Right Wing Nut House

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Tomorrow while much of the country pauses to remember the victims of 9/11 on the five year anniversary of that horrible day, it will occur to many of us what those attacks signified; the day that the United States awoke from its decades-long slumber and finally faced up to the fact that we were at war with a grimly determined, fanatical enemy hell bent on destroying us.

For others, especially for those on the left, 9/11 will be remembered as a tragedy, a day when our “chickens came home to roost” and nearly 3,000 of our fellow citizens paid the price for our folly. In this historical construct, rather than remembering 9/11 as a wake up call, the left sees the anniversary as a day of atonement, a day to make amends for our past sins.

Michelle Malkin has an interesting piece about one aspect of this phenomena and its weird manifestation in Washington state:

Moonbat America is beyond parody. Yesterday, I told you about Bremerton, Washington’s 9/11 commemoration–commemorating “diversity” and immigration and anything except the actual events, heroes, victims, and villains of 9/11.

Well, here’s more inanity from the Pacific Northwest.

First, take a look at a few of the King County (WA) library system’s Sept. 11 programs (hat tip: reader J.S.):

Yes to the World: Songs of Peace, Unity and Healing for the Whole Family
Presented by Lorraine Bayes and Dennis Westphall. The founding directors of Tickle Tune Typhoon sing songs to celebrate the beauty of life. Come sing and dance at a family concert that supports friendship, peace, cooperation and caring for all living things.

This has become known as “9/11 Denial” where the full implication of the attacks are simply put out of mind and the comfortable bromides and somnolent fantasies about the brotherhood of man and world peace are eagerly substituted. Harsh realities that require one to look into the abyss and accept the fact that evil men wish to do us enormous harm are carefully placed in a box and hidden away lest the children (and those with child like minds) be exposed to the discomfort of a smashed worldview, battered and broken by the exigencies of history and the materiality of events.

This is only part of the equation, of course. Living in a world where quite literally there never was a 9/11 appeals to only a certain segment of the left - aging hippies and the radical sophists who have abandoned reality and created their own personal gulags of politically correct ideas and actions. For them, 9/11 is one more opportunity to demonstrate what they believe is their moral superiority over the rest of us.

But for the majority of the left, it is the yearning for a return to a 9/10 fantasy world that occupies their thoughts this weekend. These thoughts include a determined effort to carefully construct a historical narrative that proves that 9/11 was a gigantic mistake and that rather than moving on to face the assault on the west by radical Islamists, it would be better if we learned from our errors and repaired to the safety and security we believed were ours on 9/10.

There is obvious comfort in this historical fallacy. And there is political gain as well. For this reason, the left has built a storyline about 9/11 that takes the form of both a Chaucer-like cautionary tale and Hollywood conspiracy fable, all the better to appeal to the confusion many Americans are feeling about the aftermath of 9/11 and our response to terrorism in general.

That response - the invasion and overthrow of two regimes in the Middle East that supported terrorism - seems to many on the left to supply verification for Ward Churchill’s thesis that 9/11 was the result of America’s bullying and our insatiable desire to dominate. To the mountebanks who have spent the last 5 years spinning conspiracy theories about Haliburton and secret neocon cabals, the challenge became one of trying to translate their distrust of American power and loathing of American purpose into a palatable mix for the masses to latch on to and embrace.

While not completely swallowing the Ward Churchill view that 9/11 happened because we were hated throughout the world for policies promulgated before the attacks, the left has taken the bare bones of Churchill’s critique and pasted it on to the aftermath of 9/11 to posit the notion that in the months following that awful day, “the world was with us” and it was only because of the policies put in place since the attacks that the nations now despise us. This has the virtue of cleansing the historical record of any mistakes made by Bush’s predecessor while blaming the President for the virulent strain of anti-Americanism that has infected the planet from Europe to the Middle East and beyond.

This myth of worldwide solidarity with America following 9/11 has been successfully advanced thanks to a stubborn refusal by most of us to look carefully beyond the outpouring of genuine feeling for the plight of New Yorkers and the American people as a result of the catastrophe and examine the long held anti-American feelings of most of the rest of the world who saw the attacks as both a punishment for our transgressions as well as an occasion for joy that the mighty USA had been brought down a peg or two in the scheme of things.

One need only look to our closest ally Great Britain for proof that the solidarity myth is a crock. Less than 48 hours after the attacks, former Ambassador to the Court of St. James Philip Lader appeared on the BBC program Question Time where he was roundly booed and “slow handclapped” after his defense of American policy, reducing that worthy almost to tears. And despite the fact that the BBC apologized, William Shawcross, who was in Europe at the time of the attacks wrote on September 17, 2001:

But the response of some of the Question Time audience reveals a darker side and shows the awful truth that these days there is just one racism that is tolerated - anti-Americanism. Not just tolerated, but often applauded. Like any other nation, the US makes mistakes at home and abroad. (I wrote about some of those in Indochina.)

But the disdain with which its failures and its efforts are greeted by some in Britain and elsewhere in Europe is shocking. Anti-Americanism often goes much further than criticism of Washington. Too often the misfortunes of America are met with glee, a schadenfreude that is quite horrifying.

Even the proof most often cited by “The World Was With Us” crowd - a front page editorial in the French newspaper Le Monde entitled “We are All Americans” - is, after close examination, nothing more than a rehash of American sins and an expression of the widespread view held by both elites and commoners that we got what we deserved.

John Rosenthal writing in The Wall Street Journal on October 17, 2004 on “The Myth of ‘Squandered Sympathy:’

Thus are legends born. For the solidarity ostentatiously displayed in the title of Mr. Colombani’s editorial is in fact massively belied by the details of the text itself.

By the fifth paragraph, Mr. Colombani is offering his general reflections on the geo-political conditions he supposes provoked the attacks:

“The reality is surely that of a world without a counterbalance, physically destabilized and thus dangerous in the absence of a multipolar equilibrium. And America, in the solitude of its power, of its hyperpower, . . . has ceased to draw the peoples of the globe to it; or, more exactly, in certain parts of the globe, it seems no longer to attract anything but hatred. . . . And perhaps even we ourselves in Europe, from the Gulf War to the use of F16s against Palestinians by the Israeli Army, have underestimated the hatred which, from the outskirts of Jakarta to those of Durban, by way of the rejoicing crowds of Nablus and of Cairo, is focused on the United States.”

The editorial that headlined the idea that “We are all Americans” then degenerated into conspiracy mongering:

In the following paragraph, Mr. Colombani went on to add that perhaps too “the reality” was that America had been “trapped by its own cynicism,” noting that Osama bin Laden himself had, after all, been “trained by the CIA”–a never substantiated charge that has, of course, in the meanwhile become chapter and verse for the blame-America-firsters. “Couldn’t it be, then,” Mr. Colombani concluded, “that America gave birth to this devil?”

Almost from the start of the War on Terror, the left’s critique of the President has utilized this myth to both rail against Administration actions and point to a time when our policies fostered good will around the world and a morality of purpose here at home. That time turns out to be 9/10 and the golden age that preceded it or, more specifically, anything that happened in America before January 20, 2001.

This is why Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to prevent the showing of ABC’s The Path to 9/11. Any countervailing narrative that shows President Clinton in anything less than a flattering light, especially as it relates to his Administration’s response to terrorism, must be suppressed. The shocking response by Democratic legislators in threatening The Disney Company, parent of ABC, with nothing less than yanking it’s license to broadcast has at bottom, a fervent desire to prevent any information that might show the truth of how the United States spent the 1990’s sleepwalking through history.

And the outpouring of invective directed against the program has another cause as well; the belief that the Clinton-Albright policy of treating terrorism largely as a law enforcement problem would be revealed as the monumental failure it turned out to be. Viewing the terrorist problem as a “nuisance” as John Kerry famously averred (as if bloodthirsty jihadists were nothing more than “muggers”) may be comforting to those who believe that our problems are a result of not stopping the world from spinning on 9/10. And the attraction of this narrative in a political sense may be that it resonates with voters who have become weary of the conflict and wish to elect those who would play along with the fantasy that 9/11 was a fluke and that we can all return to a time when we didn’t have to think about annihilation and Armageddon.

In short, the left is opposing the showing of this film because 1) Clinton actions are criticized and 2) Bush’s actions aren’t criticized enough. The latter being the main point of anger for liberals in that it goes against everything they have tried to obfuscate for the past 5 years. They want the enduring image of 9/11 to be George Bush sitting in a classroom reading a children’s book not the towers collapsing or people jumping out of buildings. Anything that goes against The Narrative is a threat to expose the entire tissue of lies, exaggerations, misrepresentations, conspiracy fantasies, and deliberate falsehoods perpetrated over the last 5 years with the help of an all too willing media and a vast network of former government officials always willing to shift blame for their own inadequacies in the face of Islamic terrorism.

The great divide in American politics between 9/10 liberals and 9/12 conservatives may prove to be our undoing in the War on Terror unless some kind of consensus can be reached that bridges the chasm between those days. Whether that can be accomplished at this point is extremely doubtful. It may take another wake up call to bring about the kind of unity that is so sorely lacking thanks to the polarization of our politics and the outright denial of so many of the simple, incontrovertible fact that we are at war and the conflict began what seems so long ago on a stunningly beautiful September morning.

Those crickets you hear chirping is the sound of silence from every single broadcast TV network, newspaper, magazine, book publisher, E-Zine, blog, tip sheet, gossip rag, author, actor, actress, director, producer, janitor, and 12 year old drama queen who has warned us all over the past 6 years that the President of the United States is trying to stifle a free press and establish de facto censorship over the media.

When confronted with a real attempt by Democrats in the Senate to turn the United States into an authoritarian state by threatening to yank the broadcast license of ABC unless they make political changes to their mini-series The Path to 9/11, the above gaggle of weeping, whining chicken littles either nods their approval or are too intimidated themselves to make a stink.

Where are all the civil libertarians weeping over our lost freedoms because the FBI aimed a Geiger counter at someone’s house? Where are all those heroic fighters for democracy who complained about Republicans stifling free speech because they removed a half crazed woman from the Senate gallery for displaying a political message on a T-Shirt? Where are all the hand wringing, exaggerating, hyperventilating, bed wetting lefties who scream “dictator” every time Bush opens his mouth?

I’ll tell you where they are. They are on the sidelines cheering their heroic mini-Adolf’s in the Senate on as the Democrats issue the bluntest, the most vile, the most open call for political censorship in almost two hundred years:

Frankly, that ABC and Disney would consider airing a program that could be construed as right-wing political propaganda on such a grave and important event involving the security of our nation is a discredit both to the Disney brand and to the legacy of honesty built at ABC by honorable individuals from David Brinkley to Peter Jennings. Furthermore, that Disney would seek to use Scholastic to promote this misguided programming to American children as a substitute for factual information is a disgrace.

As 9/11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick said, “It is critically important to the safety of our nation that our citizens, and particularly our school children, understand what actually happened and why – so that we can proceed from a common understanding of what went wrong and act with unity to make our country safer.”

Should Disney allow this programming to proceed as planned, the factual record, millions of viewers, countless schoolchildren, and the reputation of Disney as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people and the United States Congress will be deeply damaged. We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program. We look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Lefty John Aravosis raises his arm in slavish salute and gleefully sums up what the Senate Democrats are attempting to do:

The Senate Democratic leadership just threatened Disney’s broadcast license. Not the use of the word “trustee” at the beginning of the letter and “trust” at the end. This is nothing less than an implicit threat that if Disney tries to meddle in the US elections on behalf of the Republicans, they will pay a very serious price when the Democrats get back in power, or even before.

This raises the stakes incredibly for Disney.

I can remember when any threat to yank the broadcast license of a major media outlet for any reason whatsoever would be met by a solid wall of liberal opposition and outrage. When it came out in the Nixon impeachment hearings that the White House had threatened CBS and the Washington Post over their coverage of Watergate, the condemnations from most of those same sources I listed at the beginning of this post was immediate and passionate.

My, my how times have changed, no?

Hugh Hewitt thinks that this will hurt the Democrats at the polls in November. I’d like to think so. I’d like to believe there is still a sizable segment of the populace so much in love with liberty that they will rise up and smite the Democrats at the polls for their thuggish threats.

I’m afraid Hugh and I are bound to be disappointed. As long as you don’t yank The Sopranos or 24 or American Idol, people will tolerate just about anything these days.

Allah rounds up reaction and adds laconically:

My only question is this: was that letter typed, or did they use letters cut out from magazines?

Fair enough. Everything is a precedent. There’s nothing anyone can do except remember and use it when Michael Moore’s new movie comes out and someone on the Republican side criticizes it as inaccurate and the droning about dissent-crushing begins. Here’s a post to help memorialize it for future reference. I hope others will do so too.

I fully expect over the next 48 hours the cancellation of The Path to 9/11. No network or media outlet can stand up to the unprecedented bullying of an ex-President and the unprecedented threats of a group of very influential politicians.

And so the netnuts will be able to celebrate their “victory.” Perhaps they should ask exactly what they “won.” Another whitewashing of history? A lovely little taste of what it’s like to be a dictator? Perhaps a fantasy interlude where they can dream of crushing their political enemies as easily as they have now intimidated and crushed ABC?

Welcome to the Brave New World…

Desperate to see that the upcoming ABC mini-series Path to 9/11 places all the blame for 9/11 in the lap of President Bush and holds harmless the Clinton Administration for their massive failures in the 1990’s to kill Bin Laden, the left is in full meltdown over word that one of the incidents portrayed in the film takes some dramatic liberties with the 9/11 Commission report.

The incident, in which Osama was reportedly staying in a house in Kandahar, Afghanistan and was surrounded by Northern Alliance and CIA paramilitaries only to escape because the Clinton Administration never gave the order to attack has been criticized by none other than anti-terrorism guru, the self-important one, Richard Clark:

ThinkProgress has obtained a response to this scene from Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar for Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and now counterterrorism adviser to ABC:

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL.

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

Not having seen the film (That’s okay: Neither has Think Progress), my guess would be that the filmakers decided to do what all docudramas do; combine several similar events into one dramatic take.

Are all three chances Clinton had to kill Bin Laden going to be shown?:

According to the staff report, intelligence indicating that bin Laden was open to attack resulted in military planning by the Clinton administration on three occasions.

In December 1998, bin Laden was reported to be staying at a location in Kandahar, Afghanistan; however, CIA Director George J. Tenet doubted the intelligence and a strike by cruise missiles or bombers was called off.

Then in February 1999, bin Laden was targeted in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, but the CIA was worried that a visiting official from the United Arab Emirates would be killed in an attack.

The CIA’s field officer was quoted in the report as saying the intelligence was “very reliable” that bin Laden was in the camp. “The field official believed that this was a lost opportunity to kill bin Laden,” the report said.

A third attempt to kill bin Laden, who had been seen in the same place for five nights, was missed in May 1999. However, U.S. military officials worried that an attack might kill innocent civilians.

Since I find it unlikely that the screenwriter (who, by the way is not an “extreme” conservative as Jennifer Nix blurts out breathlessly but rather a libertarian naturalized citizen from Iran. Then again, Nix and most lefties think that someone who gets a 95 rating from ADA - Leiberman - isn’t liberal enough) would include all three inexcusable lapses in judgment and courage by Clinton, it would seem that they combined the chances we had to get Bin Laden into one, dramatic scene.

Personally, I would prefer seeing all three failures of Clinton to kill Bin Laden highlighted prominently and accurately. One of the stated reasons they hesitated to capture Osama was their belief that they couldn’t convict him of anything in an American court of law. I would love to see that attitude play out in front of 50 million voters and show them the consequences of bringing the left to power this November.

And of course, there was the incident in February of 1999 - the one that Richard Clark seems to forget:

Intelligence reports foresee the presence of bin Laden at a desert hunting camp in Afghanistan for about a week. Information on his presence appears reliable, so preparations are made to target his location with cruise missiles. However, intelligence also puts an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and members of the royal family from that country in the same location…

Local informants confirm exactly where bin Laden will be in the camp on February 11, and a strike is prepared. But policy makers are concerned that a strike might kill a prince or other senior officials, so the strike is called off…

Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit at the time, will claim in 2004 that “the truth has not been fully told” about this incident. He will claim that the strike is cancelled because senior officials at the CIA, White House, and other agencies, decide to accept assurances from an unnamed Islamic country that it can acquire bin Laden from the Talibn. “US officials accepted these assurances despite the well-documented record of that country withholding help�indeed, it was a record of deceit and obstruction�regarding all issues pertaining to Bin Laden” in previous years. [Atlantic Monthly, 12/2004

We hardly need lectures from Richard Clark on anything relating to 9/11.

So the left has its collective pink panties in a twist because a standard dramatic device used in every mini-series since the genre was invented shows that Clinton hesitated to kill the number one enemy of the United States.

Instead of going ape over this scene, perhaps the left should be thanking the “extreme conservative” screenwriter for not going into detail about all three failures of will by the Clintonistas. Imagine the outcry then!

And lest anyone think that the left only wants to portray history accurately, we have this statement of principle from Christy Hardin Smith:

9/11 happened on George Bush’s watch — and no amount of pointing fingers elsewhere changes that fact. Period.

How true. But the ultimate question is would 9/11 even have happened if Clinton had been doing his job?

I have pointed out on numerous occasions that the “blame” for 9/11 is shared by Administrations going back to the Reagan years. And the real failures of the Bush Administration in getting on top of the terrorism issue as well as their failures in intelligence, in focus, and most especially their failure of imagination should be a large part of the mini series as it was in the movie United 93.

For the left to try and divorce the Clinton Administration from the failures of 9/11 is laughable - like little children trying to cover up the fact that they broke a piece of their mother’s favorite china. It is juvenile and destructive. And they must be stopped.

From those who have seen the movie, we are told that the Bush Administration does not escape their share of blame for 9/11, not by any means. This doesn’t interest the partisan left because what they are really after is a wiping of the historical record and a rewrite that leaves the Bush Administration totally responsible for what happened on that horrible day. Anything less and, as I stated yesterday, The Narrative is in danger of unraveling. That Narrative brooks no alteration lest the American people see it for what it is; a massive exaggeration and bending of history that seeks to undermine the President of the United States during a time of war.

In the final analysis, what the left fails to do most of all is place the actual blame for 9/11 where it really belongs; solely and exclusively on the shoulders of Osama Bin Laden and radical, fundamentalist Islamism. To do so would mean they would lose one of their most potent political clubs that they have beat the President over the head with for the last 5 years.

Osama, I’m sure, is grateful to them.

UPDATE

More conservative push back against the left’s attempt to alter history.

Mark Coffey shows why Richard Clarke may be a wee bit upset over the portrayal of Clinton anti-terrorism efforts.

And Confederate Yankee has a superb piece that shows Sandy Berger’s culpability in the Clinton Administration’s failure to get Bin Laden on 4 seperate occasions (not the three that I described above).

I wonder if in the interest of “historical accuracy” all the whining lefties who are throwing a tantrum over this TV show would be agreeable to showing ALL FOUR OPPORTUNITIES CLINTON HAD TO KILL BIN LADEN in a 6 hour mini-series rather than the one, condensed scene the screenwriter settled for.

Bully for the US government!

Not content with letting the moonbats, the freaks, the paranoids, and the ignoramuses who spout 9/11 conspiracy theories get away with their nonsensical idiocies any longer, the government released two separate reports debunking several major claims of the 9/11 fantasists in an effort to keep the record of that horrible day from being hijacked by crazies.

And as a bonus, in the process of answering the reports, two major 9/11 conspiracists have revealed themselves to be laughable, hopelessly moronic nutcases.

Kudos also to New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer whose brilliant summary of the evidence includes his own debunking of the “implosion theory” of how the towers fell. Dwyer’s piece should be required reading for every school kid in America so that future generations will see these 9/11 fantasies for what they truly are; pathetic mouthings of desperately unbalanced people whose “evidence” depends more on wishful thinking than empirical proof.

Nevertheless, federal officials say they moved to affirm the conventional history of the day because of the persistence of what they call “alternative theories.” On Wednesday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology issued a seven-page study based on its earlier 10,000-page report on how and why the trade center collapsed. The full report, released a year ago, and the new study, in a question and answer format, are available online at http://wtc.nist.gov.

About a dozen researchers produced the new study over the last two months by assembling material from the longer report that addressed the conspiracy claims.

“With the fifth anniversary coming up, there seemed to be more play for the alternative viewpoints,” said Michael E. Newman, a spokesman for the institute. “We have received e-mails and phone calls asking us to respond to these theories, and we felt that this fact sheet was the best means of doing so.”

The fact that it took a dozen people two months to condense the evidence for the tower’s collapse down to 7 pages should make you angry. This waste of time and resources is the direct result of people who should (or actually do) know better but whose ignorance and inability to grasp reality (or who choose to believe otherwise for political purposes) have infected the gullible, the shallow thinkers, and out and out loons who have spread their laughable theories on the internet and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Dwyer easily demolishes the implosion theory with the help of a couple of experts:

The demolition theory has managed to endure what would seem to be enormous obstacles to its practicality. Controlled demolition is done from the bottom of buildings, not the top, to take advantage of gravity, and there is little dispute that the collapse of the two towers began high in the towers, in the areas where the airplanes struck.

Moreover, a demolition project would have required the tower walls to be opened on dozens of floors, followed by the insertion of thousands of pounds of explosives, fuses and ignition mechanisms, all sneaked past the security stations, inside hundreds of feet of walls on all four faces of both buildings. Then the walls presumably would have been closed up.

All this would have had to take place without attracting the notice of any of the thousands of tenants and workers in either building; no witness has ever reported such activity. Then on the morning of Sept. 11, the demolition explosives would have had to withstand the impacts of the airplanes, since the collapse did not begin for 57 minutes in one tower, and 102 minutes in the other.

Professor Steven Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University and a God in the 9/11 tin foil hat community, makes an utter fool of himself trying to answer several of the simple questions Dwyer raises above:

In an e-mail message yesterday, Professor Jones did not explain how so much explosive could have been positioned in the two buildings without drawing attention. “Others are researching the maintenance activity in the buildings in the weeks prior to 9/11/2001,” he wrote.

He said his investigation was finding fluorine and zinc in metal debris and dust gathered from near the trade center site, and argued that those elements should not have been found in the building compounds. “We are investigating the possibility of thermite-based arson and demolition,” he wrote, referring to compounds that, under controlled circumstances, can cut through steel.

The federal investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology state that enormous quantities of thermite would have to be applied to the structural columns to damage them. Not so, said Professor Jones; he said he and others were investigating “superthermite.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? “SUPERTHERMITE?”

What’s next? Invisible “maintenance workers?”

Also making a himself look like an idiot was that gadfly of the 9/11 conspiracy bozos Kevin Ryan whose online publication www.journalof911studies.com, has been filled with some of the most uproariously funny takes on who or what brought down the towers including this gem: “The Flying Elephant: Evidence for Involvement of a Third Jet in the WTC Attacks.”

Here’s Ryan vainly trying to challenge the existence of the nose on his face:

The report brought to light one little-known detail about the morning: a private demolition monitoring firm, Protec Documentation Services, had seismographs at several construction sites in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Those machines documented the tremors of the falling towers, but captured no ground vibrations before the collapses from demolition charges or bombs, according to a separate report by Brent Blanchard, the director of field operations for Protec. It is available online at www.implosionworld.com.

Asked for comment, Mr. Ryan said that his online 9/11 journal would soon publish an article on those seismic recordings. He also maintained that the Protec paper did not adequately address why puffs of smoke were seen being expelled from some of the floors. However, the federal investigators said that about 70 percent of a building’s volume consists of air, and what looked like puffs of smoke were jets of air — and dust — that were pushed ahead of the collapse.

Maybe it was Howard Dean. He certainly blows a lot of smoke and do we know where he was on 9/11?

The other report was issued by the State Department’s PR department and contains simple, easy to understand counterpoints to the top ten conspiracy theories about 9/11:

The State Department report, which officials said was written independently of the new institute study, is titled, “The Top Sept. 11 Conspiracy Theories” and says, “Numerous unfounded conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks continue to circulate, especially on the Internet.” Produced by an arm of the State Department known as a “counter-misinformation team,” the report is dated Aug. 28 and appears as a special feature on the department’s Web site, at http://usinfo.state.gov/media/misinformation.html.

These reports, as Dwyer points out, will not convince any of the true believers among the 9/11 conspiracy crowd. It does something much more important; it halts the momentum that was being generated by the fact that the 9/11 fantasists had the playing field pretty much to themselves. They were able to advance their stupidities and begin gaining acceptance for their cockamamie theories because the effort to debunk them was not half as organized as the effort to hijack the narrative. In the game of public relations, those who are most organized usually win. In this case, the government has taken it upon itself to expend the resources necessary to give the lie to the conspiracist’s notions of what happened on 9/11 while publicizing its findings nationwide as only the government can. At the very least, there is now another source - one more accessible and easy to understand - that people who are truly interested in the subject can turn to for information.

The release of these two reports should not have been necessary. Not that people shouldn’t question the government’s investigation but rather they should believe the integrity of the scientific process as well as the mountain of evidence that the government used to come to the conclusions it did about 9/11. There comes a point where even skeptics have to give in to the weight of evidence and common sense. These reports help that process enormously.

Today is a good day for the truth. And it is a good day for those of us who are fighting to make sure that 9/11 remains as a reminder of who attacked us and why rather than a day that Americans will be forever confused about the nature and origin of the pain and trauma we suffered.

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey doesn’t believe the reports will do much good:

As I wrote a couple of days ago in relation to the nut who thinks Stephen King killed John Lennon, one cannot counter insanity and paranoia with sweet reason. King himself tried to do so with Steve Lightfoot, the paranoid who has pursued him for over twenty years, and his effort got paid off by Lightfoot’s insistence that King’s kind message constituted a death threat in code. Reason doesn’t enter into it. Mental illness does not respond to reason, and this impulse reflects a sickness that all of the scientific studies and review of facts will never cure. It’s a belief that all evil begins in America and that everything wrong in the world has its source in Washington DC — combined with an unhealthy dose of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Don’t expect a cure for this insanity any time soon. If anything, these reports act as a vaccine for the unafflicted — and a warning for those who may be tempted to stare into the abyss.

I agree with Ed’s analysis, especially that the best we can hope for with the release of these reports is that fence sitters and those with an open mind can be convinced.

See also this Reuters article I got from Blue Crab Boulevard whose own take is well worth the read.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech in Utah at the American Legion Convention on Tuesday that appears to have brought out the very best of lefty hypocrisy, hand wringing, and faux outrage. For that, perhaps the DoD can mint a new kind of medal for Rummy and award it in lieu of any of his rosy Iraq scenarios coming true. At the very least, the Secretary’s speech proved that his usefulness to the cause of victory in Iraq and the War on Terror is not entirely at an end.

Despite his numerous shortcomings - pointed out here and elsewhere - Rumsfeld has always fulfilled his duty as spokesman for American military policy by supplying an excellent intellectual/historical framework for our actions. My beef has never been with his general defense of the war but rather with his Pollyanish responses to what has specifically been happening on the ground in Iraq. In this, he is no different than any other administration spokesman whose overly optimistic assumptions and scenarios about Iraq have been proven wrong time and time again.

But the Secretary has, according to the left and their fair-haired boy Keith Olberman, committed the cardinal sin of using historical analogy to critique their utter blindness about the consequences of leaving Iraq before some kind of stability is achieved as well as their continuing disbelief that the War on Terror is anything except some kind of gigantic political game being used by Republicans to win elections.

Rummy’s choice of 1930’s England was, in my judgment, a poor one (as was Olberman’s laughable choice of the same time period to respond to the Secretary’s criticism). Poor Neville Chamberlain’s corpse has been dug up and displayed so much recently that the damn thing is falling apart already. In essence, Rummy’s analogy using 1930’s Britain and comparing the appeasement policies of the Democratic left with Chamberlain’s kowtowing to Hitler was, if nothing else, eloquently put:

Over the next decades, a sentiment took root that contended that if only the growing threats that had begun to emerge in Europe and Asia could be accommodated, then the carnage and the destruction of then-recent memory of World War I could be avoided.

It was a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among Western democracies. When those who warned about a coming crisis, the rise of fascism and nazism, they were ridiculed or ignored. Indeed, in the decades before World War II, a great many argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated or that it was someone else’s problem. Some nations tried to negotiate a separate peace, even as the enemy made its deadly ambitions crystal clear. It was, as Winston Churchill observed, a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.

One could write volumes about why Churchill was in the political wilderness, how his imperial ambitions regarding India had come a cropper of political reality and how he had angered his own party to the point that he had been stripped of his leadership positions. And people suspected - rightly so - that Churchill’s anti-Nazism while obviously heartfelt, was also a convenient way to tweak first the government of Stanley Baldwin and then Chamberlain. He may indeed have been a prophet but hardly pure of heart or without an agenda of his own. This made his critique of appeasement policy ring very hollow with most MP’s and caused a vicious push back by Baldwin especially who despised Churchill personally.

But please observe Keith Olberman’s towering rant against Rumsfeld last night and how he jumped on both the historical analogy with the 1930’s and this Rumsfeld observation:

And in every army, there are occasional bad actors, the ones who dominate the headlines today, who don’t live up to the standards of the oath and of our country. But you also know that they are a very, very small percentage of the literally hundreds of thousands of honorable men and women in all theaters in this struggle who are serving our country with humanity, with decency, with professionalism, and with courage in the face of continuous provocation. (Applause.)

And that is important in any long struggle or long war, where any kind of moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong, can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere.

Our enemies know this well. They frequently invoke the names of Beirut or Somalia — places they see as examples of American retreat and American weakness. And as we’ve seen — even this month — in Lebanon, they design attacks and manipulate the media to try to demoralize public opinion. They doctor photographs of casualties. They use civilians as human shields. And then they try to provoke an outcry when civilians are killed in their midst, which of course was their intent.

Rumsfeld is saying that America is right and our enemies are wrong and that anyone who doesn’t agree with that is “morally and intellectually” confused. But Olberman took that phrase and ran with it, positing the outrageous notion that Rumsfeld was saying that lefties who disagree with the Administration about Iraq are disloyal” and immoral:

Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.

For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence — indeed, the loyalty — of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants — our employees — with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.

How we get from Rummy accusing the left of being “morally and intellectually confused” to being “disloyal” is quite a stretch, except for those like Olberman who bristle at the notion probably as a result of a guilty conscience. How else to explain their reaction?

And being “morally confused” is not the same as “impugning” someone’s morality. If Rumsfeld wanted to say that, I suspect that he would have come out and said that war opponents were immoral. It appears that Olberman is having trouble understanding the English language, not surprising for the former Sportscenter anchor who once thought that a gay Republican journalist with a White House press pass would bring down the President.

Leaping to conclusions is the least of Olberman’s problems in his little speech. His laughable description of the Baldwin/Chamberlain analogy to Bush would have made great stand up material:

In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.

That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s — questioning their intellect and their morality.

That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.

It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.

It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.

It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience — needed to be dismissed.

The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.

In the immortal words of that famous movie Defense Secretary Albert Nimzicki in Independence Day, “That’s not entirely accurate.”

Confusing myopia with conspiracy is just about par for the course for Olberman, whose paranoia becomes much clearer later in his screed. The facts are a little more prosaic in that Chamberlain, while knowing of Germany’s many violations of Versailles also had other fish on the griddle in Europe at the time including having to deal with the clear and unmistakable designs of the Soviet Union on the Baltic states as well as his having to deal with the fact of French weakness and defeatism.

Chamberlain’s myopia lay in his belief - exploited by Hitler to the fullest - that Germany as a buffer against Soviet aggression in Eastern Europe was an absolute necessity. The French were weak, divided, and willing to avoid war at all costs. Sacrificing the Czechs was unconscionably cynical but, by Chamberlain’s lights, necessary. The later excuse that Munich gave England time to rearm doesn’t wash as much as his cold, calculations of power politics, realizing that without the Czech betrayal, Chamberlain would have to go to war and destroy the only military that could stop Soviet expansion which was wrongly seen as the true threat to the continent at that time.

The fact that there was almost universal support for this policy in Great Britain sort of gives the lie to Olberman’s contention that Chamberlain’s government “…[D]ismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s — questioning their intellect and their morality.” There simply were no critics outside of Churchill and a few cronies. There was no political opposition to speak of in Parliament. Churchill, for all intents and purposes, was alone. First Baldwin and then Chamberlain’s undermining of Churchill had as much to do with their personal dislike for him and his overweening ambitions as it did with any concern they had that the future Prime Minister’s critique would damage them politically.

But the guts of Olberman’s criticism is very basic; that dissent does not equal disloyalty. The fact that Rumsefeld never mentions the word “disloyal” or “patriotism” explodes Olberman’s basic premise. If being “confused” is the same as being “disloyal” 95% of the Congress could be placed in that category.

What makes Olberman’s rant even more problematic is his belief that any critique by the left of the Administration must not be answered at all. The very act of the Administration defending itself is a way to stifle dissent and put liberty in jeopardy. So despite being called a liar, a fascist, Hitler, a dictator, and any number of other charges made by liberals, the very act of answering their inanities proves their point.

Convenient, no?

And what happens when critics like Olberman put on their tin foil hats and go on national TV to spout nonsense like this:

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

That’s right. Olberman is saying that the President and Vice President of the United States may have personally profited from the war in Iraq. In other words, the President of the United States went to war to personally enrich himself.

Note that he doesn’t say that, but only hints at it. Indeed, as with all the loony left conspiracy theories, they practice a technique used by salesmen to lead the customer to the “right” conclusion. Instead of saying “We went to war because Bush/Cheney are greedy, heartless bastards who wanted to personally get rich off the profits of Haliburton” they instead add a caveat (”inadvertently”) and leave the conclusion (Bush + War + Personal fortune) for the listener to finish. This has the virtue of making them sound almost reasonable - except when you take their logic to its obvious conclusion.

Finally, Olberman uses an Edward R. Murrow quote to ostensibly prove his point about dissent. What he inadvertently ends up doing is proving that he is a certified idiot:

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

Perhaps Olberman should practice what he preaches:

“Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically” (from the war)…

There is not one iota of proof that Bush has personally profited from the war. But according to Murrow (Keith’s hero), we must remember that “accusation is not proof.” So why the accusation?

One must conclude that Olberman is either a blundering idiot or, like most lefties, so blinded by speaking truth to power that he simply can’t make the connection between Murrow’s words and his own off base, unproven, ridiculous charges.

I suppose we better get used to this idea that criticizing liberals for their stupidity on Iraq or the War on Terror is proof that we are slipping into a dictatorship. Of course, the criticism will continue which means that someday, liberals are going to have to declare that either they were wrong or that we actually live in full blown banana republic style dictatorship. Since the chances of liberals ever admitting they were wrong are about as good as bringing the dinosaurs back to life and the idea that we will ever slip into a dictatorship under Bush almost as far fetched, we can expect this meme, like so many others advanced by the left over the years, will fall by the wayside once they discover another avenue of attack.

TO ARMS! TO ARMS! The forces of darkness are gathering to strike a blow against liberty, justice, the American way, and…and…THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE!

The Electoral college?

Yes, it’s true. Not content to simply posit conspiracy theories about how Republicans steal elections, liberals have now set their sights on stripping America of one of her oldest and most cherished institutions. Now, gentle reader, before you scratch your head and ask the obvious question of who cares if we give the Electoral College the heave-ho, perhaps a little history lesson is in order. And who better to give it than I, Professor Moran, BFA, MS, and VAH (Very Amateur Historian).

WHAT IS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND DO THEY HAVE A FOOTBALL TEAM?

I’ll take the second question first, Mr. Trebek. Not that I’m aware of although I understand they’ve had some pretty wild keggers over the last 217 years. And starting in 1920 when the college went co-ed, it’s rumored that Toga Parties became all the rage.

Notwithstanding such juvenile shenanigans, the Electoral College is a product of one of the more divisive debates that took place during the Constitutional Convention. For a very educational and thorough examination of this history, I recommend you go here since I’ll be dealing with only the bare bones of what the institution is all about.

The College consists of electors, chosen by the states in various ways, that (ideally) reflect the outcome of the popular vote for President in that particular state. The number of electors is what’s important. That number is determined by how many Senators (2) and Congressmen (proportionally awarded based on most recent census) the state has. So Pennsylvania has 21 electoral votes because they have 2 Senators and how many Congressmen? Class? CLASS? WAAAAAKE UUUUP!. Thank you. Nineteen Congressmen is the correct answer.

The kicker is that it’s a winner take all competition. Whoever wins the popular vote gets all the electors from that state.

ISN’T THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE KIND OF ARCHAIC?

Depends what you mean by archaic. Given that liberals have voted against every major weapons system currently in use by the military (an exaggeration, but hey! We don’t call this site the RIGHT WING Nuthouse because we’re impartial!), perhaps they wants us to fight terrorism using bows and arrows…or spears. Do you mean archaic in THAT sense?

The answer is no. And like my sainted father used to say “Old things are best.” Many of the reasons for the electoral college are still valid today. Look at the election of 2000. Al Gore would have been President if he had carried one more state. That would have given him a grand total of 18 states voting Democratic. George Bush would have won 32 states and gotten nothing, nada, zip-i-dee-doo-da. This is exactly what the electoral college was set up to prevent. Al Gore, if he had won Florida, would have captured 8 of the 10 largest states and won the election by appealing mostly to urban and coastal constituencies. George Bush demonstrated broader support in the electoral college appealing to states in the north, south, east, and west. Bush, even though narrowly losing the popular vote, proved himself a much more national candidate.

And there are other issues to consider when thinking of ditching the electoral college:

First, the direct election of presidents would lead to geographically narrower campaigns, for election efforts would be largely urban. In 2000 Al Gore won 677 counties and George Bush 2,434, but Mr. Gore received more total votes. Circumvent the Electoral College and move to a direct national vote, and those 677 largely urban counties would become the focus of presidential campaigns.

Rural states like Maine, with its 740,000 votes in 2004, wouldn’t matter much compared with New York’s 7.4 million or California’s 12.4 million votes. Rural states’ issues wouldn’t matter much either; big-city populations and urban issues would become the focus of presidential campaigns. America would be holding urban elections, and that would change the character of campaigns and presidents.

Recently, California passed a law that would award the state’s 55 electoral votes to the winner of the most popular votes nationally rather than the winner of the state’s individual race for President. This is apparently part of a national movement to marginalize the electoral college and give the larger states (mostly liberal and Democratic) a bigger say in who is President.

To say this would be catastrophic to American democracy would not be overstating the case one bit. Done under the guise of the “one man, one vote” battle cry which is largely responsible for the permanent incumbency found today in the House of Representatives, the so-called “direct election” of the President would radically alter not only the way we choose a President but the presidency itself.

WHAT WOULD BE THE PROBLEM WITH DIRECT ELECTIONS FOR PRESIDENT?

Pete Du Pont sums up a couple of the major arguments:

Second, in any direct national election there would be significant election-fraud concerns. In the 2000 Bush-Gore race, Mr. Gore’s 540,000-vote margin amounted to 3.1 votes in each of the country’s 175,000 precincts. “Finding” three votes per precinct in urban areas is not a difficult thing, or as former presidential scholar and Kennedy advisor Theodore White testified before the Congress in 1970, “There is an almost unprecedented chaos that comes in the system where the change of one or two votes per precinct can switch the national election of the United States.”

[snip]

Third, direct election would lead to a multicandidate, multiparty system instead of the two-party system we have. Many candidates would run on narrow issues: anti-immigration, pro-gun, environment, national security, antiwar, socialist or labor candidates, for they would have a microphone for their issues. Then there would be political power seekers–Al Sharpton or Michael Moore–and Hollywood pols like Barbra Streisand or Warren Beatty. Even Paris Hilton could advance her career through a presidential campaign.

If we were to simply go by the popular vote to decide who’s elected President, several other major alterations would occur that would permanently change the landscape of our political culture.

* Candidates would concentrate on big states in their campaigns. Whoever the party nominees were, they would move to California, set up residence, and try to shake 40 million hands. An exaggeration of course. But a politician who already lived in California - say a Governor or Senator - would have an enormous advantage in any race for the Presidency. If such a candidate could run up a huge majority in California the task of getting 50.1% of the vote would become much easier. This begs the question; should one state have such an enormous say in who gets elected President? The state already supplies fully 20% of the electoral votes necessary to get to the magic number of 270. Can you imagine what a 5 million vote lead would mean coming out of California to a national candidate based on directly electing a President?

* Minorities would become marginalized. If you think candidates ignore the concerns of minorities now, you’ll love direct elections for President. More than ever, Democrats would take the minority vote for granted and Republicans would continue their half-hearted attempts at outreach. the rationale being, why spend time and money preaching to (or begging from)) the converted?

* Small states and rural areas would be slighted in national elections. Would a campaign that never visited Bucktooth PA or Watchoutforthatcroc FL be any fun at all? I doubt it. I think that we’d lose something if Presidential candidates only visited big states and big state TV markets. Somehow, watching a candidate interact with these simple folk gives you a handle on what kind of person they are, hence what kind of leader they’d make.

Finally, there is this to consider:

Finally, direct election would also lead to weaker presidents. There are no run-offs in the Interstate Compact–that would require either a constitutional amendment or the agreement of all 50 states and the District of Columbia–so the highest percentage winner, no matter how small (perhaps 25% or 30% in a six- or eight-candidate field) would become president. Such a winner would not have an Electoral College majority and therefore not be seen as a legitimate president.

So rather that trying to eviscerate the Electoral College, we should be embracing it. It was put in the Constitution to allow states to choose presidents, for we are a republic based on the separation of powers, not a direct democracy. And the Electoral College–just like the Senate–was intended to protect the residents of small states. As James Madison said, the Electoral College included the will of the nation–every congressional district gets an electoral vote–and “the will of the states in their distinct and independent capacities” since every state gets two additional electors.

What Mr. Du Pont doesn’t say and what the proponents of abandoning the Electoral College never tire of pointing out is that the Electoral College was put in place because our Founding Fathers didn’t trust Jefferson’s yeoman farmers any further than they could throw them - literally. They saw us common folk as rabble, a dangerous mob and in great need of guidance by men better suited to the task of governing by virtue of their superior breeding and education. The Electoral College was originally seen as a brake on popular passions and allowed for the wisest men in the country to gather once every four years to pick our national leader.

How the Electoral College has evolved over the years to reflect the will of the people in the various states in Presidential elections is one of the more fascinating aspects in studying the American government. In fact, since the choosing of electors is up to each individual state, the system is a hodge-podge of processes and procedures that functions largely out of respect for tradition:

Here is a list of how the different states have political parties choose who will be their electors. It also shows whether or not the electors’ names appear on the ballot in November. Finally, it indicates which states have passed laws to bind their electors. Not too many do, and even fewer have defined penalties for an unfaithful elector. Yet, of more than 16,000 electors in U.S. history, less than a dozen have ever voted contrary to the wishes of the people who elected them. Don’t you wish we could say the same about our other elected officials?

The evolution of the College from something akin to the College of Cardinals to a body that reflected the democratic will of the people didn’t take long. Electors running in each district usually made it clear who they would vote for President when the College convened. But the federalist impulse behind the invention of the college remains to this day, a demonstration of the recognition that we are indeed a federal republic. And getting rid of the Electoral College would go a long way towards destroying that idea.

WILL WE TOSS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE ANY TIME SOON?

Not as long as the current political party situation remains unchanged. Republicans would be at enormous logistical disadvantage under such a system. Think of it like a war. Republicans have a lot more territory to defend than Democrats and thus, their resources would be stretched much thinner. To get to the magic number of 50.1% of the popular vote, Democrats would be able to expend a lot less energy and money to defend their own turf thus freeing them up to raid Republican strongholds. Republicans would have to fight off Democratic insurgencies in red states while carrying on an expensive battle in blue states to pick off a few voters here and there.

No wonder the idea is popular with liberals. It would maximize the influence of their strategic assets while diminishing the power of most of the people who disagree with them.

But hey! All for a good cause, right?

UPDATE

Good Lt. blogging a the Jawas:

Yes. The Democrats want the dense inner-city populations and their infinitely successful approaches to problems like education, crime and corruption to run the national government without regard to what anybody else outside of the large population centers might think.

Times have changed so much under the long dark night of Bushiburton fascism that the very democracy that was perfectly acceptable a decade ago has collapsed entirely and needs to be replaced with procedures favorable to urban liberal constituencies.

Du Pont puts the issue correctly. Mucking with the electoral college will basically disenfracnchise rural voters. Campaigns will not only ignore them but it is likely that Administrations will also give their concerns short shrift.

The ancients firmly believed in destiny, that fates ruled the affairs of men. These fates, or Moirai, were the daughters of the Goddess of Necessity Themis and spun the thread of an individuals life so that events played themselves out along a predestined string. This placed the hapless mortal in the position of being pulled this way and that by the Gods with no chance of doing anything to affect what happened to him.

In this framework, all the large events of history were explained by a kind of predetermination, unmovable historical forces where man was the captive of events, riding the waves of time unable to change direction while taking part in the drama of history for the amusement of the Gods.

We know better today, of course. Or at least we should. Instead, it appears that the Moirai are alive and well and comfortably ensconced in the editorial offices of the New York Magazine, playing havoc with rational thought and being joined in their revelry by the more modern gods of revisionism and political partisanship.

What makes my critique of their series of “essays” about a world where 9/11 never happened so spiteful is first and foremost the utter waste of a brilliant idea. It is a travesty that such an exciting concept was treated by the participants with a kind of bored cynicism more appropriate to a review of the newest Manhattan Bistro rather than a serious attempt to add anything of value to our cultural understanding of 9/11. In fact, whether by design or not, the only participant in the project who spent more than 5 minutes thinking about the premise was Andrew Sullivan.

Mr. Sullivan should be commended for his effort but skewered for his laughably shallow extrapolation of what a 9/11-less Bush presidency would have been. Indeed, this intellectual conceit appears to have taken on the morphology of a vicious, extraordinarily voracious bug in that it seems to have bitten almost every essayist involved in the project. The exception being author Tom Wolfe who either didn’t understand the directions given to him by the editors or simply gave up on the project and wrote whatever meandering thoughts on our post-9/11 culture that happened to be ready for transfer from mind to pen to paper.

In truth, it is shocking to read some of the reveries by people who are generally considered to be our cultural elites. Perhaps the format - a short essay (and I mean in some cases short!) encompassing thoughts on the subject from the perspective of their interest or expertise - did not lend itself to the kind of serious effort that would have illuminated some larger truths about where we are as a people 5 years after 9/11.

The question I would have then is why bother? Even the historians Doris Kearns-Goodwin and Douglas Brinkley gave responses so banal that they may have been rejected by a high school newspaper. Al Sharpeton’s contribution is incoherent. Frank Rich, who actually made a slight effort to address the question, came up with some pretty off the wall scenarios either trying to be amusing or proving that he’s simply daft.

There are some themes that seem to run through the majority of pieces. George Bush would have been a one term President. We would have continued to sleepwalk through history awaiting a hammer blow by Osama. Saddam would still be in a cage and presumably, children would still be flying kites in his paradise prison camp. Liberals are good, Conservatives are bad.

Am I missing anything? Oh yes, New York is a great town with great people. And, in the strangest of all the essays, the Deputy Mayor of Economic Development and Rebuilding Dan Doctoroff sees 9/11 if not as a godsend then as a fortunate happenstance of history in that all of his pet redevelopment projects for Lower Manhattan that had been languishing in bureaucratic limbo all these years got a serious boost when the yokels in Washington opened the money spigot and billions of dollars began to make their way into the bowels of his bureaucracy.

Always nice when someone can see the silver lining in just about anything.

By far the most egregious sin committed by all the essayists (with a couple of exceptions) was this almost surreal failure to grasp the larger forces of history at work between 2001-2006 of which 9/11 was a symptom and of which George Bush was positioned to manage better than any alternative personality on the political scene. While most of the essayists posited that Bush would have stuck with a domestic agenda and given the issue of terrorism short shrift, it seems obvious that he would not have been vouchsafed the choice.

If, as seems likely, Osama Bin Laden would have attacked us somewhere in the world if 9/11 had failed, the idea that Bush would have continued to ignore terrorism as a threat is belied by the testimony of Condi Rice before the 9/11 Commission. Rice related how Bush was sick of the United States “swatting flies” when it came to striking back at terrorism. An attack on Americans overseas would have initiated a confrontation with Bin Laden in Afghanistan that almost certainly would have involved regime change. In this alternate scenario, Bush emerges as a wartime leader and the 2004 election goes ahead as a battle between Bush and the man the Democrats nominate to counter Bush’s national security credentials; none other than John Kerry.

The point is that you can muck around with history all you want, play virtual history games to your hearts content, but there are larger trends at work that defy any change of direction as the result of one event. In this respect, even a cataclysm like 9/11 only ripples the pond a bit. I believe that going after Osama and Saddam were historical necessities that 9/11 made even more logical. Regardless of how both those military adventures turn out, they were the right choices at the time.

It is tempting to believe that the world would be a much quieter place without George Bush and 9/11. But it seems clear - and is even admitted by some of the essayists - that the forces of Islamic radicalism were not going to leave us alone regardless of who was in the White House or what party controlled Congress. The same Hizbullah that attacked Israel didn’t need George Bush to build up its strength over the years and lie in wait for the right opportunity to strike. The victory at the polls by Hamas was not the result of anything that the United States could have done differently. And the mullahs in Iran, hell bent on getting their hands on nuclear weapons, paid more attention to A.Q. Khan and his black market nuclear bazaar than to anything happening in the United States.

This strange obeisance to the fates when liberals talk and write about George Bush is one of the strangest outgrowths of Bush Derangement Syndrome. As if the thread of the Bush presidency could have been glimpsed 6 years ago and that everything that has happened since - including 9/11 - was predictable. Dahlia Lithwick of Slate.com uses this theme to show how evil George would have pushed through draconian law and order measures regardless of whether or not 9/11 happened. Tom Friedman writes if not Osama, it would have been China as Bush’s “obsession.”

I suppose this attitude is inevitable given the dangerous and frightening times we live in. But to have so much of it appear in one place and defined by so many people who should know better makes it all the more mystifying.

Every year on August 6 the world gathers in Hiroshima, Japan for the anti-American orgy to end all anti-American orgies. While ordinary people and most Japanese politicians respectfully remember the death and destruction caused by the the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the city in 1945, the peace nuts, Euro-leftists, historical revisionists, and assorted twerps of the anti-globalist, anti-capitalist left rail against this “unnecessary” decision that was “genocidal” and “unjustifiable.”

It is a perfect opportunity to really get the anti-American juices flowing because a legitimate argument can be made that the decision to bomb Hiroshima using an atomic device in retrospect, may have been unnecessary. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I think the decision was sound myself and probably saved both American and Japanese lives in the end.

Of course, Harry Truman and the committee of wise men that helped make the decision about bombing Hiroshima did not have all the information we have today. The argument that they should have known or should have figured out how best to end the war given the thinking of the Japanese cabinet is a strawman argument, easily dismissed. Gleaning Japanese intentions was an exercise in pure guesswork given the secrecy of their deliberations. What did come out publicly from the Japanese government seemed defiant and unyielding; no unconditional surrender, no occupation, and no dismantling of the Japanese military.

What couldn’t have been known at the time is that the peace faction in the cabinet, fearing for their lives from the militarists, needed to be extra cautious in how they negotiated the surrender. Their overtures through a Swiss intermediary was considered “unofficial” by Washington and hence, not credible. This attempt to use the Swiss as a back channel to get around the military was extremely important in retrospect. But even these proposals from the Japanese representative would have been unacceptable at the time given that the government wished to retain the rank and position of the Emperor. Since there were many in the American government who wanted to try Hirohito for war crimes, that proposal fell by the wayside until being revived after the bombing of Nagasaki.

The official attempt by the Japanese government to use the Russians as intermediaries turned into a farce as Stalin, seeing that the Americans were probably going to win and win quickly, prepared his army to jump into the war in Asia all the while putting off talking to the Japanese high level representatives. In the end, Stalin miscalculated, not declaring war until August 8, 1945. By then, the Japanese representatives had given up hope on getting Russia to mediate between Japan and the United States. And since they were under strict orders from the militarists in the cabinet anyway, it is doubtful anything would have come from Soviet mediation anyway.

These two diplomatic overtures, made during the spring and summer of 1945, are pointed to by revisionists as proof that Hiroshima was not necessary, that the real reason we dropped the bomb was to scare Russia, or to save Harry Truman the embarrassment of having built the bomb at enormous cost and then never using it, or sheer bloodlust. But from all we know about Harry Truman, his decision was based almost solely on his firm belief that dropping the atomic bomb had the best chance of ending the war immediately. And given the number of people dying all over Asia every single day - American soldiers, civilians in a dozen countries, and Japanese citizens in bombing raids by the US Army Air Corps - it could be argued that Truman’s choice was based on solid moral grounds as well as military ones.

For the military options open to Truman were bleak indeed. He could order the continued bombing of Japanese cities, something his Air Force commander Curtis LeMay was telling him would soon become useless given that most of Japan’s population centers were already in smoking ruins. He could consider a blockade against the Islands, something that would take months to initiate and would have an uncertain effect on the fanatics in Tokyo, despite the fact that millions of ordinary Japanese citizens would be at risk of starving to death.

The most controversial military option (and the most argued about in historical circles) was the idea of an invasion of Japan’s home islands. Neither the army nor the Navy were keen for the idea, the Navy believing that putting the fleet within range of the thousands of kamikazes (not only planes but mini-subs and small boats) could result in massive damage to their ships. And it was believed Japan’s civilian casualties would top one million on Kyushu (the island targeted for the initial landings) alone.

American casualties in an invasion could have been anywhere from 250,000 to a million. Hence, the Army’s reluctance. There was also the matter of whether the landings should be across a broad front or a narrow one. This put the two services at odds with each other as the Army believed a broader front would mean less casualties while the Navy thought the narrower front would allow them to protect the fleet better.

The disputes were never resolved and we’ll never know who may have been right or whether an invasion of the Japanese home islands would have been successful. What we do know is that the United States dropped two atomic devices on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing approximately 150,000 Japanese immediately and at least that many in the intervening years as a result of radiation sickness and cancers.

But these arguments mostly fall on deaf ears where the anti-American left is concerned. To them, it is just more proof that America is evil and that the atomic blasts were indicative of our racism and lust for power.

One interesting note to the remembrances this year; there’s hardly a peep about it from the media. If I find any links later today, I’ll post them as an update. And there are no viewings on television of any of the several excellent movies and mini-series on Hiroshima nor does the History Channel have any programming (although this was on their “This Day in History” page). It’s almost as if everything that can be said about Hiroshima, has been said.

The debate will continue in the dusty halls of academia about Truman’s momentous decision to use this horrible weapon. But as far as I’m concerned, I will always take my father’s gratitude to Truman as a sign that it was the right decision. For he and millions of young men - many who had already survived the war in Europe - that dropping of the Atomic bomb meant that they were going to live through the war, that they had a chance to grow old. And for most of them, that notion justified Truman’s choice beyond anything any of the naysayers and carpers can come up with.

Will that deter the lefties from continuing their anti-American diatribes next year? Not a chance. So be sure to check this site same time next August for another rebuttal of their arguments.

There are times when my pessimism about what is happening in the world gets the better of me and I sink into one of two states of consciousness; blissful ignorance as I just ignore what is really going on until my curiosity gets the better of me or a simmering anger that usually explodes in some towering rant against those who would lead us (the West) to disaster because of the deliberate self delusion or ignorance of a large and influential segment of our political class.

As for the latter, while emotionally satisfying on one level, there are many times that I wish I had not hit that “publish” button. This is an occupational hazard for any blogger who becomes a slave to content and feels it necessary at times to let loose an ill favored rhetorical barrage at whatever current object of scorn, or derision, or humor that wanders into my gunsights. I realize that is part of the appeal of this site to many of you but there really are times when such writing is ill advised. Better the reasoned riposte than a heaping of calumny directed toward the wayward, the clueless, or the downright dumb.

However, there is something to be said for the former. Existing in one’s own little cocoon of information and opinion is certainly comforting. Reading only people and ideas that you agree with is not only good for one’s blood pressure, but also allows for a smug, self satisfaction to settle over one’s writing. The idea of the Revealed Truth From Rick is reinforced by many of you who leave nice comments and verbally pat me on the back for my perspicacity.

All goes swimmingly until I happen to read what I’ve written after a few weeks time and realize the trap I’ve fallen into. That’s when you must force yourself once again to examine the issues and events of the day from every possible angle so that even in disagreement, you find nuggets of truth, shades of meaning that can alter your perceptions and give a sense of wholeness to your beliefs.

In the end, that’s what this blog is all about; my beliefs. And the sooner you find out that it is silly and dangerous to believe that you have a corner on what is right or what is true, the more intellectually satisfying your search for knowledge will become.

Aristotle wrote:

“The search for truth is in one way hard and in another way easy, for it is evident that no one can master it fully or miss it wholly. But each adds a little to our knowledge of nature, and from all the facts assembled there arises a certain grandeur.”

“All the facts assembled” means that you must humble yourself in order to achieve that “grandeur” by searching out contrary interpretations of the facts. It isn’t just a matter of buttressing your own opinions by finding flaws in another’s arguments. It sometimes comes down to actually trying to wear the shoes of those with whom you disagree, seeing the issue from their perspective. Only then can you truly embrace your own conceits with the confidence that you’ve done all that is required to satisfy those pesky muses who bedevil your unconscious, whispering in your ear that “thou art but mortal” and must work like the dickens to overcome your own arrogance.

But in the face of this kind of evil, this monstrous darkness that is descending over the west largely as a result of our own stupidity and reckless disregard for our own safety, I’m tempted to gather all the Juan Coles, the Billmons, the Kossacks, and the whole lot of morally timid, incredibly myopic liberals who cannot see the horrific danger we are in from the scourge if Islamic fundamentalism and send them packing to Iran so that they can glimpse our future. It is mindboggling. And for someone brought up in a western, liberal, democratic, (small “d”) tradition, really quite perplexing.

Is there nothing in the west worth defending? Are there no values, no artistic or cultural traditions worth standing up for? Is the warm and comfortable embrace of western freedoms to be given up so cavalierly, without a fight and in some cases, even willingly?

On Thursday, the President of Iran said for the umpteenth time that the State of Israel should be eliminated. Previous incarnations of this rhetoric has been the disputed phrase about wiping Israel “off the map” and variations on the theme that the Jewish state will disappear in fire and smoke. Ahmadinejad has also suggested that the Europeans carve out some of their own territory and uproot more than 6 million Jews in order to move them “back” to Europe (the overwhelming majority of Israelis having been born in their own land, given to them by the United Nations and fought for by their fathers and grandfathers).

And yet, despite the clearly stated goals of the Islamic regime in Iran now growing bolder and more open about its intent to use proxies like Hizbullah to carry the fight to all “infidels,” all we hear from most of the left is a combination of nauseating anti-Semitism and a curious moral indistinctness between the Israelis and Hizbullah.

Hizbullah launches hundreds of rockets into Israel with the expressed intent of killing as many non-combatants as possible and the reaction on the left is, after (perhaps) a desultory condemnation of these purely terror tactics, gleeful commentary on how Israel is losing the war. On the other hand, when Israel mistakenly targets a house in Qana, apologizes profusely, and actually alters their targeting regime to try and prevent further mistakes, the moral outrage is without limit. Juan Cole:

There had been some question about whether Hizbullah’s ability to hit Israel with rockets had been degraded, or whether it was just observing the 48 hour air cease fire. On Wednesday it cleared the mystery up. The indiscriminate firing of rockets on civilian targets wounded 21 persons and one hit the Palestinian West Bank. Among the rockets fired was a long-distance Khaybar II. Targeting civilians or unnecessarily endangering them is a war crime.

Please note Professor Cole’s pro-forma recognition that Hizbullah has committed an atrocity is disconnected, unemotional, and matter of fact. He doesn’t even directly accuse Hizbullah of a war crime despite the fact that Hizbullah has now launched thousands of rockets into northern Israel trying desperately to kill as many civilians as they can.

What kind of mind can make that disconnect? The kind that can write this about Qana:

Note how by calling it a “tragedy,” Blair takes the onus off Israel for launching a total war on the Lebanese infrastructure and population. A hurricane is a tragedy, Mr. Prime Minister. This is a war. It is a war launched by specific persons, including especially Ehud Olmert and Gen. Halutz. It isn’t something that can be put into the passive voice.

Even most of the Arab world agrees that Hizbullah “launched” this war, not Prime Minister Olmert. And Cole’s blindness, comforting as it might be for him, extends to his swallowing hook, line, and sinker, this kind of Arab propaganda:

The Israelis appear to be engaged in a concerted campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Shiite towns and villages of southern Lebanon, and are indiscriminately bombing all buildings in the area south of the Litani River. They have chased hundreds of thousands of residents out, and are destroying the property they left behind in a systematic way, rather as they destroy the houses belonging to the family members related to suicide bombers. In other words, the Israelis are engaged in collective punishment on a vast scale. They maintain that rocket launching sites are embedded in these villages. But since Hizbullah keeps firing large numbers of rockets, it does not actually appear to be the case that the Israelis are hitting the rocket launchers. They are demonstrably hitting civilian houses and apartment buildings in a methodical way.

“Ethnic cleansing?” “Collective punishment?” Cole and I share a passion for reading the Daily Star of Lebanon and the individuals making claims such as he is reprinting here are Hizbullah spokesmen. There is no talk from Prime Minister Siniora of “ethnic cleansing” nor of any “methodical” razing of buildings. Cole regurgitates Hizbullah propaganda without batting an eyelash.

And herein lies the cause of my pessimism. Cole is an intelligent man, a font of information on the Middle East and its history (if you can stomach his biases). But last May, he wrote this regarding any confrontation between the west and Iran:

So sit down and shut up, American Enterprise Institute, and Hudson Institute, and Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and American Heritage Foundation, and this institute and that institute, and cable “news”, and government “spokesmen”, and all the pundit-ferrets you pay millions to make business for the American military-industrial complex and Big Oil.

We don’t give a rat’s ass what Ahmadinejad thinks about European history or what pissant speech the little shit gives.

Despite his hatred for the Iranian regime, Cole believes that we should not take Ahmadinejad at his word. If the Iranian President says that Israel will be eliminated, it is rhetoric that we can safely ignore. And when Ahmadinejad uses proxies like Hizbullah to make war on Israel and the west, I suppose we should bury our heads in the ground and pretend we shouldn’t do anything about it because the entire rationale for looking at Iran as an enemy has to do with the military industrial complex in America and has nothing to do with our own survival.

Cole, of course, is not alone. Not by a long shot. And it is legitimate to ask if Cole and his ilk would do anything to defend themselves against this kind of threat. Time and time again over the last 27 years Islamic fundamentalists have attacked us, eliciting a “proportional” response - a bombing run or lobbing a few cruise missiles at targets of opportunity. All this has gotten us is more attacks.

And Israel, trying to play by the rules laid out by the international community for the last 60 years that prevent it from removing threats to its existence so that the sensibilities of those who refuse to recognize the Jewish state as a legitimate national entity won’t be ruffled, finds itself on the frontline of this most recent war against the west. And once again, an international community more in love with “process” than with actually solving Israel’s dilemma is calling for the Jewish state to halt before it feels the job is done. No wonder the United States wants to change the failed diplomatic framework of the past that did nothing to make Israel safe and only made western politicians look good to the homefolks.

The world is becoming too dangerous to play these kinds of games anymore. Hizbullah must be disarmed. Syria must be be held to account for their meddling in Lebanon which included the brazen assassination of the beloved Hariri. And Iran must be isolated from the community of nations until they rid themselves of those who seek to lead a wordlwide crusade whose goal is the subjugation or destruction of everything we in the west find worth living for.

It is getting very late in the day not to have the left on board for this fight. And perhaps it will take a liberal leader somewhere else to explain it to them. They seem to have turned a deaf ear to anything coming from the United States and especially George Bush.

But wherever the wake-up call comes from - and it will come - the only question is will it come too late so that the west can face this latest challenge to its existence reasonably united.

The alternative is simply unthinkable.

When I first read about Nobel Peace Prize winner Betty Williams saying that she “would love to kill George Bush” I wasn’t particularly shocked. It’s not like we haven’t heard similar sentiments expressed everyday on liberal websites. In books, plays, and probably their wet dreams, liberals write and fantasize about bathing in the blood of George W. Bush, celebrating as the life oozes out of the President of the United States, dancing on his mangled corpse and the corpses of their political enemies.

I’d say that they were engaging in “eliminationist” fantasies but as I’ve pointed out before, there’s no such word.

But what made the statement shocking was the reaction of her audience - made up of children:

“I have a very hard time with this word ‘non-violence’, because I don’t believe that I am non-violent,” said Ms Williams, 64.

“Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.” Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

There’s something profoundly disturbing seeing children cheering on the murder of another human being, even if he is President of the United States and even if the left has made it perfectly acceptable to contemplate murdering him. It reminds me of stories that circulated in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination. According to William Manchester’s searing chronicle of the assassination Death of a President, there were several instances in Dallas schools where, upon hearing that the President was shot, children spontaneously applauded.

The reason can be found in the Warren Report. When the Commission was discussing how much blame to place on the city of Dallas itself for the assassination, there were several members who believed they couldn’t be too harsh in their criticism. In the end, the Report downplayed the white hot atmosphere of hate and loathing against Kennedy that had been ginned up by Ted Dealy, owner of the Dallas News as well as the local John Birch Society that was made up of several prominent Dallas civic leaders. In fact, on the day of the assassination, Dealy’s paper ran a full page ad with a picture of Kennedy, front and side view as if looking at a mugshot, with the banner “Wanted For Treason” in bold, black letters across the top.

The Commission found that there were dozens of instances of people in Dallas talking openly of assassinating Kennedy when he came to town or wishing that someone would. Texas Governor John Connally had heard the talk as well and begged the President not to go to Dallas. But some of the President’s aides saw Connally’s warnings as self serving. The reason for the Texas trip was to repair the schism in the Democratic party between Connally’s boys and the liberal wing of the Texas Democratic party headed up by Congressman Henry Gonzalez. Connally’s warnings were seen as an effort to stop the President from coming to Texas and foiling the Governor’s plans to kick the liberals into the corner, freezing them out of party leadership positions and influence.

But Kennedy Derangement Syndrome was pretty much confined to Dallas and a few other cities in the south. What is clear from the reaction to Mrs. Williams ranting in Australia is that its successor, Bush hatred, has gone global. We shouldn’t be surprised by this given the planet-wide reach of mass media, the internet, satellite TV, and pop music (especially Hip-Hop) whose graphic images and language routinely threatens violence against the President and authority figures in general.

It makes one wonder - how many similar demonstrations would there be by children the world over? In the United States?

A proud day for the left. And God help liberals if something happens to our President before his term in office ends.

UPDATE

Goldstein has another example of superior, reasoned thought from the left. This post from Booman Tribune is a sterling example (one that we conservatives should take to heart) about how to engage in debate with your ideological foes:

Forgive me for this but Alan Dershowitz’s children should be hit by a 5000 lb. bomb made by an American military-industrial corporation, sold to Israel, and misfired into his home. Then he can talk to me. I will offer my sincere condolences. Then we will get drunk and talk about relative culpability. I’m sorry Alan. You’re scum. Among the people in history that would gladly bitch-slap you are Jesus, Buddha, Zoroaster, Socrates, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Nelson Mendala, Bishop Tutu, Pope John Paul II, and me. We’d all like to smack you for being a prick.

Actually, as Jeff points out, this threatening violence against children is getting to be something of a habit with the left recently, Perhaps like Magua in the Last of the Mohicans (nice turn by Wes Studi, btw) he “wishes to wipe his seed from the face of the earth.” More likely, he’s just a moronic twit who enjoys playing with himself thinking about naked dead children.

AND WHERE IS GLENN GREENWALD? WHY HASN’T GLENN GREENWALD CONDEMNED THIS OUTRAGEOUS RHETORIC?