Right Wing Nut House

Here are the results from the latest Watchers Council vote.

In the Council category, Rhymes with Right walked away with top honors in a close vote with “Immigration Protests By High School Students.” Finishing in a tie for second was Gates of Vienna with “Aztlan and al-Andalus: Return to a Mythical Golden Age” and yours truly for my post “Dreams and Myths: Hollywood and 9/11.”

In the Non-Council category, first place was a runaway with American Digest winning handily for “On the Return of History.”

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

“Beware of Neocons Bringing Up Nazi Germany” was the working title of this post but I chucked it in favor of a header more reflective of my mood this morning.

It is indeed disheartening to read this piece in the Weekly Standard by Mr. Kristol, a usually clear headed, incisive thinker, who raises the specter of Hitler’s march into the Rhineland as a simile for our situation with Iran:

IN THE SPRING OF 1936–seventy years ago–Hitler’s Germany occupied the Rhineland. The French prime minister denounced this as “unacceptable.” But France did nothing. As did the British. And the United States.

In a talk last year, Christopher Caldwell quoted the great Raymond Aron’s verdict: “To say that something is unacceptable was to say that one accepted it.” Aron further remarked that Blum had in fact seemed proud of France’s putting up no resistance. Indeed, Blum had said, “No one suggested using military force. That is a sign of humanity’s moral progress.” Aron remarked: “This moral progress meant the end of the French system of alliances, and almost certain war.”

William Shirer said basically the same thing in Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which, given the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, is certainly true. But it is also true that trying to compare French reluctance to stop the Germans from re-militarizing what, after all, was their own territory with trying to prevent the Iranians from getting the bomb is a bit of a stretch. It had been 18 years since Versailles and the treaty by that time was seen as a disaster. Even without an integrated Europe, war reparations (suspended by the allies in 1930) along with depression had emasculated the German economy. By 1936, some politicians saw a weak Germany as a drag on their own economies (and a poor buffer against the Soviets). Hitler marching into the Rhineland killed the treaty once and for all, a turn of events that the shortsighted French did not view unkindly.

I understand what Mr. Kristol is struggling to say; that IF France and Great Britain had acted, Hitler would almost certainly have been deposed by the Wehrmacht allowing Europe to avoid World War II. Let’s not quibble with metaphors. Let’s quibble with the notion that taking action against Iran has the real possibility of igniting a war, not stopping one.

If we think we have problems in Iraq now with the Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda terrorists, they are nothing compared with the trouble that several hundred thousand Shia militiamen would cause if we bombed Iran. Muqtada al-Sadr, who has promised to unleash his militia against Americans if we bomb Iranian nuclear sites, is just waiting for an opening like this. At a time when other Shia parties are seeking to marginalize the young firebrand, he would suddenly become a hero to ordinary Iraqis (despite their reservations about Iranian influence in their country). Of course, our military can handle al-Sadr but at what cost? And what if other Shia militias including the Badr Brigade join in? We’d be faced with an entirely new situation on the ground, every hand raised against us, one that the left would spin as a second Tet Offensive.

In short, disaster. Kristol may argue that it would be worth it if we could take out Iran’s nuclear program sooner rather than later despite the fact that the Iranians are years from achieving success in building a bomb but I don’t see the rush. Kristol does:

Given Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s recent statements and actions, it should be obvious that it is not “a sign of humanity’s moral progress”–to use Blum’s phrase–to appease the mullahs. It is not “moral progress” to put off serious planning for military action to a later date, probably in less favorable circumstances, when the Iranian regime has been further emboldened, our friends in the region more disheartened, and allies more confused by years of fruitless diplomacy than they would be by greater clarity and resolution now.

I’m sorry, but I believe this to be utter nonsense. The situation two or three years from now may, in fact, be enormously improved. At the same time, how much will things really change in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, our “friends in the region” who would be “more disheartened” if we go the diplomatic route for the present? And if - an admittedly big if - we can get the Europeans to go along with a sanctions regime that has some real bite, the rickety Iranian economy (more than 20% unemployment) along with a restive populace may moderate the Iranian regime for us. At the very least, we can work like hell to deny the Iranians materials that would assist them in building a bomb. Centrifuges don’t grow on trees. Denying Iran the elements to manufacture them would probably be a good idea.

And how much more “confused” can our allies be than they are now? I daresay holding off on the military option unless it was absolutely necessary would have our friends more apt to assist us in sanctions. As far as Russia and China, I mentioned in another post that they need the west a lot more than they need Iran. Any overt undermining of the sanctions would not be taken lightly by us or our allies. Rhetoric in Iran’s defense is one thing. Actually encouraging the mullahs in their bomb making plans by circumventing sanctions is something else entirely.

Finally, Kristol draws what I believe to be an erroneous conclusion about our Iraq adventure:

The strategist Eliot Cohen was correct when he told the New York Times last week, “I don’t get a sense that people in the administration are champing at the bit to launch another war in the Persian Gulf.” They’re not. No one is. But it is also the case that a great nation has to be serious about its responsibilities, even if executing other responsibilities has been more difficult than one would have hoped.

“Great nations” should also know not to bite off more than they can chew. Our power is not unlimited. The consequences of an Iran strike have been detailed elsewhere including my own take here. Mr. Kristol, who seems to be advocating a “sooner rather than later” strike against Iran (presumably after sanctions fail) must also know the potential consequences of bombing Iran.

Therefore, one wonders about his last statement regarding our difficulties in Iraq. Can’t we be “serious about [our] responsibilities” while at the same time cognizant of our shortcomings? Seems to me, that was exactly our problem in Iraq. Too few troops, too optimistic about handling the insurgency, too little effort at both reconstruction and training the Iraqi army - and here we are today. Iraq is still something of a mess and time is running out to turn the situation around before the political will to stay and finish the job evaporates completely.

Far be it from me to criticize Mr. Kristol’s intent or question his base assumption that Iran with nukes is a very bad thing and needs to be blocked if at all possible. But I’m coming around to the notion that when you have no good choices, there can be no good outcomes. If this make me a defeatist on Iran so be it.

UPDATE

William Arkin of WaPo has this breathless piece of merde regarding war planning full of ominus sounding acronyms, changing metrics, invasion scenarios, and war games.

Wake me when we start shifting military assets closer to the war zone. Tap me on the shoulder when we start getting overflight permissions from the half dozen or so countries where our planes will have to overfly (places where people will be falling all over themselves to leak that fact to the press). Kick me in the shins when we start shifting half the US Air Force around.

We won’t be able to hide preparations that envision at the very least 700-1000 sorties to take out the known Iranian nuclear sites. And if ground troops are involved, you’re talking about a buildup comparable to Desert Storm - about 4-6 months.

Arkins point - that we should throw an arm around the Iranian’s shoulder and tell them that we are, in fact, planning for war and that they better play ball with the international community and stop enriching uranium is well intentioned but myopic. And his analogy with Iraq is curious. Saddam may have believed we sent 160,000 troops to sit in the desert in order to get suntans but no other rational human being did. Everyone on the planet knew we were going to invade.

The problem with all the talk of “war planning” is that it makes us weaker, not stronger. We have time for alternatives to war. If decision time were six months away I’d say go ahead, sit down with Iranian representatives and show them what we can do if you think that will help. But such is not the case and talking about war plans now only plays into the mullah’s propaganda campaign at home and abroad.

We have a good three years to get our stuff together - build a coalition, initiate meaningful sanctions, and plan for the worst. The leaks in recent weeks about our military options have served their purpose of warning the Iranians that we mean business. Arkin suggests we go public by having Rumsefeld say that yes, we are planning for war with Iran. I think this wrongheaded and may in fact have the opposite effect Mr. Arkin visualizes.

For now, the Administration is playing it just right.

There. Don’t you feel a little better now? I knew that you would. When in close combat with your political opponent, it’s always a good idea to take a moment to review, revitalize, and relax.

That’s what we’re doing, of course. This “crisis” has not been the doing of the Bush Administration. The blame for jacking up domestic tensions falls entirely and without question on the rabid dog left. Even liberal Democrats (for the most part) have dismissed immediate military action as a chimera. What passes for analysis on left wing blogs and punditry would have us believe that Bush will bomb Iran to take the heat off of the White House due to the Libby scandal, or that Bush will bomb the mullahs in September to rally the country to the Republican standard, or that the President will attack because he sees the end times coming and wants to start Armageddon.

Someone should just dump a bucket of cold water on their pointy heads and tell them to cool off.

The Administration has held no press conferences, no briefings of any kind. They have given measured, careful responses (outside of the President’s apropos characterization of Sy Hersh’s fantasy story about the United States using nuclear weapons in Iraq as “wild speculation) to the notion of military action against the mullahs. Negotiations remain the primary option of this Administration, despite leaks that were 1) meant to let the Iranians know we mean what we say; and/or 2) signal the Europeans and others to get busy at the UN.

Hersh’s dramatic story about disgusted military officers ready to quit if the JCS recommendations included a nuclear option must be taken with a very large dose of salt. Mr. Hersh has penned some of the most curious (and that is me at my most charitable) volumes that purport to be “fact based” in the last quarter century. The Dark Side of Camelot was almost universally condemned as a scandal mongering load of crap, so much so that one wag referred to it as “The Second JFK Assassination.”

And who could forget The Target is Destroyed, a book about the Soviet downing of KAL Flight 007 where Hersh gave the Soviets a virtual pass in shooting down the civilian airliner all because the US had a spy plane in the vicinity and the Soviets mistook the clear civilian markings on the KAL 747 for our intelligence platforms being flown in converted 707’s. (The pilot who shot down 007 pleaded with his superiors, telling them it was in fact a civilian airliner. So much for mistaken identity).

In fairness, Hersh has done some first class work in exposing aspects of the My Lai massacre as well as a mostly factual account of Henry Kissinger’s tenure as the doyen of American foreign policy. But his otherwise excellent book The Samson Option was criticized for poor sourcing and many of Hersh’s articles in recent years have depended almost exclusively on sources who remain anonymous. In effect, Hersh expects us to take him at his word, his reputation being enough to satisfy our questions regarding the viability of his claims.

As a man of the left, he can get away with it. Which brings us back to the current meltdown by the left about our military planning to take out Iranian nuclear capability. Despite President Ahmadinejad’s bluster about Iran joining the nuclear club, the “achievement” of Iraqi scientists is so rudimentary and preliminary to building a bomb that one wonders why he even bothered to announce it. The left leaning blog Arms Control Wonk posted a series of articles on the Iranian nuclear program and gave a reasonable timetable for a crash program by the mullahs to make an atomic device:

Assemble 1,300-1,600 centrifuges. Assuming Iran starts assembling centrifuges at a rate of 70-
100/month, Iran will have enough centrifuges in 6-9 months.

Combine centrifuges into cascades, install control equipment, building feed and withdrawal systems, and test the Fuel Enrichment Plant. 1 year

Enrich enough HEU for a nuclear weapon. 1 year

Weaponize the HEU. A “few” months.

Total time to the bomb—about three years.

The difference between what the Iranians achieved yesterday - a successful “cascade” involving 164 centrifuges - and what would be necessary to enrich enough uranium for one single bomb is like the difference between a tricycle and an Indy racing car. In order to weaponize enough uranium for a single bomb, the Iranians would need nearly 10 times the number of centrifuges (that they probably do not have at the moment) spinning at nearly 700 times a second, all working together flawlessly for many months, night and day, before the uranium was enriched not by the measly 3.5% the Iranians claimed yesterday but by at least 80% which most experts say would be the absolute minimum enrichment threshold for the uranium to achieve critical mass and detonate.

The technical challenges for such an operation would tax the labs and brainpower of most First World countries much less the Third World nation of Iran. It took the greatest brains on the planet at the time of the Manhattan Project nearly 3 years and what in today’s dollars would be nearly $75 billion to solve many of the technical problems involved in constructing an atomic bomb. While it is true many of these technical challenges have since been leaked into the public domain, there remain several key steps that are classified.

At the same time, our intrepid spies at the CIA are almost certainly dreaming when they claim as they did in a National Intelligence Estimate that the Iranians are a decade or more away from achieving their nuclear ambitions. The Israelis are under no such illusions as they also have gone on record (by way of background briefings) saying that Iran is much closer to that dangerous goal; 3-5 years being their timetable.

Of course, this timetable does not take into account some “shortcuts” the Iranians could use:

* Purchasing highly enriched uranium from a third party

* Acquiring nuclear weapons elsewhere

* Getting the requisite technical assistance from experienced foreign nuclear scientists.

The first two of these shortcuts are highly unlikely given how closely nuclear material is monitored around the world. And while we’ve been hearing for years that nuclear weapons from Russia have been on the market in all sorts of manifestations including so-called “suitcase” bombs, nuclear artillery shells, and even old short range missiles with nuclear warheads, the fact is not a one has been used. And given how closely Iran has been watched by both Americans and Israelis, it seems highly unlikely the mullahs have been able to purchase a ready made weapon on the black market.

The third shortcut is much more likely. There are indications that the Iranians have already gotten help from Pakistani scientists as well as North Korean technicians. Such assistance could considerably shorten the time for the Iranians to develop a nuclear capability.

The point I’m trying to make is that if we know all this, so does the Administration. This is why the UN is still a viable option and, if necessary, multi-lateral sanctions by Western powers against the Iranians. While the Russians and Chinese both oppose such a move, it is probable they would not overtly undermine such sanctions, bringing as it almost certainly will, trouble with their western partners. And since both giants need the west a heckuva lot more than they need Iran, there’s a good chance that any sanctions regime the US and NATO can come up with will have some bite.

The hyperventilating left and the itchy trigger fingers on the right should bear all of this in mind when discussing what to do about Iran. We have some time. Time to carefully build a powerhouse coalition of nations that takes Ahmadinejad at his word when he says he wants to “wipe the State of Israel off the map.” This won’t be accomplished overnight. But the major weaknesses in Iran’s economy as well as a restive population, chafing at 26 years of theocratic rule, could work in favor of the Iranians being forced to abandon their mad ambition to get the ultimate defense against cartoon blasphemy.

UPDATE

More cold water thrown on the fire by Greg Djerejian.

And Ed Morrissey, while slightly more optimistic about Iranian capabilities, still gives time frame of 2-3 years.

Tom Holsinger believes in scenario #2 above; that the Iranians already have fissionable material via North Korea. Read his deductions at Captains Quarters post linked above, comment #2.

A cockpit voice recording, never heard in public in its entirety, may indicate that United Flight 93 passengers actually broke through the cockpit door and battled the hijackers for control of the plane.

The dramatic recording was played during the penalty phase of the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui who shouted to the crowd as he was being led out “God curse you all.”

Previously, excerpts from the cockpit recording gave no clue as to whether or not the passengers managed to storm the cockpit to try and wrest control of the plane from the hijackers. But this snippet seems to indicate that not only did the passengers make it into the cockpit, but actually injured a terrorist:

As the tape proceeded, it was clear that passengers were gaining the upper hand.

Sounds of a struggle can be heard. At that point, the plane appears to go out of control. There are sounds of the hijackers trying to shake off the passengers. The plane pitches back and forth.

The 9/11 Commission report never mentions the passengers actually succeeding in breaking into the cockpit:

At 9:57, the passenger assault began. Several passengers had terminated phone calls with loved ones in order to join the revolt. One of the callers ended her message as follows: “Everyone’s running up to first class. I’ve got to go. Bye.”85

The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of the passenger assault muffled by the intervening cockpit door. Some family members who listened to the recording report that they can hear the voice of a loved one among the din. We cannot identify whose voices can be heard. But the assault was sustained.86

In response, Jarrah immediately began to roll the airplane to the left and right, attempting to knock the passengers off balance. At 9:58:57, Jarrah told another hijacker in the cockpit to block the door. Jarrah continued to roll the airplane sharply left and right, but the assault continued. At 9:59:52, Jarrah changed tactics and pitched the nose of the airplane up and down to disrupt the assault. The recorder captured the sounds of loud thumps, crashes, shouts, and breaking glasses and plates. At 10:00:03, Jarrah stabilized the airplane.87

Five seconds later, Jarrah asked, “Is that it? Shall we finish it off?” A hijacker responded, “No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off.” The sounds of fighting continued outside the cockpit. Again, Jarrah pitched the nose of the aircraft up and down. At 10:00:26, a passenger in the background said, “In the cockpit. If we don’t we’ll die!” Sixteen seconds later, a passenger yelled, “Roll it!” Jarrah stopped the violent maneuvers at about 10:01:00 and said, “Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!” He then asked another hijacker in the cock-pit, “Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?” to which the other replied, “Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.”88

The passengers continued their assault and at 10:02:23, a hijacker said, “Pull it down! Pull it down!” The hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them. The airplane headed down; the control wheel was turned hard to the right. The airplane rolled onto its back, and one of the hijackers began shouting “Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest.” With the sounds of the passenger counterattack continuing, the aircraft plowed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 580 miles per hour, about 20 minutes’ flying time from Washington, D.C.89

They never gave up. They never surrendered.

If you get HBO, you might want to check out The Hamburg Cell which tells the story of some of the hijackers and gives a somewhat sympathetic portrayal of Jarrah, one of the hijackers of Flight 93. One thing the movie does - perhaps unintentionally - is show how radical Islam became so attractive to upper middle class Arabs like Jarrah who felt so out of place in western Europe going to school. The movie points out that the terrorists were not “victims” in any sense of the word but rather cold blooded killers who used religion to justify their murder.

Spring is in the air. Outside of my bedroom window I can hear a robin warbling a welcome to warm weather, singing for its mate with the joy of the season heard in every note. The waterbugs are dancing on the surface of the creek, easy pickings for the bass and pike who, after having spawned thus assuring the next generation of challenges for local anglers, ravenously attack the hapless insects, themselves answering the call of nature to be fruitful and multiply.

Even the squirrels are getting into the swing of spring as they scurry across my backyard oblivious to the hungry looks from my cats who now sit in the open windows sizing up potential quarry - that is, if I ever let them outside. Sadly, Aramas, Ebony, and Snowball have to settle for dreaming about the chase, a daily occurrence confirmed if one were to pay attention to them while asleep. Those of us owned by kitties know when our masters are dreaming about the hunt. Their herky-jerky motions while asleep betray a shadow reverie involving the thrill of the hunt, a kitty kind of heaven where even my old girl Ebony is young and sleek and able.

Fortunately for us here at the Carnival, spring also means the sprouting of the clueless into the full flower of moonbattiness and wingnuttiness. In such a target rich environment, our contributors have had a field day.

Carnival holdover from last week Representative Cynthia McKinney continues to exhibit a level of cluelessness that boggles the mind. And President Ahmadinejad of Iran has proven that he deserves to be put on suicide watch by celebrating the fact that his scientists have unlocked some of the mysteries of the atom.

But, like the Immortals in The Highlander films, for Cluebat of the Week, “There can only be one.” And who else can this coveted title go to than our friend, Jacques Chirac, who not only demonstrated the latest french fashion in surrender techniques but reminded us yet again why it’s great to be an American.

Caving in to rioters has been elevated to national policy in France. By giving in to the spoiled dilettantes and wandering youth who spent most of last week stoning police, burning cars, and running wild in the streets, the Chirac government exhibited a cluelessness not seen since their ancestor’s capitulation to Hitler at Munich in 1937.

By failing to stand by lawmakers who put their political hides on the line when they passed a sensible labor law that allowed employers to act like capitalists and not socialist weenies in their hiring and firing practices, Chirac has condemned another generation of French youth as well as the French economy to dependency and stagnation. How soon will it be that French lawmakers will once again have the courage to defy the mob in the streets when the leaders of their own government cower in the shadows, hiding from the anger of their furious children?

A long time, I daresay. And thus, one of the largest economies in Europe will continue to drag the continent toward a tipping point where their aging populations can’t work and their youth refuses to be productive enough to support them in their old age.

Disaster, thy name is appeasement.

We’ve got quite a lineup of cluebats for you this week. Go ahead and start clicking - you know you want to!

“Albrecht’s Law - Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity.””(Karl Albrecht)

“Hey Karl! Did you use the Republican Senate as a model for that axiom?
(Me)

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Mark Coffey has a superior takedown of ex-Clinton hit man Max Blumenthal who suggested that the work of Victor Davis Hanson has been “discredited.” The link Blumenthal supplies to buttress that ridiculous charge is to a self-described “war nerd” whose silly, pretentious observations are full of conspiracy theories and laughably simple minded critiques of our war strategy. (Dave Niewert emails me that Max Blumenthal is the son of Sidney, a Clinton aide who investigated Republicans and released dirt on them - thus the sobriquet “hit man” that Mr. Neiwert seems to think indicates I believe him guilty or capable of murder. I told him to grow up. Ed.)

Kender sinks his teeth into a moonbat who has been blogging about the group site I also write for, The Wide Awakes.

Pat Curley takes on another clueless HuffPo writer, Stephen Elliott, who not only called GOP Congresswoman Heather Wilson “evil,” but then tried to cover that idiocy by deleting it from the original post. Obviously, the cluebat never heard of a Google cache. (Check the updates for further adventures in blogging by the hapless Mr. Elliott).

Orac has a great piece of writing skewering Paul Shattuck, purveyor of junk science extraordinaire, who has been spreading scare stories about vaccinations.

If they weren’t such a bloodthirsty bunch of terrorists, the cluelessness of Hamas would be fodder for stand up comedy. Iris Blog expertly reveals the looniness behind the reasoning of the murderous thugs.

The lovely Pamela at Atlas Shrugs is trying to keep track of the utter cluelessness of Reuters and their problem with terrorist nomenclature.

Jack Cluth has some real wingnuttiness from Texas as supporters of the disgraced Tom DeLay invade an opposition candidate’s rally and literally throw their weight around. Behavior unsuited to a democracy.

Cao is now a witness in a court case against the institution that harbors some of her prime tormentors - bloggers who have been using computers at Columbia University improperly.

Bill Teach instructs us in the foibles of Cynthia McKinney - and how dangerous a cluebat she really is.

HERE’S SOME CARNIVAL SATIRE FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE FROM OUR UNSTABLE STABLE OF SATIRICAL BLOGGERS:

Buckley F. Williams makes the hilarious case for Jack Bauer annexing Mexico.

You probably are unaware that we have been invaded by aliens - no, not those aliens. Actual space aliens. New-to-me website Moxargon is watching us.

The Baloney Press has the scoop on the President’s decision to export the National Hockey League to Iran.

Our favorite hippie chick Peace Moonbeam undergoes a “radical transformation” - with hysterically funny results.

Vox Poplar has more from his pen pal, the Yale Taliban.

Gullyborg has a revealing photo of the next CBS news anchor.

Dean Swift gives us a nice chuckle with this bit on a Cynthia McKinney protest by barbers and hairstylists.

CHECK THE CARNIVAL EVERY WEEK FOR THE VERY BEST SATIRE ON THE WEB!

GM Roper asks a thoughtful question: Is General Zinni, former CIC of CENTCOM, a hero or a mountebank?

Jon Swift has some thoughts on Jill Carroll and her impact on the blogosphere. I disagree strongly but hey! maybe I’m the real cluebat here…

Jay wants to Stop the ACLU from suppressing free speech at Pro-Life pregnancy centers.

Jeremy Bol has gotten some hate mail and asks people to pay his site a visit and let the cluebat know what you think. I love participatory democracy!

Ms. Underestimated has some more cluelessness from Cynthia McKinney, this involving the misuse of taxpayer funds.

Check out Spank the Donkey, a new-to-me blog with an attitude. This post on the Misadventures of Cynthia McKinney is a case in point.

Searchlight Crusade has a typical thoughtful take on war protesters and the consequences of dissent.

DL at Bacon Bits has the latest on our newest Cluebat Hall of Famer Al Gore and gives us the best title for a post this week: “Getting Bulled by Gore.”

Jake Jacobsen wonders if President Bush is insane for proposing a crazy immigration policy.

ROFA SIX: Is it sex? Or is it advertising? (perfectly safe for work…I think).

Those piquant pachyderms at Elephants in Academia gives us the complete lowdown on the consequences of the actions of our Cluebat of the Week, Jack Chirac in withdrawing the labor law.

Speaking of labor, Where I Stand has the skinny on John McCain’s appearance before a labor forum where love was apparently lost.

Josh Cohen relates some jaw-dropping cluelessness on the part of school administrators who suspended a kid who came to school with a pocketknife by mistake and voluntarily turned it into the office.

Here’s a thumbsucker I did on the cluelessness of a lefty writer who thinks all conservatives are closet racists.

Yesterday, I did a post based on an article in Truthout.org regarding some “revelations” that Bush lied to the American people and may have lied to Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald when “the President was not only briefed that Joe Wilson was trying to discredit the Saddam/Niger uranium story by going public but also that he was told that Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame was a CIA agent and had recommended sending him on the Niger trip.”

OOOOPS! My bad!

Not only was the story written by an proven plagiarizer but it now appears that Fitzgerald himself, in one of the more careless and shockingly sloppy errors his office has made to date, included language in his court filing that was untrue and, given the significance of the subject matter, leaves he and his people wide open to charges of partisanship:

An embarrassing move this afternoon from CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. In his now-famous court filing in which he said that former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby testified that he had been authorized to leak portions of the then-classified National Intelligence Estimate, Fitzgerald wrote, “Defendant understood that he was to tell [New York Times reporter Judith] Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.”
That sentence led a number of reporters and commentators to suggest that, beyond the issue of the leak itself, the administration was lying about the NIE, because the African uranium segment was not in fact among the NIE’s key judgments.

[...]

A few hours ago, however, Fitzgerald sent a letter to judge Reggie Walton, asking to correct his filing. The letter reads:

We are writing to correct a sentence from the Government’s Response to Defendant’s Third Motion to Compel Discovery, filed on April 5, 2006. The sentence, which is the second sentence of the second paragraph on page 23, reads, ‘Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.” That sentence should read, “Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, some of the key judgments of the NIE, and that the NIE stated that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.”

One can immediately see how the change in language affects what the President might have known regarding the leaking to reporters of the NIE and Niger uranium story. Since the Niger uranium portion of the report was not a “key judgment” it stands to reason that Bush would not have asked or known of anyone who would have leaked Plame’s name - whether he knew she was Wilson’s wife or not.

Bush still must respond to another charge in Mr. Leopold’s Truthout article about being told that Plame was Wilson’s wife prior to the information coming out in Novak’s article. That information in the article comes from Mr. Leopold’s “sources” and the information should therefore be weighted accordingly. If it were true, it would contradict what Mr. Bush told both the American people and the Special Prosecutor.

The Washington Post, New York Times, and most major publications used the misinformation in the court filing as fodder for their front pages. What do you think the chances are that the correction will go in the same place?

You now have permission to pick your jaw up off the floor. We have official confirmation that Logan is indeed, an evil mastermind whose wishy-washy spinelessness has been an act that has fooled us for more than a year.

The subtlety of actor Gregory Itzin’s performance has been nothing short of brilliant. We have seen flashes of the “mastermind Logan” throughout the year. I have commented many times in the past that Logan only grows a pair when the crisis starts to affect him personally or politically. It is then that he digs in his heels and becomes decisive. Witness his insistence that the Summit with President Suburov go forward despite the terrorist threat. It seemed out of character at the time but, in light of Logan’s transformation, makes sense. The President kept the plan on track and in this, he was decisive - even going so far as to risk the life of his wife by not recalling the Suburov motorcade that he knew was going to be ambushed.

The question uppermost in everyone’s mind is why? Logan tells Henderson that the “plan” was to make America “safer and stronger” while protecting our interests. Sounds like a megalomaniac’s idea of an America under dictatorship. I hope everyone caught the fact that during his press statement, Logan did not rescind martial law despite the terrorist threat being now over. Does this presage one more attempt to frighten the American people into accepting his one man rule by initiating a terrorist attack? Or will the rest of the show become simply a political pot boiler as Jack races to take down the President? Somehow, I have faith that the writers won’t take the remaining 7 episodes to simply dethrone Logan and will have a couple of more satisfying twists that will keep us watching until the last minute of the last hour.

A word about Audrey. My Mole-O-Meter ticked considerably upward this week with regards to her association with the bad guys. At the very end of the episode, when Jack told her he had the tape, did you catch the faintest, the most fleeting sense of panic crossing her face when she asked Jack if he had listened to the tape? Was it my imagination? Or will Audrey break our hearts by revealing that she too, succumbed to the siren song of faux patriotism offered by either Henderson or Logan and will, at some point in the future, reveal a betrayal so shocking, that Jack will see no reason to go on living?

Probably not. At least that last part. Kieffer Sutherland has signed on to play Jack Bauer for three more years. Unless, of course, the announcement of Sutherland’s signing is itself a ploy and they have every intention of killing Jack off for real at the end of the show…

I really gotta get a grip here. This show does strange things to your mind.

SUMMARY

We discover that Evelyn, who was wounded at the shootout with Henderson’s boys at the plant, made a tape of Logan talking to Henderson about the Palmer assassination just that morning. What we do not discover is 1) Why Evelyn would tape the President in the first place, 2) How Evelyn could tape the phone call of a man whose communications are protected by a billion dollars worth of equipment and an army of technicians.

Maybe she listened in on a hall extension

(Note: Must be over 40 years old to get that joke).

After finding out that Evelyn took the precaution of placing the recording of the incriminating call in a safety deposit box at her friendly neighborhood bank, Jack and Wayne realize that they must get off the streets what with all the military patrols in the area. They pull into a motel so that they can treat the bleeding Evelyn who appears not to be hurt seriously. After getting a room, Wayne informs Jack that the bank’s night manager’s number was “listed” and that his house wasn’t far from the motel. (For the skeptical among you, I refer you to your local yellow pages where you can easily find your branch manager’s address and phone simply by looking under “Bank Robbers: Parts and Services”).

After leaving Evelyn to bleed in peace and quiet, Jack and Wayne head for the bank manager’s home.

At the ranch, Logan and Buckaroo Banzai have another heart to heart with Logan bemoaning the fact that everything “spiralled out of control once you (Banzai) decided to kill Palmer.” Buckaroo assures Logan that he has all the hospitals under surveillance and it would be only a matter of time before Evelyn showed up.

At CTU, Grandma Hayes (whose character is becoming more and more sympathetic as each week passes) and her oily assistant Miles receive word from the President himself that they must issue a warrant for Jack’s arrest. Logan tells Granny that “new evidence” has come to light proving that Jack was involved in Palmer’s assassination. Troubled but obedient, Granny issues the warrant just after Jack calls Audrey giving her the bad news about Logan and asks her to call her father so that the evidence of the President’s treason can be turned over to someone in the government.

Jack’s choice of Secretary Heller is a good one. Not only has Heller proved himself in combat (he offed two terrorists during his escape last year) but he also got off what has to be the best one line in the history of the show. Responding to his anti-military moonbat son who was spouting some leftist claptrap last year, Heller looked his kid right in the eye and said “Spare me the 6th grade Michael Moore logic…”

Got that right, dog.

Audrey, being only half geek (on her mother’s side), realizes she needs the services of Chloe in order to help Jack so she brings her up to speed on the plot. Seeing the warrant out for Jack’s arrest, Audrey says “It’s started” as if the previous 18 hours were nothing more than a prelude, a walk in the summer sun. If so, storm clouds are starting to gather and it’s beginning to get very dark.

Slimeball Miles reasons correctly that if they want to capture Jack, best keep track of his girlfriend. He has DHS flunkies attach a tracking device to Audrey’s car so they can follow her, hoping she will lead them straight to Jack.

Calling her father who is airborne, Audrey asks the Secretary to stop off in Los Angeles. Heller, realizing something is up, agrees to divert the plane to Van Nuys where Audrey is now on her way for the rendezvous. Heller, played by veteran actor William Devane, is a stand-up guy, a real straight shooter and if he turns out to be involved in this plot, I will eat my Official Jack Bower Boxer Shorts.

Jack and Wayne break into the bank manager’s house with ease, raising legitimate questions about whether Jack is actually a cat burglar on the side. After threatening both Carl the manager and his wife (a move that elicits a raised eyebrow from Wayne who had never seen Jack in action before) the trio start for the bank to pick up Evelyn’s evidence.

Eight year old Amy has her mother’s blood all over her hands and the entire night has just become too much for the little one. As she breaks down and starts to cry, that strangest and most compelling instinct of human mothers - their ability to hear their child crying even when unconscious or asleep - kicks in and Evelyn rises unsteadily to her feet, trying to answer this powerful call of nature. Alas, blood loss and trauma have taken their toll and she collapses, hitting her head on a table which knocks her unconscious. Amy, not knowing any better, calls 911 and gives her name thus assuring Henderson will pay them a visit.

Logan and the Veep have an interesting conversation about the “executive warrant” (?) issued for Jack. It may be my imagination but did anyone else notice that the Vice President has suddenly become a much more sympathetic character? Perhaps it was the revelation that he is not involved in the plot which has colored our perception but it just seemed that he has lost whatever menace that he had prior to last week and now appears to be on the side of the angels.

Watching her husband giving his statement on TV about the end of the crisis, Martha thinks that she has been too hard on him and offers praise for the President’s handling of the multiple crisis to Aaron. Agent Pierce, realizing things are far from over, let’s on that he is “battle worn” - a perfect descriptive for how many of us feel at this point. Pierce then calls Jack to tell him that there’s an arrest warrant out for him, a development that Jack takes a helluva lot better than I would have if I were in his shoes. Pierce asks Jack if there’s anything he can do and our hero gives the agent advice that all of Jack friends should take to heart: “Keep your eyes open and watch your back.”

Avoiding military patrols by making their way to the bank on foot, the trio of Jack, Wayne, and Carl enter the building and, after giving Jack the codes for breaking into the vault, Carl recognizes Wayne who spills the beans about what they’re up to. Carl should have kept his mouth shut, not realizing perhaps that almost all innocent bystanders who offer to help Jack end up wishing they hadn’t.

Meanwhile, Audrey stops at a gas station and calls Chloe who instructs her in the finer points of how to use CTU’s Magic Walkie Talkie that allows you not only to communicate with anyone in the world at any time, anywhere, but can also sniff out electronic tracking devices that just happened to be attached to your car. Ditching the tracker by placing it on a truck, Audrey speeds off to Van Nuys.

At the bank, Jack retrieves the incriminating tape that proves Logan’s involvement in the plot. The hard part over, Jack makes ready to leave but…too late! Buckeroo’s thugs have the bank surrounded. That’s because Henderson, informed of little Amy’s 911 call, shows up at the motel, offs the two EMT’s treating Evelyn, and was able to get woman to give up where Jack was.

Although pretty horrible to contemplate, it’s hard to imagine Henderson leaving either Evelyn or 8 year old Amy alive to tell any tales.

Back at CTU, Miles has tasked a satellite to find Audrey, a feat of legerdemain easily accomplished, not easily explained. Discovering this thanks to Sweet Sherry’s heads-up, Chloe goes into the server room to corrupt the data and prevent the satellite from tracking Audrey’s car. As the signal fades to black, Miles knows it can only be Chloe and races to the server room. Not finding her there, he sees her coming out of the women’s bathroom and initiates this classic bit of Chloe:

MILES: What are you doing?

CHLOE: What?

MILES: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

CHLOE: Are you kidding? If you really want the details, I’ll write you a report.

One gets the feeling that she would, in fact, enjoy writing such a report. Miles, of course, is defeated again, becoming something of a running bureaucratic joke.

Back at the bank, realizing his options are extremely limited, Jack decides the only way out is to get some help. He has Carl trip the alarm deliberately which brings a couple of squads of LA’s finest roaring into the bank parking lot at which point Henderson orders his men to take out the cops lest they get their hands on that precious tape. This is exactly what Jack was counting on, hoping not only to get in a little target practice but also use the diversion of the cop/bad guy fire fight to make his escape.

A terrific gun fight erupts on the peaceful street with Jack being able to get two of Buckeroo’s henchmen while sidling away from the gun battle and toward a cop car whose occupants have met an unfortunate end. All seems to be going fairly well for Buckeroo’s boys - that is, until the army shows up. Several APC’s take up a blocking position and open fire with their 50 cals turning what was an even battle between the police and the thugs into a slaughter.

With bullets flying everywhere, poor Carl takes one for the team before being hurled into the police car and with Jack at the wheel, they speed away from the bloody scene. On the phone with Audrey, Jack finds out where to go and starts toward Van Nuys airport to meet Audrey, Secretary Heller, and the potential showdown with Logan.

BODY COUNT

Two EMT’s make their last call. Two cops go down in the line of duty. Five thugs go down with Jack accounting for two of them. Carl shoulda stayed in bed.

JACK: 26

SHOW: 174

SPECULATION

Are we headed for a civil war? As Secretary of Defense, Heller could be in a position to command some troops, especially if he is able to convince some of the Joint Chiefs to back him. Logan, as CIC, also could count on the loyalty of some troops.

What happens if Logan doesn’t want to leave? Farfetched of course. But it would certainly raise some interesting possibilities, wouldn’t it?

UPDATE

My friends at Blogs4Bauer as usual, have the best liveblogging, Tivo blogging, as well as the best speculation in the industry. Check out who they discovered to be “mole of the week.”

Quick! For God’s Sake! Someone check and see if employees for the voting machine manufacturer Diebold have been ANYWHERE NEAR ITALY IN THE PAST 6 MONTHS!

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi overtook former European Commission President Romano Prodi in Italian elections and now leads in voting for both houses of parliament, projected results showed. The final outcome is too close to call.

Berlusconi had a narrow advantage of 0.3 percentage point in voting for the Chamber of Deputies that would give him 340 seats in the 630-seat house, projections based on a partial count of votes showed. Berlusconi’s coalition also held a narrow majority in the Senate.

Initial exit polls showed Prodi winning the Chamber and a 20-seat majority in the Senate. Italians voted using a new proportional voting system similar to the one that produced 52 governments in 48 years until it was abandoned in 1994.

Official counting of the votes continues. With a third of the votes for the Chamber counted, that tally gives Prodi a lead over Berlusconi with 52 percent to 47 percent.

Oh! The humanity of it! Don’t these Repuglithicans have any shame at all? It’s all an eerie episode of deja vu - the first blush of victory for the moonbats in Italy as exit polls show a sweeping victory for the left:

Bad news for Berlusconi: according to the first exit poll, Prodi’s center-left leads 54 - 49 percent over Berlusconi’s center-right at the Chamber of Representatives. At the Senate, the situation is the same. But, consider that this is the first of many exit polls. Much can change.

As we all know, EXIT POLLS ARE NEVER, NEVER, EVER, EVER, WRONG!! Which means, there’s only one possible explanation in all the universe for this…this…this…perfidious turn of events.

Gotta be Diebold.

How low can ChimpyMcBushyhitler sink? And has anyone seen Karl Rove lately? This has got Rove’s pawprints all over it. It’s a Rovian operation, top to bottom I say!

I demand a recount…at least one. And by all that is good and holy, we will keep counting and recounting until by God the results come out the true way, the correct way, the way ordained by the Great God Gaia.

If I were those Italian commies, I’d start warming up the lawyers in the bullpen, getting ‘em ready to jump into court the minute the vote is official. It worked like a charm for our Democratic party here. Of course, they didn’t win. But by saying the election was stolen, no one will ever be able to say it was your loony ideas, crappy candidates, piss poor planning, and stupid strategy that was responsible for your loss.

And at the very least, it will make you feel better, right?

UPDATE

For a little more serious take on the Italian elections, see Chad Evan’s excellent stuff at In the Bullpen.

Also, PJ Media will be updating results all night as they come in courtesy of Stefania Lapenna.

UPDATE II

It appears that Italy will have a split government with the PM slot going to Prodi by virtue of a razor thin win in the lower house.

Actually, what my lefty trolls seem not to understand (no surprise - I wrote this piece in English, not moonbatese) is I wasn’t necessarily cheering on Berlusconi as much as I was pointing to exit polls that showed Prodi’s center-left coalition winning by at least 7 points. Obviously, this didn’t happen which gives the lie to liberal cants after the 2004 election that the contest simply MUST have been fixed because of the skewed exit polls.

And for the commenter who mentioned the Washington State governors race, almost to a blog, conservatives in the sphere urged the Republican to concede after the first re-count. This despite the laughably fallacious move by King County Dems to count 2500 votes that they suddently “found” 2 days after the election.

There’s the difference. After the 2004 election, liberal blogs like Kos and Americablog were not only calling for a recount in Ohio despite a margin of victory by Bush that was twice what state law called for, but also that Diebold hacked voting machines and gave votes to Bush that were actually cast for Kerry.

Sore losing has become a staple of the Democrats in national elections. I wonder what margin of victory in 2008, if any, will be enough to prevent Dems from screaming “cheater” like 5 year old little girls?

Just clicked on the old sitemeter and found this:

Total: 678,806

Average Per Day 2,534

Average Visit Length 2:05

Last Hour 165

Today 1,133

This Week 17,736

PAGE VIEWS

Total 1,000,020

Average Per Day 3,963

Average Per Visit 1.6

Last Hour 269

Today 1,597

This Week 27,740

THAT’S ONE MILLION PAGE VIEWS FOR THE HOUSE!

I can remember back when my old Blogspot site was getting 25 visitors a day and I wondered if anyone would ever read anything that I was writing.

Back then, I’m glad they didn’t. Some of that early stuff was pretty horrible. Writing, it turns out, is much more like playing a musical instrument than you might think - constant practice makes you better. Or at least, more readable.

Many thanks to all my regular readers and I sincerely hope anyone who visits this site leaves with a little different perspective on the issues of the day.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Did the lead editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post that defended the President’s authorizing the declassification of a secret NIE report on Iraq WMD misstate the facts surrounding the Administration’s handling of pre-war intelligence?

The entire left wing of the blogosphere believes so. Jay Rosen believes so. Even Tom McGuire, still doggedly carrying his lantern in daylight looking for one honest man in the Fitzgerald prosecution, believes so.

Certainly the figure at the center of the firestorms believes so. Three years ago, Joe Wilson was a nobody, an ex-Ambassador just trying to start a new business venture using his extensive contacts in Africa in order to facilitate the usual introductions and business deals, oiling the machinery of international trade as only someone with Mr. Wilson’s credentials is able to do. Then a request from the CIA; we understand from talking to your wife that you’re planning a trip to Africa. As long as you’re going to be there to establish your business contacts, why not visit some old friends in Niger and look into this cockamamie story about Saddam trying to purchase yellowcake uranium in order to reconstitute his nuclear program?

Wilson denies to this day that his wife had anything to do with his being selected by the CIA for this routine assignment, despite sworn testimony and memos to the contrary. At best, he may be engaging in a little wishful thinking, ashamed in a macho sort of way that his wife was assisting him in furthering his career.

At worst, he’s a baldfaced liar.

Regardless of who pushed his name forward or even what he discovered while in Niger (which to this day is a matter of fierce dispute), it is the aftermath of Wilson’s trip that has brought us to where we are today. And the fact is that Wilson, the lefty blogs, and especially Jay Rosen have missed the biggest story of the young century in their efforts to uncover the minutia, the nuggets of selected, disjointed information that writers have leapt upon like ravenous beasts, devouring, regurgitating as “proof” of their conspiracy theories, the evil machinations of evil men who “fabricated” intelligence on our way to war.

Perhaps the biggest purveyor of these fact flakes that make up the rickety structure of conspiracy is Murray Waas, writing for the National Journal among other publications. Jay Rosen, a godfather of New Media journalism, calls Waas “our Bob Woodward” as if one more self-important, insufferably arrogant practitioner of “gotchya” journalism was necessary in Washington. Waas has become a hero to left for his uncanny ability to leap to the most outrageous conclusions when uncovering the tiniest of “facts” regarding everything from the Fitzgerald investigation to the latest illegal leak from the intelligence community. Waas has built a house of cards about White House conspiracies based on the careful accumulation of “evidence” which may or may not indicate a pattern of deceit depending just how much one wishes to see when looking into the shadows and fog surrounding most of his information.

But in concentrating on the mote in the other fellow’s eye, Waas has missed the knife sticking out of the back of the Bush Administration; a knife planted by a group of leakers - organized or not - at the CIA who, unelected though they were, took it upon themselves to first try and prevent the execution of United States policy they were sworn to carry out and failing that, trying to destroy in the most blatantly partisan manner an Administration with which they had a policy disagreement.

How can anyone possibly understand the motivations, the actions, or the thinking in the White House during this crucial time without taking into account the war being conducted against them by the CIA?

In truth, those predisposed to believe the worst about Bush chalk up all the maneuvering on the part of the White House to “covering up” their supposed misrepresentations and exaggerations of pre-war intelligence in the lead up to the war. But what if there is a different explanation? What if prior to the invasion, the Bush Administration was roiled in a policy dispute between elements at the CIA and national security hawks in the White House and Department of Defense? What if this policy dispute got so contentious that the White House lost faith in what the intelligence community was telling it about Iraq? And what if following the revelations about Saddam’s lack of WMD, elements at the CIA worked to exact revenge on the Administration by illegally leaking cherry-picked analyses at odds with what the Administration had been telling the American people?

This is the “big story” not being reported by the press, the blogs, or even Jay Rosen’s golden boy Murray Waas. It is a familiar story in Washington, a mix of arcanity and idiocy, of the high affairs of state with the lowliest of backstabbing bureaucracies. And it is a story that while not absolving the Bush Administration of some of its actions, certainly gives background and context that is so sorely lacking in this obsession with minutia that passes for serious analysis in both the new and old media.

Prior to the Iraq War, there were two schools of thought about Saddam; a realpolitik view which held that Saddam was a monster but was a useful counterweight to Islamic radicalism opposed by what has become known as the neo-conservative view that Saddam was a sponsor of terror and that regime change could transform the Middle East. The “we can use Saddam” clique at the CIA had opposed the toppling of the monster since the 1991 Gulf War when a similar debate roiled the Administration of George H.W. Bush. Amazingly, the players back then were some of the same names that are at odds today.

Howard Fineman of Newsweek lays out some of this history:

The “we-can-use Saddam” faction held the upper hand right up to the moment he invaded Kuwait a decade ago. Until then, the administration of Bush One (with its close CIA ties) had been hoping to talk sense with Saddam. Indeed, the last American to speak to Saddam before the war was none other than Joe Wilson, who was the State Department charge’ d’affaires in Baghdad. Fluent in French, with years of experience in Africa, he remained behind in Iraq after the United States withdrew its ambassador, and won high marks for bravery and steadfastness, supervising the protection of Americans there at the start of the first Gulf War. But, as a diplomat, he didn’t want the Americans to “march all the way to Baghdad.” Cheney, always a careful bureaucrat, publicly supported the decision. Wilson was for repelling a tyrant who grabbed land, but not for regime change by force.

That history is one reason why, in the eyes of the anti-Saddam crowd, Wilson was a bad choice to investigate the question of whether Iraq had been trying to buy uranium in Africa.

(emphasis mine)

Do you think it would have been helpful if in all the millions of words written about the Wilson/Plame affair, a few paragraphs had been devoted to this singular, important fact? Does this color Mr. Wilson’s motivations in any way? At the very least, the consumer of news should be given the opportunity to assess this information for themselves and make their own judgment about whether there was any ax to grind on Mr. Wilson’s or Mr. Cheney’s part when push came to shove over Wilson’s self-aggrandizing editorial in the New York Times.

Then there was the anger and resentment at the CIA over the Bush Administration’s efforts to make the agency more accountable for the pre-war intelligence it was sending its way. In the best of times, the process of gathering, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence is fraught with uncertainty. But these were not the best of times. The realpolitik clique at the CIA was suspected - rightly or wrongly - of doing a little intelligence twisting of its own especially with regard to Saddam’s links to al Qaeda. A secret group at the Pentagon called the Office of Special Plans was set up specifically to examine (or re-examine) Iraq intelligence relating to its WMD programs and possible links to terror groups. The reason for the formation of this group according to the CIA was to shape and manipulate intelligence to give the Administration a false justification for going to war against Saddam.

Is that the real story? Or had the Administration become so frustrated and distrustful of the Iraq group at CIA who was feeding policymakers intelligence reports at odds with what they were hearing elsewhere? The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq which, it was revealed this past weekend, was declassified by the President and disseminated to reporters in the aftermath of the war indicated that Saddam did indeed have weapons of mass destruction, may have been trying to re-initialize his nuclear program, had possible links to al Qaeda, and was a threat to his neighbors.

Other documents recently translated from the millions of captured archives of the Saddam regime are beginning to paint a picture also at odds with the CIA assessment that Iraq had no ties to al Qaeda. This is a developing story and certainly bears watching - not that this information is being reported on or given much shrift by many in the media.

This was after all, not some arcane debate over trifles. What the Administration was dealing with in the aftermath of 9/11 was nothing less than the safety and security of the United States. The Office of Special Plans may have been bitterly opposed by the CIA, seeing as they apparently did an intrusion on their bureaucratic turf. But the elected leaders of the country, charged with defending the United States against threats (not to mention radically altering policy to include preventive war as a measure to insure that defense) at the very least thought itself in a bind on Iraq largely because they believed the CIA was not doing its job.

Right or wrong, isn’t this part of the story too? When talking about “twisting” and even “fabricating” intelligence (a term that is used willy nilly by Bush critics despite the fact that there is not one shred of proof that any such thing occurred), don’t you think it important to give that story a little context by informing people about the extraordinary level of mistrust and resentment between both the White House and the CIA? One can argue who was at fault. But when the big picture is being subsumed by trivial revelations about the tiniest of details regarding what the White House was doing with Iraq War intel, a distorted view of what really happened is bound to emerge.

And this is especially true when, during the months leading up to the 2004 election, we witnessed what can only be termed an attempted coup by the very same faction at the CIA who had been fighting the Administration in the lead up to the war. This partisan campaign by unelected bureaucrats to defeat a sitting president was called “unprecedented” and characterized as having a “viciousness and vindictiveness” not witnessed on the Washington scene in many years. The Daily Telegraph commented on the CIA campaign to unseat the President in October of 2004:

A powerful “old guard” faction in the Central Intelligence Agency has launched an unprecedented campaign to undermine the Bush administration with a battery of damaging leaks and briefings about Iraq.

The White House is incensed by the increasingly public sniping from some senior intelligence officers who, it believes, are conducting a partisan operation to swing the election on November 2 in favour of John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, and against George W Bush.

Jim Pavitt, a 31-year CIA veteran who retired as a departmental chief in August, said that he cannot recall a time of such “viciousness and vindictiveness” in a battle between the White House and the agency

The Wall Street Journal went even further, publishing this editorial following the confirmation of new DCIA Porter Goss:

Congratulations to Porter Goss for being confirmed last week as the new Director of Central Intelligence. We hope he appreciates that he now has two insurgencies to defeat: the one that the CIA is struggling to help put down in Iraq, and the other inside Langley against the Bush Administration.

We wish we were exaggerating. It’s become obvious over the past couple of years that large swaths of the CIA oppose U.S. anti-terror policy, especially toward Iraq. But rather than keep this dispute in-house, the dissenters have taken their objections to the public, albeit usually through calculated and anonymous leaks that are always spun to make the agency look good and the Bush Administration look bad.

Their latest improvised explosive political device blew up yesterday on the front page of the New York Times, in a story proclaiming that the agency had warned back in January 2003 of a possible insurgency in Iraq. This highly selective leak (more on that below) was conveniently timed for two days before the first Presidential debate.

The leaks were condemned by one of the most brilliant men ever to serve the United States in any capacity, Admiral Bobby Inman, who worked in the intelligence community for more than 30 years:

I was utterly appalled during the 2004 election cycle at the number of clearly politically motivated leaks from intelligence organizations — mostly if not all from CIA — that appeared to me to be the most crass thing I had ever seen to influence the outcome of an election. I never saw it quite as harsh as it was. And clearing books to be published anonymously — there was no precedent for it. I started getting telephone calls from CIA retirees when Bush appointed Negroponte, talking about how vindictive the administration was in trying to punish CIA, and I was again sort of dismayed by the effort to play politics including with information that was classified. What is the impact on younger workers who see the higher-ups engaged in this kind of leaking?

Inman is speaking about the book Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer (published under the author’s nom de plum “Anonymous” when it came out weeks before the election) that skewered the Administration over everything from the war against Bin Laden to Iraq.

This, of course, is the context of the entire Wilson/Plame affair. And the question arises what should the White House have done? Clearly, the effort to counteract Wilson’s charges had both political and policy overtones. But Wilson had been shopping his “story” for months prior to the publication of his Niger adventure in the Times. What appeared to be more of the same effort to “get” the President by the CIA couldn’t go unanswered. Scooter Libby is paying for the White House trying to do something about the leaking and sniping done by the Administration’s partisan opponents and others may as well. But to posit the notion that the Wilson/Plame imbroglio took place in a vacuum and was a matter of sheer “revenge” is lunacy. The facts do not support such a claim. But you’d never know it because of the curious reluctance on the part of both the mainstream press and the New Media to face up to the consequences of CIA perfidy in the lead up to the election.

I honestly don’t know how much of the millions of words written about pre-war intelligence are true and how much is fantasy, a construct of thousands of unrelated parts that are shaped and shaded to fit into a conspiracy of monstrous proportions. But by failing to illuminate this story by placing all the revelations in the context of the continuing war by the CIA against the Bush Administration, an enormous disservice is done to the American people. Because in the end, in order to find the truth of the matter, you have to understand the motivating factors of both sides. And the way writers are approaching the story now, that just isn’t happening.