Fred Thompson fired his campaign chief today. The reason? Depends who you’re reading:

Tom Collamore, the former Altria lobbyist who had been running Fred Thompson’s campaign, has resigned and will be replaced by Randy Enwright. Enwright is a Florida political hand with ties to former Gov. Jeb Bush. Also coming on board in a leadership capacity is Spencer Abraham, the former Michigan senator and Energy secretary.

“We’re making a number of planned changes as we move to the next phase,” said Thompson communications director Linda Rozett. “We’re adding political muscle to the organization.”

A Thompson aide said that Enwright would serve as the day-to-day manager while Abraham would take more of a campaign chairman capacity.

Collamore will stay on as a “senior adviser” to the effort, but with a diminished role. Accounts vary as to what exactly happened, but Collamore was reportedly unhappy with the level of involvement of Thompson’s wife, Jeri, and others in Thompson’s inner circle found Collarmore not up to the task of overseeing a presidential campaign.

” He needed more political people involved,” said one source close to the campaign.

That’s a very nice way of saying “You shouldn’t have quit your day job, Tom.”

Indeed, some of the pros I speak to on occasion with insight into the inner workings of some of the GOP campaigns told me weeks ago that Collamore was only a temp, that the shoestring operation he was running wouldn’t translate into the basis for a national campaign. In the next 45 days, the Thompson campaign is going to increase in size dramatically and it was frankly felt that Collamore was not up to the challenge.

Also, for these last couple of months, the Thompson people have been working on Jeb Bush hoping to tap into that wellspring of money and experience. They hit paydirt today:

Enwright was to originally serve as Thompson’s political director. A former Florida GOP executive director, worked on Jeb Bush’s ‘94 and ‘98 gubernatorial campaigns. While owning his own consulting firm, Enwright had served as an RNC liaision to the Sunshine State in recent years. Abraham is a longtime Republican operative. Before being elected to the Senate, he was the longtime chair of the Michigan GOP, VP Dan Quayle’s chief of staff and an NRCC co-chair.

Beyond the important contacts in the Midwest that Abraham can bring to the campaign, he’s an excellent choice for a variety of reasons. He’s a very smart, savvy politician who had to win as a Republican in a heavily unionized state. Considering how close Bush came to winning both Wisconsin and Michigan in 2004, having a knowledgeable source for how to run in those states heading up your campaign can only help.

Enwright’s s elevation will not be the last personnel move made at the top of the campaign. It should be interesting to see who Fred will hire as political director. Don’t be surprised if another politico with connections to Jeb the Younger emerges. Wooing the younger Bush has been part of Fred’s strategy for months simply because he needs a win in a big state on National Primary Day to legitimize his campaign and set himself up as a viable alternative to Rudy. His hope is to finish McCain in South Carolina (February 2) and stay alive on National Primary Day (February 5) by picking off a few southern states like Georgia, Alabama, his home state of Tennessee, and West Virginia while winning in Florida and being competitive in California and Illinois, hoping that Rudy and Mitt slug it out elsewhere and neither one is able to get too far ahead.

I can see now why Fred eschewed the traditional route taken by other candidates. He won’t be able to compete with Rudy or Mitt moneywise which means his organization will necessarily be leaner. And while he will probably be forced to compete in New Hampshire (where a third place finish would be perceived as good) which means setting up an office there with paid staff, his real test will come in South Carolina. The Palmetto state is McCain’s Alamo and a solid win by Thompson there would finish the Arizona Senator.

But don’t expect Fred to set up satellite offices in too many states. Media buys will be a nightmare prior to February 5. Most of the funds he raises this quarter and the next will have to be saved for TV. You can’t ignore any state. But expensive media markets like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York would soak up valuable funds that could better be used where Fred is going to be much more competitive.

Fred appears to be making the right moves. The initial stages of his campaign have gone extremely well. But a word of caution; historically speaking, when campaigns expand at a rapid rate, a few things always seem to be left behind. The organization will experience growing pains and mistakes will almost certainly be made.

Overcoming those mistakes is usually the difference between winning and losing.

Franklin Foer, Editor of The New Republic is still trying desperately to confirm many of the details of bad behavior by US troops in Iraq related in the Scott Thomas stories. He really needn’t worry that much; blogs appear to be doing his work for him:

This information is from an anonymous soldier who served in the area described by Thomas. It partially confirms one of the more gruesome stories in the Thomas diaries – that of a soldier wearing the skull of a dead child that was unearthed by a mass grave:

There was a children’s cemetery unearthed while constructing a Combat Outpost (COP) in the farm land south of Baghdad International Airport. It was not a mass grave. It was not the result of some inhumane genocide. It was an unmarked cometary where the locals had buried children some years back. There are many such unmarked cemeteries in and around Baghdad. The remains unearthed that day were transported to another location and reburied. While I was not there personally, and can not confirm or deny and actions taken by Soldiers that day, I can tell you that no Soldier put a human skull under his helmet and wore it around. The Army Combat Helmet (ACH) is form fitted to the head. Unlike the old Kevlar helmets, the ACH does not have a gap between the helmet and the liner, only pads. It would have been impossible for him to have placed and human skull, of any size, between his helmet and his head. Further more, no leader would have tolerated this type of behavior. This type of behavior is strictly forbidden in the U.S. Army and would have made the individual involved subject to UCMJ actions.

Not a “mass grave” as described by Thomas (the article said that Thomas and his mates “speculated” that it could have been a mass grave) but rather an unmarked children’s cemetery that the army then moved to another location. A difference worth quibbling about? Not to my mind. That much we can confirm about the story.

What about the soldier walking around wearing a part of a child’s skull? This may be a little more problematic for TNR as the soldier makes clear above. Is it possible some goof put the piece of bone on his head and paraded around for a few minutes or longer? This is possible. But spending an entire day with the skullbone underneath his helmet would seem to be an impossibility.

Score one for the blogs. And chalk up an embellishment to the author.

In the end, that’s what I think this story is going to be about; a real combat soldier who is serving in Iraq with a gift for writing and who didn’t mind spicing up his memoirs with some exaggerations and embellishments to the truth. The Bradley driver who targeted dogs with his vehicle will probably end up being someone who decided it was suicide to slow down in a combat zone to avoid hitting a dog or two. Did he joke about keeping track of how many dogs he ran over while trying to ease the tension you might find on a combat patrol? Other incidents related by Thomas may be composites of several different events that actually happened but for the sake of his “narrative,” he chose to combine various elements in order to make a seamless whole.

An excellent technique – if you’re writing fact-based fiction. Unfortunately for The New Republic, this isn’t the case.

The problem for Foer and TNR is that they presented this fellow Thomas as writing the unvarnished truth about his experiences in Iraq. In this case, embellishment of the facts surrounding any of the incidents mentioned is the same as lying. Publishing what they purport to be “journalism” as opposed to a story based on fact, TNR was obligated to vet carefully anything that appeared in those articles before the fact. The idea that Foer is just now getting around to that little detail is astonishing – especially after the Stephen Glass fiasco.

I’m not sure why but Matthew Yglesias doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with this:

. . but amidst The Weekly Standard’s huffing and puffing about how “Scott Thomas” couldn’t possibly have come across a mass grave in a particular area of operations where he allegedly said he came across one (crucially, he didn’t actually say that), they inadvertently corroborated the story. Thomas said he and other soldiers found a bunch of skeletons during the construction of a combat outpost. One of the article’s detractors concedes that “There was a children’s cemetery unearthed while constructing a Combat Outpost (COP) in the farm land south of Baghdad International Airport” and then gets very insistent that it was no mass grave. The article, however, just said they found a bunch of bones and then speculated idly that it might have been a mass grave. Well, turns out it was a children’s cemetary.

Meanwhile, the case that nobody could possibly have driven around in his Bradley Fighting Vehicle killing dogs seems to essentially come down to the fact that “This would violate standard operating procedure (SOP) and make the convoy more susceptible to attack.” I don’t, however, think anyone ever argued that killing dogs was SOP, the claim was that it happened. Surely the Standard is prepared to concede that SOP, though standard, is sometimes violated.

First, why must Yglesias do his own bit of exaggerating here? The Standard didn’t “inadvertently” corroborate the information about the children’s cemetery. That’s absurd. Is Yglesias saying that Goldfarb is such a dolt he forgot to exclude exculpatory evidence that would prove Thomas correct? Evidently yes. No mention of debunking the child’s skullbone on the head of the soldier story by Yglesias. Looks like he “inadvertently” left that out.

As for the Bradley deliberately targeting dogs, it is evident that Yglesias is a little behind the information curve. Several vets who have driven or a currently driving Bradleys point out the impossibility of targeting anything given the location of the hatch as well as the range of vision afforded the driver. This would seem to supersede Yglesias’ contention that judging the veracity of the incident came down to a question of SOP.

Another “inadvertent” omission by Yglesias? I guess so. I think Matthew would probably fit in wonderfully at The New Republic.

Debunking or confirming specific incidents related by Scott Thomas is important but at the same time, we mustn’t lose sight of the overall picture of the military being painted by the left recently; and that is, the US army is chock full of kooks, crazies, gun nuts, latent serial killers, rapists, psychologically disturbed, violence prone killers who are careening around Iraq firing indiscriminately at civilians, killing kids for sport, and hating their hosts with a genocidal passion.

I have no doubt that war turns men into beasts, that no amount of training can prepare young men for the horror of combat, and that the stress of numerous deployments has taken its toll on the psychological health of many in the military.

But articles like those written by Scott Thomas and the 7500 word screed appearing this month in The Nation make no effort to avoid generalizing the behavior of the few into what amounts to an indictment of the entire US military.

That’s their intent, of course. Being anti-war has its perks, not the least of which is the right to talk out one side of your mouth claiming support for the troops while dishing dirt on the military out of the other side. And inadvertently or not, the effect is to tar the entire military serving in Iraq with the crimes of the few.

The article in The Nation is astonishing for its detailed recitation of some brutal atrocities as well as the casual – perhaps inhuman is a better word – manner in which the death of civilians was treated by the military. The graphic descriptions of war crimes come from 50 ex-military people who served in Iraq between 2003-2005.

Many of these young men are undergoing psychological treatment for the things they did as well as incidents they witnessed first hand. For them, as well as no doubt thousands of others who the experts say will need counseling when their tours are over, let us wish them well and hope that they can recover and adjust to living among civilians.

Does the fact that many of those interviewed for the article – if not the overwhelming majority – come from anti-war groups or were recommended by them cast doubt on their stories? We don’t know. Wherever possible, The Nation included press reports that confirmed the soldiers’ stories. But that fact raises other questions of media contamination as well as the simple, human penchant for remembering things differently from the way they actually occurred. And then there is the experience we in the United States have had with these types of forums, specifically the Viet Nam era “Winter Soldier” confabs. To avoid the worst errors made by the organizers of that anti-military get together – it turns out many of the testimonials of atrocities were given by people either never in the military or who couldn’t possibly have witnessed what they were describing – The Nation was careful in only interviewing genuine ex-servicemen. Whether they served in areas that would have put them in a position to actually witness the events they describe is up to the reader to decide.

The problem for The Nation is the same one facing The New Republic; how do you vet stories in a combat zone, months or years after the fact? Given the anti-war agenda of both publications as well as their reputation for advocacy journalism, questions should always be raised about their sources and methods. And despite arguments by the left to the contrary – that even if partly true, the stories confirm a “larger truth” about Iraq and the military – the standards for publication should be at least as strict as those used when publishing any other news story in those magazines.

Where is the truth in all of this? In the eye of the beholder, naturally. Subjective vs. objective truth will always fight it out when issues that enjoin the passions of the people are discussed and debated. It might be helpful if we remember however, that smearing the reputations of honorable people for political profit reserves a special level in hell for the practitioners – something both publications might want to keep in mind when printing stories about the United States military.

A very old friend of this site, Mike at Cold Fury, lost his wife in a motorcycle accident over the weekend. Mike is one of the more original bloggers out there and has linked here on occassion over the years. I extend my heartfelt condolences to him and his family.

I read her profile on the “About” page and she seemed a perfect match for Mike. Both love old cars and bikes. Both have the same off beat sense of humor. To have a loved one taken so suddenly and before their time is a tragedy.

Why not pay Mike a visit and leave a word or a prayer.

Bein’ a vetran, I suppose it’s possible you could both be hatin’ the war and hatin’ the military if you were of a mind to. But that there just doesn’t play in flyover country where us goober chewin’ yahoos with a bible in one hand and a Winchester in t’other don’t appreciate you insultin’ me nor my cousin…who’s also my uncle and could be my daddy if we paid any mind to those kinds of thangs here in Jesusland.

But this here writin’ over at that Kos place on the innernet? I don’t rightly know exactly what the feller’s talkin’ about when he says those of us who serve these here Ewnited States in the army are probly gonna end up scoopin’ brains out of the heyads of dead ‘raqis or play “hide the salami” with my little sister.

Now it’s not that I cain’t read what the feller’s wrote down. I went to schoolin’ long enough to to know my ABC’s and do my sums. It’s jest that I’m sorta, well, confused. Haven’t them folks been saying for well nigh goin’ on 4 years now that they love us military folk? They love us sooooooo much that they want all of us to come home from “raq?

According to the July 30, 2007 issue of The Nation magazine, damning photos of a U.S. Soldier using a spoon to literally scoop out the brains of a dead Iraqi and pretending to eat the gray matter were recently acquired.

Of course, everyone is appropriately appalled and make all claims of disgust and finger-wagging. Research shows, however, that such unacceptable behavior happens more often than the United States military wants you to know.

When it comes to training killing machines, the military really does create “an Army of one.”

The list of serial killers and mass murderers who have spent time in the military is astounding.

Well now, I haven’t known no brain scoopers in the army. Sounds sorta sick to me. “Course, there may be passels of brain scoopers in the military only they be, ya know, hiding’ it is a psychomological sorta way.

And if y’all wanna get techical about it, I guess you could say that they’s a bunch of mass murderers in t’army alright. Cept’in we make snipers out of ‘em. Damn fine shots those fellers and it shore is nice to be patrolin’ and knowin’ that those boys gotchyer back.

But like I said, I jes don’t unnerstand what the feller is so all fired upset about. I suppose that if the object of bein’ in a war was to kiss the enemy rather than kill ‘em, you wouldn’t want a bunch of young folks trained in the deadly art of firin’ a rifle. Me, I shore wouldn’t wanna be kissin’ no terrorist that’s fer sure. Fact is, I kinda feel proud that killin’ terrorists is actually a good thing and nothin’ to be shamed for.

‘Ceptin this here feller thinks I’m a jes waitin till I get home to start turnin’ cannibal or some such thang:

To deal with the problem, Kilner suggests justification “because, at least some killing in war is morally justifiable, military leaders have a duty to understand that justification, to train their soldiers to kill only when it is justified, and to explain to their soldiers why it is justified.” In other words, if you give a soldier a supposedly legitimate reason to kill another human being, such as self-defense, it may be easier for the soldier to cope with the outcome of his actions.

That seems a bit simplistic, especially when soldiers are firing randomly at civilians because they believe everyone in Iraq is a “terrorist.” Unfortunately, killing, whether justifable or not, is going to warp the killer’s mind in some fashion, and probably to an unrecoverable point.

America should start to see the effects of the Iraq war veterans’ killing sprees here in the United States very soon. Most serial killers tend to be in their mid 20s to mid 30s.

The newest crop of Charles Whitmans and Jeffrey Dahmers should be prowling our streets any day now—and for many years to come.

Mmmmm…cain’t quite remember ever jes lettin’ go and spraying rounds all over t’place and whoopin’ it up. Some of them “raqis are alright – most of ‘em, to be honest about it. It’s jes hard to explain to folks that them terrorists hide behind those poor ‘raqis and use ‘em like they was trees in the forest. Lots o’ times, we don’t even open up when we’s under attack ‘cause the Capn’ says theys too many women and kids aroun’ and such. But someways, you don’t read about those sorts of things in them eastern papers. Why, they’s times I be readin’ them stories ‘bout t’war in them newspapers and wonder if that reporter feller is in the same country as me. Shore is a strange place those fellers describe, this Iraq they see. Mebbe they oughter come out on patrol with me and the boys sometimes. Might change their way of lookin’ at things. Leastwise, I think t’would.

Then again, mebbe this feller’s right and I oughter get checked out by one of them psychologicals when I make it back home. I shore don wanna be tearing around the county killin’ folk and rapin’ no womern. I think folks kinda made that sorta thing illegal a while back – leastways ‘roundyear.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin wonders if anyone will ask the Democratic candidates about the article at tonight’s YouTube debate?

I think it may be more compelling to ask them if, in light of this dastardly attack on the military and the men and women who serve, they still intend to speak before the Kos shindig?

And perhaps a question for all Democrats: These are people claiming to represent the “mainstream” of your party. Satisfied?

The Editor of The New Republic Franklin Foer must be feeling very lonely today. His boss, Martin Peretz, has yet to rush to his defense in the Scott Thomas controversy. The left has been skewering The New Republic for months over their criticisms of the netroots and their undue influence on the Democratic party and not surprisingly, are either questioning the Thomas stories along with their conservative blogging brethren or maintaining a pregnant silence on the matter.

Foer is maintaining a stiff upper lip and stonewalling as if his job depended on it. Come to think of it, that’s not far off the mark. Given that Foer admitted yesterday that he failed to check out the Thomas stories until questions were raised by conservative bloggers about the veracity of many of the incidents catalogued by the anonymous diarist, Foer may not be out the door as Editor quite yet. But Peretz’s silence could signal that he’s being handed his hat.

One shaky strut after another that has kept the Thomas Saga from collapsing in a heap has been yanked away by a combination of Milblogger expertise and simple common sense. Greyhawk was one of the first to weigh in with some pretty compelling evidence:

How far into The New Republic’s fabricated war story did I have to get to recognize it was a fabricated story? Answer: Not very far. Here’s the first line:

I saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq.

Here’s a true war story. One late night near Baghdad, my unit’s First Sergeant and I went to the local USAF passenger terminal to pick up a newly arrived troop. Because food is important to survival and morale, the first place we took our newbie was the DFAC - the Dining Facility. (Pronounced DEEFAK with emphasis on the first syllable.) AS I said, it was late, so as we pulled into the parking area Top asked a passing soldier “Hey, what time does the chow hall close?”. His response was a blank stare, and a “huh?”. He moved closer to the vehicle.

“What time does the Chow Hall close?” The First Sergeant repeated. The soldier began to appear confused, and was unable to respond. Something clicked in my head. “He doesn’t know what a chow hall is” I said. The term is outdated, appearing now only in old war movies on TV, but Top and I are old school. “What time does the DFAC close?” Asked the First Sergeant.

“Twenty hundred hours” he replied smartly. He wasn’t being a smart ass, he was completely unfamiliar with the term “chow hall”. (By the way, it was closed, so we ate at Pizza Hut that night. I paid. War is hell.)

Small details like that have been picked out and chewed over by military or ex-military readers of many blogs. Taken separately, they are not really that compelling. But the fact that there are so many little discrepancies like the one described above – including eyewitnesses at “FOB Falcon” denying the specifics of most of Thomas’ charges and where most of the alleged bad behavior was said to have taken place by Thomas – leaves the reader wondering how Foer fell for this propaganda in the first place.

The answer, apparently, is that he wanted to. By issuing a statement yesterday in which he admitted that The New Republic failed to properly vett the story in the first place, Foer proved that he could have cared less about accuracy or truth when it came to publishing a story so damaging to the reputation of American military personnel. Either that, or he’s incompetent as an editor.

Either reason would be enough to warrant his removal. Unless Foer can come up with some credible evidence that his source is trustworthy and that at least some of the incidents reported weren’t made up out of whole cloth, The New Republic will probably be looking for another Editor very soon.

The case of Scott Thomas and TNR v. The Truth is not going to be resolved by anything bloggers can unearth. Nor are questions about the credibility of The New Republic and the stories of Scott Thomas going to be laid to rest by anything the magazine can do by itself.

The only way to discover the truth of the matter is for the magazine to form a committee of people independent of both conservative blogs and The New Republic in order to investigate the stories.

I urge this course of action on The New Republic as someone who has been a reader of the magazine for going on 40 years. My father had a lifetime subscription to The New Republic and as long as I lived at home as well as during my many visits to our house during my mother’s extended illness, I made a point of reading it. I was never a subscriber but have sought out the publication at news stands and other places all my professional life. I consider The New Republic one of the indispensable publications in America today. Over the years, it has consistently challenged my assumptions, rounded out my knowledge of current events, and informed me as have few other publications.

But the questions swirling around the veracity of Scott Thomas, the pseudonymous soldier who wrote an article for the magazine detailing bad behavior by the American military, will not go away because of any internal investigation carried out by the magazine. And the reason is very simple; no one would believe them. The magazine’s problems with former writer Stephen Glass perhaps unfairly places a larger burden of proof upon them than would normally be the case. Beyond that, their well known anti-war editorial stance presupposes a bias to believe the Scott Thomas stories – a fact made abundantly clear by Editor Franklin Foer’s “Note to our Readers:”

Several conservative blogs have raised questions about the Diarist “Shock Troops,” written by a soldier in Iraq using the pseudonym Scott Thomas. Whenever anybody levels serious accusations against a piece published in our magazine, we take those charges seriously. Indeed, we’re in the process of investigating them. I’ve spoken extensively with the author of the piece and have communicated with other soldiers who witnessed the events described in the diarist. Thus far, these conversations have done nothing to undermine—and much to corroborate—the author’s descriptions. I will let you know more after we complete our investigation.

The fact that Foer waited until questions started to arise over the veracity of the article before he spoke with the author of the piece and “communicated with other soldiers who witnessed the events” described by Thomas can only mean one thing; this kind of rigorous vetting of the story and its sources was not done prior to publication.

Simply put, The New Republic cannot be trusted to carry out an internal investigation of their own to either confirm the accuracy of the incidents in question or the integrity of the writer.

(For an excellent look at all the questions raised by bloggers about these stories, see this post by Michael Goldfarb and then go back to “Main” and start scrolling. He has 8-10 entries on the matter.)

An inquiry made up of respected journalists would be able to resolve the matter fairly quickly and to everyone’s satisfaction. For that reason, I call upon Franklin Foer to set up such a committee and have them begin work immediately. The reputation of the United States military as well as the integrity of The New Republic are at stake.

UPDATE

Bryan at Hot Air:

Given Foer’s smear as quoted by Kurtz, he should not be be trusted when he comes out in a few days or weeks and says “It’s all true. I can’t show you any evidence or introduce you to a single corroborating witness, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.” No sale. Foer has done nothing to earn anyone’s trust, and his magazine has a peculiar history that mandates a very careful and thorough investigation and a very honest and complete rendering of a verdict. It doesn’t look like we’ll get that from Foer.

What Foer and TNR will get if they hunker down and keep lashing out at legitimate criticism is some nutroots cred for publishing smears of US troops in combat. Sad to say, that may be the end goal here.

I was inclined to believe Foer was serious about checking the facts until I read his comments to Kurtz about the controversy. Now the need for an independent inquiry is made manifest by Foer’s arrogance.

And Michelle Malkin has a piece highlighting the military service of the “9/11 Generation.” All the more reason to urge The New Republic to get it right and not smear the reputations of these fine young men and women.

Does anyone care anymore?

In 10,000 years that garbage you’re taking out today after the little woman nags you about it long enough will become priceless artifacts. Future archaeologists will puzzle over that broken coffee mug with the picture of a naked woman on it and wonder if she was some kind of goddess or perhaps a representation of your wife.

Maybe you should leave a note.

It won’t matter because the paper your note is written on won’t survive. Nor will 50% of the rest of our bio-degradable garbage which will leave a lot of real nasty stuff those future scientists will have to go through in order to extract a few nuggets of history that will tell future humans all about us.

In 10,000 years, no one will remember Nancy Pelosi. No one will remember George Bush either. They may rate a line or two in some obscure scholar’s dissertation on primitive nation-state politics but I doubt it. History will lose track of them as she forgets so many others. Clio is really quite selective about what people and events are clasped to her bosom and carried through the centuries to be examined and debated by those in the future whose calling is to explain the past to their contemporaries.

The millions of words spoken and written in anger or passion or to persuade others over Iraq these last years will have completely disappeared, are already disappearing as the relentless march of time burns away all but the most influential or seminal of events and people. What’s left is in turn ground to powder and the remainder sifted through the ages until the essence of an entire century or more will be distilled for consumption.

This doesn’t make what’s happening today any less important. But it does give us a sobering perspective on how, in the long, tangled skein of people, events, and ideas that make up the history of the last 100 years – the wars, the ideology, the clashes of civilization and wills, – almost all of it will be seen as nothing more than sound and fury signifying nothing if it is remembered at all.

Except for the moon landing, of course.

You can’t find much in newspapers or on the news nets about the 38th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon which was actually yesterday, July 20th (The moonwalk occurred early on the 21st.). Bloggers desperate for something to write about contributed more than a thousand posts to the historical discussion with an unknown number reminding everyone that the landing was a hoax, that all the moon footage was shot on a Hollywood backlot.

I have no doubt that for the foreseeable future, this kind of ho-hum reaction will greet subsequent anniversaries marking the achievement of Apollo 11. It isn’t that the event has lost its importance as much as its distance in time allows for a diminishing in the importance of the actual memory of the occasion. So much has happened between then and now that even though the moon landing may be the only thing remembered about the times in which we live 10,000 years hence, Apollo 11 today has a lot of competition when it comes to available space in our brains for recalling the past.

Then there are those who don’t see what all the fuss is about, that the accomplishment was a waste of resources that could have been better spent or not spent at all. From a purely rationalist point of view, there may be something to that argument – especially given the fact that NASA failed miserably in following up on its achievement in landing on the moon to go on to bigger and better things. No permanent space station – unless you include that over priced, over sold, under performing piece of space junk called the “International Space Station” we have orbiting now.

No trip to Mars. Not even a trip back to the moon to set up some kind of base of operations for future exploration. Only a fairly dangerous, earth orbit bound space truck called the Shuttle whose life has been extended because the NASA bureaucracy can’t figure out how to dream big dreams anymore. Apparently, there is no manual or position paper on how to capture the essential hunger felt by most people for human exploration of the universe to be found in any of the offices of NASA’s top bureaucrats.

A pity. Their predecessors who cooked up the Apollo program in response to a challenge from our ideological opponents in the old Soviet Union were, if nothing else, dreamers. They were also inveterate gamblers. There may never have been nor will there ever be any project undertaken so fraught with danger and risk for the participants as the Apollo program.

Think of it. In 1962 when the program was just getting underway, America had put exactly 3 men into space, only one of them into earth orbit. By making the decision to land on the moon and return safely by the end of the decade, NASA had its work cut out for it. Not only new technologies would have to be developed but entire industries would have to be created in order to meet Kennedy’s ambitious goal. There has never been an effort in peacetime like it in history. More than $24 billion would be spent (about $120 billion in today’s dollars) to make that dream a reality.

Nearly 500,000 human beings would lay their hands on at least one of the millions of parts that made up the Apollo 11 spacecraft. This dwarfs the number of people who worked on the Manhattan Project to build the A-Bomb, the Panama Canal, and the Pyramids put together. A study done in 1972 revealed that more than 25% of all the man hours worked on the project were in the form of unpaid overtime. This is because by 1968, after the fire of Apollo 1 that killed 3 astronauts along with subsequent delays in the delivery of the Lunar Module (LM), Congress was threatening to cut the program off at the knees.

In effect, NASA was launching a 37 story building, aiming it at a moving target orbiting the earth at more than 2200 miles per hour, 240,000 miles away with a spacecraft travelling more than 19,000 MPH. Some engineers in the early days of Apollo privately believed that the feat would be impossible, that the astronauts were doomed. The technical challenges were enormous. The Saturn V booster would have to generate more than 7,000,000 pounds of thrust to get the behemoth off the ground. The Lunar Lander, the first vehicle designed to be used exclusively in space, was the size of a mini-van and contained two stages.

The second stage was supposed to lift the astronauts off the surface when they were ready to leave and on Apollo 11, it had never been tested in space before. If it failed to work, there was no back up, no rescue plan. President Nixon was told that given all the uncertainties, there was a one in five chance that the astronauts would be left stranded on the moon unable to return (Neil Armstrong gave himself a 50-50 chance of coming home). He even had Bill Safire write a speech in case the mission failed.

Why should this date in history lose its significance as the years pass? There has never been an achievement in the history of mankind that summed up all that is good and noble in the human soul as Apollo 11. Yes the reasons for going to the moon may have been petty and selfish. But the achievement itself represents the best of what we are – thinking, rational animals with an insatiable curiosity of what is beyond the next horizon. NASA may have forgotten this. But the dream itself is alive and well thanks to a small group of outriders on the very frontiers of science who have started their own private space ventures. In the next decade, the novelty of space tourism will dominate this industry. But eventually, the drive for profit will send people hurtling into the void to exploit the resources and raw materials found on other heavenly bodies in our solar system.

Like NASA of the 1960’s, their reasons may be selfish and petty. But the very act of exploration will once again confirm the fact that regardless of politics or economics, the destiny of man is out there somewhere and everywhere in the universe. And it won’t be the ossified bureaucrats in governments who will lead this quest. It will be the dreamers and the risk takers whose own small steps will turn into giant leaps for all of us in the not too distant future.

A beautiful summer day in the great ex-urbs of Chicago it is. About 75 degrees not a cloud in the sky. But August is just over the horizon – like the day’s new sun lightening the eastern sky. August is usually hell month here on the prairie what with heat and humidity unrelenting in its ferocity.

When I was a kid, we had no air conditioning which is why we all hated August. I can distinctly remember some nights lying in a pool of my own sweat, feeling the heat like a large hand clutching my chest, knowing that my other two brothers sleeping in the same room were wide awake also. If it got too bad, my mother would let us go down in the basement where it was always a good 20 degrees cooler.

For all the talk of global warming – and Al Gore is the only one stupid enough to take the temperature from one year or even a decade and try and make a point that the planet is warming up – I think it is actually cooler these last few years in August than it was in the 60’s and 70’s. Or perhaps when I get older, the heat doesn’t bother me as much.

The cold certainly does. And after August, comes September, football – and fall. My bones creak at the thought of another Chicago winter. My friend Louie the barber and I talk about it constantly. For him, it opening a little barbershop in St. Pete’s. I’m more of a Panhandle man myself. Maybe Zsu Zsu and I could find ourselves a little beach house on the gulf coast. Day trips to Biloxi. Overnights to New Orleans (if they ever rebuild it).

And speaking of Katrina, get a load of this diary that was featured at DailyKos:

“I have never in my 50 years of life been more frightened then I am now. I have seen the arrogance of this White House and the massive damage done to our country. But the Katrina-size storm clouds are gathering folks. If we do not wake up now and flood Congress to impeach the President and Vice President, one year from now, Daily Kos may be banned and Markos himself may be disappeared, in a federal prison somewhere.

Even as I write these words I feel like a wild-eyed nutcase. If it were not for the OH SO REAL danger this country faces in the next 15 months or so as the people in power see their own doom and are determined to prevent their expulsion from power by suspending next year’s elections and declaring martial law WHEN the next 9/11 comes or events that can be construed as a national emergency to “justify” such actions, I would be holding my tongue and crossing my fingers.

There are times when words of condemnation or hilarity just won’t do. The English language is an extraordinary invention – a riot of tonal images and visual noises. But in the case of this deluded infant, there is no language ever invented, no picture ever drawn, no music ever recorded that could begin to describe such utter nonsense.

It gets better. Much better:

If we cross our fingers hard enough and hold our breath (and close our eyes, and tap our ruby slippers together) maybe we’ll wake up to a beautiful new dawn January 20, 2009. Maybe even Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny will help elect a Democratic White House and stronger Democratic Congress.

What will it take to wake US up, let alone the average out-of-touch-with-reality American? What will it take? I thought about martial law the other day and I never thought I would actually hope illegal militias in the United States would be our final hope against a real dictatorship – that Americans will rise up with arms against a dictatorial government.

A Kossack pleading for help from the forest people? A progressive in good standing asking for help to save the United States from the Aryan Kluxers who slink through the jungles of the American northwest waiting for the race war and the fulfillment of The Turner Diaries? We are looking for our salvation from these guys? These inbred goober chewing yip yips are going to go up against the United States Army and win the day?

Don’t you find it just a little bit interesting that the diarist himself would never even contemplate taking up arms to defend the Constitution, to defend freedom?

More please:

But I fear even that hope is farfetched. Remember 9/11? Remember how most Americans were rah-rah patriotic (including me) and flying flags everywhere and supporting the President at 90% approval (including me)? Now I don’t know how and if we will have a disaster equal in casualties to 9/11 or worse, but even a series of London type bombings killing “only” a few dozen Americans may be all that is needed to institute martial law and cause most Americans, in fear, to rally around a President who warned them Al Quada was after us and that he will protect us with extraordinary means. He will say “these measures” are now needed to ensure no further attacks are done.

....This is deadly serious folks. This is not just another diary. We ignore this threat at our own peril. I would suggest even I in writing articles like this and the many writers at Daily Kos are personally at risk of being arrested in a future dictatorial United States. The government will use these writings as an excuse to put us away.

The diarist – whose moniker slw606 could either be referring to the ward and room number of the mental institution he’s in or his Home Depot employee number – without any irony whatsoever sadly concludes that his wish for the far right militias to take out the Bush Administration is “farfetched.”

Someone remind me why they call themselves the reality based community?

And if I have to sit and read one more dire warning about the Bushies pulling off “another 9/11” (presupposing they were responsible for the first one) in order to set up a dictatorship I’m going to turn in my Daily Kos Super Decoder Ring and tear up my copy of the Liberal Manifesto. When another attack happens – just as the left did with Katrina – before the bodies are cold they’re going to be screaming that it was Bush’s fault, that it’s just a plot to set up a fascist state.

And, of course, when the elections go off without a hitch and the peaceful transfer of power is achieved as it has been done every four years in the history of the republic, what then my friends? Will you smile a sheepish smile and say how wrong you were? Will you finally realize how deluded your fantasies have been these last 6 years?

Too easy.

The gentleman is right that “this is not just another diary.” It is full blown moonbattery in its finest, truest sense. But what do we make of this?

“I would suggest even I in writing articles like this and the many writers at Daily Kos are personally at risk of being arrested in a future dictatorial United States. The government will use these writings as an excuse to put us away.”

I must say, that’s heroic. Monumentally brave. What about me, though? Am I at risk? I only criticize the Bushies a little bit so maybe they’ll let me be. Should I stop calling Bush names?

I am not a violent man. But am I the only one who wants to grab this idiot by the shoulders and start slapping his face, hoping against hope that it will knock some sense into him?

Finally:

I say WAKE UP Daily Kos!! If the people at Daily Kos cannot take this seriously and try and do something about it, then the United States, as a free country IS doomed. Enjoy your freedom to read and write at such sites as Daily Kos, because that freedom will be taken away WHEN Bush declares martial law.

I will take it as seriously as it deserves. Which is not seriously at all.

(Hat Tip: John Hawkins)

Amid talk of end games, withdrawals, and timetables for the American military leaving Iraq, precious little is being said of the consequences if we stay, albeit with a much reduced force.

Yes more Americans will die. And more Iraqis. Perhaps many more Iraqis if some of the more extremist Shia elements get their way. But frankly, I’m puzzled by those who wish to see the US military policing Baghdad for the next ten years as well as those who think withdrawing every American soldier from Iraq is the best outcome available.

This piece by Timothy Garton Ash appearing in the Los Angeles Times actually makes the case – unintentionally – that we should not only stay in Iraq but institute a draft and take the country to a full war footing:

In an article for the Web magazine Open Democracy, Middle East specialist Fred Halliday spells out some regional consequences. Besides the effective destruction of the Iraqi state, these include the revitalizing of militant Islamism and enhancement of the international appeal of the Al Qaeda brand; the eruption, for the first time in modern history, of internecine war between Sunni and Shiite, “a trend that reverberates in other states of mixed confessional composition”; the alienation of most sectors of Turkish politics from the West and the stimulation of authoritarian nationalism there; the strengthening of a nuclear-hungry Iran; and a new regional rivalry pitting the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies, including Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, against Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

For the United States, the world is now, as a result of the Iraq war, a more dangerous place. At the end of 2002, what is sometimes tagged “Al Qaeda Central” in Afghanistan had been virtually destroyed, and there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2007, there is an Al Qaeda in Iraq, parts of the old Al Qaeda are creeping back into Afghanistan and there are Al Qaeda emulators spawning elsewhere, notably in Europe.

Osama bin Laden’s plan was to get the U.S. to overreact and overreach itself. With the invasion of Iraq, Bush fell slap-bang into that trap. The U.S. government’s own latest National Intelligence Estimate, released this week, suggests that Al Qaeda in Iraq is now among the most significant threats to the security of the American homeland.

Would someone please tell me why, after listing the most dire consequences that will flow from our withdrawal that anyone in their right mind would even contemplate such a move?

Why give up and leave when the world will fall upon our head? Why remove all of our troops if our strategic position in the Middle East will suffer such a grievous blow? Why skedaddle and give Osama Bin Laden his victory?

The de facto argument of people like Ash and those on the left is that there is nothing that can be done to prevent this catastrophe so we might as well get out of the way and allow it to happen. Obama said as much yesterday with regard to Sunni genocide:

Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea,” he said.

It is bothersome that liberals like Obama can’t differentiate between a humanitarian mission where American interests (oil, economic, strategic) are not in play and a place like Iraq where we are not only responsible for breaking the china but have spent the last 4 years stumbling around like a blindfolded bull in a curio shop. Iraq is, if nothing else, of extraordinary importance to our national security and our interest in seeing that the free flow of cheap oil continues from the Middle East.

But this is much to selfish for the average lefty. When they look in the mirror, they want to see self-sacrifice as the price of going to war. It feeds their heroic self-image to believe that we are sacrificing American lives (not theirs, of course) for no discernible American advantage. Grubby questions about whether military action would benefit the United States in any way simply never enters into the equation. And if they do, the questions are dismissed or disparaged as “war mongering.”

We saw the exact same crap in Kosovo and Bosnia. Liberals are not in favor of military action unless it can be seen as an act of self-abnegation. This explains a lot about why they wish to see such a precipitate and total withdrawal from Iraq. They want to punish the United States for acting in its own interest.

But is it true that all is lost in Iraq? Can any of the consequences listed by Ash above be mitigated or stopped?

Of course they can. We can’t create a civil society in Iraq with our military. That much is certainly true. But preventing a regional Shia-Sunni war? I daresay with 130,000 troops (even fewer if you believe people like Senators Lugar and Domenici) we can keep the two sides outside of Iraq from going at each other’s throats. Preventing the “destruction of the Iraqi state?” With enough troops, this too is possible. It won’t be a healthy state. It won’t be a democracy (if we can get Bush to drop his unquestioned support for the sectarian killers who are currently running Iraq). But with enough troops we can continue to battle al-Qaeda while our very presence may deter the worst of the sectarian massacres.

Turkey’s internal political struggles will continue whether we are in or out of Iraq. But it would help Prime Minister Erdogan in maintaining a secular state if we could reinforce the 3,000 troops we already have at the border and work with our NATO ally to prevent the Kurdish terrorists from striking inside Turkey.

Also with enough American troops in Iraq, Iran would feel constrained from being too aggressive. Yes, they’d meddle in Iraqi affairs and keep up the pressure elsewhere using their proxies to stir up trouble. But Iran has their own internal problems and it’s an open question just how the future will play out. And, of course, Iraq could be the launching pad for any kind of strike at Iran if it ever became necessary – something that would certainly play on the minds of the Iranian leadership if we stay in sufficient numbers.

The point is anything is better than the catastrophe outlined above and echoed by many experts who see our withdrawal in such stark, unforgiving terms. Are all of these people so anxious to see their prophecies fulfilled that they can’t wait for American troops to leave so that the show can begin? To not even try to head off this monumental blow to our security is just plain daffy.

And to my righty friends who insist on believing that victory on the battlefield will translate into an Iraq with a functioning government that represents all the people while creating some kind of viable, multi-sectarian state I would point out that the military doesn’t do faith. Nor do they do trust. Nor do they do hope. And without those three attributes, Iraqi society will remain what it is today – a broken mess teeming with hate and vengeance.

If we are going to salvage something from this military adventure while heading off the worst of the fallout from our invasion and occupation, we are going to have to get used to the idea that while the security situation may become tolerable, Iraq will not improve dramatically for many years. In the interregnum, the death squads will be ever present while the elements pushing for a “cleansing” of Sunnis from the country will continue to agitate for genocide. It will not be pretty nor will it be democratic. But if we can maintain a large enough force there, it may prevent the kind of catastrophe that so many experts are predicting but failing to offer any rationale why this is acceptable.

And Bush? If Iraq is as important as he says it is. If the stakes are so high. If it is a matter of the highest national security interest of the United States that we stay in Iraq and continue to involve ourselves directly in this civil war, then why only 160,000 men? Why not strip foreign postings of troops and send them to Iraq? Why not call up the rest of the reserves, initiate a draft, put a gun in the hand of any soldier that can walk and send them to points north, south, east, and west in that bloody country to truly get a handle on all aspects of the security situation; the insurgency, al-Qaeda, the militias, the foreign jihadists – anyone who opposes the government or us?

If Iraq was that important, shouldn’t we be doing at least some of these things? Bush will have a lot to answer for from history but his monumental failure in articulating what is at stake in Iraq while failing to make his actions match his rhetoric will be perhaps his greatest blunder. No wonder the American people want out. When their president has failed so miserably in giving them logical, coherent reasons to support the mission, why not just give up and go home?

We can still prevent the kind of catastrophe mentioned by Halliday and predicted by many others. Unfortunately, it would take leadership to do so. A leader in the White House that would do everything in his power to prevent the unthinkable. But Bush seems oblivious to differentiating between his vision for Iraq and what is actually required to avoid a serious blow to American interests. And that kind of stubbornness will truly lead to a disaster of epic proportions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ed Morrissey of Captains Quarters will interview Senator John McCain today at 1:00 PM central on his show CQ Radio which can be heard on the Blog Talk Radio network.

This is a great coup for Ed and a big boost for everyone at Blog Talk Radio. If you’d like to call in and talk to the Senator, the number is (646) 652-4889.

You can access the live show beginning at 1:00 PM central by visiting the show’s website.

UPDATE

Ed has asked me to join him following the interview to give the perspective of a war critic. It should be interesting.