Right Wing Nut House

With their devoted (and loony) internet public clamoring to get the show started, the Democratic party finally unveiled their fall, 2008 clothing line amidst some confusion but tinged with the earnestness and empty headed idealistic mush we’ve all come to know and love.

Early reviews are largely negative although much better than the disastrous write ups that greeted their spring and summer lines.

You might recall that Chief Designer Murtha attempted to revive the “slow bleeding” madras fabric craze of the 1960’s for the spring by featuring sweeping silk peau de soie, silk satin crepe, and other touchy-feely fabrics in shades of verdi, teal, chocolate, topaz, rouge and amethyst . Unfortunately, the designs leaked (bled) out prior to the show and received such negative hype that CEO Pelosi decided to cancel Murtha’s showing in favor of the “non-binding” couture so beloved of her fellow designers. That too, fell flat with their legions of wild-eyed fans who were disappointed that their idols weren’t showing more backbone and trying to push the fashion envelope to its fullest.

Other lines were met with an equal lack of enthusiasm. One collection was actually taken in toto from 2002 (the “AUMF Collection” that has since become wildly unpopular) and modified it by stripping large segments from each design and replacing it with lots of incoherent patterns. Jorge Biden called it “Redefining” the collection. But this idea also was rejected by a majority of the critics.

But for fall, 2008, the Democrats may have recovered their equilibrium somewhat. Their collections are a little bolder, a little splashier, but still suffer from a timidity that has their fans begging for more:

House Democrats today unveiled a plan for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of August 2008, introducing legislation that attaches a complex series of conditions to military spending requested by President Bush.

The plan, described in a Capitol Hill news conference by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, would require Bush to certify that the Iraqi government is meeting military, political and economic benchmarks this year. If he cannot, it would move up the U.S. withdrawal to as early as the end of this year.

Regardless of Iraqi progress in meeting the benchmarks, the plan calls for the gradual redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq starting March 1, 2008, and ending within six months.

The most important fashion critic on the planet was not impressed:

Senior White House adviser Dan Bartlett, accompanying Bush on a flight to Latin America, told reporters, ”It’s safe to say it’s a nonstarter fot the president.”

Within an hour of Pelosi’s news conference, House Republican Leader John Boehner attacked the measure. He said Democrats were proposing legislation that amounted to ”establishing and telegraphing to our enemy a timetable” that would result in failure of the U.S. military mission in Iraq.

”Gen. (David) Petraeus should be the one making the decisions on what happens on the ground in Iraq, not Nancy Pelosi or John Murtha,” the Ohio Republican added. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, has been heavily involved in crafting legislation designed to end U.S., participation in the war.

Needless to say, with that kind of review the Democrats fall line may be in deep trouble.

It may turn out as it has in the past that the Democrats, having thrashed about for a winning design that will satisfy the general public as well as their rabid internet fan base, will once again choose the option they have muddled through with before.

And that is wearing no clothes at all but trying to convince the rest of us they are decked out in resplendent fashion.

News that a retired Iranian General has defected to the west may prove to be one of the most significant events in the War on Terror to date. While questions surround the issue of who assisted his defection and exactly who he’s talking to, the fact remains that if reports of his past postings and potential knowledge of some of the most closely guarded secrets of the Iranian regime are correct, this defection could lead to an intelligence bonanza that will shake up the Iranian regime while filling in some of the gaps in our knowledge of some of their most secretive programs:

A former Iranian deputy defense minister who once commanded the Revolutionary Guard has left his country and is cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hezbollah and Iran’s ties to the organization, according to a senior U.S. official.

Ali Rez Asgari disappeared last month during a visit to Turkey. Iranian officials suggested yesterday that he may have been kidnapped by Israel or the United States. The U.S. official said Asgari is willingly cooperating. He did not divulge Asgari’s whereabouts or specify who is questioning him, but made clear that the information Asgari is offering is fully available to U.S. intelligence.

Asgari served in the Iranian government until early 2005 under then-President Mohammad Khatami. Asgari’s background suggests that he would have deep knowledge of Iran’s national security infrastructure, conventional weapons arsenal and ties to Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Iranian officials said he was not involved in the country’s nuclear program, and the senior U.S. official said Asgari is not being questioned about it. Former officers with Israel’s Mossad spy agency said yesterday that Asgari had been instrumental in the founding of Hezbollah in the 1980s, around the time of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.

Pajamas Media lays out some of the potential intelligence treasures Asgari might provide:

It is clear that Asgari is a man privy to numerous secrets which Iran desperately does not want revealed. As well as being a former deputy defence Minister, Asgari was also a General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). The IRGC, more than any other branch of Iran’s armed forces, is aware of, and has access to Iran’s nuclear program. Its members are in charge of monitoring and protecting Iran’s nuclear installations, and scientists.

Furthermore, the IRGC is in charge of developing and testing Iran’s missiles, an arsenal which Iran has threatened to use if attacked. Last but not least, the IRGC is in charge of training and arming Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iraqi Shiite militants in Iraq.

The idea that as head of the Rev Guards Asgari might have been privy to nuclear secrets seems to be contradicted in the WaPo piece by Dafna Linzer above. Linzer reports that his source says that Asgari is “not being questioned” about the Iranian nuclear program. Does this mean they just haven’t gotten around to it yet? Or is it disinformation on the part of the US official?

It actually rings true that Asgari would have limited knowledge of the Iranian nuclear program. The IRGC is not a monolithic organization. It has several quasi-independent commands, including the Qods Force that we’ve heard so much about recently. It wouldn’t surprise me if the vitally important task of guarding Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was given to one of these independent commands that report directly to Supreme Leader Khamenei. Hence, Asgari would probably be in the dark about many of the specifics regarding the nuclear program although he might be able to confirm once and for all whether the regime was truly working on building nuclear weapons.

Richard Fernandez examines some of the side issues to this defection:

To those who have long ago decided that America must withdraw from Iraq, this development must bring some disquiet. First, Asgari’s reception can be regarded as “provocative”. After all, if Teheran’s goodwill is necessary to gain an exit from Iraq, then encouraging the defection of one of their top officials hardly answers the purpose. Second, it underscores the fact that American policy is still vacillating between the polar opposites of creating an Iraq on US terms and withdrawing in good order to save face. It may be all Washington talks about, but on the crucial point of whether to stay and “win” in Iraq or accept it as another Vietnam there has been no closure, nor is any likely until a new President is elected in 2008. Lastly, whatever revelations Asgari may make may be viewed with suspicion by those who fear that the Administration is once again attempting to manipulate the public to support a policy unpopular with the other major party. Nor is this fear entirely unfounded because it is possible, though unlikely that Asgari in some subtle way may manage to project disinformation which will raise more questions than it answers. Like every opportunity, his defection raises both tempting prospects and dangers. Maybe Washington should send Teheran a message: who said life was easy.

This should make the meeting with Iran, Iraq, and Syria this Saturday very interesting. I doubt whether Iran will raise the issue but it will nevertheless color the background of the conversations - especially if the US has some new intel on Iran’s assistance to the militias and Shia terrorists.

Meanwhile, the question of who facilitated Asgari’s defection has taken on an almost comical air as each of the likely suspects either refuses to comment or politely denies any involvement:

Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, quoted the country’s top police chief, Brig. Gen. Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqaddam, as saying that Asgari was probably kidnapped by agents working for Western intelligence agencies. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Asgari was in the United States. Another U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, denied that report and suggested that Asgari’s disappearance was voluntary and orchestrated by the Israelis. A spokesman for President Bush’s National Security Council did not return a call for comment.

The Israeli government denied any connection to Asgari. “To my knowledge, Israel is not involved in any way in this disappearance,” said Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry.

An Iranian official, who agreed to discuss Asgari on the condition of anonymity, said that Iranian intelligence is unsure of Asgari’s whereabouts but that he may have been offered money, probably by Israel, to leave the country. The Iranian official said Asgari was thought to be in Europe. “He has been out of the loop for four or five years now,” the official said.

That last statement about Asgari being “out of the loop for four or five years” is almost certainly wishful thinking on the part of the Iranian official - or an outright lie. He was a Deputy Defense Minister for 8 years prior to his retirement in 2005 according to DEBKA who also speculate that rather than defecting, Asgari was kidnapped in retaliation for the raid by the Qods Force in Karbala that ended in the execution style deaths of 5 US servicemen:

The missing general has been identified as the officer in charge of Iranian undercover operations in central Iraq, according to DEBKAfile’s intelligence and Iranian sources. He is believed to have been linked to – or participated in - the armed group which stormed the US-Iraqi command center in Karbala south of Baghdad Jan. 20 and snatched five American officers. They were shot outside the Shiite city.

An Middle East intelligence source told DEBKAfile that the Americans could not let this premeditated outrage go unanswered and had been hunting the Iranian general ever since.

As always, DEBKA offers up entertaining takes on what’s happening in the world. But their track record for accuracy is, shall we say, something less than stellar. Take the above with a grain of salt.

Our record regarding how we have handled high level defections in the past is also something less than stellar. In fact, two famous incidents during the cold war raise the question of why any high value defector would wish to come here in the first place.

In 1964, Yuri Nosenko, the highest ranking officer in the KGB to defect to the west at that time, was at first seen as an intelligence coup, on par with the Soviet’s triumph with “The Cambridge Five” - a shocking penetration of British intelligence that included Kim Philby and Guy Burgess helping to pass nuclear secrets to the Russians following the war. But once in the United States, Nosenko became the target of one of the most irrational and paranoid men ever to serve in the CIA - James Jesus Angleton - who believed the Soviet defector to be part of a Soviet disinformation campaign to throw the agency off the scent of an agency mole that was supposed to be ensconced at the highest levels of the CIA.

A short profile of Angleton shows what Nosenko was in for:

Angleton can do nothing right. Mangold repeatedly shows him making a mess of his marriage, indulging his passion for martinis, turning up at his Langley office at 11 in the morning, or rolling up drunk after lunch. But his innumerable personal failings were nothing to compare with the disastrous consequences of his professional actions. Mangold’s central charge is that Angleton, as a result of his cold-war obsession, fell under the spell of another KGB defector, Anatoly Golitsyn, who persuaded Angleton that the most important step in the Kremlin’s quest for world domination was the takeover of the Western intelligence services. They would become vehicles of Soviet disinformation, both through fake defectors and through “moles” within the services who would seek to ensure that the “disinformation” coming out of the Soviet Union was accepted back home as genuine information. Subscribing to this theory, Mangold asserts, led Angleton to demoralize the Agency and ruin careers through his vain hunt for “moles” burrowing away at Langley. In addition, he prevented the CIA’s Soviet Bloc Division from recruiting spies in the Soviet Union–its raison d’etre–in the fear that they might all be KGB agents. But this assault on paranoia itself bears the marks of the disease.

This led to an unbelievable ordeal for the Soviet defector. From 1964 until 1975, Nosenko was treated not as a defector, but as a Soviet double agent:

Mr. Nosenko is subjected to increasingly harsh and inhuman interrogation and confinement, even locked up in a “dungeon” for three years, tortured by sensory deprivation and physical, psychological and pharmacological abuse, but still never concedes that he’s a K.G.B. plant. Instead, the holes in this narrative are attributed to the sort of innocent mistakes and memory lapses that may have resulted from his trying to build himself up to make himself seem more important.

Nonetheless, Mr. Nosenko becomes the rationale for an Angleton-led witch hunt that tears apart and paralyzes the C.I.A. in its hunt for the Hidden Mole, and results in destructive rebuffs of genuine defectors, because of a paranoid “sick think” mindset that imagined a K.G.B. Master Plan of Deception and Disinformation that succeeded in befuddling the West—all of which resulted in Angleton’s firing, Mr. Nosenko’s rehabilitation and the triumph of the K.G.B. mole in the C.I.A., who had succeeded in turning the C.I.A. “inside out.” Indeed, some of the cult-like Angletonians were so paranoid that they believed the man who fired Angleton, the one-time head of the C.I.A. itself, William Colby, was the mole. (Mr. Bagley, who doesn’t buy it, nonetheless conceded that he’s heard muttering to this effect.)

The gritty details of Nosenko’s ordeal can be found in Gerald Posner’s Case Closed. Nosenko’s defection came on the heels of the JFK assassination and coincidentally, he happened to have been Oswald’s KGB baby sitter while the assassin was in Russia. It was thought by some at the agency who agreed with Angleton, that the Soviets sent Nosenko to assure the Americans that the KGB had nothing to do with the assassination. But that was just more paranoia. Nosenko had been spying for the Americans for months prior to his defection and it was just a good piece of luck that he happened to have had access to Oswald’s files while in Russia.

Nevertheless, Nosenko’s ordeal was truly horrific. And to this day, there are some at the agency who believe he was a plant. His story has been told not only in Posner’s book but also fictitiously in the recent Robert DeNiro film The Good Shepard where the idea that Nosenko was a double agent is advanced. Regardless of Nosenko’s true status (and most experts believe he was genuine) his beastly treatment would have given any potential defector second thoughts.

Then there was the incredibly bizarre story of Vitaly Yurchenko, a man who defected to the US and then, a few months later, simply walked away from his CIA handlers and re-defected back to Moscow. To this day, no one knows whether he was a genuine defector who suffered from second thoughts or a clever Soviet ploy to embarrass the Reagan Administration and learn details of CIA debriefings of defectors.

What makes this case even stranger is that Yurchenko fingered two CIA moles; Ron Pelton and Edward Lee Howard. The CIA let Howard slip through their fingers and escape to Moscow but Pelton was captured and convicted of espionage.

The details of his re-defection are pretty unbelievable:

All that seemed certain about the drama of the turncoat’s return was that the last act began at a casual bistro in bustling Georgetown, Au Pied de Cochon, where he went for dinner with a junior CIA security officer on Saturday night. As his escort was paying the check, Yurchenko suddenly asked a question. “What would you do if I got up and walked out? Would you shoot me?” Replied the CIA agent: “No, we don’t treat defectors that way.” “I’ll be back in 15 or 20 minutes,” Yurchenko said. Pause. “If I’m not, it will not be your fault.”

He did not come back, and it was not until late Monday afternoon that his whereabouts became public. At 4 p.m., Soviet Embassy Press Counselor Boris Malakhov called the Associated Press’s State Department correspondent to inform him that there would be a press conference in 90 minutes. “We’ll have Vitaly Yurchenko,” he said. Replied Reporter George Gedda: “Wait a minute. Did I miss something? He defected three months ago.” Said Malakhov: “Ah, there have been reports that he defected, but come to the embassy to find out what really happened.”

The fact that Yurchenko works as a security guard in a Moscow bank today probably means he was indeed a Soviet plant. But why give up two valuable agents? The simple answer is because around this time (1985) the Soviets recruited their most valuable asset and the worst traitor in CIA history - Aldrich Ames. By sacrificing the two lower level spies, the KGB would have thrown all suspicion away from Ames - at least for a while. After nearly 10 years of doing extraordinary damage to US national security (including giving the KGB information that led to the deaths of several Russian citizens who were spying for the United States), Ames was finally caught after a lengthy investigation by the FBI.

Any potential defector may have seen the incredibly lax security around Yurchenko that allowed him to just walk away as a red flag. An Iranian defector’s life especially would be in constant peril from Rev Guard “special action” squads (which President Ahmadinejad was reportedly part of when he was a commander in the Qods Force) that target dissidents and defectors. It would certainly have given Asgari pause which may be why he worked through the Israelis to plan his defection.

I should also point out that there have been other high level defectors who were treated very well and handled expertly by our intelligence people and proved to be a font of information that no doubt helped us win the cold war. But the Nosenko and Yurchenko cases have been publicized far and wide, no doubt impressing on foreign intelligence types the potential problems with giving themselves up to the Americans.

As the inevitable leaks from Asgari’s interrogation start flowing, it will be important to keep in mind the political context in which these leaks are taking place and not to give unnecessary weight to revelations that show the Iranian government in either a good or bad light. By definition, the leaks will be coming from people with an agenda - pro or anti military action against the Iranians - and thus they will be trying to influence what we should be doing about the regime. Unless there is some truly actionable intelligence gleaned from Mr. Asgari’s debriefings, it is best that we wait and see until more of the story of his defection can be told.

UPDATE

Allah has been on this story for two days:

Israel denies involvement. Alas, Asgari seems not to have been involved in the nuclear program so this isn’t quite the intel coup for which we’d hoped. Sounds like he was the man to know if you were a Shiite terrorist in Lebanon as of a few years ago, though, which should be of use to the IDF and Mossad. Plus there’s the propaganda windfall, plus the paranoia this must be seeding among the mullahs. How’d you like to be an officer in the Revolutionary Guard who was friendly with Asgari? Sleep with one eye open, jerkies.

Heh.

I might also mention that Hizbullah has been expanding their foriegn operations in the last couple of years. Some names of Hizbullah operatives working overseas that Asgari might be able to pass along to us would, I’m sure, prove interesting and useful.

Ed Morrissey highlights the fact that Asgari served under President Khatami and may not have been able to stomach Ahmadinejad’s radicalism:

The tie to the Khatami regime could be significant. Khatami is what passes as a reformer in Iran, which means that he favored a more measured approach to international relations. Calling the US the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan” sufficed for stirring up anti-Western sentiment amongst the rabble for Khatami and his clique. They saw no need to dive into the waters of Holocaust denial and openly advocating for war with Israel and the US.

Asgari may have become disenchanted with the direction Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provided for Iran after the mullahs staged his election in June 2005. That appears to be around the time that Asgari left the Iranian government, although it seems he continued his work in intelligence. That would make Asgari one of the most valuable defections for Western intelligence in decades, not just in information but also in motivation. The mullahs not only have to stop all programs of which Asgari has knowledge, but they also have to wonder how many other disaffected Asgaris they are creating with their reckless domestic and foreign policy.

UPDATE II: THE WTF EDITION

Allah reports that there is some question whether Asgari is in custody. One US source is telling Fox News and ABC’s The Blotter that we don’t have him and don’t know where he is:

A former Iranian deputy defense minister who disappeared from Turkey last month is not cooperating with Western intelligence agencies and his whereabouts remain a mystery, a U.S. official told FOX News Thursday…

[A] senior U.S. official flatly denied the [Washington Post’s] report…

The official did not rule out the possibility that Asgari, who once commanded Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards and served as the country’s deputy defense minister, was conducting negotiations with an intelligence organization, but denied that there was any type of cooperation with the U.S.

Stop. My head hurts.

Anything is possible including the idea that his defection was made public way too soon and US officials are trying to throw the Iranians for a loop. A high value defection like this takes months, perhaps even years to debrief properly. Of course, the longer the Iranians are in the dark, the more information gleaned from interrogations can be confirmed and even used to gather more intel. But once the cat is out of the bag the Iranians will change their methods and sources - perhaps even roll up some operations in foreign countries that may have been at risk. That last possibility would be a huge disappointment because western intelligence could have latched on to the Iranian cells and observed them for months, spreading the net as wide as possible before springing the trap.

Or, WaPo’s Linzer may have been taken by a little disinformation campaign hatched by American intelligence to panic the Iranians into thinking we had Asgari. Watching what the Iranians do in response to that kind of news is an intelligence windfall in and of itself.

The idea that Asgari may be negotiating his defection also is possible. Asgari evidently has a family and if they’re still in Iran, he may want us to approach the Iranians about getting them out. Some reports have suggested they’re already gone but no confirmation as of yet.

Appropos of my title, I sure hope we haven’t screwed the pooch with this guy somehow.

Scooter Libby a fall guy? Vice President Cheney the puppeteer who pulled strings in order to discredit heroic, anti-war critics? Karl Rove, evil mastermind, burrowing into the dark recesses of government and spreading lies about Joe Wilson to the press? Award winning journalists rising to the bait offered by Libby, Cheney, and Rove - printing their lies while failing to do their duty and question the justification for war?

This is The Plame Narrative - or at least a large part of it. There’s more of it to be found on lefty websites who have flogged this story and defined its parameters so that any deviation from The Plame Narrative is dismissed as Administration propaganda or just more of the same from “the right wing noise machine.” The problem with other parts of The Narrative - such as the entire Joe Wilson smear job was hatched in the Oval Office and President Bush ran it like a covert operation - is that much of it is so wildly fanciful that leaving the loonier parts on the cutting room floor becomes a necessity so that the entire script isn’t discredited by rational people laughing at some of the more outrageous claims made by the netnuts in their “investigation” of what happened.

But the part of The Plame Narrative that has been set in stone from day one had to do with Joe Wilson and his trip to Niger.Tasked by the CIA to get to the bottom of Iraq’s involvement in uranium buying, Heroic Joe sipped mint tea while a parade of Niger officials paid him a visit poolside at his hotel to assure him that all was on the up and up with regards to obeying the sanctions against Iraq. Upon returning to the US, Heroic Joe wrote up a report and gave it to the CIA proving that we had no worries about Saddam getting his hands on anymore yellowcake uranium (no one has yet answered the question; “What were 500 tons of yellow cake uranium still doing at the nuclear research center of Al-Tuwaitha in Iraq when American tanks rolled into Baghdad?”) And the Genesis chapter in this narrative Bible is Mr. Wilson’s New York Times editorial on what he did and what he found out during his excellent adventure in Niger.

It is important to note that Scooter Libby was convicted of lying about conversations he had with reporters, some of which took place before the Wilson editorial appeared in the Times. So did the White House know that Wilson was going to write that editorial and were they determined to stop him?

Not exactly. You see, our Heroic Joe had been shopping his story for 6 months to various reporters. In an interview with the LA Weekly, Wilson let slip that he had been trying to leak news of his top secret trip all over Washington since the President’s 2003 State of the Union Speech:

I spoke to a number of reporters over the ensuing months. Each time they asked the White House or the State Department about it, they would feign ignorance. I became even more convinced that I was going to have to tell the story myself.

It would be natural for a source to claim ignorance if that source actually knew nothing about the subject. And what Wilson fails to mention in every speech he gives on the affair is that the CIA never forwarded anything about his Niger junket to the Vice President or anyone else in the Executive Branch. This fact raises interesting questions about the CIA and their role in this entire matter (see my good friend Clarice Feldman’s piece in today’s American Thinker for that story).

Not that it matters anymore but for the background and details of that trip, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report on Pre-War Intelligence Assessments of Iraqi WMD (Pages 49-57) makes Mr. Wilson out to be exactly what the White House was desperately trying to tell journalists; a bald faced liar.

You see, by the time the editorial appeared on July 6, 2003, Joe Wilson knew full well that no one in the Administration had been briefed on his Niger trip. He also knew that some of the information he returned with actually confirmed (according to CIA analysts) that Saddam had made some attempts to acquire yellowcake uranium from that country in 1999. He knew that the impetus for the trip did not originate with the Vice President’s office (although Cheney did ask the CIA about the reports of uranium sales that appeared in another intelligence report) but rather with the Counterproliferation Division at the CIA. How did he know this? He was married to a woman who worked in that division.

Then there were the faked memos about Saddam’s efforts to buy uranium from Niger that Wilson bragged he had spotted as forgeries before the government did - except he didn’t see them until after the government had already dismissed them as phonies.

These are facts you’ll never see in The Narrative. Instead, The Narrative tells the story of a White House who buried Heroic Joe’s report and denied it even existed to the “lapdog” press all so that they could continue their mad dash to war. The Narrative also tells the story of Heroic Joe the whistleblower, making a nuisance of himself in official Washington, going from department to department begging people to listen to him about the Administration’s twisting his intelligence on Niger to justify going to war.

What The Narrative leaves out is the fact that Joe Wilson is a self-promoting, self aggrandizing heel whose lies have done enormous damage. What else he may be is pure speculation but there is some reason to believe that he may have been the front man for a faction at the CIA who opposed the President’s policies in Iraq and, in fact, may have interfered in the 2004 election by leaking embarrassing and damaging analyses at key points in the campaign. This is the part of The Narrative you won’t see played out on lefty blogs today as Scooter Libby gets raked over the coals and sinister intimations of a wider “plot” to discredit a proven liar are aired.

Prosecutor Fitzgerald says there will be no more indictments. It took him more than 3 years, thousands of hours of grand jury testimony, thousands of more hours of FBI interviews as well as an unknown number of hours involving interviews of the principals with his staff to come up with Libby’s 3 lies to the Feds and the grand jury. No Karl Rove being frog marched to the jailhouse. No Dick Cheney being led away from the White House in handcuffs. No President Bush being impeached (for this incident anyway). All the fantasies of the netnuts regarding the Administration and what Fitzgerald was going to uncover shown to be the illusions of obsessive paranoids whose hatred of this President and his policies has led them into a deranged mental state.

Scooter Libby was wrong to lie to the FBI. He was wrong to lie to the grand jury. His lies constituted obstruction of justice. These are serious charges and should not, under any circumstances be minimized. Despite what you may think of Patrick Fitzgerald, he was a duly appointed representative of the justice system and was justified in prosecuting Mr. Libby for his crimes (even though some prosecutors may have chosen not to). But the reality is Scooter Libby would not have been placed in a position where out of loyalty to his boss or fear for his own legal situation he felt it necessary to obscure the facts if Joe Wilson had told the truth.

Ideally, someone should hold Mr. Wilson accountable for what his lies have wrought. Instead, he is feted and celebrated as a hero. A movie is in the works about the entire affair - all the better to reinforce The Narrative in the public’s mind. And the left will continue to flog the story, positing ever more fantastic conspiracy theories while the truth - contained in two bi-partisan Congressional reports struggles to be see the light of day.

“A lie will make it halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes,” said Winston Churchill. For Joe Wilson and his allies on the left, not only have their lies circumnavigated the globe several times but they stole the truth’s footwear long ago.

UPDATE

I have also posted this article at Tom DeLay.Com. Many thanks to Aaron for inviting me to be a guest blogger.

More evidence that Maliki has decided to bite the bullet and start doing the things necessary to quell the violence:

Iraq’s Interior Ministry has fired or reassigned more than 10,000 employees, including high-ranking police, who were found to have tortured prisoners, accepted bribes or had ties to militias, a ministry spokesman has disclosed.
A soon-to-be-released internal inquiry also details 41 incidents of human rights abuse at the ministry. In one case, four members of the national police hanged prisoners from a ceiling and beat them with sticks in a ministry-run prison known as Site 4, according to the report by the ministry’s inspector general.

The United States has pressured Iraq’s Shiite-led government to clean up its security forces as they undertake a broad plan to reduce sectarian violence. Sunni politicians have accused Iraq’s police of collaborating with Shiite death squads.

More than half of those fired or reassigned since June were found to have militia ties, Jassim Hanoon, the Interior Ministry’s deputy spokesman, said in a weekend interview. The investigation is ongoing.

“We are struggling against this disease,” Hanoon said of militia infiltration at the ministry.

It’s a start.

Interior is lousy with Sadrists and featured the worst of the corrupt bureaucrats. There were also several top officials with direct ties to Tehran. I doubt whether even purging or reassigning 10,000 employees is going to solve the problem. But by any measure, it is a positive sign.

But Maliki is not stopping at Interior. It looks like he’s going whole hog and is going to take on members of his own coalition as well:

The Interior Ministry employs about 270,000 people, including police, emergency response units and administrative staff.

“Maybe we aren’t 100% cured,” Hanoon said. “But we’re getting better day by day.” Some ministry employees were fired for arresting innocent people, while others had past criminal records, he said.

Investigators are using information gathered within the ministry to probe political leaders and members of parliament, something not previously done, Hanoon said. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has vowed to pursue criminal charges against political figures — including members of parliament — linked to extremist groups.

The cases of human rights abuse were detailed in a 250-page annual report that will be released this week, Akeel Saeed, the Interior Ministry’s inspector general, said in an interview.

It appears that Maliki realizes that the end of massive American involvement in Iraq is on the horizon and is afraid that unless concrete steps are taken to get his own house in order before the bulk of US combat troops leave, being Prime Minister of Iraq won’t mean very much in the larger scheme of things.

My guess would be that the next ministry in the cross hairs is Sadr’s power base, the Ministry of Health. The anti-American cleric has used that ministry the way Dick Daley uses City Hall in Chicago - as patronage center for his followers that cements their loyalty to him after he gives them a job. Iraq’s economy is still tight with unemployment hovering around 25% (down from 40% before the invasion) so a plumb ministry job goes a long way in increasing Sadr’s popularity.

But Sadr apparently is not going to sit still during this effort to kick he and his followers out of power:

The Shiite Mahdi Army militia has so far resisted full-scale retaliation through a combination of self-interest and intense government pressure. But the militia’s leader, the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, is now being cornered in new ways that have put him on the defensive.

An expected Cabinet reshuffle could take a serious bite out of al-Sadr’s voice in government — a move strongly encouraged by Washington.

Al-Sadr also opened the door for U.S. and Iraqi troops to enter the Mahdi stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad — under a painstaking deal with authorities — but his loyalists are still being hunted outside the capital.

“Al-Sadr and his forces could be feeling under siege,” said Alireza Nourizadeh, chief researcher at the London-based Center for Arab-Iranian Studies. “That makes them less predictable. That means they are more dangerous.”

Slowly, Sadr is being marginalized. First by causing his militia to hunker down during the surge. Second, by kicking his ministers out of the government thus neutering his influence in the cabinet. And the last step logically would be to go after his power base in the ministry of health.

If Maliki can take on the powerful forces in the Interior Ministry, when will the other shoe drop and a purge take place that would oust the Sadrists from the Ministry of Health?

Faster please…

Lewis I. “Scooter” Libby was found guilty on four of the five charges against him including Obstruction of Justice, Perjury, and lying to the FBI. He was found innocent of another charge of lying to the Feds.

Cue the netnuts.

This proves Bush lied about WMD in Iraq. He knew prior to the invasion that we would find no WMD there. Never mind that if Bush knew there were no weapons of mass destruction that you must assume he either wanted to lose the war or didn’t want to win re-election. That’s because if we won the war, that would mean a search for WMD that he already knew weren’t there - handing his opponents a ready made charge that against any other Democrat save John Kerry, would probably have cost him the election.

No matter. This also proves that Busco and Evil Karl would rather have outed a super duper, super secret, CIA agent than have their “lies” about WMD exposed. Except no one was charged with any crime relating to outing a clandestine agent because the agent wasn’t clandestine as the Prosecutor Fitzgerald made clear.

And the left’s extraordinary concern about not ruining anything or anyone at the CIA may be the biggest irony in politics of the last half a century. They have worked about that long to destroy or emasculate the agency that they now claim to have such empathy and concern for. To believe that they cared one whit about damage to national security is to believe in fairies (the magical kind). What they cared about was the political damage such an investigation could do to the Bush Administration.

This led so many of them to eagerly embrace every rumor, every hint about the investigation that pointed to the “imminent” indictment of a dozen or so former and current White House officials including Karl Rove, Vice President Cheney, and the Bush’s dog Spot. (Note: Spot passed away before he could be called to testify against Rove.) Watching the left wait for Fitzmas after Fitzmas, constantly proclaiming ever longer ever more fantastic lists of officials who would be brought up on charges, engendered feelings of pity and humor. A truly pathetic performance by all those members of the so-called “Reality Based Community” who will, I’m sure, spin this verdict into “proving” their grand conspiracy theories about evil Bush and his band of constitution tearing, bloodthirsty war mongering incompetent boobs.

Instead, all they got was Scooter Libby who lied to the FBI and the Grand Jury about who told him what and when about a non-clandestine CIA agent who was married to someone who has been proven a liar by at least two investigations.

What the verdict proves is that you should never lie to the FBI or the grand jury. That’s all. Anything else is fantasy.

Did the Administration deliberately try to discredit loose cannon Wilson? Since the guy was shopping his classified trip to Niger for 6 months prior to his editorial in the New York Times and believed him to be lying through his teeth, the answer is yes. Did they think that revealing the fact that Valerie Plame joined others in recommending her husband for the junket to Niger might discredit Wilson? Again, the answer is yes.

But context is everything. And considering the fact that there was (and still is) a faction in the intelligence community opposed to the Administration’s foreign policy and that this cabal used leaks in order to not only discredit the Bush Administration but also to deliberately interfere in the 2004 Presidential election, one can understand this “push back” by the Bushies while still condemning it.

Scooter Libby is going to jail. Kind of a dismal scalp for Fitzgerald to hang on his lodgepole but after nearly 4 years of investigations, it’s all he had.

UPDATE

I will add to this update as the afternoon wears on.

First stop, Michelle Malkin who rounds up some early react. Keep clicking back because I’m sure she’ll add to it as the day goes on.

Ian at Hot Air has the video of defense attorney statement.

One of the more brilliant and original ideas in our Constitution can be found in Article II Section 1 which deals with the very practical problem of what to do if a President can no longer serve:

In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President … until the disability be removed, or a President elected.

The key phrase here is what exactly did the Founders mean when they wrote “the same shall devolve on the Vice President…?” It appears that the phrase modifies “powers and duties” which would mean that the Vice President would not actually be “President” but rather exercise the duties of the office alone. In fact, we know from the Federalist Papers that some of the delegates to the Constitutional convention felt that if a President died or was impeached, that the Vice President should act as a “caretaker” for the office until new elections could be held.

The first test for the Presidential succession clause occurred in 1841 following the death of William Henry Harrison. Harrison’s inauguration speech was given on a windy, snowy, cold day and the vain former Indian fighter declined to wear a topcoat. He caught pneumonia and died on March 4th - exactly a month after he was sworn in as President.

His Vice President, John Tyler, was sitting on the floor in the living room of his Virginia home playing with his son when the news reached him. What followed was one of the more interesting interludes in American history.

While the Constitution may have been vague on exactly what the meaning of Article II Section 1 said about succession, Tyler took it upon himself to define it. Rather than accept the idea that he would remain Vice President and exercise the “powers and duties” of the President he pointed to Article I Section 2 which states:

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.

Tyler took that to mean that he was now President. A fierce debate broke out among his advisors about what exactly he should do next. Since the Constitution was silent about how exactly the Vice President should go about taking over, there was no precedent to follow. For two days, Tyler was pulled in several different directions. Should he call himself “Acting President” as some in Congress were urging? Should he call for a new election?

In the end, Tyler felt his best option was to assume the office of President by taking the oath “for greater caution.” This despite the fact that he had taken the very same oath 31 days previously - as if his loyalty to the Constitution may have been questioned?

But what Tyler wanted was the symbolism that the oath represented. And so despite the fact that nowhere in the Constitution is there a requirement for the Vice President to take another oath upon ascending to the Presidency, the precedent Tyler started has endured to this day.

The fact is that the moment a President dies or is unable to perform his duties, the Vice President becomes President. We saw this last night with Vice President Daniels assuming the office of the Presidency upon the incapacitation of President Palmer. So why didn’t he take the oath?

Following the assassination of John Kennedy (where in the immediate aftermath of the shooting frantic TV newsmen were informing the nation that the US had no President because Johnson hadn’t taken the oath yet - clearly wrong and causing unnecessary worry) Congress passed and the states ratified the 25th amendment to the Constitution. It was felt in a nuclear age, there must be no question whatsoever about when the Vice President succeeds to the Presidency. The amendment contains a Disability Clause that allows the Vice President to exercise the duties of the President in limited circumstances:

The 25th Amendment provides two remedies when a president is disabled. 1. The president of his own volition may turn over the power of his office to the vice president. 2. The vice president, with the assent of a majority of the leading members of the cabinet, may make himself acting president on a temporary basis.

Clearly, Vice President Daniels took over as “Acting President” when the cabinet informed him that the President was incapacitated. An interesting question will be what happens when Wayne Palmer wakes up? Would the action of the cabinet be voided? Would Palmer have to sign a letter stipulating that the Vice President could continue acting as President while he recovered? Or, more predictability within the context of the show’s plot, would the President reclaim the mantle of authority and kick the Veep out?

Don’t expect a deep constitutional debate over what happens on the show but this theoretical problem might want to be examined by legal experts and scholars to make sure that if such an unlikely scenario ever did emerge, there would be some learned opinions on what to do.

SUMMARY

The explosion in the press room severely injured the President and did, in fact, kill Assad. As the President is rushed into surgery, Jack leaves Logan’s ranch, telling Jellyfish that he is still a federal prisoner and that he will stick to him like glue to make sure he doesn’t escape.

Logan has grown a beard but the facial hair can’t hide the fact that he is still a lying weasel. What his end game could be is still a mystery but if you believe that he is really seeking redemption, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I can let you have for a song. Logan waxes about leaving captivity for the first time in a long time and tries to engage Jack in a soulful conversation about being confined, talking about how being so alone allows you to listen to your “inner voice.” Bauer’s “inner voice” is probably telling him to strangle the insipid SOB but instead, he simply tells him to shut up.

While on their way to the embassy to meet with Markov, Bill calls Jack with the bad news about the assassination attempt. Was it my imagination or did Jellyfish take the news just a little too complacently - as if he may have had an inkling of the plot? He knows Gredenko and he was being ordered around by Graem Bauer all of last year. Graem knew Fayed so is it possible that Logan is somehow privy to the details of the plot? Might he use this information to barter his freedom?

At the cabinet meeting, Vice President Daniels joins the group via a teleconference from his plane. The Doctor gives the grim update on Palmer’s condition. Accordingly, the Secretary of Defense informs Daniels that the cabinet voted to make him acting President. Accepting the news with no hesitation (is he or isn’t he involved?), Daniels orders the Secretary of Defense to have Tom Lennox brief him when he lands.

This gives Reed a major league headache. For when the Secretary confronts him about Tom’s absence, he has no good answers. And when he overhears the Secretary ordering the Secret Service to begin an intensive search for the missing Chief of Staff, he realizes the jig is up and something must be done with Lennox before he is found bound and gagged in the boiler room.

Making his way back to where Lennox is being held, Reed confronts Carson with the news of the search. Carson wants to off Lennox right there and make it look like a suicide. Reed will have none of that. Evidently, killing the President is fine but whacking the Chief of Staff would make them “murderers.” With that kind of reasoning, it’s no wonder Reed works for the government.

Reed, however, is a more attractive criminal than Carson. He is a true believer. He has actually been able to justify killing the President on the grounds that no doing so would destroy the country. And there’s no denying his loyalty to his boss Lennox. He tells Carson that he will have to kill him too if he wants to kill Lennox. Instead, Reed tries once again to enlist Tom in the plot in order to keep his mouth shut. He tells him that Daniels will almost certainly implement his plan for The Great American Muslim Roundup while also telling him that no one will believe him if he tells anyway.

Tom seems convinced and Reed cuts him loose. As they are exiting the basement, Carson, Reed, and Lennox run into the Secret Service. Immediately, Tom shows his true colors and not only has Carson and Reed placed under arrest, but also delivers himself into custody.

After landing, Daniels calls Bill asking about the deal with Logan. Bill tells him that they had little choice given the fact that Gredenko’s trail had gone cold and that the Russian CG Markov appeared to be the only tangible lead. Daniels learns that Jack Bauer is riding herd on Logan and demands that Logan be returned to house arrest once his usefulness is at an end.

Pulling up to the consulate, Logan convinces Jack that he should see Markov alone. It was at this point that I almost thought that Logan would ask for asylum and cross everybody up. But I was mistaken as Logan made his way into Markov’s office for his little chat. Jack had to cool his heels in the corridor outside of Markov’s office.

If two guys ever deserved each other, it’s Logan and Markov. Slime vs. Sludge with the winner getting first dibs at the local toxic waste dump. Both guys are so oily that you almost expected a west Texas wildcatter to show up in the room and start drilling.

Markov fends off questions about Gredenko, saying he hadn’t seen or talked to him in a year. But Logan has an ace up is sleeve; he tells the Russian that he taped all those conversations they had about his facilitating the sale of nerve gas to Russian terrorists last year. Markov seems shocked at the news, although given Logan’s character, one wonders why he should be.

Still not revealing anything about Gredenko, the meeting concludes amicably enough with the Russian not very happy at all. On their way out the door, Logan tells Jack that he’s sure Markov is lying about his knowledge of where Gredenko is. How? Logan tells Jack that being an expert liar himself, he can tell when others are fibbing. A pretty lame explanation but Jack buys it.

Sure enough, Logan is barely out the door when Markov calls Gredenko and tells him that the Americans know he is involved but are guessing about everything else. He urges him to hurry his preparations to deliver the bombs using the drones.

Meanwhile, Jack has a scathingly brilliant idea. Since his violation of the Chinese consulate worked out so well last year, only landing him in a Chinese prison for 16 months, why not infiltrate another consulate and go for an even longer prison term? Jack calls Chloe and tells her to work “off the books” on turning power to the consulate off long enough that he can sneak into the CG’s office and have a chat with Mr. Markov.

Back at the bunker, Daniels learns of the plot involving Reed and Carson as well as Tom remanding himself into custody. He goes to see Lennox who is having a tough time convincing the Secret Service that he wasn’t in on the plot in the first place and only turned on his confederates when he had second thoughts (which may or may not be accurate since, as the Secret Service interrogator pointed out, he handed Reed the President’s top secret itinerary which assisted the assassins).

Daniels doesn’t quite know what to think about Tom but he still needs him if only to ram his draconian national security plan through the cabinet. The Veep also won’t listen to Lennox when he tries to absolve Assad of responsibility in the bombing. Even if true, he will use the pretext to help convince the nation that rounding up innocent women and children and sending them off to concentration camps is in the national interest. In exchange for not arresting him, Daniels orders Tom to keep his mouth shut about Assad’s innocence.

So after bravely giving up Reed and Carson knowing it would cast himself in a bad light, Tom wimps out and agrees to keep his mouth shut just to stay out of prison. Hero or villain? The jury is still out on Tom Lennox.

Jack has made his way to the back of the Russian Consulate. Upon being discovered by a clueless Russian security guy who thinks Jack is “guarding the back of the building,” we discover that Bauer can actually speak Russian - unintelligible, very bad Russian that wouldn’t fool an Russian infant but works fine for American TV. Besides, he’s Jack Bauer. Reason enough for the security guard to believe him.

Cuing Chloe to dim the electricity, Jack makes his way into the embassy. The power loss has the Russians scrambling - and suspicious. As Jack hits Markov’s office, the power comes back on and the CG hits the panic button. Jack slams him back into his chair and informs the guards outside the locked door that he has a gun on their boss and that they better back off.

What a revoltin’ development. The only way out is through the door he came in that now has a dozen Russian FSB agents with itchy trigger fingers on the other side. Jack does the only thing he can do; he calls Bill.

Bill doesn’t seem overly surprised at Jack going rogue on him. He is apparently used to it by now. Jack asks Bill to tell the White House what’s going on so they don’t get blindsided when the Russians hit the roof. Bill politely suggests that Jack cut his losses and find a way out but Jack stubbornly insists that he will stay and get the information they need on Gredenko from Markov.

Turning his attention back to the thoroughly frightened CG, Jack starts the interrogation in his usual way:

JACK: I’m going to ask you nice only once. Where is Gredenko.”

Never let it be said that Jack is nothing, if not nice, even to terrorists and their allies - at least “once.” After that, it’s best that you not share the same room with him.

At the bunker, Daniels gets the bad news from Bill about what Jack is up to. He’s mad but also understanding, telling Bill to light a fire under Jack because he doesn’t know how long he can hold the Russians off. Sure enough, his aide Lisa breaks in to tell him the Russian President is on the phone. Their conversation doesn’t accomplish anything. Suvarov tells Daniels to take his accusations about Markov and Grendenko “through regular diplomatic channels” while Daniels coolly informs the Russian President that Gredenko (and by extension the Russian government) will be held responsible if another nuke goes off. Stalemate.

Jack starts using Markov’s face as a punching bag, firing questions at him about Gredenko. Markov says he hasn’t seen the former General since he came to the United States. Anyone who has ever watched Law and Order caught the significance of that comment immediately; Jack never said anything about Gredenko being in the United States.

Convinced now that Markov knows where Gredenko is hiding, Jack ponders his next move. What will it be? The old “Lamp Cord Electric Shock Therapy?” Perhaps the equally tried and true “Dislocating Fingers One-at-a-Time Trick?” Instead, Jack, ever creative, uses the tools at his disposal. He finds Markov’s cigar cutter and decides to put it to good use - on the Russian’s fingers.

It only takes one finger before Markov is singing like a canary. We discover that Gredenko is somewhere in the Mojave Desert. And Jack goes slack jawed when he hears that Gredenko will use the pilotless drones to deliver the nukes. Giving Markov a goodbye punch, Jack starts for the door.

What did he expect? That the Russians would part like the Red Sea for Moses and just let him waltz out of there? Whatever he was thinking, the Russians blow the door and capture him easily. Markov gets a taste of revenge by giving a blow to Jack’s solar plexus that has the agent gasping for breath.

At the bunker, Daniels goes on TV and after informing the public of the shocking news regarding the attempt on the President, he gives out the lie of Assad’s involvement and piously uses it as an excuse to tear up the Constitution. Saying that “some” civil liberties would have to be suspended, “This is the price of war,” we are told.

Is it? Dire circumstances require drastic action. But as these measures unfold, I think the writers will make it clear that most if not all of the steps taken are unnecessary and over the top. If the goal is to stop the nukes from going off, Daniels will be hard pressed to prove that his draconian plan will have any practical benefits toward finding them before that happens.

Back at CTU, the gang is worried that they haven’t heard from Jack. Morris proves he’s fully back in the saddle by pulling a remarkable bit of geek magic from up his sleeve by semi-hacking a computer at the consulate and discovering that Jack has, in fact, been captured. Nadia tells Bill who refuses to inform Daniels. Instead, he orders CTU TAC to make plans to storm the consulate and save Jack.

At the consulate, Jack goes to work on the Russian guarding him, telling him about the Markov-Gredenko connection and that unless his information is given to CTU, those nukes would be used. Somewhat torn but realizing the stakes, the Russian guard makes his way to a private room and dials the number to CTU asking for Bill Buchanan. Before Bill can come on the line, the main FSB agent Vasili shoots the guard in the back of the head and breaks the connection to CTU.

Probably just as well. Bill would probably have left Jack to rot in a Russian jail if he had been told what Bauer learned from Markov. As it is now, Bill will probably have to send his TAC team into action in order to save Jack and stop the plot from reaching fruition.

BODY COUNT

The Grim Reaper was out sick but it was finally confirmed that Assad did indeed die in the blast.

JACK: 8

SHOW: 371

Amidst the larger political and and military moves in Iraq where grand plans are carried out and important men argue and cajole each other, there is a singular truth that has underwritten this entire effort at bringing peace: No matter what happens with the surge or the militias or Prime Minister Maliki’s government, what will really decide the fate of that blood soaked nation will occur in the quiet neighborhoods where Sunni and Shia formerly lived together in peace and friendship but where now only fear and violence reign.

It is where the sectarian strife has cleaved most deeply. Families that had lived side by side for generations suddenly found their neighbors ordering them out of their homes or face death. More than 300,000 fled for their lives to other parts of Iraq while countless others - perhaps as many as 2 million - have left the country in the last 4 years.

But despite the carnage, small glimmers of hope have emerged in recent months courtesy of the United States military.

Far beneath the radar of the mainstream press, the military has quietly been organizing meetings between Shias and Sunnis in areas where there has been conflict. These local conferences represent one of the major efforts at reconciling the various factions and seek to reestablish trust between the sects. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT’s) who are responsible for this program have doubled in number since the President’s speech in January and have intensified these efforts as part of the surge.

And there is some evidence that the program, if not wildly successful, may have started something significant. The proof is in the efforts by both the insurgents and The Islamic State of Iraq (al-Qaeda) to intimidate and threaten individuals who take part in these reconciliation meetings:

A recent wave of Sunni reprisals appears linked to increasingly high-profile attempts to stir popular momentum against Sunni extremists trying to drive out the Shiite-led government and its American backers.

Among those targeted include a range of Sunnis raising their voices against violence: imams, clan-based vigilantes and activists trying to bridge deep rifts with majority Shias.

“We are seeing more people beginning to challenge the insurgents,” said Marine Brig. Gen. John Allen, who oversees units in the militant heartland west of Baghdad.

In Youssifiyah, a Sunni-dominated area about 12 miles south of Baghdad, One of the PRT’s organized a meeting of local tribes and religious leaders last month. Among them were two prominent local families who braved the threats of the extremists in order to help build a new Iraq. Sadly, 6 members of those families were found dead over the weekend -victims of execution style murders:

The two families gunned down at sunrise Saturday had received death threats for weeks after attending gatherings of Sunni and Shiite leaders, police said.

The first meeting, organized by U.S. military officials on Feb. 13, brought together leaders of prominent clans from both sides, said military spokesman Maj. Webster M. Wright III.

The clan chiefs held another round on their own about a week later and appointed a joint council “to discuss the terms of reconciliation” around Youssifiyah, a Sunni-dominated area about 12 miles south of Baghdad, Wright said.

At dawn, gunmen stormed the home of two families belonging to the influential Sunni Mashhada tribe, said police 1st Lt. Haider Satar. Two fathers and their four sons were separated from their wives and sisters. They were executed at point-blank range.

In the morgue in nearby Mahmoudiya, AP Television News footage showed at least two victims had their hands bound behind their backs.

One more small tragedy in an ocean of pain and suffering? The fact that the clans were willing to seek reconciliation in spite of the threats, in spite of all that has gone before has got to say something important - otherwise those men will have given their lives for nothing.

This is how Iraq will heal. When men like those who were ruthlessly executed continue to show courage in the face of such brutality and evil, progress will almost certainly be made. There are already martyrs enough on both sides. What is needed now is the steadfast belief that something better can be achieved by talking than by hating each other.

No doubt that the insurgents will continue to desperately try and derail these reconciliation efforts. This is where Prime Minister Maliki comes in. He absolutely must get to work on a National Reconciliation Plan that will bring all but the worst of the murderers and terrorists into the national life of the nation. This will necessarily mean granting amnesty to a large number of fighters who have fought and killed our troops. The Pentagon won’t like that. I don’t like it. I daresay most Americans won’t like it. But we have to understand that our occupation has fueled some of this insurgency. There are thousands of tribal militia men who saw our cozying up to the Shias as a direct threat and took up arms in what they felt was in defense of their home and hearth. Most of the Iraqi people hold these men blameless - at least less culpable than the car bombers and death squad killers who continue their rampage to this day.

Taking these men out of the fight by granting them amnesty will pull the teeth of the insurgency. It will free up our forces to concentrate on the remaining terrorists and Baathist bitter enders who carry out most of the violence against civilians. For these reasons alone, amnesty would be worth it.

Those nameless martyrs in Youssifiyah were seeking to build a new Iraq. Not the Iraq we envisioned when we invaded but one of their own creation. Let’s hope that those left behind are inspired by their courage and will continue to work toward building a peaceful society free from fear.

This is me after slipping on the ice this morning. Good thing no one was around to see my dress fly up all the way to my eyes.

Watching someone slip and fall the way I did this morning may have been the catalyst for the first human laugh. Tens of thousands of years ago, it is more than possible that some Paleolithic dummy didn’t see the black ice where that next step was going and . . . whoosh!

The effect on his fellows was probably instantaneous - and electric. An exchange of glances, a painful smile employing muscles never before used for that purpose. A rough giggle that rippled through the entire tribe. And then one soul - the Adam or Eve of laughter - let out a huge guffaw and the entire tribe joined in. The truth is, there are few things funnier than watching a human being have their legs slip out from under them while having their feet fly into the air and seeing the poor unfortunate land on their tush.

The experience is almost existential. When you feel yourself slipping, you instinctively dig your shoes into the ground hoping to stop. Then the brief, terrifying (but giddy) feeling of soaring through the air. And before you know it you are looking at your feet flying up parallel to your bemused head. The last thing you think before you hit the ground is “Please God don’t let me break anything important.” And then . . . kerplop!

I didn’t feel any pain at first. At that point, you’re grabbing all of your moving parts just to make sure they’re still there. And the rush of adrenaline and endorphins to your brain blocks any discomfort you might be feeling.

Well, here I am 3 hours later and I can’t bend my elbow without pain, my wrist hurts like hell, my tush has a major league black and blue mark and my hip feels like some little man is drilling a hole right through the center of it. It’s okay to type so I’ll be back later today with some blogging but I wonder if the pain will make me angry?

Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like it when I’m angry…

This is self-explanatory. And overdue.

An Open Letter to CPAC Sponsors and Organizers Regarding Ann Coulter

Conservatism treats humans as they are, as moral creatures possessing rational minds and capable of discerning right from wrong. There comes a time when we must speak out in the defense of the conservative movement, and make a stand for political civility. This is one of those times.

Ann Coulter used to serve the movement well. She was telegenic, intelligent, and witty. She was also fearless: saying provocative things to inspire deeper thought and cutting through the haze of competing information has its uses. But Coulter’s fearlessness has become an addiction to shock value. She draws attention to herself, rather than placing the spotlight on conservative ideas.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2006, Coulter referred to Iranians as “ragheads.” She is one of the most prominent women in the conservative movement; for her to employ such reckless language reinforces the stereotype that conservatives are racists.

At CPAC 2007 Coulter decided to turn up the volume by referring to John Edwards, a former U.S. Senator and current Presidential candidate, as a “faggot.” Such offensive language–and the cavalier attitude that lies behind it–is intolerable to us. It may be tolerated on liberal websites but not at the nation’s premier conservative gathering.

The legendary conservative thinker Richard Weaver wrote a book entitled Ideas Have Consequences. Rush Limbaugh has said again and again that “words mean things.” Both phrases apply to Coulter’s awful remarks.

Coulter’s vicious word choice tells the world she care little about the feelings of a large group that often feels marginalized and despised. Her word choice forces conservatives to waste time defending themselves against charges of homophobia rather than advancing conservative ideas.

Within a day of Coulter’s remark John Edwards sent out a fundraising email that used Coulter’s words to raise money for his faltering campaign. She is helping those she claims to oppose. How does that advance any of the causes we hold dear?

Denouncing Coulter is not enough. After her “raghead” remark in 2006 she took some heat. Yet she did not grow and learn. We should have been more forceful. This year she used a gay slur. What is next? If Senator Barack Obama is the de facto Democratic Presidential nominee next year will Coulter feel free to use a racial slur? How does that help conservatism?

One of the points of CPAC is the opportunity it gives college students to meet other young conservatives and learn from our leaders. Unlike on their campuses—where they often feel alone—at CPAC they know they are part of a vibrant political movement. What example is set when one highlight of the conference is finding out what shocking phrase will emerge from Ann Coulter’s mouth? How can we teach young conservatives to fight for their principles with civility and respect when Ann Coulter is allowed to address the conference? Coulter’s invective is a sign of weak thinking and unprincipled politicking.

CPAC sponsors, the Age of Ann has passed. We, the undersigned, request that CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage.

Not very gentlemanly words but as my sainted father used to say, when invited to a knife fight, bring a gun.

I am surprised, shocked, and in a towering rage over the reaction to my post from yesterday about the faggot remark made by She who shall remain nameless always and forever. Not from the left. Hell, for all their supposed smarts, the left is more predictable than a Chicago Cubs losing season and less original than cloned calf.

My beef is with the shallow, ignorant, remarkably stupid righties who not only defend Coulter, but cheer her on. Their explanations vary but center on the idea that she defies “political correctness” and anyone who criticizes her is just an old fuddy-duddy, politically correct priss.

And that’s not my only sin. Evidently, since some liberals agree with me, I have become unclean! I am no longer a “real conservative.” I am infused with lefty group think and am only trying to curry favor by groveling before my enemies begging for approbation.

I feel compelled to point out that I was a “real conservative” before most of these inbreds were in books. And “real conservatives” don’t demonstrate such towering ignorance as this commenter at Hot Air. A few brief excerpts:

Conservatism has lost already. Homosexuality is now accepted by all “right-thinking” people. Would everyone be this upset at someone who eats his own mucous being called a booger-eater? Homosexual behavior has become more pervasive and open in the past 2 decades. Is it going to dry up and go away just because we’re nice to homosexuals? Can one cure cancer by thinking happy thoughts? Are homosexuals rushing to get psychological treatment because they aren’t made to feel bad about their illness? The difference between the open and derisive bigotry against Southerners and against homosexuality, is that there’s nothing wrong with being Southern, but there is something wrong with being a sexual deviant.

Did I fall asleep and wake up in the 19th century? Or maybe even farther back? I think I see Torquemada rubbing his hands together in anticipation of racking the next homosexual who happens to fall into his grasp.

But wait! It gets even better:

The current political battle in the U.S. is no longer a struggle between two allied political parties. It is a battle for political control of the nation, akin to the battle that created the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Red China. Read some history as to how Rome went from Republic to Empire, and you might see some more parallels to the current political struggle in the U.S.

Civility is fine for a court of law, a debate society, or a normal political campaign. But that’s not what we’re fighting now. The war is between the America that was and the socialist cesspit that will be.

You may not be willing to hate the enemy, but they’re more than willing to hate us. One truthful, much maligned comment by Ms Coulter vs thousands of vitriolic hate-filled comments throughout the left and the MSM demonstrate the truth of that.

To borrow a line from Col. Robert Lee Scott: “You’ve got to learn to hate.”

A few months back, I did a post asking whether or not the left actually believes it when they compare Bush to Hitler. I concluded that yes indeed, they really do find common ground between Bush and a man who gassed 6 million Jews, murdered another couple of million, deliberately started a war that killed 80 million, and countenanced the existence of a massive state run terror apparatus that ruthlessly oppressed tens of millions living in captive nations.

Yep. Sounds like a no brainer to me.

Similarly, our righty friend here actually believes it when he says that America is a “socialist cesspool” and that our electoral battles can be compared to the struggle for power by the Commies in Russia and the fascists in Germany.

Such delusional thinking deserves recognition - and a quick trip to the asylum in a strait jacket.

But what really got my goat were some of the “conservatives” on an email list that I unsubscribed from this morning. Yesterday, I left this explanation as to why She who shall remain nameless always forever should be condemned:

The term she used hurts the feelings of other people - deeply. It scars them. It is not like me calling you an idiot or you calling me a dumbs**t. It is beyond that. It’s even beyond saying something very hurtful about your mother or father.

Most people recognize this. If it were just a question of insulting a lefty, I would be right there laughing with everyone else. And anyone who accuses me of being “politically correct” doesn’t read my stuff nor do they know me very well.

BUT THERE ARE LIMITS. THERE MUST BE. And Coulter has exceeded those limits. And not for any other cause except her own self-aggrandizement.

A few choice responses to my call for empathy:

1. I’ll be sure to keep a close eye on the suicide statistics among homosexuals in the next months, so as to not miss their reaction to this deeply scarring, emotionally destructive commonly used descriptor of a “wimp.”

If we see a spike, I’ll consider revising my opinion.

2. I wasn’t going to comment on this at all, because I just don’t care. But I can’t let this go by without a quick comment:

“The term she used hurts the feelings of other people - deeply. It scars them.”

Oh puhlease. It does NOT. Get a grip. Gays calls themselves faggots, homos, queers, and queens all the time. If you try an tell me that I Edwards is at home cryin’ in his milk because of his deep emotional scars being called a faggot has bestowed upon him, you’ve got another think coming. He’s with his staff trying to figure out how to PC the crap out of this.

The day I care about a liberals’ feelings will be the day Muslims eat pigs.

3. Why is it okay for Maher to say we’d be better off if Cheney would have been killed by the Taliban, but Ann can’t call Edwards a “faggot?” I don’t get it. For so long, the right has been wanting for our people to go after the left the way THEY have been going after us! Now somebody does, and what? Ann’s gotta be scorned? I don’t go for it. Ann has the right to say what she wants to say.

4. An insult to homosexuals everywhere? The people screaming “We’re here, we’re queer” can’t handle being called faggots? I know it’s a ’slur’ but it’s the same thing as black people being able to call each other ‘nigga’ while any white person who mutters the word, even jokingly, will be castrated by the media.

Since when is faggot the new f-word? People saying “f*** Bush” get half as much attention as this.

What is the common denominator in all of these messages as well as others that I’ve seen both in the comments on my post and other posts?

The people making the comments have a dead spot where the empathy gene should be plugged in. The wiring that connects being able to gauge an emotional reaction to what you say to the part of the brain that handles communication is either non existent or burned out.

A marmoset has more empathy than these people. And I hasten to add that empathy is NOT political correctness. It is, as my previously sainted father told me, the surest sign of a gentleman.

Gentlemanliness may be something of an outmoded concept to some but there is much praiseworthy in aspiring to be a gentleman. Good manners, a solicitousness toward women and children, and a moral grounding in one’s life are all part of what should be the outward manifestation of an adult man’s personae. Indeed, it is an artificial construct but a vital one nonetheless. It greases the wheels of discourse if the person you are talking to knows when to listen and when to keep their mouth shut - something that is sorely lacking in political discourse today. And the only way to do that successfully is to be aware of the emotional temperature of the party with which you are discoursing.

For those brain dead righties who don’t quite understand what I’m trying to say, here it is in a nutshell; any insult you give that goes to the nub of who someone is; the color of their skin, their belief in whatever God they worship, the heritage from which they sprang, or the most personal and private part of an individual - their sexual identity - cleaves very deeply and causes the kind a psychic pain I daresay you would be loathe to experience. And is unnecessary to boot. Very rarely do any of those attributes in an individual bear upon the issues at hand. And even when they do, another gentlemanly characteristic - simple, common courtesy - should keep you from slinging that kind of mud.

I’m not saying that John Edwards was hurt by these remarks, That’s silly. Anyone running for President has skin so thick a jackhammer would have a hard time finding a vein to deliver an IV. But you are mistaken if you don’t believe that some gay people - perhaps many - experienced the kind of psychic pain I referred to above. That’s because she meant the term as an insult - and because she knew it would get a rise out her audience.

As far as answering the charge that I’m not a “real” conservative I’ll say this; anyone who thinks being a conservative is simply a matter of believing in low taxes, small government, a strong defense, and family values is shallow indeed. Yes, the culture needs defending from the ravages of the left - something I find common ground with social conservatives on a regular basis. But this defense of the culture should not and cannot come at the expense of people. If you decry the “homosexual lifestyle” are you not also railing against the people who practice it? Disagreeing with hate crime statutes and the idea of giving gays statutory protection under the Civil Rights Act are political issues. But accusing gays of being “sinners” and “deviants?” This is beyond the pale and should have no place in our political conversations.

Conservatism used to be about fighting for individual liberties against the creeping power of the state. It is not about using the power of the state to curtail people’s liberties you disagree with or disapprove of nor is it about trying to impose one set of values on everyone else. It is not “libertarianism” to believe the state should stay the hell out of people’s bedrooms - gay or straight - nor dictate who someone has the right to fall in love with. Nor should the state be peering over my shoulder while I’m enjoying classic porn at my favorite internet movie site. This kind of individual liberty should be a matter of agreement by all - left or right.

So I would say to those on the right who question my conservative credentials or believe that it is somehow too PC to weigh carefully how ones words are received by others that perhaps it is you who should re-examine your own beliefs for deviation from the path of conservative enlightenment.

Who knows? A little introspection on your part may yield surprising results.

UPDATE

Goldstein tackles the left for pompously calling on conservatives to denounce such untoward behavior:

Personally, I don’t feel any need whatever to issue public condemnations of Ann Coulter—though were you to ask me, I’d readily tell you that her remark was juvenile, and that it could well be seen as homophobic (though I am in no position to peer into Coulter’s soul; and of course, “faggot”—though tied to homosexuality—has long been wielded as a slur against masculinity, which has little to do with sexual preference, in much the same way “pussy” is used). And the reason I feel no need to publicly condemn Coulter is that Coulter has never spoken for me.

It is only the absurd idea—grounded in progressive identity politics—that conservatives (or in my case, classical liberals) so march in ideological and ethical lockstep that they are required, when one of their “own” steps out of line, to issue such ludicrous calls for “condemnation” and “distancing” in the first place.

And, as anyone who reads my site regularly knows, I champion the primacy of the individual, and so I react to such posts as Simianbrains—which are merely passive-aggressive attempts to police the kind of speech he finds offensive, while tethering it to a political position he finds unappealing—with what I believe to be an appropriate level of scorn.

Of course, your idea of an “appropriate level of scorn,” and my idea of an “appropriate level of scorn,” are quite a bit different than Mr. Goldstein’s.

Read the whole thing.