Right Wing Nut House

I don’t care how many elections Republicans lose or if a Democrat is elected President in 2008, the Democrats still have a long way to go in convincing me that they are as serious as I and many conservatives are about national security. And those in government - the bureaucrats and policymakers in the agencies who are charged with counterterrorism - have an equal distance to travel in order to lift the impression that our entire government is at war with an enemy that they don’t understand and have made precious little effort in trying to change that singular fact.

What do I mean by the Democrats getting “serious?” Taking the time to learn the facts about our enemies (calling them “enemies” would be a nice start), engaging in learned debate about military issues rather than simple knee-jerk pandering to their anti-military base, and perhaps, since we are at war, placing national security at the forefront of the party’s and the nation’s business.

I don’t see it. And this certainly doesn’t help; National Security Editor for Congressional Quarterly Jeff Stein iinterviewed incoming House Intel chair Silvestre Reyes and asked him his views about major terrorist groups:

The dialogue went like this:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

[…]

And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?

“Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah…”

He laughed again, shifting in his seat.

“Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

“Pocito,” I said—a little.

“Pocito?! “ He laughed again.

“Go ahead,” I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.

Reyes: “Well, I, uh….”

(HT: James Joyner)

Stein has been on a quest of sorts for the last few months, going from the FBI to DHS, and othe counterterrorism officials to ask these simple questions about Sunnis and Shias. The answers have been eye openers.

But Reyes is a man who is in charge of overseeing our intelligence community. Can you see this moron sitting in a closed hearing room listening to the latest intelligence on al-Qaeda in Iraq? Or worse, how would he interpret Hizbullah’s moves against Prime Minister Sinora’s government in Lebanon? Or the Taliban’s continuing resurgence in Afghanistan?

It does not comfort me that many bloggers know a helluva lot more about our enemies than the incoming House Chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

And it isn’t just Reyes, of course. From the President (who was ignorant of the Sunni-Shia distinction until 2003), down through our counterterrorism officials, and now evidently through our lawmakers charged with formulating and judging our national security policy, there seems to be a singular myopia about the history and nature of our enemies. What animates them besides anti-Americanism? What is their worldview? How does their religion shape their actions? These would seem to be basic concepts that someone charged with trying to forestall a terrorist attack on the United States would need to have a grasp of; the psychological motivations of the enemy.

As far as the Democrats are concerned, you don’t have to be a male chauvinist pig to say that Nancy Pelosi has made several major missteps since the mid term elections. In fact, the canard that she wouldn’t be receiving this kind of withering criticism if she were a man is ridiculous. She runs on an anti-corruption platform and her first move is to back a shady Congressman for majority leader? I don’t care if you’re a man, woman, or newt, that kind of tone deafness (or arrogance) bespeaks an incompetence not easily brushed aside.

Then there was this brouhaha over the Intel chair that was entirely unnecessary. Jane Harmon may have been a hawk at the beginning of the Iraq War. But when most of the intelligence community had been agitating for a decade to destroy Saddam and his WMD, one can hardly blame a Member of Congress who sat in those hearings listening to briefing after briefing about what a danger the Iraqi dictator was and then not support the effort to topple him.

I don’t know the details of the personal feud between the two lawmakers. But how serious can we believe the Democrats are about our national security if the leader of the party in the House allows personal animus to intrude on her decisions regarding the safety of the American people or, just as bad, shamelessly panders to her rabid, anti-war base on a matter involving the competence of those in charge of intelligence oversight?

It would be one thing if she pulled a stunt like this with the Chairman of the Government Affairs Committee or some congressional backwater that was not vital to the safety of the United States. But by compounding her original blunder by elevating a dunce to the chairmanship of the Intel committee is almost beyond belief.

Maybe we should send the lot of them to the nearest junior college and make them all take a course in the history of Islam. Or better yet, read Karen Armstrong’s Islam: A Short History, a fascinating and informative read.

Either way, it’s scary to think that the ignorance of people in charge of protecting us is found at every level of government.

Glenn Greenwald has seen fit to “respond” to my post from yesterday in which I asked he and other civil liberties absolutists to “Bite Me” for spending the last two years crying about our “lost freedoms” as a result of the use of the NSA to intercept terrorist phone calls from overseas to their friends in America.

It is truly astounding to watch people incapable of understanding the point that the reason it is wrong and dangerous for the President to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants is because doing so is against the law. Shouldn’t that be a simple enough proposition that every functioning adult ought to be capable of understanding it? It doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree with that proposition — if people want to continue to cling to the theory that the President is unbound by the law concerning matters of national security, obviously they are free to do so.

But there is no excuse for failing to comprehend the objections to the President’s behavior, particularly since the central objection is not all that complicated. To the contrary, it is what we all learn in seventh-grade civics.

One more time: the principal problem with the President’s warrantless eavesdropping is not that he is abusing the secret eavesdropping powers he seized (that is something we do not yet know, because the Congress has not yet investigated that question). Instead, the “problem” is that the President is engaging in the very conduct which the American people, through their Congress almost 30 years ago, made it a felony to engage in, punishable by up to five years in prison — that is, eavesdropping on Americans without judicial oversight.

How many times can you say that it’s impossible to determine the legality of a program you know nothing about? That the technical details, hidden from most of us, were reviewed by the Privacy Board and discovered to be protective of our civil liberties. That in fact, those in Congress who have been briefed on the program have not said one word about it being illegal - including Democrats. Specter and Feingold (and others who mouth off about the program’s legality) have not received the kind of briefing given the intel committees. And apparently, the Privacy Board received an even more substantial briefing than Congress.

Greenwald is, in essence, assuming facts not in evidence. Does he assume that the NSA uses technology and hardware similar to if not exactly the same as domestic law enforcement? Does Greenwald have any idea how that technology is used?

Is Glenn Greenwald a gypsy fortune teller in disguise? Does his “second sight” ability give him insight that the rest of us mere mortals lack?

In short, this hand wringing hysteric is talking through his hat and always has been about the NSA intercept program. And the statements by the Privacy Board (nice job in smearing dedicated public servants Greenwald) would seem to indicate that constitutional protections are carefully observed. (Do you really think Lanny Davis wouldn’t say what he said if he sat on your definition of an “independent” board?)

And thinking he can discredit me or anyone else by referring to me as a “neocon” reveals someone whose extraordinary shallowness is only matched by a breathtaking ignorance of who or what makes a “neocon” - a blindness so endemic on the left that one would think they all came down with a collective case of the stupids and have yet to find a cure for it.

Greenwald has no clue. And trying to spin his way out of trouble by repeating the same, tired and now thoroughly discredited arguments only makes him look like a fool.

UPDATE

The new comment policy is in effect. No insulting me or any other commenter. No obscenity.

Strictly enforced - once I get off the air.

I have spent much of the last two years on this site railing against the hysterical, exaggerated, and ultimately dishonest charges made by people like Glenn Greenwald and others that the Bush Administration was tearing apart the Constitution and trying to set up some kind of a dictatorship.

The cornerstone of their bilious rantings has always been that the Administration’s NSA intercept program was, on its face, illegal. In fact, the NSA program has been cited as reason number one to impeach the President and no amount of reasoning by those of us who cautioned against jumping to conclusions about a program that we knew so little about deflected these despicable jackanapes from wailing about our “lost freedoms” and comparing Bush to Hitler.

Well pardon my French, but the only thing I have to say to the gaggle of goofs who have spent much of the last two years in formulating some of the most vile, calumnious, and over the top charges regarding the Administration’s cavalier attitude toward our civil liberties is… BITE ME:

After a delay of more than a year, a government board appointed to guard Americans’ privacy and civil liberties during the war on terror has been told the inner workings of the government’s electronic eavesdropping program.

The briefing for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board had been delayed because President Bush was concerned — after several media leaks — about widening the circle of people who knew exact details of the secret eavesdropping program.

The board, created by Congress and appointed by Bush, focused on other classified work since it was named in spring 2005, but continued to press for a formal briefing by the National Security Agency.

A breakthrough was reached in recent days, and the five members were briefed by senior officials last week.

Board members said that they were impressed by the safeguards the government has built into the NSA’s monitoring of phone calls and computer transmissions, and that they wished the administration could tell the public more about them to ease distrust.

“If the American public, especially civil libertarians like myself, could be more informed about how careful the government is to protect our privacy while still protecting us from attacks, we’d be more reassured,” said Lanny Davis , a former Clinton White House lawyer who is the board’s lone liberal Democrat.

All of that ink spilled. All of that bile vomited forth from people who didn’t know what the hell they were talking about and yet accused the President and other public servants of the most horrible violations of the Constitution. All of that outrage from people less interested in our civil liberties - not to mention our national security - than they were in scoring cheap political points at the expense of a program that not only now has been shown to be well run and sensitive to civil liberties but also vital to protecting the United States from another terrorist attack.

And let us also put to rest perhaps the most ridiculous charge of all; that the President and his people simply didn’t care about the Constitution:

“We found there was a great appreciation inside government, both at the political and career levels, for protections on privacy and civil liberties,” said Raul, author of a book of civil liberties. “In fact, I think the public may have an underappreciation for the degree of seriousness the government is giving these protections.”

Gee. Ya think? Wonder where the public got “an underappreciation for the degree of seriousness the government is giving these protections…?” Couldn’t be from leftist lickspittles like Greenwald et.al. who’ve spent much of the last 5 years trying to convince the American people that Adolf Hitler was in the Oval Office and Nazi gaulieters were staffing the Justice Department, could it?

Just thinking about the smug, self righteous louts who have hindered every single program, every single effort to protect the people of the United States by constantly raising the specter of Hitler and dictatorship makes me sick to my stomach.

I have no doubt they’ll spin this news by pointing out that there are plenty of other examples of Bush/Hitler tearing up the Constitution. But given the fact that no one in the government connected to the NSA program ever thought in their wildest dreams that any media outlet would be irresponsible enough, partisan enough, or stupid enough to reveal its existence, one can logically assume that other programs are equally careful of the Constitution and civil liberties. And this report now places the burden of proof on the civil liberties absolutists to show otherwise.

I’d say “For Shame!” except they have none. Nor do they have a case that the NSA program and its offshoots are anything except as advertised by government; as well designed as possible in order to safeguard the Constitutional protections that all of us - both liberals and conservatives - are vouchsafed as Americans.

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey, as always, puts it more delicately than I - which makes his indictment of the hysteria mongers even more devastating:

The hysteria surrounding this program might finally start receding, as long as these remarks get some significant play. After all, having a former Clinton aide wish he could reveal more about a secret program to reassure people of the good work done by it rather than to torpedo the Bush administration should raise some eyebrows among the paranoid. Former Reagan counsel Alan Raul went even further, telling John Solomon that he believes that the public underestimates the level of concern and dedication for civil liberties in the federal government.

Once again, the public’s support for a tough but necessary program has been reinforced by its careful execution by the NSA. This should not surprise anyone, as even the New York Times acknowledged that they had no information that the agency broke any laws or violated anyone’s civil rights when they broke the story. All they had were “concerns” about the program’s legality from their anonymous tipsters.

The same could be said for every single program that these guttersnipes have been using as a club to make the Administration’s commitment to the law and the Constitution suspect, undermining the public’s confidence in our national leaders during a time of war, and ultimately, giving aid and comfort to the jihadis who know that they can always depend on the New York Times and their allies to give them a heads up about any attempt to thwart their plans using legitimate, constitutional methods.

The Anchoress:

So, once again…sound and fury signifying nothing. And we’ll see the NY Times with a big headline on this assessment on page one, above the fold, right? Brian Williams will lead with this story, right? Maybe at least Jon Stewart will bring it up?

Last I saw, the forecast for hell was hot and humid with no chance of snow…

Finally, the inimitable Mr. McGuire:

Left unanswered - what terrible hold does Karl Rove have over Lanny Davis?

Ask Greenwald. Or maybe David Corn. His tin foil hat is brand new this week…

The question of the ascension of Alcee Hastings to the position of Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is one that will go along way toward answering the question uppermost in many people’s minds in this post election Democratic honeymoon”

Are the Democrats serious about national security?

Forget for a moment that Hastings would replace a steady, if unspectacular Jane Harmon who has taken a common sense approach to her duties, including a thoughtful appraisal of the domestic spying allegations. Also forget about Hastings impeachment nearly 20 years ago from the federal bench. He was, after all, found innocent by a jury of his peers. And reading this account by Byron York, one can see where reasonable doubt could have played a role in the juror’s decision.

On the other hand, there is an enormous amount of damning evidence as well - including Hastings’ behavior immediately after discovering that the FBI had arrested his co-conspirator. But it is all water under the bridge. It is what Hastings has done since his election in 1992 that should concern us.

And that record reveals a man who believes that the United States is the root of most of the problems in the world today. It reveals an admirer of Fidel Castro. It reveals a man with enormously troubling positions on issues vital to the security of the United States.

A sampling:

Voted NO on deterring foreign arms transfers to China. (Jul 2005)

The bill was supposed to deter arms and technology sales to China. Is it good that a potential chairman of the House Intel Committee doesn’t care about a potential enemy improving the quality of it weapons which could someday be used against the US?

Voted NO on reforming the UN by restricting US funding. (Jun 2005)

While this might be expected of any your run-of-the-mill liberal members of Congress, the fact is that the bill required the UN to initiate common sense reforms on things like budget and personnel matters - issues that any well run organization should be held accountable for. More should be expected from an Intel Chairman than knee jerk ideological reactions.

Voted NO on keeping Cuba travel ban until political prisoners released. (Jul 2001)

Here’s a jawdropper. I’d love to hear Hastings justify lifting the travel ban on Cuba, especially after this bill made the minimum demands that the ban be lifted “only after the president has certified that Cuba has released all political prisoners, and extradited all individuals sought by the US on charges of air piracy, drug trafficking and murder.”

Voted NO on withholding $244M in UN Back Payments until US seat restored. (May 2001)

Should we have withheld our UN payments until a genuine democracy (us) was returned to our seat on the Human Rights Commission? Or should we go ahead and acquiesce while Libya, Iran, and other hell holes and human rights nightmares sit in judgement? Hastings didn’t think so.

Voted NO on making the PATRIOT Act permanent. (Dec 2005)

Even with amendments that addressed many civil liberties objections, Hastings still didn’t think it necessary to support the bill.

Voted NO on scheduling permitting for new oil refineries. (Jun 2006)

The recent spike in gas prices was not so much a crude oil supply problem but rather a refined gasoline supply problem. That’s because we haven’t built a new refinery in this country in 20 years. We actually import refined oil products. This bill would have allowed for expedited refinery approval.

Voted YES on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR.

It all makes perfect sense. Not only oppose new domestic refineries but oppose finding new domestic supplies.

Voted NO on federalizing rules for driver licenses to hinder terrorists. (Feb 2005)

A small matter but experts say that such nationwide standards would make it easier to spot illegal entrants to the US. And the bill also had a provision to toughen asylum requirements by expanding the number of relevant factors - another small but important step in keeping the homeland secure.

Voted NO on continuing military recruitment on college campuses. (Feb 2005)

Where are tomorrow’s officers going to come from? Hastings wants to make it harder for both the military and students to find out.

Voted NO on adopting the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. (Oct 2004)

While not necessarily a bad vote, reforming the intelligence community was the number one priority spelled out by the Commission. One would think that someone deadly serious about our intelligence agencies would have voted for the measure and then worked to shape the reform measures that he though necessary.

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

It should be noted that Hastings, while getting close to a zero rating from most conservative groups, also supported the deployment of SDI as well as voting to continue the Iraq War - despite voting against it at the outset which no one should hold against him. He is not entirely disinterested in improving our military and his record on veterans affairs is exemplary.

But the votes above reveal someone who, in my opinion, does not share the urgency nor the seriousness of purpose that the times demand. For that reason, the Democrats would do well to find another candidate (if Pelosi is deadset on allowing her personal vendetta against Harmon to potentially harm national security) who shows the same kind of thoughtfulness as Jane Harmon brought to the position of Intel Chairman.

Whether that is possible within the current ideological context of the Democratic party will determine whether the nation can trust the party to carry out its responsibilities of governance during a time of war with the zeal and seriousness that our situation requires.

THE BELMONT, CA CITY COUNCIL CELEBRATES AFTER VOTING TO BAN SMOKING EVERYWHERE IN TOWN

No smoking in theaters? Absolutely. Restaurants? Okay, but don’t expect me to eat there. Offices? Fine. Workplace? Ditto.

How about your car? Your apartment? Your front lawn?

Welcome to Belmont, California:

The Belmont City Council voted unanimously last night to pursue a strict law that will prohibit smoking anywhere in the city except for single-family detached residences. Smoking on the street, in a park and even in one’s car will become illegal and police would have the option of handing out tickets if they catch someone.

The actual language of the law still needs to be drafted and will likely come back to the council either in December or early next year.

“We have a tremendous opportunity here. We need to pass as stringent a law as we can, I would like to make it illegal,” said Councilman Dave Warden. “What if every city did this, image how many lives would be saved? If we can do one little thing here at this level it will matter.”

First, get off you moral high horse about the dangers of smoking, of second hand smoke, how much you hate it, how you’re glad you quit, and how you think people who smoke are idiots.

Look at what the government is telling you with this law. Take a good, long, hard, look. Do you really think the nannies, the busybodies, the do-gooders, the health nazis, the activists are going to be satisfied and go home once they achieve their goal of either making smoking illegal or forcing it underground? Do you really believe that they will pat themselves on the back for a job well done and retire from the public arena, content to let you live, breathe, eat, and drink whatever you want whenever it suits you?

People like this get a rush out of butting into other people’s affairs. It’s what they live for. In their determination to save lives (how heroic of them, no?), they brook no opposition, refer to their opponents as tools of industry, and with the insufferably superior air of someone convinced that they have the right to control your life, will work like busy little bees, tearing down your freedoms one at a time.

I can guarantee you that their “retirement” will be shortlived and that they will find something else they don’t like and go after it, probably fast food. Or sodas. Or trans fat. Or red meat. Or sugar. Or caffeine.

See something in there that you don’t want these buttinskies to start lecturing you about? If not, they’ll find something. It’s what they live for. They want to save you from your own stupidity. Of course, if they have to knock individual liberty for a loop in the process, so be it.

They will have us eating sprigs and dandelions and drinking herbal tea by the time your infant reaches adulthood.

Don’t believe me?

“I would just like to say ‘no smoking’ and see what happens and if they do smoke, [someone] has the right to have the police come and give them a ticket,” said Councilwoman Coralin Feierbach.

The council’s decision garnered applause from about 15 people who showed up in support of the ordinance. One woman stood up and blew kisses to the council, another pumped his fist with satisfaction.

“I’m astounded. I admire their courage and unanimous support,” said Serena Chen, policy director of the American Lung Association of California.

Chen has worked in this area since 1991 and helped many cities and counties pass no smoking policies, but not one has been willing to draft a complete ban.

“I feel like the revolution is taking place and I am trying to catch up,” Chen told the council.

These are your future overlords. Learn to love them. For every bric-a-brac you throw at me for wanting to smoke in my own yard, or outdoors (where the smoking particulates drop to as close to absolute zero as is measurable), I will point to that person “pumping their fist in satisfaction.” Not for saving any lives. No lives are at risk if I want to smoke in my yard.

The person is pumping their fist because of the control they have suddenly gained over your behavior. They have taken your liberty and it makes them feel good. It makes them feel superior. And I guarantee that person will not hesitate - will, in fact take enormous personal pleasure - in calling the police the first chance he gets when he sees someone violating this ordinance.

It is not about health. It is about control. And if you don’t recognize this, if you don’t stand with smokers in opposition to these kinds of draconian, un-American. illiberal, liberty busting laws, then there is little hope for you when they want to take away something that either you like to eat or drink.

Think about it.

UPDATE

The blog 186 K Per Second asks:

Why is it that every “Socialist” city and town in this country that wants to ban smoking are the same ones that want to legalize drugs?

Most municipalities want to legalize grass because it frees up law enforcement to go after more serious crimes - like smoking.

The question uppermost in my mind is…

WHY IN GOD’S NAME DIDN’T YOU DO IT BEFORE THE ELECTION!

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down as defense secretary on Wednesday, one day after midterm elections in which opposition to the war in Iraq contributed to heavy Republican losses.

President Bush said he would nominate Robert Gates, a former CIA director, to replace Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. The three were expected to appear in the Oval Office at 3:30 p.m. ET, according to NBC News.

Asked whether his announcement signaled a new direction in the war that has claimed the lives of more than 2,800 U.S. troops, Bush said, “Well, there’s certainly going to be new leadership at the Pentagon.”

Bush lavished praise on Rumsfeld, who has spent six stormy years at his post. The president disclosed he met with Gates last Sunday, two days before the elections in which Democrats swept control of the House and possibly the Senate.

Was it out and out hubris that kept the President from firing Rumsfeld before the election? Wouldn’t firing him have signaled a “change in course” and knocked the chocks from underneath the Democratic critique of “stay the course?” Did the President’s stubbornness and overweening pride prevent him from appearing to give in to his political opponents before an election?

I may be very tired and not reading this correctly but what this says to me is that Bush cared more about his personal standing than he did the party. The fact that he said a week ago that Rumsfeld would be his Secretary of Defense till the end of his term probably played a role in waiting until after the election. But firing Rumsfeld now rather than last week (or last month for that matter) just doesn’t make any sense to me.

No doubt Rumsfeld was popular among many conservatives for his disdain of the media and his leadership during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when it came to winning the peace, especially in Iraq, there is little doubt that his policies were a disaster. One need only look at Iraq today to confirm that analysis. If he was doing such a bang up job (as many of my readers will let me know in the comments), why isn’t Iraq farther along the road to taking care of itself? Why is much of the country in absolute chaos? Why is the Iraqi army a joke with only 10 battle ready battalions according to his own Pentagon?

One could go on and on asking questions about the disastrous decisions Rumsfeld has made in the three plus years of this war. But it was his relentless, upbeat, assessments of “progress” in Iraq that called into question the man’s ultimate fitness for the office. Admitting no mistakes. Allowing for no bad news. The constant “glass is half full” press briefings got so wearing that I simply stopped watching and listening when he came on.

I am not calling into question his integrity. I am criticizing his competence. And given the situation in Iraq and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, his failures are there for the whole world to see.

Gates, a CIA vet and card carrying member of the military industrial complex (a joke my friends. He’s a Washington defense/foreign policy insider) is a fair choice but I would have preferred a Sam Nunn or some other old, wise man who could have ridden herd on both the Generals and the bureaucracy by virtue of their reputation. And naming a Democrat would not have been a bad move by the President following the election results yesterday.

We’ll see. In the meantime, Iraq continues to bleed. Our soldiers continue to die. And whatever would constitute a “victory” in Iraq seems to be slipping away.

Years of living in Chicago with a baseball team like the Chicago Cubs has given me the gift of eternal hope. When spring rolls around, the entire city with one voice breathes the words “This could be the year.” And even when it isn’t, we know that there will always be another spring, another chance to make good the promise that springtime brings.

Two years is not that long to wait for renewal. It should start now with some hard and brutal introspection by GOP leaders and an acknowledgement of their total and complete failure - failure as public servants and as honorable men and women. And that introspection should extend to us, the rank and file. What are we asking of the party? More importantly, what are we asking of government?

Tough days ahead. But we’ll be all the better for it if we learn the right lessons and apply the right prescriptions for change. That’s what adults do about defeat. Not whine about “stolen elections” or “rigged machines.” Let’s take our medicine and participate in the birth of a better, more responsible, more responsive Republican party.

And that new party will not look much like the old one - or at least it shouldn’t. If we try to refashion the old majority, we will continue to lose or, in a best case scenario, win enough seats to be in a majority but not enough to enact the kinds of legislation (and start repealing others) that would bring true conservative governance to Washington.

If there is one thing exit polls are good for, it is breaking down the vote by age, income, religion, ideology, and other important indices. Here’s the bad news from exit polls taken for House races nationwide:

* Republicans saw their advantage with white men diminish from 62-37 in 2004 to 53-45 Their advantage with white women dropped from 55-44 in 2004 to a 49-49 tie. For the first time in memory, Republicans lost American males to the Democrats 51-47 compared to 55-44 advantage in 2004.

* In 2004, Bush lost the 18-29 age group but won in the 30-44, 45-59, and 60 and older. No age group voted in the majority for the GOP in 2006.

* The GOP has lost the middle class. In 2004, all income brackets above $50,000 voted in the majority for the GOP (those making $30-50,000 split their vote evenly). In 2006, only those making more than $100,000 and above voted Republican.

* In 2004, Republicans garnered majorities in all education groups except high school graduates and Post Doc grads. In 2006, the GOP failed to win any education group.

* Bush barely lost Independents to Kerry 49-48 in 2004. In 2006, indies went Dem 57-39.

* For the first time since 1976, the Republicans lost the Catholic vote 55-44. GOP won the Catholic vote 52-47 in 2004.

* The GOP lost 2/3 of the unmarried vote. Given that this demographic is growing and is now bigger than married couples, that is a huge stumbling block to majority status.

(Here’s a link to the 2004 exit polls and the 2006 exit polls.)

I could go on and on. The fact of the matter is that the GOP majority, cobbled together after the Reagan majority fell apart, was never really a true ideological coalition. That Reagan coalition had anti-communism as a powerful glue that held northeastern urban ethnics, blue collar rust belters, “Boll Weevil” Democrats, and Main Street Republicans together through good times and bad. The ex-Republican majority, made up of evangelical Christians and other social conservatives as well as a pastiche of libertarians, hawks, anti-immigration advocates, and fiscal conservatives had no ideological coherence. It was bound to crack when things went south.

In a large way, what was holding this coalition together was support for the President. But once Bush proved himself a weak sister on fiscal restraint, immigration, and even the war, there was nothing to keep the majority together except blind loyalty to Bush and the Presidency. And enough conservatives (20%) actually got so disgusted with the President and the GOP that they crossed over and voted Democratic.

We can’t just abandon Bush - not when the Democrats are sharpening their knives to come after him, the Presidency, the war, tax cuts, and the entire conservative agenda. The opposition to the President will be relentless as will the investigations into Iraq, war reconstruction, internal security, Katrina, energy policy, and anything else that strikes the fancy of a Democratic Committee or Sub-Committee chairman. Some of those investigations will no doubt reveal shocking waste, fraud, and abuse. Criminal charges will be forthcoming. Impeachment, demanded by the netnuts from day one, will almost certainly be on the table. And there will be much witch hunting as well as fishing expeditions into White House activities.

But Bush himself is going to have to change his way of governance if he is going to survive the next two years. I hold out little hope that he will do so. Already he is talking about reviving his flawed “guest worker” initiative, thinking he can pass it now that he has a Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate. And I believe that he will take the “out” offered by the Iraq Study Group (Baker Commission) to leave Iraq before the job is done. If he does these things and if he continues to preside over the fiscal mess we find ourselves in, he will score no points with Democrats and lose the rest of his base, leaving him dangling, twisting slowly, slowly in the wind as the Democrats flay what’s left of his presidency to shreds.

There is much serious thought to be given to where the party is today and where it should be headed in the future. I anticipate that conservative blogs will play a role in redefining the party and refashioning a viable, coherent coalition that will bring the GOP back from the depths we are in today. There will be clashes of ideas. There will probably be a certain amount of fingerpointing. But blogs will be able to cull and synthesize the blizzard of ideas that will bubble up from the grass roots and present them for discussion to those who lead the party. And with any number of candidates for President waiting in the wings, many of these ideas have a real shot at being incorporated into a winning strategy that would bring the GOP victory in 2008.

We are standing on the crest of a bluff overlooking a vast undiscovered country of ideas and solutions. Let’s hope that we have the courage and the will to seize the opportunity and conquer that country for our party, ourselves, and our country.

If there were a Pulitzer Prize for wishful thinking, I have no doubt the New York Times would win hands down.

Here we are 3 days before the election and, right on cue, the Times pulls a journalistic stunt that, if we didn’t know how partisan and biased they truly are, would be remarkable for its blatant attempt to plant a horrifically negative spin on one of the Republican’s only major pluses going into Tuesday’s vote; the relative economic health of the country.

First, the set up. In a front page story, the Times reveals that many Republicans are running on the economic record for the last 6 years and are buoyed by the Labor Department’s report of a significant drop in the unemployment rate:

Republicans seized on a drop in the unemployment rate to assert on Friday that tax cuts were invigorating the economy, highlighting just four days before the election an issue that party strategists are counting on to offset bad news about the war.

The Labor Department announced Friday morning that the unemployment rate had fallen to 4.4 percent in October — down from 4.6 percent in September and the lowest rate since May 2001, when it was 4.3 percent.

Within hours, President Bush mocked Democrats for predicting that the administration’s tax and spending policies would wreck the economy.

In fact, by most indices, the Bush economy is at least as good as the Clinton economy from 1998 during that off year election. Unemployment, income, GDP growth, and other broad markers are as good or better than when the Times and other media were talking about the Clinton “miracle” economy. That’s not to say that there aren’t enormous problems, largely created by Republicans, that we must address down the road. But the current state of the economy is, in fact, fairly good.

But never let it be said that the New York Times let any positive news for Republicans be allowed to speak for itself. In an almost comical juxtaposition, the Times’ editors run an editorial that cuts the legs out from underneath any salutary news about unemployment by telling us that layoffs are coming - you just wait:

The latest information about the economy leaves no question that it has slowed down by just about every measure — housing and manufacturing, retail sales and job growth, and others.

Even the recent increase in compensation is generally believed to be a sign of coming layoffs, not a harbinger of wage inflation. When business dries up at firms and factories, employers don’t cut back immediately. So for a time, pay and benefits hang in there. As for the recent improvement in the unemployment rate, sorry to say, it’s an aberration. The job market won’t turn up in any meaningful way when the overall direction of the economy is down.

In fact, the “overall direction of the economy” is still going up although at a slower rate than the frenetic pace of the previous 2 1/2 years when the Times never missed a chance to, well, miss a chance to prominently report the fantastic rates of GDP growth (never in the news section; always in the business section).

To the editors, it’s not a question of if but when the slowdown will occur and whether it will be a recession or not:

All of this information has fed the debate on the dominant economic question of the day: Is the United States economy headed toward the longed-for soft landing, in which it cools without contracting. Or is another recession inevitable? It’s an interesting question, but in many ways it also is a diversion.

Most Americans are ill prepared for an economic deceleration, even if it ends in a soft landing. When economic basics like income and insurance coverage are taken into account, most working families are no better off now than they were when the economic expansion began in late 2001.

Some Americans are always unprepared for bad times. Those that live on borrowed money end up paying for it when the economy goes south. The fact that people borrow against the future should not surprise us. The government has been doing it for more than 6 years and when that bill comes due, true economic pain will be involved.

The Republicans and Bush have done more damage to the long term economic prospects of the United States than any two Administrations before them. The debt burden, extending out as far as they eye can see, is almost unbelievable. This AP piece on our economic future is one of the more frightening things I’ve read in quite awhile.

Their basic message is this: If the United States government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation. That’s almost as much as the total net worth of every person in America - Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and those Google guys included.

A hole that big could paralyze the U.S. economy; according to some projections, just the interest payments on a debt that big would be as much as all the taxes the government collects today.

And every year that nothing is done about it, Walker says, the problem grows by $2 trillion to $3 trillion.

People who remember Ross Perot’s rants in the 1992 presidential election may think of the federal debt as a problem of the past. But it never really went away after Perot made it an issue, it only took a breather. The federal government actually produced a surplus for a few years during the 1990s, thanks to a booming economy and fiscal restraint imposed by laws that were passed early in the decade. And though the federal debt has grown in dollar terms since 2001, it hasn’t grown dramatically relative to the size of the economy.

But that’s about to change, thanks to the country’s three big entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicaid and especially Medicare. Medicaid and Medicare have grown progressively more expensive as the cost of health care has dramatically outpaced inflation over the past 30 years, a trend that is expected to continue for at least another decade or two.

My beef with the Times isn’t that the Republicans haven’t been lousy stewards of the economy per se. It’s the rank partisanship they exhibit with a regularity that makes them poster boys for Metamucil. For such an established and respected name in journalism, they have demonstrated that they are little better than shills for the Democratic party - and bad ones at that. At least a shill will make an effort to hide their partisanship. The Times doesn’t even bother anymore.

As for the future, taxes will have to be raised. Spending will have to be cut. And somewhere, somehow, we have to find the money to keep fighting an enemy that wishes to destroy us. Will we be forced by economic circumstance to curtail our efforts in the War on Terror? I don’t think so. But we are almost certainly going to be forced to fight smarter. A smaller armed forces with more emphasis on “asymmetrical warfare” and an even greater reliance on our technological advantages will probably be in the offing.

These problems are not going to solve themselves. It will involve real statesmanship at the top and a cooperation in Congress between the two parties that would almost be unprecedented. And we, the American people, must somehow wean ourselves from dependence on government for some things that today we might find convenient or even helpful.

A tall order all of that. And the hell of it is, there doesn’t seem to be the leadership in Congress now in either party that is good for anything except jostling for power and position.

In what has to be considered something of a shocker, the Washington Times is calling on House Speaker Dennis Hastert to resign for his inaction and dissembling over the Foley matter:

Now the scandal must unfold on the front pages of the newspapers and on the television screens, as transcripts of lewd messages emerge and doubts are rightly raised about the forthrightness of the Republican stewards of the 109th Congress. Some Democrats are attempting to make this “a Republican scandal,” and they shouldn’t; Democrats have contributed more than their share of characters in the tawdry history of congressional sexual scandals. Sexual predators come in all shapes, sizes and partisan hues, in institutions within and without government. When predators are found they must be dealt with, forcefully and swiftly. This time the offender is a Republican, and Republicans can’t simply “get ahead” of the scandal by competing to make the most noise in calls for a full investigation. The time for that is long past.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week’s revelations — or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.

Hastert has presided over what will probably go down in history as the most inept, corrupt, cynical, and arrogant Congress since perhaps near the turn of the 20th century when the robber barons held sway in Washington and openly bought and sold votes on the floor.

Hastert himself - a genial, if clueless sort - is probably one of the least blameless members in this camper’s stew of corruption and irresponsible lawmaking. His leadership style has been one of staying above the fray while allowing his whips full reign to twist arms and necks to get Republican majorities on major legislation. This allowed stronger personalities like Tom DeLay and Roy Blunt to dominate at times, making Hastert appear to be an appendage, especially to the publicity hungry DeLay. In short, Hastert never really seemed to be in charge - something that was exposed during the Foley matter as it still isn’t clear whether anyone ever bothered to inform the Speaker personally about Foley’s emails to the former page, telling his staff instead who may or may not have informed him.

I’m not sure the resignation of Hastert is either necessary or desirable. The voters will almost surely take care of Mr. Hastert and the Republicans come November. In fact, it seems pretty much of a lead pipe cinch at this point as the universal disgust over Foley and the leadership’s tone deaf response to the emails and their potential import becomes widely known. The only question now is how big a majority the Democrats are likely to be handed as the new Congress sits next January.

It should go without saying that if the Democrats presented anything like a positive agenda for the country, their victory would be of historic proportions, almost certainly surpassing the Republican gains of 1994 and approaching their own electoral tidal wave of 1974. But a combination of Republican advantages in redistricting and voter doubts about their national security bona fides will probably hold Democratic gains to a narrow majority in the House and a possible one seat advantage in the Senate, the latter by no means a certainty but the polls breaking that way of late.

None of the blame for this should necessarily fall entirely on the shoulders of the Speaker. But as a symbol of Republican malfeasance in the Foley matter, it may be hard for him to escape walking the plank. Most conservatives have expressed disgust with the leadership over everything from earmarks to their curious incuriosity when it comes to oversight - my own beef being the horrific waste already revealed in war reconstruction spending. New leadership will hardly have time to get settled before their almost certain replacement by Democrats. So I suppose my point is - what’s the point?

If it is to make a statement that we won’t tolerate this kind of malfeasance then we are all a little late to that party. These people have been playing patty cakes with the truth, with parliamentary procedure, with House rules, and with the faith and trust of the American people for going on 6 years. It is a little late for resignations and mea culpas.

What is needed is a reckoning - a settling of accounts by the voters for all the broken promises, the wasteful spending, the arrogant mismanagement, and the irresponsible lawmaking which have combined to bring the Republican party to its sorriest state I’ve seen in my 30 years of membership.

Let the voters change the leadership in Congress. And then let the chips fall where they may.

Catchy headline, eh? The point of it is that the netnuts are either implying as much in their criticisms or are actually saying so.

Taylor Marsh: “MARK FOLEY: Just Another Republican Pervert”

John Aravosis: “GOP House page board chair may have helped cover-up Foley scandal.”

Oliver Willis: “Republican Pedophile Scandal: They Knew”

The Democratic Daily: “Got Values? Republican House Leadership Cover Up for Suspected Pervert in Congress”

Facts you say? You want facts? Why in God’s name do you want to ruin a perfectly good scandal 40 days before the election by muddying the waters with a bunch of facts?

Well, maybe we can start with the statement issued by the Chairman of the House Page Board, Representative Shimkus:

“As chairman of the bipartisan House Page Board in late 2005, I was notified by the then Clerk of the House, who manages the Page Program, that he had been told by Congressman Rodney Alexander about an email exchange between Congressman Foley and a former House Page. I took immediate action to investigate the matter.

“In that email exchange, Congressman Foley asked about the former Page’s well-being after Hurricane Katrina and requested a photograph. When asked about the email exchange, Congressman Foley said he expressed concern about the Page’s well-being and wanted a photo to see that the former Page was alright.< [> “Congressman Foley told the Clerk and me that he was simply acting as a mentor to this former House Page and that nothing inappropriate had occurred. Nevertheless, we ordered Congressman Foley to cease all contact with this former House Page to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. We also advised him to be especially mindful of his conduct with respect to current and former House Pages, and he assured us he would do so. I received no subsequent complaints about his behavior nor was I ever made aware of any additional emails.

“It has become clear to me today, based on information I only now have learned, that Congressman Foley was not honest about his conduct.

“As Chairman of the House Page Board, I am working with the Clerk to fully review this incident and determine what actions need to be taken.

The “jumping to conclusions” crowd has ignored this statement and the facts contained therein to accuse the Republican House leadership of covering up the actions of a known pervert. While by any stretch the contact with the page was inappropriate, it hardly rises to the level of “perversion” as it was reported to the Page Board last year and trying to make it seem so is the dirtiest kind of politics.

It disturbs me that the parents of the page did not want to pursue the matter at that time. There are many reasons for that but one that leaps out and begs to be investigated further is if there was pressure put on the parents by Republican members of Congress to drop the matter. Another perfectly logical explanation is that the emails were, in fact, innocent sounding attempts to inquire as to the youth’s well being and the parents were satisfied with the Congressman’s explanation.

But why let common sense or common decency for that matter spoil a good smear campaign? The muddy hoofprints left by Democrats over the last few years as they have dirtied the reputations of several Republicans who have later turned out to be innocent (Karl Rove in Plamegate for one) reveals a party so totally bereft of ideas that their only hope to take advantage of the monumentally stupid and disastrous Republican leadership is to pray for more Americans to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, hope that gas prices go higher, and wish for an economic downturn. Even with Republicans as weak and vulnerable as they have been in a generation or more, the Democrats still could lose thanks to a party so intellectually bankrupt and morally ambivalent that they can’t bring themselves to tell the American people the truth about their cut and run strategy in Iraq or that they fully intend to initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States at the earliest possible moment after they achieve power in the House.

It is clear from the polls that the American people are so fed up with Republicans that this summer, they turned toward the Democrats to see what they had to offer in the way of new ideas and new leadership. What they got was a blend of deranged Bush bashing, conspiracy mongering, and outright lies about their intentions. This latest Republican scandal will probably not amount to much (despite the efforts of the netnuts to make it into something larger than it is as they tried to do with the Gannon/Guckert affair) which means that as the American people continue to implore the Democrats to give them something that they can vote for, all they do is remind the country why they have lost so many previous elections in the first place.

UPDATE

As is usual when TBogg links here, the knuckledraggers with IQ’s smaller than their penis length swarm my site and spit vulgarity in the comments section with a regularity that makes me think they are either under 10 years of age or have the same familiarity with the English language than they do with the ideas of Proust or Kierkegaard - or Donald Duck for that matter.

I will brook no vulgarity (save mine) in the comments. If that doesn’t sit well with you, eat me.

Secondly, here is the sum total of what is known about GOP leadership knowledge of Foley’s perversion:

Shimkus recalled that when he initially questioned Foley about the e-mails, the congressman assured him that he was “simply acting as a mentor” and that “nothing inappropriate had occurred.”

Foley said he was e-mailing to find out if the teenager was OK after Hurricane Katrina and “wanted a photo to see that the former page was all right,” Shimkus said.

Foley was ordered to have no further contact with the former page and advised “to be especially mindful of his conduct,” Shimkus said.

“And he assured us he would do so,” Shimkus’ statement added. “I received no subsequent complaints about his behavior nor was I ever made aware of any additional e-mails.”

In his e-mails, Foley purportedly asked the page to send a picture of himself to the congressman, asked the teen what he wanted for his birthday and made comments about another former page in which Foley allegedly said he acted “much older than his age” and was “in really great shape.” (More details)

Some GOP leaders knew of contact

An aide to Rep. Tom Reynolds, the New York congressman who heads the National Republican Campaign Committee, said he knew about the matter a year ago.

The GOP panel coordinates election efforts for House Republicans, who now must find a candidate to replace Foley in Florida’s 16th District, six weeks before the election.

Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, learned about the contacts from Louisiana Rep. Alexander in the spring, said Boehner’s spokesman, Kevin Madden.

“It was Congressman Alexander’s opinion that the contact was not of a professional nature,” Madden said.

Now I realize how eager many of you are to connect all these dots and start accusing people of all sorts of conpsiracies to keep this thing quiet. And I will happily join you in hanging by their toes the entire Republican leadership if it turns out that they knew more than what is reported here and failed to do anything.

But people - there is no “there” there. All you have to ponder at the moment is the very good question of what did they know and when did they know it. Nowhere in my post do I say that we shouldn’t get to the bottom of this (as one idiotic mouthbreather suggested breathlessly in the comments - so pleased with himself that he could string more than 4 words together and make a sentence) and in fact, I open a whole other line of questioning that even you netnuts have failed to highlight - the possibility of obstruction of justice by GOP members who worked to keep the parents of the boy whose case came before the Page board quiet.

But the fact of the matter is all you are doing at the moment is engaged in a gigantic smear campaign. Period. There is no argument there because the facts are, at the moment, unknown. You have jumped the gun making the wildest of charges without any knowledge whatsoever of the facts and all it does is expose you for the brutish louts you truly are.

Keep it clean or begone.

UPDATE II

My good friend and fellow American Thinker contributor Clarice Feldman left a comment that deserves to be elevated for greater readability. It is, something of an eye popper:

Reportedly the St Pete Times had the same information in August 2005 and wrote nothing about it either, apparently because the emails do not constitute illegal conduct, they are just creepy, and the boy’s parents did not wish to pursue this.

Pardon an old lady’s suspicions. I’ve seen this dance too many times before.

I read this morning that a Monroe, LA newspaper also had the story and didn’t run with it because there appeared to be no impropriety.

And one more point that our dimwitted lefty friends can’t seem to wrap their miniscule brains around; the incident that was brought to the attention of the Page Board is unconnected to any of the raunchy, sick emails ABC news got from, as Clarice informs us, CREW.

Why the release of the emails and IM’s now is a question that answers itself 40 days before an election. And if it turns out that the GOP leadership is blameless in this - if Foley carried on his perversions in secret with only the terrified children knowing of his activities - then the question rightly arises why a Democrat connected organization allowed someone they knew as a pervert to continue to stalk children in the House of Representatives, failing to release the information until maximum political damage could be done to the opposition.