Right Wing Nut House

Being heartily sick of politics, I have decided to take a few days to recharge the batteries.

Every once and a while, the 14 hour a day grind gets to me and I have to step back and remove myself from the action for a couple of days. Nothing serious, I assure you. I very much wanted to write about GOP reform and the battle underway to cleanse the party of anyone deemed a RINO. I may do so on Sunday or Monday, whenever the spirit moves me to resume. Not blogging yesterday and today allowed me some precious time between my morning gig at AT and afternoon responsibilities at PJM. I got to see what Sue looks like these days - just before she heads off to Ohio for several weeks tomorrow to fill in for her daughter in law who is having surgery.

The prospect of a bachleorhood redux is depressing. I’ve grown accustomed to sharing responsibilities around here and it will be quite lonely without my Zsu-Zsu.

So come back Sunday or Monday. Or peruse the archives if you wish.

There are few of us who haven’t made up their minds about whether torture is immoral, illegal, or both/neither. But wherever you come down on this issue, good arguments and thoughtful writing should never be ignored or dismissed out of hand simply because you disagree with it. In fact, I find that reading opposing viewpoints - when they are argued rationally and with a minimum of bombast - help clarify my own thinking and sometimes, even alter my position on an issue.

Not this time. But Commentary’s Peter Wehner has a great piece that tries to set some moral parameters for torture that are well argued and well written. Such clear thinking - even though I believe him wrong - should be commended given all the crap that has been sloughed off as “commentary” on both sides of this issue.

I can appreciate Wehner’s struggle to understand the moral universe he inhabits and seek exceptions and clarifications to the idea of using torture. The problem as I see it is he has adopted the “ticking bomb” scenario that has been thoroughly debunked by people much more knowledgeable than I about terrorism. And there is a troubling detachment on Peter’s part that disconnects what many of us consider the absolute moral wrong of torture as he seeks wiggle room in a kind of moral relativism that I don’t think he would ordinarily embrace.

Wehner’s attempts to “define down” what is torture and what isn’t misses the point that what was done was illegal. Can a moral good (or morally neutral) action be found in breaking the law? It can if, as Wehner attempts to do, you twist the ends/means argument into a pretzel. He also brings up the straw man argument about some of our military going through the SERE program (that I dealt with here) as well as the fact that others have endured it so, he reasons, it can’t be all that bad.

Finally, Wehner employs the argument that because torture “worked,” this should be taken into account when judging the morality of its use during the Bush administration.

To begin, allow me to quote extensively from a Daniel Larison post as he responds to a piece by Jim Manzi who asks, “[W]hy is the belief that the torture of captured combatants is wrong compatible with anything other than some form of pacifism? I mean this an actual question, not as a passive-aggressive assertion.”

Larison swallows hard and lets him have it:

One of the things that has kept me from saying much over the last week or so is my sheer amazement that there are people who seriously pose such questions and expect to be answered with something other than expressions of bafflement and moral horror. Something else that has kept me from writing much on this recently is the profoundly dispiriting realization (really, it is just a reminder) that it is torture and aggressive war that today’s mainstream right will go to the wall to defend, while any and every other view can be negotiated, debated, compromised or abandoned. I have started doubting whether people who are openly pro-torture or engaged in the sophistry of Manzi’s post are part of the same moral universe as I am, and I have wondered whether there is even a point in contesting such torture apologia as if they were reasonable arguments deserving of real consideration. Such fundamental assumptions at the core of our civilization should not have to be re-stated or justified anew, and the fact that they have to be is evidence of how deeply corrupted our political life has become, but if such basic norms are not reinforced it seems clear that they will be leeched away over time.

[snip]

mplicit in Manzi’s entire post is the rejection of any distinction between combatant and non-combatant, which tells me that he either doesn’t understand or doesn’t accept the concept of limited war. For him, unless one is a pacifist, one must endorse total war. In such a view, there would be nothing immoral about the summary execution or cruel and inhumane treatment of POWs, since the latter would have been targeted for death while they were still combatants. After all, if torturing such prisoners is not immoral, as Manzi seems to say it is not, what could possibly be wrong with killing them? That is where one must ultimately end up once the distinctions between combatant and non-combatant are erased or blurred, and it is the barbaric conclusion one will eventually reach if one does not start from the assumption that war itself is a sometimes-necessary evil and that it is morally justifiable only under specific circumstances and within certain limits. One of those limits is that captured combatants are to be treated humanely, and when we go down the road towards easing those restrictions we taint not only the institutions responsible for national security with crimes but we also abandon any real claim to moral integrity.

Larison’s argument might be viewed as the absolutist view of torture. I might disagree with the extent he worries about the corrupting nature of torture but there is no dismissing the line in the sand he has drawn - a line I accept for practical, rational, and moral reasons as well.

Wehner? Not so much:

Critics of enhanced interrogation techniques have taken to saying that Americans don’t torture, period – meaning in this instance that we do not engage in coercive interrogation techniques ranging from sleep deprivation to prolonged loud noise and/or bright lights to waterboarding. Anyone who holds the opposite view is a moral cretin and guilty of “arrant inhumanity.” Or so the argument goes.

Methinks Peter listens too much to liberal bomb throwers and besides, this is a gross oversimplification and something of a straw man. But to continue:

But this posture begins to come apart under examination. For one thing, the issue of “torture” itself needs to be put in a moral context and on a moral continuum. Waterboarding is a very nasty technique for sure – but it is considerably different (particularly in the manner administered by the CIA) than, say, mutilation with electric drills, rape, splitting knees, or forcing a terrorist to watch his children suffer and die in order to try to elicit information from him.

The question Peter leaves unanswered is whether it is legal or illegal? How can you make a moral judgment about torture — and defining down what is torture is irrelevant to whether it meets the definition under the law — without taking into consideration the moral imperative to obey the law? Wehner is pouring quicksand and doesn’t realize the ground is shifting beneath his feet.

I certainly wouldn’t want to undergo waterboarding – but while a very harsh technique, it is one that was applied in part because it would do far less damage to a person than other techniques. It is also surely relevant that waterboarding was not used randomly and promiscuously, but rather on three known terrorists. And of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program, according to Michael Hayden, President Bush’s last CIA director, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey – and of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of the techniques discussed in the memos on enhanced interrogation.

“Far less damage” as opposed to electrodes and thumbscrews but again, it avoids what Wehner apparently doesn’t want to face; the fact that the civilized world has proscribed the practice in words of unmistakable clarity — unless you are seeking a moral “out” and wish to begin to parse pain and suffering.

US law, the Geneva Accords, and the UN Convention Against Torture all use language that clearly makes the physical and psychological pain of waterboarding a form of torture. The fact that our servicemen are not being held as prisoners and therefore not subject to the law’s protections as well as being volunteers who fully realize the nature of the exercise makes Wehner’s use of the SERE argument nothing more than a strawman set up to excuse torture.

Wehner’s thesis really goes off the rails when he tries to imply that moral relativeness, when evaluating torture, should be employed to blur the ends/means distinction. He dubiously invokes Senator Charles Schumer’s thoughts during a Congressional hearing on torture back in 2004 where the New York lawmaker invokes the “ticking bomb” scenario as one exception to torture. Here’s Schumer:

Take the hypothetical: if we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believe that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most Senators, maybe all, would do what you have to do. So it’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you’re in the fox hole, it’s a very different deal.

Wehner eagerly embraces the hypothetical and runs with it:

Apropos of Schumer’s comments, critics of enhanced interrogation techniques need to wrestle with a set of questions they like to avoid: if you knew using waterboarding against a known terrorist may well elicit information that would stop a massive attack on an American city, would you still insist it never be used? Do you oppose the use of waterboarding if it would save a thousand innocent lives? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? What exactly is the point, if any, at which you believe waterboarding might be justified? I simply don’t accept that those who answer “never” are taking a morally superior stand to those who answer “sometimes, in extremely rare circumstances and in very limited cases.”

First, it is an absolute impossibility to know that “using waterboarding against a known terrorist may well elicit information” that could prevent an attack. That is sophistry on a stick. We might also “know” that pulling his fingernails out might get him to talk if waterboarding doesn’t work. And we wouldn’t know, for instance, whether this particular terrorist had been specifically trained to resist waterboarding or other forms of torture - at least long enough to fail in our efforts to stop a “ticking bomb” attack.

The whole ticking bomb scenario needs to be dumped by torture defenders. It does their argument no good to posit a hypothetical that is more the product of fantasy than possibility.

A good debunking of the ticking bomb myth can be found in an article published in Public Affairs Quarterly last year by Jamie Mayerfield, associate professor of political science at the University of Washington:

Among the many unrealistic elements of the ticking bomb hypothetical, I give
particular attention to the exaggerated degree of certainty attributed to our belief in the prisoner’s guilt. In the scenario we are fully certain that the individual in our custody has launched an attack on civilians and is now withholding the information needed to save the civilians’ lives. Such certainty is unrealistic. Any realistic approximation of the ticking bomb scenario creates too high a risk that an innocent person will be tortured.

The made-to-order features of the ticking bomb scenario blind us to torture’s
reality. In the real world, torture “yields poor information, sweeps up many innocents, degrades organizational capabilities, and destroys interrogators.”7 Consider the problem of false information, which not only causes delays, swallows man hours, and leads down blind alleys, but can also encourage disastrous choices.

Below I discuss how the Bush administration used false information extracted
under torture to help justify the Iraq war. In this case, torture did not save lives, but helped bring about a great many deaths. Torture also inflames enemies, alienates friends, and scares away informants. And it spreads.

These dangers, purged from the ticking bomb hypothetical, are inseparable from actual torture. Yet public attention is consumed by the hypothetical. Obsession with the better-than-best case scenario warps our thinking about torture. We overlook torture’s dangers and exaggerate its effectiveness. By now, the ticking bomb narrative has acquired its own momentum, but fear and anger do much to keep it aloft.

Mayerfield’s point is well taken; because the ticking bomb scenario has not only permeated our culture through fictional variations found in TV, novels, and films, but also because it has been eagerly embraced by many torture apologists, it has become a rote defense even though there has never in history been a situation that remotely resembles it. Mayerfield, like Larison above, may exaggerate the dangers of torture to America’s soul but that doesn’t obviate his point that justifying torture in one, limited case can open the door to its use in other scenarios as well.

So the answer to Peter’s question regarding whether torture condemners would use waterboarding if it could save “a thousand innocent lives? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand?” is irrelevant because its impossible to answer a hypothetical that doesn’t exist except on TV and in film.

And Mayerfield’s point about torture being hugely unreliable is spot on as well. I don’t buy the flat statement that torture doesn’t work, or never works. It wouldn’t have been in use for thousands of years unless it did. The problem with it is its unreliability as a means to accurate information. Those thousands of lives Peter wishes to save by waterboarding a terrorist wouldn’t be worth spit if the bomber lied under torture about everything.

The fact that we simply couldn’t be sure means but would have to act as if the terrorist was telling the truth. Suppose while the authorities were off on a wild goose chase the bomb went off and killed those thousands of innocents? That nice moral house of cards torture defenders have built up would collapse in a heap. Is bad information better than no information at all — or good information that might have been extracted using interrogation techniques other than torture?

Wehner answers this argument by trying to make the case that the good information we extracted via torture saved lives and therefore, the ends justifies the means because saving so many innocents is an absolute moral good in and of itself. It is a strange argument considering Peter’s moral waffling earlier in his piece.

On the substantive level, there is the question of the efficacy of enhanced interrogation techniques. There is an intense debate surrounding this matter, but we can certainly say that respected members of the intelligence world insist that innocent Americans are today alive because we employed a set of coercive interrogation techniques. According to Hayden and Mukasey, “As late as 2006, fully half of the government’s knowledge about the structure and activities of Al Qaeda came from those interrogations.” Former CIA Director George Tenet said, “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than [what] the FBI, the [CIA], and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.” And former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has said, “We have people walking around in this country that are alive today because this process happened.”

I will ignore the dubious employment of authority by Peter of people who may go on trial for crimes related to what they are defending and only point out what Peter himself admits later:

It seems unlikely that asking a jihadist his surname, first name and rank, date of birth, army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information – which is what the Geneva Conventions say ought to apply to prisoners of war but not, historically, to unlawful enemy combatants – would elicit as much information as coercive interrogation techniques. Dennis Blair, Obama’s national intelligence director, admitted to his staff that “high value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding” of al Qaeda. (Once Blair’s memo was revealed, he added this caveat: “There is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means.”

Why does Wehner concoct this strawman of “name, rank, and serial number?” Professional interrogators are masters of putting psychological pressure on a subject without coercive or “enhanced” interrogation techniques. It is a gross simplification to make it appear that the “either/or” options open to an interrogator would be polite banter about al-Qaeda or waterboarding.

But the key here is Blair’s statement that there was “no way of knowing” whether the exact same information could have been obtained through legal interrogation methods. The reason is because they weren’t tried or, more likely, the interrogation regime that involves non-torture wasn’t given much of a chance to work. (See this Heather McDonald piece in City Journal from 2004 where she details the initial, successful efforts of army interrogators who used psychological pressures on prisoners, walking up to the line but never crossing it.)

Thus, the interrogators who used torture became victims of their own success, leaping for the opportunity to employ torture as a short cut when such methods were unnecessary or, at the very least, non-coercive interrogations were given short shrift.

Finally, Wehner tries to excuse and justify torture because we’re at war and moral choices are hard:

There are of course serious-minded critics of enhanced interrogation techniques. But to pretend, as some critics do, that the morality of this issue is self-evident and that waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques are obviously unacceptable and something for which our nation should be ashamed is, in my judgment, not only wrong but irresponsible. When a nation is engaged in war, you hope to find in government sober people who are able to weigh competing moral goods and who take seriously their obligation to protect our nation. They may not get everything right at the time – hardly anyone does in the heat of the moment – but they should not have to face a lynch mob years after the fact (especially those in the lynch mob who blessed the activities at the time they were being used). The American public, one hopes, can see through all this. And as Nancy Pelosi might well discover, playing a role in inciting a mob can come at a cost.

“Competing moral goods?” That’s a new one when discussing torture. But here is where Peter and I agree - at least I am moving toward his position that the law is not a concrete edifice with only form and substance. What of justice? What of mitigating circumstances? Unlike the revenge seekers and out and out Bush haters, I grant the administration the benefit of their good intentions in a very difficult and morally ambiguous universe. I think they made the wrong choices - horribly wrong - but recognize that some allowance must be made when the awesome responsibilities under which those men and women were working is thrown into the mix.

It doesn’t excuse their actions. It won’t “lessen their time in purgatory” as we used to half-jokingly use as a catch-all for arguments about ethics and morals with our Viatorian teachers back in the day.

But perhaps, it should keep them out of the dock. And out of jail.

The Obama administration has declared a public health emergency as a result of the increasing number of Swine Flu cases being reported around the country and the danger that the virus could become a pandemic.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are blaming Republicans. And the president went golfing.

For those of us who are somewhat rational and take reality seriously, we might ask how in the name of all that is good and holy can the Democrats blame Republicans?

Because no Republicans voted for the president’s stimulus bill which, as Don Surber of the Daily Mail blog explains, contained $900 million for flu preparedness:

Actually, Republicans voted against the entire spending bill, which was 874.44 times as large as that single appropriation.

If we follow this silly Democratic talking point, then for every dollar spent on fighting swine flu will cost taxpayers $874.44 using Nichols example.

What is more, Republicans were right. An emergency appropriation could be made after the fact - as we do every disaster be it hurricanes, tornadoes or blizzards. Is he saying by not appropriating money for these certain disasters that Democrats favor hurricanes, tornadoes and blizzards?

Nichols is just mouthing the White House words.

Indeed. This tactic is being used to cover up the gross negligence of the White House in failing to name people to posts who are desperately needed to deal with this crisis.

No Secretary of HHS, no head of the CDC, no Surgeon General - whoops.

But as Fox News.com reports, our president left the crisis in the capable hands of his Homeland Security Secretary while he went golfing. Janet Napolatino may not know anything about her job, but  unlike the president, at least she was on the job Sunday:

President Obama went golfing and the Department of Health and Human Services is short a secretary, so other U.S. officials took the controls Sunday as the Obama administration ramps up efforts to find and isolate U.S. cases of swine flu.During a White House briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that HHS will issue a public health emergency warning that will free up resources to address the outbreak that has hit 20 Americans in five states.

Richard Besser, acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency is prepared to move millions of doses of the U.S. anti-virus stockpile to areas of early and potential outbreaks.

Besser said the flu’s spread is in its early stages and the current situation is “extremely unpredictable.” He said the government will provide “daily” updates on the number of confirmed cases and provide advice and intervene at the local level as conditions warrant.

Bad enough he’s playing golf but does he have to look this dorky while doing it?

Our “hip” president looks decidedly “suburban” in this picture. I guess they couldn’t find a hat big enough to cover the ears.

Glad he’s having a good time. Meanwhile, he’s running half a government with the two biggest crisis - the economic crisis and now a health crisis - taking place as the departments he needs to deal with them - Treasury and HHS - understaffed and directionless.

Meanwhile, none of this is getting in the way of preparations to celebrate the president’s 100 days in office. As Ben Pershing notes in the Washington Post blog Rundown, the flu news will put something in a crimp in Obama’s self-congratulatory orgy:

Even for presidents, the best-laid plans can sometimes go awry. So as Wednesday’s 100-day milestone approaches, watch closely to see whether the White House’s carefully choreographed effort to tout the administration’s accomplishments and lay the groundwork for more big-ticker initiatives is instead overshadowed by a public health crisis. Swine flu has dominated headlines for the last two days, presenting President Obama with an unexpected challenge. The U.S. has declared a “public health emergency,” though Janet Napolitano yesterday cautioned, “That sounds more severe than really it is.” Administration officials did say they expect many more casesprime-time press conference could end up being dominated by flu talk, which is certainly not how the White House drew it up.
of the flu to be discovered in the coming days, which ensures that the focus on this crisis will only grow as the week progresses. Is there anything Obama can or should be doing to address the crisis that he isn’t already? It doesn’t appear so, but it does appear that his Wednesday

Too bad. I was so looking forward to The One ticking off his list of “accomplishments” on Wednesday. Now those mean old reporters are going to ask questions like, “Mr. President. Are we ready for this crisis considering the fact that most of the people you should be depending on in this situation haven’t even been nominated yet?”

I don’t think even TOTUS could get him off the hook on that one.

Yes, silly.

I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration. We’ve heard for years from reckless open-borders ideologues who continue to insist there’s nothing to worry about. And we’ve heard for years that calling any attention to the dangers of allowing untold numbers of people to pass across our borders and through our other ports of entry without proper medical screening - as required of every legal visitor/immigrant to this country - is RAAAACIST.

9/11 didn’t convince the open-borders zealots to put down their race cards and confront reality.

Maybe the threat of their sons or daughters contracting a deadly virus spread from south of the border to their Manhattan prep schools will.

I am as strong a supporter of guarding our borders and dramatically reducing illegal immigration as anyone but the attempt to hijack the Swine Flu story and portray it as a question of too many illegal immigrants coming into America spreading disease is so far off base as to be a laughable exaggeration.

The Chinese are fanatical about closing their borders and yet SARS became a huge problem for them. Disease doesn’t know about walls or barbed wire. Viruses don’t care if you have 100,000 soldiers guarding your border. If Swine Flu does become widespread, the overwhelming majority of people will catch it as a result of contact with an American citizen.

Even the beginnings of the spread of Swine Flu in the US cannot be traced to illegal immigrants. The kids in New York who contracted what appears to be a mild form of the disease got it in Mexico after a recent trip.  The Texas and California cases were also mild and still something of a mystery because none of the infected people were anywhere near pigs and hadn’t been to Mexico. As the CDC narrows its search to find “Patient Zero,” it is likely that individual would have recently been exposed to the bug  in Mexico.

But even if the original infection came from an illegal immigrant,  it is not reasonable to assume that if we had only closed the borders, we would have been any safer whatsoever. Millions of Mexicans have entered the US perfectly legally since the outbreak began and it a dead certainty that any serious spread of the disease would occur in this group rather than the tiny number of cases that could be attributed to illegals.

Adequate border protection will go a long way to preventing another terrorist attack. It will help relieve the burden on our schools, health clinics, and other social services from illegals who leech from the taxpayers after breaking the law to get here.

But to believe that closing the border to illegals  will have any effect on the spread or even containment of Swine Flu is refuted by the facts. It is estimated that anywhere between 500,000 and one million illegals pour across our border every year. Almost the same number - about 650,000 -  enter the US legally every day.

Let’s not bring unrelated issues into the discussion of Swine Flu.

UPDATE: HEY KIDS! LET’S BLAME AGRI-BUSINESS!

This is not only sillier than trying to drag illegal immigrants into the mix, it is dangerous rumor mongering as well:

Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carrol, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company Web site-a level nearly equal to Smithfield’s total U.S. hog production.

On Friday, the U.S. disease-tracking blog Biosurveillance published a timeline of the outbreak containing this nugget, dated April 6 (major tip of the hat to Paula Hay, who alerted me to the Smithfield link on the Comfood listserv and has written about it on her blog, Peak Oil Entrepreneur):

Residents [of Perote] believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to “flu.” However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.

From what I can tell, the possible link to Smithfield has not been reported in the U.S. press. Searches of Google News and the websites of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal all came up empty. The link is being made in the Mexican media, however. “Granjas Carroll, causa de epidemia en La Gloria,” declared a headline in the Vera Cruz-based paper La Marcha. No need to translate that, except to point out that La Gloria is the village where the outbreak seems to have started. Judging from the article, Mexican authorities treat hog CAFOs with just as much if not more indulgence than their peers north of the border, to the detriment of surrounding communities and the general public health.

To sum up, a couple of newspapers and a couple of blogs have tried to make the connection between the evil Smithfield and a Swine Flu outbreak  and that swarms of flies feeding on the apparently untreated fecal matter is the way the disease spreads - at least how it began to spread.

I guess we can call the WHO and tell them to stop the investigation, that we’ve found the cause and the culprit. Aside from being incredibly irresponsible, I would think that the scientists at WHO and the Mexican health agency IMSS might want to look into it before rumor mongering newspapers and ignorant bloggers start spreading false information.

No explanation forthcoming as to how the disease mutated from one that spread through fly bites to one that apparently spreads human to human (no one is sure yet how the bug spreads). Neither is there an explanation for how these flies were able to travel hundreds of miles to infect others. But that doesn’t stop irresponsible journalists and bloggers from just making sh*t up as they go along.

We’re going to see a lot of this.

In case you haven’t heard, “right wing” blogs are engaged in a bitter civil war pitting former friends and colleagues against one another in a bloody battle for conservatism’s soul.

Or something.

David Weigel, a generally fair reporter who has also written some entertaining stuff for Reason Magazine, writes a story in the Washington Independent (Well, they say they are) that gives the lowdown on the current food fight between LGF’s Charles Johnson and a trio of anti-jihad bloggers including of Pam Geller (Atlas Shrugs), Robert Spencer (Jihad Watch), and my old friend Dymphna at Gates of Vienna.

Charles, who I always thought of as more of a political independent than anything, was interviewed by Weigel for the piece and had some rather churlish things to say about his enemies; namely that they are either kooks or bigots — and perhaps worse:

“I don’t think there is an anti-jihadist movement anymore,” Johnson said. “It’s all a bunch of kooks. I’ve watch some people who I thought were reputable, and who I trusted, hook up with racists and Nazis. I see a lot of them promoting stories and causes that I think are completely nuts.”

Johnson’s disgust with the terrorism-focused conservative blogosphere has had a traumatic effect on a dogged and dogmatic community of bloggers and scholars. When Johnson began blogging about Islam and terrorism after 9/11, he inspired untold other supporters of an aggressive war on terror to start their own Websites, link up, and push back against “Dhimmitude” - organizations and foreign policy decision makers that were “soft” on terrorism. Now, some of his followers have started blogs that track Johnson’s “madness,” while a video that portrays Johnson as Adolf Hitler going mad in his bunker makes the rounds.

“He’s the reason I started blogging,” said Atlas Shrugs editor Pamela Geller, a New Yorker who says she was “mugged by Sept. 11? and started reading LGF for news and fellowship. “I wrote birthday messages to him. I respected and admired him.”

Robert Spencer, the director of JihadWatch and the author of the bestselling, “Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam,” had an established career as a critic of militant Islam before he met Johnson. “But right after 9/11, he was the only one out there reporting on this,” Spencer said. “He built my Website. I learned how to blog from reading his stuff.”

Johnson has turned hard against Spencer and Geller, attacking the former for joining a “genocidal Facebook group,” while referring to the latter as a “shrieking lunatic,” and labeling both of them “hatebloggers.” Johnson now points to Geller’s posts about Barack Obama’s heritage and her quest to fund a headstone for the victim of a Muslim honor killing as proof that “the woman is deranged.” Other bloggers in the movement have been purged from Johnson’s blogroll or pilloried on the site, never to be mentioned again. The most successful sites that arose in LGF’s wake, including Gateway Pundit, Gates of Vienna, and Brussels Journal, are also on the outs.

Read the rest of the article for background on the tussle.

I would find it hard to take sides in this dispute. It seems a cop out to say that both sides are wrong and right but that is sincerely how I judge it. I know most of the principles, have met and spoken with some of them, and admire much of the work they have done in the past. I frankly don’t know who is exaggerating but at this point, both sides are talking past each other so it really doesn’t matter. I think Charles has some legitimate concerns about some bloggers and commenters in the anti-jihad blogosphere (one can see them stinking up any post about Muslims just about anywhere) but calling Pam a “shrieking lunatic” is ridiculous. Perhaps she was “shrieking” at being lumped together with Nazis. I know I would be.

The same goes for Charles’s other targets. Dymphna and the Baron are two very thoughtful writers who I don’t always agree with but are hardly bigots. Pamela, bless her, is more excitable (if you met her, you’d be charmed by her enthusiasm for everything in life), and I disagreed with her emphasis on Obama’s origins. But she is far more passionate than she is “kooky” and that kind of criticism is subjective anyway (I should know). Spencer is a genuine scholar - but uses sources sometimes I find problematic, as do the others.

The problem as I see it is that Charles used a blunderbuss when he should have employed a scalpel in his criticism. The anti-jihad sites mentioned above as well as a few others have spawned dozens of blogs that employ a riotously misguided and uncomprehending view of the Islamic faith and Muslims in general when discussing the very real threat coming from extremists. Not quite “The only good Muslim, is a dead Muslim” but close. It is pathetic to read some of these sites as writers attempt to “explain” jihad by taking quotes from the Koran out of context as “proof” that all Muslims are at war with us. No doubt, a few of them will make an appearance in the comments section of this post. I will be branded a “dhimmi” or, as Pam unfairly characterized Charles, “a leftist blogger.”

Combatting worldwide jihad is important. As I’ve written before, the left refuses to engage in this war to defend the west, partly because they do not believe much in “western values” anymore (or at least their superiority to what the jihadists want to replace them with), but also out of fear that they will offend people who practice the Muslim faith. What European liberals and our own left fail to comprehend is that while the number of extremists who want to kill us is small, their actions are cheered (and supported financially) by millions of others. This attitude, especially on the part of the European left, has led to compromises on free speech, freedom of religion, and other cherished values that the left seems willing to make in the name of establishing comity with Muslims.

I can understand Johnson’s reluctance to endorse the lunatic fringe of the anti-jihadist movement and one should always be careful with whom they associate. But both sides in this dust up are blinded by the personal insults and fail to see they are both still fighting the same war. The bloggers mentioned above are not always as circumspect in their language and writing as perhaps they should be with regard to Muslims and the Islamic faith but they are hardly bigots nor have they ever advocated genocide against Muslims or, as far as I know, forcing American Muslims to emigrate. I have seen those views expressed on fringe blogs, however, and Johnson’s complaint should be heard by all.

Charles Johnson is not a leftist. He may not be a “right winger” but he is hardly a liberal. His views on some fringe conservatives who believe in creationism match my own as did his take on Glenn Beck (don’t go there). One of my primary tormentors, Stacey McCain, sees apostasy in Johnson’s critique, however, and is ready to strip him of his membership in the Conservative Book Club and take away his key to the Haliburton Executive Washroom:

I’d like to explain to Charles Johnson why he’s wrong, but if he won’t listen to Robert Spencer, there’s no reason to expect he’d listen to me. Johnson supported the GWOT, which ended the day Bush left the White House, and thus ended Johnson’s only real interest in politics.

Johnson is not “political” in the sense of trying to calculate ways to build a broad, enduring coalition that amounts to at least 50-percent-plus-one. He cares nothing about, say, figuring out how to elect Lt. Col. Allen West in FL-22 or how to defeat Bud Cramer in AL-5. And since he’s never looked at politics in that way, he doesn’t grasp the connection between defeating the Left on foreign policy and defeating the Left on domestic issues like “card check” and health care.

You know who does see those connections? The Left. And they’ve won, because Bush and the Republicans never really understood the real enemy they were fighting. Charles Johnson is just collateral damage in this conflict, incidental to the Left’s triumph.

If he had thought about it (and thank the lord he didn’t), Stacey would no doubt have lumped me in with Johnson because of some of my views. But I question Mr. McCain’s definition of who or what is “political.” In the larger scheme of things, there is little difference between what Johnson or Moran does and “trying to calculate ways to build a broad, enduring coalition” of conservatives by writing happy days are here again blog posts or even making concrete recommendations about how to accomplish that worthy goal.

I write about how I believe conservatives can regain power just as Stacey does. I recommend strategies just as Mr. McCain does. The problem is that Stacey doesn’t agree with me (or Johnson) and hence, we are discredited because, having set himself up as an arbiter of “true conservatism” (And why not? Many agree with him.), he can justifiably drum me and anyone else out of his ever devolving clique of “real” conservatives.

Is his definition of who is a legitimate “conservative” getting narrower or is it just my imagination?

I like Stacey despite his picking on me. He is a fine southern gentleman and smart as a whip. But I would caution him not to slam the door in the face of those who, regardless of their stands on some issues, are still his natural allies. I doubt whether Johnson voted for Obama nor do I think he would vote for many Democrats as the party is currently constituted. But a stay at home is as bad as a no vote as the November election showed.

What profit a man that he win the conservatives but lose the election?

Our founders were very suspicious of the presidency. There were many who believed - Thomas Jefferson among them - that all that was needed to govern a free country was a Congress elected by the people at suitably short intervals so that if a representative proved untrustworthy or unresponsive, the people could put someone else in his stead. Many of Jefferson’s ilk saw the presidency as an invitation to monarchy. And the very idea of a Supreme Court who might be able to overturn laws passed by Congress gave the Jeffersonians the vapors.

Thankfully for history’s sake, a more realistic and hard-headed approach to designing a system of government for the United States prevailed in Philadelphia during that God-awful hot summer of 1787. As the delegates sweated through the debates over big state-small state issues, it became clear that there should be some kind of federal office charged with making sure the laws were “faithfully executed.” Not a king or emperor supreme to Congress but an executive who would enforce the laws passed by the legislature as well as act as a representative of American sovereignty as Head of State and Commander in Chief of the military.

Several plans regarding the executive were presented and tossed aside including an idea to make the president little more than errand boy for Congress. Clearly, there were grave misgivings about granting a single individual so much power in a republic.

What turned the tide toward a strong executive branch was the certainty that George Washington would be our first president. While debating the limits and scope of the presidency, delegates would glance at Washington and be reassured that the office would start out in good hands at least. They knew that Washington would defend the United States with honor - something he did several times during his two terms when he responded to various calumnies advanced by the French who accused the US of favoring Great Britain in their war against Napoleon.

The Founders imbued the office of President with a dignity that few presidents have besmirched in our history. We have endured fools, knaves, stumblebums, party hacks, and political generals. But each of them tried honestly to defend the United States when she was attacked.

The president is ultimately responsible for the maintenance of American honor. And defending that honor is perhaps the greatest privilege - and challenge - of the office.

President Barack Obama either doesn’t understand this aspect of the presidency or, just as likely, doesn’t believe that safeguarding American honor is his job. Or even that it is worth his time.This became apparent as a result of what happened at the Summit of the Americas that the president is attending along with the heads of state from most of Latin America.

Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista Marxist thug who is currently President of Nicaragua, used his opening remarks at the summit to skewer the United States in a rant that lasted more than 50 minutes. The dripping irony of this communist lout decrying the actions of America over the last century (and longer) is a titanic joke. Ortega’s actions in support of the Communist guerrillas in El Salvador as well as his attempts to undermine governments elsewhere in Latin America during his first term as “president” back in the 1980’s makes anything he says regarding American interference ring hollow.

Ortega and the Sandinistas, along with a coalition of middle class and small businessmen deposed Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. The first thing the Sandinistas did - as any good little Communist would do - was to kick out the more moderate political partners who played a big role in the largely bloodless revolution, jailing some, and establishing a Marxist dictatorship. No other political parties were allowed to operate freely. Their rallies were broken up by black shirted thugs. They were denied air time on government controlled TV. Opposition leaders were routinely arrested, harassed, and beaten.

Almost immediately, he was opposed by former National Guard members who began an armed revolution that eventually - with the help of the US - forced Ortega to hold elections in 1990. Every lefty in America worth their salt traveled to Nicaragua to help Danny Ortega defeat the evil designs of the Americans. Ortega did his part by trying even harder to suppress the opposition, using his bully boys to intimidate and beat down - literally and figuratively - his opponents, led by Violetta Chamorro, publisher of La Prensa and leader of the National Opposition Union.

In the end, when given the choice between freedom and Communist tyranny, the people chose Chamorro. But before Ortega left office, he had his Sandanista legislature pass a law granting he and several of his cronies deeds to vast estates that were confiscated during his presidency. The theft made him fabulously wealthy.

In the intervening years he ran for the presidency twice and lost badly. Then, in 1998, his daughter shocked the world when she accused her father of sexually abusing her from the time she was 11 until 1990. Denied the opportunity to prove her case in Nicaragua, she took it to the Inter American Human Rights Commission which ruled the charges admissible. A settlement was reached with the government but Ortega’s daughter has never recanted the charges.

This is the man who stood in front of our president and railed against American interference in Latin America. Fond of pointing out American hypocrisy, our friends on the left are silent about both the Ortega diatribe and Obama’s “Grip and Grin” with that other paragon of democratic virtue and non-interference, Hugo Chavez. Instead, they have chosen to attack conservatives who are criticizing Obama for his being a bump on a log while Ortega skewers the country he supposedly leads and Chavez presents him with a book that is such a laughably, over the top, exaggerated, Marxist critique of American policy in the region that one wonders what planet it fell from. The author himself, Eduardo Galeano, admits he is not an historian nor does he write history but rather a combination of “fiction, journalism, political analysis, and history.”

I will be the first to admit that the United States has behaved very badly in Latin America over the years; there has been resource grabbing, commercial exploitation, support for thugs like Somoza, and CIA shenanigans in countries too numerous to count. Most of our military interventions were to keep pro-American governments in power or help stamp out leftist guerrillas. Some of our interventions were to prevent the expropriation of American companies so that commercial monopolies could be maintained. There’s worse and it’s all true.

What is also true is that for the last few decades, no nation has done more for Latin American democracy than the United States - and that includes leftists in Latin America who prove that when they get a chance to lead are as brutal and thuggish as any right wing dictator who ever ruled in the region. Galeano apparently has the honesty at least to point out that Latin America’s problems are largely the result of their own making - their own view of themselves.

Of course, he also makes it clear that Euro-American “colonialism” is the major cause of this but there is something more fundamental at work. Very few Latin American countries have established the rule of law as a basis for governance. This is not the fault of colonialism, or America, or the CIA but rather the fault of the people themselves. It is not blaming the victim to point out the numerous opportunities that Latin American nations have had to rectify this situation and have chosen instead the path of corruption, oppression, and tyranny. The ruling class in most Latin American countries is besotted with crony capitalists, confiscatory leftists, and ambitious generals. And it’s time to stop blaming America, colonialism, the CIA, United Fruit, and all the other scapegoats presented to their long suffering citizens as excuses for their poverty and hopelessness and place the blame where it belongs; in the face looking back at them in the mirror.

Ortega presented the classic Latin American leftist case for why when they get in power, they muck things up so badly and continue the cycle of extreme poverty; it’s America’s fault:

Ortega, meanwhile, droned on about the offenses of the past, dredging up U.S. support of the Somoza regime and the “illegal” war against the Sandinista regime he once led by U.S.-backed Contra rebels in the 1980s. Ortega was a member of the revolutionary junta that drove Anastasio Somoza from power in 1979 and was elected president in 1985. He was defeated in 1990 by Violeta Chamorro and ran unsuccessfully twice for the presidency before winning in 2006.

Of the 19th and 20th centuries, Ortega said: “Nicaragua central America, we haven’t been shaken since the past century by what have been the expansionist policies, war policies, that even led us in the 1850s, 1855, 1856 to bring Central American people together. We united, with Costa Ricans, with people from Honduras, the people from Guatemala, El Salvador. We all got together, united so we could defeat the expansionist policy of the United States. And after that, after interventions that extended since 1912, all the way up to 1932 and that left, as a result the imposition of that tyranny of the Samoas. Armed, funded, defended by the American leaders.”

Ortega denounced the U.S.-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro’s new Communist government in Cuba in 1961, a history of US racism and what he called suffocating U.S. economic policies in the region.

Ortega droned on for the better part of an hour and what was our president doing while a tin pot thug was running down his country, spreading exaggerated claims and outright lies?

Obama sat mostly unmoved during the speech but at times jotted notes.

He could have gotten up and walked out. That would have been the headline for the day as well as being the right thing to do. There should be a limit in the international arena of how much calumny can be heaped upon your country before honor requires a president to remove himself in protest. We can take a little intelligent criticism. But when the United States is savagely attacked, its honor impugned by a lying, child molesting, thieving, hypocritical Marxist gangster, I question the president’s judgment in sitting there and calmly “taking notes.”

Later, the president failed again to defend the United States when he gave a milquetoast response:

“To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements. I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old. Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates. We’ve all heard these arguments before.”

Has a president ever tried to distance themselves from the history of their own country in such a shocking and narcissistic way? Obama makes absolutely no attempt to answer Ortega or call him the liar that he is. Instead, he shows incredible weakness by, in effect, validating Ortega’s critique while attempting to wash his hands of the history of his own country.

But this is patriotic, of course as I have written about before. Recognizing the faults of America, trying to outdo our foreign critics in trashing one’s own country is leftist dogma. I don’t doubt the president’s patriotism (according to his lights) nor do I mind Obama going around the world apologizing for what he perceives are our mistakes. I expect no better from a liberal. But this is different. The honor of the United States demanded a ringing defense of the many good things we have done and are doing for Latin America. The scales may not balance but to quit the ring without throwing a punch smacks of either cowardice or ignorance.

Obama is no longer a leftist senator projecting his ideological slant and accepting criticism of the US from foreigners as just and necessary. He is now head of state and thus charged with defending the US from attacks like Ortega’s. Someone has to stand up for the United States in forums like the summit. In this, the president has failed his first big test as chief executive. The State Department can’t be counted on to defend America from such attacks (Secretary Clinton wouldn’t even talk about the Ortega rant.) Only one person is charged by history and tradition to call out the lying thugs who besmirch the name of the US and thus, deliver a slap in the face not just to the government but the people of America as well.

The president’s meek acceptance of Ortega’s largely unjustified criticism may play well among his ideological soul mates but for the rest of us, it causes one to wonder if there is any calumny, any lie, any exaggerated falsehood that Obama would balk at accepting.

Judging by what happened at the summit, I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.

UPDATE

Most of my critics so far think it childish or just not a good idea for Obama to have walked out on Ortega when he was railing against America.

Here are some folks who walked out on Ahmadinejad at Durban II in Geneva when he went into his anti-Israeli speil.

And it wasn’t even their country the Evil Elf was ranting against.

“Hey kids! Let’s play “The Glad Game!”

Well, it certainly has been an eventful couple of days. Every 50 or 100 posts  that I write, Hot Air, or Insty, or one of  my friends on the left who run big blogs (and yes, I am, in fact, a lefty plant just as so many of you suspect, ordered by my liberal overlords to pretend to be a conservative in order to sow confusion and distrust on the right), will link to something I’ve done and down we go, into the rabbit hole.  

I will let you in on a little secret; if I knew in advance that a post of mine was going to get the kind of attention that was given my recent rant against Glenn Beck, I would not write it. Unless you are brain dead or a disciple of the Marquis de Sade, exposing oneself to the kind of  personal attacks on my character, my heritage, my intelligence, and alas, even the quality of my writing is hard on the ego not to mention an emotional downer. Anyone who says it wouldn’t bother them is either lying or has never had it happen to them.  Anyone who thinks I write that kind of stuff for noteriety, or links, or so that I will get linked by big bloggers, or because I want to curry favor with liberals must also believe I have a S & M set up in my basement where I dress up in a black leather and dangle from a gibbet, all tied up, while my Zsu-Zsu alternates between tickling me with an ostrich feather and whipping me with a cat ‘o nine tails, making me scream at the top of my voice, “Thank you, Ma’am, may I have another!”

Actually, don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it.

Really now, I write in near total obscurity and the fact that I write stuff like the Beck post fairly often and it doesn’t get any attention is exactly the same result that I get with the  95% or so of posts I write that most of my detractors would have no trouble agreeing with. The point being, you never know as a blogger. Maybe I should pay more attention to McCain’s rules for how to get a million hits. Can’t do any worse on my own.

Therefore, things are going to change around here. From now on, no more bashing Glenn Beck. After all, screaming on national TV to Obama “Why don’t you just set us on fire” is just not criticizable. It is the heighth of rational discourse. Who am I to say otherwise? I’m sure we can come up with a good explanation for Beck’s behavior like, “He was only kidding,” or perhaps “He forgot to take his meds.”  The trick is, instead of criticizing or making sport of Mr. Beck, or other conservatives, or the Republican party, or conservatism,  I am going to  play “The Glad Game” and find something good and happy in every situation.

From now on, if I feel the urge to bash Limbaugh or other righties who speak for conservatives, I will play The Glad Game and find the good in everything. No more piling on to curry favor with the left. No more envious rants against people who make more money than I do and who have made a success of their lives. No more being a tedious moron. No more Miss Fowler. No more elitism. No more RINO stuff. No more aping my liberal brother to whom I have shamelessly hitched my blog star and whose name I constantly invoke in order to feel important . And no more attempts to get links from big blogs by deliberately being provocative, knowing that it will be a real career builder.

Only The Glad Game for me. I will take note that Rush is a funny, smart, real conservative who is almost always right and who conservatives would do well to take whatever advice he offers. I will wax poetic about Ann Coulter and her charm, her wit, her balanced critiques. Same goes for Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and all the other popular conservatives.

I see the error of my ways. And this goes for anything I say about the GOP too. No more dire pronouncements of electoral disaster. From here on out, it’s tea parties and triumph at the polls for me. I promise to ignore polls that don’t have Republicans sweeping to victory in 2010. And I will enthusiastically cover the tea parties that are going to change America.

I love this Glad Game. I’m warming to it already. It’s so much more fun when you simply follow the herd. And if it leads over a cliff, so what? Since we’re playing the Glad Game I would simply say I’ve never jumped out of an airplane without a parachute before so going over a cliff will be an exciting, new experience for me. And who knows? Maybe when we hit the ground, it will be made up of chocolate ice cream and marshmallows so we can come in for a soft landing and eat a lot of good sweet stuff at the same time!

It sure will feel good to be popular again.

Stacey McCain - The Other McCain - has a brilliant piece up on his site; a real tour de force that not only comments on my Glenn Beck piece yesterday, but also analyzes and dissects some of the systemic problems with conservatism and the GOP today.

I wish he’d write more about these issues. Stacey has a very sharp mind and clear writing style. And I want to be just like him when I grow up.

Don’t have time today to write a worthy response but I sent him this email this morning:

Your piece was a brilliant exposition of conservative philosophy and history of the Republican party. I have written quite a few similar tracts, making some of the same points you have about the GOP’s lack of a domestic policy and especially the crack up of the anti-Communist coalition that held the party together for so long. I have also commented in the past on your “Assistant Undersecretary” syndrome where appeals to authority appear more relevant to many in Washington than simply cracking good thinking and writing.

Given my long windedness, it would probably take me a couple of days to say everything you did in a few paragraphs. Well done.

Not exactly sure what you’re getting at with the elites vs.populists theme but some of it rings true. If you are trying to make the point that the conservative elite punditocracy places perception above principle, I would reluctantly agree to some extent but defend them by mentioning that even today with a myriad of news and information outlets, the big guns firing in the information wars are still liberal media and therefore, the perception shaped in the public’s mind does indeed matter. Accepting that as a fact of life, and recognizing that electoral success in the GOP depends at least partly on altering this perception of the party as a bunch of angry, southern white males who hate gays and blacks, love guns, and exhibit paranoia about government, it is understandable that some would seek to distance themselves from this perception.

I may be wrong in thinking this - and it certainly is winning me no friends - but there is an anti-intellectual strain in conservatism that bubbles to the surface every once in a while. Not talking about the fringe FEMA camp nonsense. I’m talking about a genuine resistance on the part of many conservatives today to the idea that there is more to the world than what the cotton candy conservatives say on the airwaves or write in their books. That nuance and subtlety are not always bad. That it’s OK to change your mind about an issue if the times change or you are exposed to new information. That allowing emotion to drive your thinking leads nowhere. And that there is a difference between ideology and philosophy.

I make no claims to being an intellectual or a deep thinker - never have. Don’t have the patience or the innate smarts for it. But like you, I have 5 decades of life experience and some common sense to apply to what our problems are. The fact that we fundamentally disagree about some things doesn’t mean we can’t agree on other issues.

Couple of things: I lived in the reddest county in Illinois for many years - rock ribbed Midwest Republicans in McHenry county.

I was thinking of Martin Anderson (Hoover Institution), not that blowhard John Anderson, who had a column in the 1980’s in WaPo and who wrote a couple of very interesting books including “Revolution” which some consider the most scholarly work on the Reagan years. He was a disciple of Rand, knew her personally, and attended many of her lectures.

And where I came up with “Fitzgerald” I will never know. I meant Jeanne Kirkpatrick (former IL sen. Patrick Fitzgerald?) who may not have been as conservative on domestic issues as many would like but no one can deny her brilliance or her passion.

I have read Road to Serfdom and have heard of Mises but have not read anything by him. I didn’t read Free to Choose until the 90’s (just never got around to it) but was a big fan of Friedman via the public TV series of the same name.

I am going to publish this email on my site as a response. Wish I had the time to do your piece justice. Perhaps on the weekend I will take a stab at a more in-depth critique.

Rick Moran

In response to an editorial in the Washington Times that accused President Obama of bowing deeply to Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, the White House has denied that the incident even took place, saying that what appeared to be a bow was actually the president passing gas.

“The president believed that it was a sign of  respect to fart in the general direction of the Saudi King,” explained press secretary Robert Gibbs. “It certainly wasn’t a bow. That would be breaking protocol.”

Some reporters present have now revealed that yes, there was in fact a rather ripe aroma in the room following the brief greeting. Others thought that the perpetrator was actually Gordon Brown who had just recently completed his lunch consisting of fish and chips - a notorious gas producer.

Some analysts point out that the president was mistaken in believing that a fart in Saudi society shows anything remotely like respect. But these neutral observers are saying it was an understandable lapse by our president who probably confused the traditional Arab burp after a meal (which denotes polite satisfaction with the repast) with the more problematic act of breaking wind.

Professor Alice P. Gagme of The Lightwalker Institute, a non partisan think tank in Washington, explains that burping after meals is more of a North African custom and that the president was probably confused after screening Ben-Hur  with Gordon Brown just prior to the meeting with Abdullah. “The scene where Balthasar, Judah, and Sheik Ilderim have just completed their meal and all burp loudly showing their satisfaction could have been misinterpreted by our president as the characters cutting the cheese,” said Gagme. “Perhaps he believed that if it was good enough doing after a meal, why not show satisfaction with meeting Abdullah by ripping one off during the formal greeting?”

She added, “Anyone can make a mistake.”

In related news, the White House denied that the Administration was trying to turn the country into a socialist gulag. “The idea that these bank takeovers, auto company takeovers, insurance company takeovers, and all the business takeovers we have yet to implement is in any way indicative of creeping socialism is absolutely false,” said Gibbs in response to a question from Fox News. “We will maintain control of these companies until they learn the true nature of capitalism and the free market - donating massive amounts of money to Democratic candidates is the path to fiscal and corporate responsibility.”

Greg Sargent is reporting that some of the top liberal bloggers are “furious” with progressive groups and the Democratic party for not bribing them to support their initiatives by placing ads on their sites.

Some of the leading liberal bloggers are privately furious with the major progressive groups - and in some cases, the Democratic Party committees - for failing to spend money advertising on their sites, even as these groups constantly ask the bloggers for free assistance in driving their message.

It’s a development that’s creating tensions on the left and raises questions about the future role of the blogosphere at a time when a Dem is in the White House and liberalism could be headed for a period of sustained ascendancy.

A number of these top bloggers agreed to come on record with me after privately arguing to these groups that they deserved a share in the ad wealth and couldn’t be taken for granted any longer.

“They come to us, expecting us to give them free publicity, and we do, but it’s not a two way street,” Jane Hamsher, the founder of FiredogLake, said in an interview. “They won’t do anything in return. They’re not advertising with us. They’re not offering fellowships. They’re not doing anything to help financially, and people are growing increasingly resentful.”

Hamsher singled out Americans United for Change, which raises and spends big money on TV ad campaigns driving Obama’s agenda, as well as the constellation of groups associated with it, and the American Association of Retired Persons, also a big TV advertiser.

“Most want the easy way - having a big blogger promote their agenda,” adds Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos. “Then they turn around and spend $50K for a one-page ad in the New York Times or whatever.” Moulitsas adds that officials at such groups often do nothing to engage the sites’s audiences by, say, writing posts, instead wanting the bloggers to do everything for them. 

Hey! I’m with you guys 100%. If you’re going to shill, the least you can ask for is some pocket change. All those years of brown nosing and you’d think these big shots would have the common courtesy to toss a few coins in the hat and give you a hanky to wipe the stain off your face. I mean, what’s the use of prostituting yourself if the party pooh-bahs won’t leave any money on the dresser when they leave?

I realize it is difficult at times to follow liberal logic but aren’t they the ones who refer to the righty blogosphere as an “echo chamber?” And yet here we have them grousing that no one wants to pay them to perform as  a lock step, unified message machine for the White House and Democratic Congress. That kind of irony is usually found in great literature, not the grubby, grasping whinings of  a bunch of overhyped, underwhelming partisan pikers.

Methinks they have an elevated opinion of their own importance.

Adds John Amato, the founder of Crooks and Liars: “These groups actually believe that we should promote their stuff for free. Do they not understand that we need funds to sustain our viability?”

When was the last time someone walked up to you and said, “I will wash your windows if you help me sustain my viability.?”

Holy crap, what kind of double talk is that? The libs want money. They want to feel the greenbacks bulging in their pockets. They want to caress those Hamiltons, smell those Grants, make love to those beautiful Benjamin Franklins.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that - unless you are so besotted with guilt and worry that you are taking more than “your share” that you “need funds to sustain [your] viability” rather than have marvelous dreams of avarice and wealth. Do you think Markos dreams guilty dreams of driving a vette 100 MPH down the interstate, laughing uncontrollably and without feeling remorse about burning all that  carbon? Do you think Avarosis has fantasies of a night with the Chippendale dancers in a decidedly un eco friendly mansion? What do liberals fantasize about when, like some right wing Christians, they deny themselves the simple (but expensive) pleasures in life? 

Whatever those daydreams are, let’s pray that groups like Moveon and AARP get around to funding them. Everyone is entitled to what they’re worth - at least in their own minds. And given the tireless work these bloggers have performed for the progressive movement in smearing, besmirching, lying, exaggerating, deliberately misconstruing intent, and assassinating the character of their opponents, by God, they deserve it.