. I think most readers of this site would wholeheartedly agree that it is the wrong way to look at it.

In fact, as we know now, the jihadists do have a strategy. Published in Der Speigel, al Qaeda’s military commander (now in custody we believe in Iran) Saif al-Adel gave the outlines of a worldwide blueprint for Global Jihad against the United States and the West. This multi-phased operational plan was extraordinarily sophisticated in that it took into account not only the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Islamists vis a vis the west, but it also incorporated favorable demographic changes in Europe as well as the gradual radicalization of even moderate Muslim countries like Indonesia. To posit the notion that the 9/11 perpetrators were nothing more than a bunch of punks fatally underestimates their organizational abilities and their will. The author is just plain wrong.

But the author makes a very good point when he asks even if 9/11 changed the way we protect our country, should it change our country? The diarist doesn’t think so and this is the great trap we find ourselves in today. By changing the relationship between the government and the people in order to protect ourselves, are we changing America forever?

Yes there were victims on September 11th, 2001, and we were all among them. But should their continue to be victims today? Who but victims remembers a wrong done to them as a defining part of their character? True, true, you could say that response to monarchist oppression is what made us a freedom-loving land in the first place. But that’s where our early society came from; to reject monarchy and increase freedom was an evolution of ourselves. On the other hand, being defined by terrorism would be different.

Of all the 9/11 platitudes, I liked “If they change our way of life, they have won” the best. You don’t hear that one much anymore, do you? Well it’s time to revive it. Sure, I do remember 9/11… But not as some sort of guiding principle. I don’t want that to be the “Remember the Alamo” for the next millenia simply because I’d prefer we defined ourselves by something prouder. 9/11 was no Alamo. Call it an act of war all you want but that smacks of an agenda… It was murder, perverse serial murder.

The author’s point about 9/11 victimhood is spot on. And this is how I think placing the tragedy in a different emotional context will help in turning those feelings of helplessness into a determination to see this conflict through to the final victory. This is where the President has failed utterly. There is some truth in the charge that both the Administration and the Democrats have used 9/11 as a political weapon, bashing each other for myopia on the one hand and incompetence on the other. In the meantime, the significance of 9/11 as a rallying point for American resolve has been almost completely subsumed by a cynicism on the part of the people that speaks to a weariness with conflict and a desire to “return to normalcy.”

The draining political battles over the Iraq War are almost over as we will almost certainly begin drawing down our troops (barring a full blown civil war breaking out in the meantime) this summer with the bulk of them being home by early 2008. By that time, the American people may well be ready to listen to a political message that sounds like retrenchment but would actually be retreat. Unless some clever, right-leaning politician can evoke the memory of 9/11 and place it in the context not of making the US a “victim” of an attack but a determined respondent that will continue to confront state sponsored terror in Iran, Syria, and other places, we may be in for a period of “hunkering down” in a kind of neo-isolationist dream world where we can delude ourselves into thinking that by going back in time before 9/11, we can actually make ourselves safer.

I mention a center-right politician because it is very clear at this point that the center-left of the Democratic party is fully prepared to make that leap back in time in a delusional effort to recapture an America that exists only in their imaginations. Contrast the reasonableness of the diarist with these comments left by Daily Kos readers:

The evidence for the Official Story is so poor, and the motives for the proponents of the Official Story —that is, the AmeriKills subsidiary of BushCo and the neo-cons, the people who have benefited from 9-11—to lie are so great, that I cannot believe it to be true.

I am utterly convinced that the Official Story is a transparent hoax, and that it is virtually certain that, at least, BushCo LIHOP and indeed far more likely that, perhaps with the aid of Pakistani and/or Saudi secret services, an element of the government (including Cheney and Rumsfeld, among others) actually sponsored and planned the attacks.

[...]

OF COURSE it has not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Cheney and the boys did 9-11. But the Official Story is fragrant horses**t (really, if you believe that one please send me your check for the Brooklyn Bridge) and, that being so, it’s only natural to see as the prime suspects those who (1) have controlled the crime scene; (2) thwarted any investigation other than the risible Kean-Zelikow “Oil Investor, CIA, CFR and Coverup Maven Whitewash;” (3) stated in writing that the nation’s future pretty much required a “catalyzing and catastrophic event—a New Pearl Harbor;” (4) had the motive, means and the oppportunity to carry out the attacks; and (5) have been the primary beneficiaries, politically but also in cold cash.

[...]

Bush and the neocon horde have stolen 911 from those who know truth. The sheeple who vote in this country will continue to be duped by Karl Rove’s lies. Islamic fanatics are nothing to be feared. Fascist power and the Dubbya police state are the true enemies.

Can you see a Democratic party candidate for President emerging with this group’s support who thinks that 9/11 should be treated as anything except a simple tragedy that we’ve all got to get over and move on with our lives? This is the kind of attitude that will repeal the Patriot Act, roll back other steps we’ve taken to prevent an attack, and reign in domestic surveillance of potential terrorists.

And the hell of it is, by 2008 the American people may be ready for just such a candidate.

They were lined up three deep, all vying for the coveted Cluebat of the Week title. If I had realized the award was this popular, I would have charged an entry fee.

Perennial favorite Howard Dean was so clueless, he entered twice. First, for giving an ultimatum to churches that they either STFU about politics or they will lose their tax exemption. Howard sees this as “reaching out” to conservative Christians although most of our evangelical friends would probably take issue with the fact that Dean was reaching out to grasp them by the neck, all the better to strangle them.

Dean’s second entry was equally humorous. He has come out in favor of “securing our borders.” Against who, he doesn’t say. One would hope that he means against illegal immigrants and al Qaeda terrorists although perhaps he means barricading his favorite bookstore which still refuses to carry editions of publications that feature the Mohamed cartoons.

Runner-up honors this week go to an old favorite of ours here at the House. Cindy Sheehan gave a tearful interview to a newspaper in which she bitterly complained that her son Casey had come home in a “cardboard box” and that no honor guard was there to meet the casket. She also said that the funeral home treated her and her family disrespectfully.

Enter the Director of the Funeral home and a crypt full of endorsements from local families that seemed to make Mother Sheehan out to be a (shhhh…don’t tell the MSM) liar. Not only was Casey laid out in a regulation military casket (not the metal shipping variety that lands at Dover, DE but the casket in which they ship the body back to the soldier’s hometown) and that the funeral home met the casket at the airport as they usually do; with two military guards of honor. It’s almost as if Sheehan doesn’t even care about how brazen her lying is anymore. She knows that there is absolutely no way that anyone of any note for any news outlet in America is going to call her on it. She seems to have a free pass for life – sort of like Al Sharpeton but without the $2,000 suits and diamond studs.

But for Cluebat of the Week, we need go no further than the pond scum who reside in the Democratic Underground who, not content with believing George Bush responsible for earthquakes, Tsunamis, Hurricanes, and the flop of Basic Instinct II, have crossed into a place usually reserved for Mafia Dons and CIA assassins. They published the personal information of Michelle Malkin and invited the deranged minions inhabiting that cesspool to show Malkin the consequences of disagreeing with them.

Ace said it better than any of us:

Well, pussies, keep it up. You can push this society ever and ever closer to open political violence, but it’s about time you took a look at your sorry fat asses in the mirror and remembered all the ass-kickings you suffered through in your years of miserable alienation in high school. You want this, tough guys? Last time I looked at the lot of you you looked like the sort of half-a-fags even I could kick the sh*t out of.

Cogently put.

So for being both nasty and clueless, the Democratic Underground is awarded “Cluebat of the Week.”

An abbreviated Carnival what with the holiday and all. Click that monkey…

“I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.”
(Dame Edith Sitwell)

“Hey Eydie! You must have watched the White House press corps during Bush’s last press conference.”
(ME)

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

Fred Fry points out the cluelessness of certain generals (and the left) who want Rummy to resign.

Count those prancing pachyderms at Elephants in Academia in as Rummy backers as well.

Brainster has the lowdown on the University of California-Santa Cruz students who started the Malkin kerfluffle by assaulting military recruiters on campus and then bragging about it in a press release.

Two Dogs has the story of the completely clueless English professor who asked for volunteers to tear down a pro-life display of crosses.

Are there any more clueless national security officials than former Clinton appointees? Giacomo doesn’t think so.

Josh Cohen has the most goddamn depressing post I’ve ever read. The clueless ones in this post are looking back at you when you look in the mirror.

Cao has more Mother Sheehan nonsense including a picture of the cluebat unveiling a monument to herself. Outrageous!

HOW ABOUT A LITTLE SATIRE FROM OUR STABLE OF UNSTABLE CARNIVAL WRITERS!

It’s whaling season in the North Atlantic which is where our intrepid hippie chick Peace Moonbeam is making the world safe for sperm – er, whales that is.

Stingray has the picture of the day.

Dean Swift has some news: “[T]he DA’s office in Boston, Massachusetts has accused the Harvard 8 Man Crew Team of taunting, torturing and impaling a bus load of Mexican, illegal alien, lesbian, prostitutes who were in town to assist in an anti-war, anti-fur, vegan, Earth First, gay pride, ACLU, anti-Bush, peaceful demonstration to point out the horrors of global warming.

What else did Ted Kennedy say at the pro-illegal immigrant rally in DC? Buckley F. Williams stayed until the end to get it all.

Our favorite alien (no, the other kind) has a message not to be missed.

Vox Poplar has a great bit along the lines of the old Johnny Carson “Karnac” skits.

CHECK BACK NEXT WEEK FOR THE BEST CARNIVAL SATIRE AROUND!

Gary Sieling has a superior post about his hometown and why so many people look like pirates. Must read.

Our Carnival pin up girl Pamela has more Islamic fundie cluelessness about Mohamed. This time, it’s a cartoon of the prophet in hell. Sheesh! When are these people going to develop a sense of humor?

DL at Bacon Bits has some more immigration cluelessness from both parties.

Kender gives us immigration stats that make you go “hmmmmm.”

My own takedown of the DU moonbats is here.

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is Dr. Sanity for “No Relation to Reality, Indeed.” Finishing a close second was The Glittering Eye for “Death of 1000 Cuts.”

In the Non Council category, Dan Simmons walked away with 1st place for his post “April 2006 Message from Dan.”

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

This will make you laugh whether you’re Catholic or not:

The CEO of Tyson Foods manages to arrange a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican. After receiving the papal blessing, he whispers, “Your eminence, we have an offer for you. Tyson Foods is prepared to donate $100 million dollars to the church if you change the Lord’s Prayer from “give us this day our daily bread” to “give us this day our daily chicken.’”

Finally, the Tyson guy says, “Your Holiness, we at Tyson Foods respect your adherence to your faith, but we do have one final offer. We will donate $500 million dollars – that’s half a billion dollars – to the great Catholic Church if you would only change the Lord’s Prayer from ‘give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily chicken.’ Please consider it.” And he leaves.

For the punchline, you must go and visit my friends at Maggies Farm. While you’re there, the Bird Dog of the Week post is up. And since it’s Thursday, that means it’s Dylan Lyrics and Download day on the Farm.

If you take a look at my blogroll, you’ll see a new edition. The Vivid Air is run by one of my older, smarter, (but not as good looking) brothers. Jim is a less excitable, wiser version of me except he’s a liberal – more of an FDR or Harry Truman Democrat rather than a John Kerry moonbat or worse, a Noam Chomsky Stalinist.

I don’t know whether he’s gotten more conservative through the years or I (God forbid) have gotten more liberal but we don’t seem quite as far apart on many things as we did in the 1970’s. Oh well…you know what they say: If you walk far enough, eventually you’ll end up shaking hands with yourself. Maybe moderating views comes with advancing years.

He probably won’t write exclusively about politics. Even if he does, I’m sure that he will challenge your thinking. I personally hope that he writes about his real love – literature. As a lifelong teacher, his insights into books and the people who write them will be great reading I’m sure.

Stop by and pay him a visit. He’s got some interesting thoughts on the Malkin matter I posted about below. Please be on your best behavior. If I hear that any of you are up to the usual tomfoolery, it will be off to bed with no supper…and I mean it. Be nice.

I plan on making The Vivid Air a regular stop. I hope you do too.

Oh, the perilous, evil times in which we live.

The current escalation in the war between liberals and conservatives just took a very nasty turn as far left websites have published personal information, including the address and exact location, of Michelle Malkin’s house. The stated purpose was revenge: Malkin published the contact information contained in a press release from a University of California-Santa Cruz student group who physically threatened and violently intimidated military recruiters who had come on campus to participate in a job fair. The young military men were forced to leave fearing for their safety as well as the safety of anyone who may have been able to run the gauntlet of shouting, spitting, pushing leftist lickspittles who were trying to impose their idea of “free speech” on those who may have been a little more open minded about that alien concept in wishing to see the recruiters. (I would think anyone with courage enough to endure those kind of hardships just to see military recruiters should have been signed up pronto).

It is unfortunate that these facts have been drowned out by the subsequent brouhaha over Malkin’s publishing the student’s contact information. Or perhaps not. Lefty websites ignored the free speech implications of the UCSC incident until Ezra Klein came out with his best imitation of Joe “Have you no shame” Welch. His curious use of the euphemism “slug” to describe Malkin was probably appreciated by Michelle in that lefties routinely use very personal anatomical descriptives in referring to her. Klein’s dramatic, chest thumping denunciation of Malkin for publishing a press release was extraordinarily revealing. The student “protest” (assault) was just harmless fun! They’re “undergraduates,” for Gosh sakes.

And then, the jaw dropper:

Malkin has already done grievous harm to an idea. I went to UC Santa Cruz. It’s entirely possible I was friends with some of those Malkin has placed in danger. It’s a school filled with young, idealistic kids determined to save the world, feeling their way through uncertain thickets of ideology and unfamiliar collections of ideas, and naive about the dangers of direct political action outside a university’s protected confines. That, after all, is what college is about—providing a protected space for young adults to experiment, learn, try out ideas and identities. If they made a mistake attaching their home numbers to a press release, it’s understandable—forgive them father, they know not what they do.

Malkin lays claim to no such ignorance. A skilled and experienced rhetorical warrior, she saw the pale, white flesh of their throats and lunged. The vicious always seek out the weak. Rather than forgive their poorly-written, too-revealing press release, she published their oversight, opening them to danger and harm. If any of these students are hurt by a crazed Malkinite, the blood will drip from her hands, the guilt will burden her shoulders. But forgive her just the same, for there is nought else she can do.

Oh puh leeze!

Did anyone else laugh out loud when reading “she saw the pale, white flesh of their throats and lunged?” That’s not hyperbole. It’s juvenile. One might expect to see something like that in the diary entry of a 12 year old girl.

And the idea that college “provides a protected space” so that these students can violently intimidate people they disagree with is one of the most outrageous ideas I’ve ever heard. Yes, let them protest the recruiters visit. Let them stand outside the venue and spout their slogans, wave their signs, even try and shame people who wish to visit the recruiters. But to physically insinuate themselves to prevent people from seeing the recruiters in the first place is wrong – wrong for anyone, of any age, in any place, at any time. And throwing rocks, slashing tires, pushing, shoving, spitting, and threatening violence are not the acts of innocents. They are the acts of criminals.

Of course, we’re now beyond the debate about what went on at UCSC and into the bloody aftermath; Malkin’s publishing the press release containing the telephone numbers of those poor, innocent college students. This is something Malkin does quite often. She publishes contact information of school principals, corporate CEO’s, college professors, local elected officials, and anyone and everyone who demonstrates either extraordinary cluelessness or a particular bias against conservatives. It is the fact that she encourages her readers to initiate contact that has lefty blogs up in arms.

The default position of Klein, et al is that because there is a minuscule percentage of Malkin’s 144,000 daily readers who are in desperate need of psychological help, she should have refrained from publishing the contact numbers of the students. This brings up a fascinating question; are bloggers responsible for the actions and attitudes of their readers? Are novelists? Are newspapers, screenwriters, and anyone else whose writings see the light of day responsible if some wacko makes a threatening phone call?

John Aravosis agrees with Klein; absolutely yes:

Malkin, on the other hand, has posted the phone numbers and email addresses of college kids on her uber-trafficked site, and the kids are now getting deluged with hate. It’s wrong, in terms of sicing your audience on kids. It’s also wrong in terms of once kids are getting death threats and they ask you to stop, you really ought to stop (hell, even for adults, if things start to get THAT out of control, you really ought to reconsider your activism strategy). Not dig in your heels in order to prove some bizarre, and rather sick, point.

And finally, having her audience call these kids is a rather bizarre, and I’m not convinced defensible, practice. It’s one thing to call a corporation to complain about their sponsorship of x, y or z. But having your audience call up individual activists and yell at them because of a protest they held, that seems to start bordering on creepy and un-democratic.

In a demented sort of way, Avarosis has a point. Even though the last I heard, none of the students had been in contact with Malkin and asked that she remove the information (the same info is still available on at least three lefty websites), from my own personal point of view, once I heard that they were receiving death threats, I probably would have pulled the information. In the end, one does have a modicum of responsibility not only toward people who read your site but also anyone affected by what’s on it. It’s ridiculous to believe that Malkin deliberately set out to injure these idiot kids by publishing their little mimeographed press release. But once it became clear that some of her readers had crossed the line, I personally would have pulled the information without comment or notice.

That said, what do you make of people publishing Malkin’s home address and the location of her house?

The crickets are chirping on the left as only one blogger has mentioned the outing of Malkin’s personal information – and that was to simply tweak Jeff Goldstein’s nose. Goldstein applauds Malkins defiance of her tormentors and adds this:

So. I am now calling for the very public condemnation and ostracizing of those who would post satellite photos and personal addresses of a their political opponents on the web. I am also calling for the public condemnation and ostracizing of those hyperpartisan bloggers / media figures who condone or applaud such actions.

Jeff Goldstein is absolutely correct. The potential damage this practice could do to political speech demands that left and right make this a line of demarcation – a “line of death” to cross. Anyone, be they right or left who crosses this line should be immediately de-linked. Anyone who still links to the offending site should also be delinked. Anyone who links a post from the offending site (even to make sport of it or to criticize it) should be delinked.

For that reason, I am going to delink the Democratic Underground from my sidebar (as soon as I can figure out how to do it). And I am putting on notice anyone who still has them on their blogroll by this time next week will also be delinked. This includes numerous righty bloggers who link to them under the rubric of “The Enemy” or “The Left.”

And no, I will not delink Malkin even though some apparently have. The difference between what she did and what the DU crew did is night and day. Publishing a press release is one thing. Inviting people to physically harass someone is quite another.

This kind of thing must be nipped in the bud now before it gets out of control.

UPDATE

If you know of other lefty websites who published this information or linked to it, please let me know who they were.

Also, an absolute must read by The Anchoress: Judas and the Cult of Malevolent Mendacity.