Right Wing Nut House

Christiane Amanpour is one of the most respected foreign correspondents in the business. She has literally been everywhere and done everything - from wars, to famines, to natural disasters, to weighty meetings between world leaders - Amanpour, with a combination of tenacity and courage, has reported on most of the transformational events over the last 25 years. She has received 9 Emmys and numerous other awards recognizing her outstanding achievements in broadcast journalism.

She is also a left wing hack, at times willing to shill for anti-American Europeans as well as promote a clearly biased agenda against Republican Presidents. Some of her less distinguished moments include a fawning interview with former President Bill Clinton and her self-congratulatory rant about the press coverage of hurricane Katrina - since shown to be wildly inaccurate and little better than rumormongering. Some conservatives point to her marriage to former Clinton State Department spokesman James Rubin as proof of her bias but frankly, I find such charges based on who somebody is in love with ludicrous. One need only look at the Carville-Matlin partnership to give the lie to that canard.

When she plays it relatively straight, I find her a truly awesome reporter. Her coverage of the Balkans was searing. Her exposing the plight of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban prior to 9/11 was groundbreaking. I found her reports from Iraq in the aftermath of the first Gulf War heartbreaking. She was, I believe, the first journalist to report on how George Bush 41 abandoned the Kurds and Shias after urging them to overthrow Saddam, a betrayal that haunts US foreign policy to this day. And her reporting of elections in Iraq in 2005 for CNN was, I believe more nuanced and in-depth than any other media outlet. She didn’t downplay the sheer joy of the Iraqis nor the courage of the American and Iraqi soldiers and police who helped protect the voters from terrorists who had vowed to disrupt the vote. I remember thinking at the time that Amanpour is probably at her best in this milieu; great events illustrated by using human interest stories to highlight the magnitude of what was going on.

The point of this short look at Amanpour’s record is to show that she is much more than a journalist with an agenda. Although her bias is certainly part of the total package she brings to her reporting, it shouldn’t blind us to her real accomplishments nor to the reputation she has around the world among friend and foe alike. And she is usually no lackey when interviewing the thugs of the world, challenging them on human rights as well as some of their more outspoken criticisms of the United States.

But what to make of this interview with a “senior Iranian government official,” I just don’t know:

As I sat down recently with a senior Iranian government official, he urgently waved a column by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times in my face, one about how the United States and Iran need to engage each other.

”Natural allies,” this official said.

It was a surprising choice of words considering the barbs Washington and Tehran have been trading of late.

“We are not after conflict. We are not after crisis. We are not after war,” said this official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But we don’t know whether the same is true in the U.S. or not. If the same is true on the U.S. side, the first step must be to end this vicious cycle that can lead to dangerous action — war.”

He confided that what he was telling me was not shared by all in the Iranian government, but it was endorsed so high up in the religious leadership that he felt confident spelling out the rationale.

“This view is not off the streets. It’s not the reformist view and it’s not even the view of the whole government,” he replied.

But he insisted he was describing the thinking at the highest levels of the religious leadership — the center of decision-making power in Iran.

I asked whether he meant Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself.

“Yes,” he said.

A couple of things should be noted here, not least of which is that there have been rumors for months coming out of Iran of a deep split between Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad. Khamenei’s criticisms are more related to the President’s style rather than substance but he has also gotten an earful from what western reporters refer to as “moderates” in the regime - the old guard of original revolutionaries who were quite comfortable in their corruption and positions of power. Ahamdinejad blew into office and immediately began to get rid of most of the bureaucratic conduits used by the old guard to siphon money from the ministries, replacing them with men of little or no experience but who had the true faith.

And then last December, Khamenei, with the help of the Odd Couple of Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, both former Presidents and Ahmadinejad’s most vocal critics, engineered an electoral set back for the Iranian President as his lists for local and regional office as well as many of his radical candidates for the powerful Assembly of Experts went down to defeat. There have also been moves in the Iranian Majlis to shorten Ahmadinejad’s term of office as well as resistance to some of his more radical appointments to the ministries.

Taken together, all of this points to Khamenei trying to marginalize his outspoken President. But does this automatically mean a change in attitude toward the United States?

John Hinderaker isn’t buying what Khamenei is selling, pointing to recent statements by Iran’s Supreme Leader that are belligerent and threatening. Indeed, Khamenei’s rhetoric and the actions of the Iranian government have been far from friendly toward the United States in recent years. And, as John also points out, Amanpour allows the Iranian to give the impression it’s evil George’s fault:

Amanpour’s breathless report implies that only the belligerence of the President Bush, who unaccountably included Iran in the “Axis of Evil,” frustrates a full alliance between these nations, both of whom, she says, are bitterly opposed to al Qaeda.

Many others, of course, believe that top al Qaeda leaders are now inside Iran. And it is not hard to argue that from 1979 to the present, the foreign power that has most consistently been at war with the U.S. is Iran. Further, what are we to make of the claim that Ayatollah Khamenei considers his country to be a “natural ally” of the U.S.?

We have heard this “natural ally” theme for 25 years from those who wish to engage Iran in dialogue. It is said that the people of Iran have an abiding affection for Americans and wish to re-engage and requite this love affair so that they can benefit from trade and other contacts with the west.

The only problem with pushing this meme is that the Iranian leadership could give a fig what their people think about America and the west. In fact, every move they have made over the last 25 years has been to insulate themselves further from what they see as the degrading, sinful culture and influence that the west has on the third world.

Ahamadinejad is the synthesis of this movement. One need only read his “letter” to President Bush asking him to convert to Islam to realize what this 25 years of insularity has wrought; a leadership so out of touch with the real world that they have no clue how real nations interact with one another. When Ahmadinejad expresses surprise at the fierce opposition to his anti-Semitic rants by western governments, he is genuinely confused that they can’t see the logic and truth of what he is saying. When he suggests that the Jewish state should be lifted from the Middle East and set down someplace in Europe, the Iranian President actually believes that he is doing both Israel and the rest of the world a favor. He is genuinely surprised that people find his proposal monstrously insane.

So the question Amanpour should have asked is why the change of heart? What has happened recently to cause the Iranian government (at least the Khamenei faction) to approach a world-renowned journalist in order to carry a message of peace to President Bush?

I truly believe that the more pragmatic fanatics in the Iranian leadership are frightened of what might transpire in the near term. And it is more than the threatened military action by the United States. Surprisingly, the United Nations sanctions seem to be having a disastrous effect on the Iranian economy, far beyond either their intent or actual impact. Basics like food and fuel have skyrocketed in price in recent months as speculators believe that the current sanctions regime is just the tip of the iceberg. So too, may Khamenei. He is not oblivious to the voices of leaders like Chancellor Merkel of Germany who have made it clear that the west will do almost anything (short of military action one presumes) to prevent the Iranians from building a nuclear weapon.

And then there is the apparent stalling of the Iranian uranium enrichment program. After promising that they would have 3,000 centrifuges up and running by the end of February, it appears that the Iranians haven’t even started installing the machines. Given the technological challenges, most experts are not surprised. It may take a year or more for those centrifuges to become operational - and that’s if everything goes fairly well. And then perhaps another year and a half to two years before there is enough Highly Enriched Uranium and a workable bomb design. So, if Ahmadinejad thought that he would have a working nuke by the time the Americans were ready to attack, he’s coming up a little short.

Amanpour tried to draw out the Iranian on what exactly had changed recently to lead the Iranians to extend this olive branch:

When the official waved the column by Friedman in my face at the start of the conversation, his point was this:

That despite disagreement over Iran’s nuclear program, despite accusations that Iran is supporting anti-American killers in Iraq, despite even the 1979 hostage crisis, Iran and America are “natural allies” and the time has come to restore relations.

“We are natural allies. Why?” he said. “Because now the major threat for both Iran and the U.S.A. is al Qaeda…”

I pressed him about Iran’s sudden interest in extending an olive branch. “Why now? What’s motivating you?” I asked.

“Peace for the Iranian people,” he said. “But not only peace, peace with security. Peace based on mutual respect, mutual benefit and mutual security.”

Mindful of the heated rhetoric flying between Tehran and Washington — between both presidents no less — this official said: “If we give the impression that we welcome a battle, this is not because it is our first option. It’s our final option.”

All of this goes unchallenged by Amanpour - at least in the article on CNN’s website. Presumably, more complete answers would be forthcoming if there ever was a low level exchange of views between Americans and Iranians.

And it appears to me that the Iranian is broaching the very thing I wrote about here (and was roundly derided for by many of my friends) regarding a quid pro quo that included a guarantee of sovereignty for the Iranian regime in exchange for “peace with security” - perhaps intrusive and regular inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities?

This would be a non-starter at the present but could signal a real desire (or fear) on the part of the Iranians to talk. This is why I would not dismiss this interview out of hand despite the bias of Amanpour and the recent pronouncements of Khamenei. I respect the view of those who think that talking to Iran is worse than useless, that it would be delusional to believe that any agreement could be reached with the fanatics in Tehran. But does this mean we should close our minds to the possibility that, for the first time perhaps in 25 years, the Iranians have some good reasons to put out feelers to the west?

The so-called overtures made by Iran in 2003 can safely be dismissed for what they represented at the time; an attempt to drive a wedge between the US and our European partners by freezing the EU “Big Three” of Germany, France, and Great Britain out of any bi-lateral talks with the United States and weaken their resolve on the nuclear issue. As our negotiations with North Korea proved, multi-lateral and regional solutions to dealing with rogue states is the way to success - or at least the way to paper over conflict.

But this effort appears to be of an entirely different nature. The Iranians may be asking far more than we would be willing to give up at this point. But given the alternative of bombing and perhaps even military action that would facilitate regime change and the downside that would accrue to American interests in the region as well as our economy and our security, I would hope that the Administration looks upon this unusual demarche seriously and give it careful consideration.

UPDATE

Jules Crittenden doesn’t think much of the offer. This seems to be a pretty universal reaction from my conservative friends putting me once again at odds with the right on Iran. And since the left doesn’t think much of me either, it gets very lonely out on this here limb. I would appreciate it if no one sawed it off.

UPDATE II

Just as I was about to wallow in self-pity and whine about how lonely it is out here, up steps my brave friend Dave Shuler who, while not agreeing with me 100%, at least is a little more flexible than some:

Still, I have no argument with holding talks. I’ve heard Madeleine Albright say that the Iranian regime repeatedly snubbed the advances of the Clinton Administration. I guess that’s ancient history, too.

Talks are good. They don’t necessarily mean that you’re willing to surrender anything nor does it mean that they will be allowed to be used as a stalling tactic.

I might add that I oppose talking simply for the sake of negotiating. There must be an agenda and a framework before we sit down with a regime like the Iranians. Otherwise, Dave’s fears of the Iranians using negotiations as a stalling tactic would almost certainly be realized.

For the last three years, poll after poll has shown an American public who overwhelming believed that the war was mismanaged, that Bush was doing a horrible job in prosecuting it, that it wasn’t worth the effort, that we never should have invaded in the first place, and that we are losing the war.

Of course, the only poll that matters - on election day - saw the Democrats sweep into power promising to “change course” in Iraq. Not defund the troops. Not redeploy to Okinawa. Not carry out a domestic insurgency against the military by setting impossibly high benchmarks for the Pentagon to meet in order to send troops to the war zone. Not even set arbitrary timetables for withdrawal, although a majority of Americans would support a timetable to withdraw some troops over the next one or two years.

In fact, I commented here after the election on the curious disconnect between what Democrats were actually telling the American people before the election and the anti-war “mandate” they were claiming after the vote. With precious few exceptions, the Democrats did not talk about pulling our troops out of Iraq in 6 months or a year. They didn’t advocate timetables for withdrawal. They didn’t run commercials about supporting the defunding of the war or redeploying troops elsewhere.

Their unmistakable message to the voters prior to election day was that they would “change course” in Iraq - an interesting theme that appealed to a broad section of the American electorate. Since even many conservatives and moderate hawks advocated “changing course” in Iraq, this big tent approach obviously worked. At least it “worked” in the sense that the Democrats got their majority.

Two recent polls however, indicate one of two things; either the American people, when faced with the reality of a Democratic majority, are having second thoughts about leaving Iraq before some semblance of order is achieved or, more likely, a couple of pollsters have finally asked the “right” questions about Iraq to reveal what the American people have believed all along.

In fact, this poll reveals what has been one of the best kept secrets of American opinion over the past three years. A fairly consistent majority of between 55% and 65% oppose pulling our troops out immediately (59%). And another consistent sign of support is that a majority (57%) support “finishing the job in Iraq” - keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can handle security on its own. (HT: James Joyner)

The simple minded sloganeering from the left about polls on Iraq and how the American people support their anti-war agenda down the line fails to take into a account that citizens have a fairly sophisticated, nuanced outlook on the war. They think Bush is doing a poor job (60% “strongly” or “somewhat strongly” agree” ), that 52% believe Congress isn’t doing much better, that only 17% want our troops to leave immediately, that a bare majority (50%) believe we should stay until the job is done, that a surprising 56% agree with the idea of supporting the President even if they disagree with him (another 17% “somewhat agree”), and in another surprise, 53% believe that victory is still possible.

Also, a whopping 66% believe that losing the war would cause America to lose its super power status. And 53% believe strongly that the Democrats have gone too far, too fast, in pressing the President to remove troops from Iraq.

The American people are also realists about the outcome. More than 80% believe Iraq will not become a stable democracy after the US leaves.

The other poll taken by IBD shows similar attitudes toward the war, the President, and the Democrats.

What gives? You can believe we are losing the war (as I do) and still support the President and the mission. You can think that the President is doing a piss poor job of prosecuting the war but also believe the Democrats are dead wrong in moving to defund it or throw a monkey wrench into troop rotations. You can be convinced that Iraq will not be a stable democracy after we leave but still think that the country is “a key part” in the War on Terror (57%).

In short, when pollsters start treating the American people as if they had a brain and ask a series of questions designed to elicit responses that, when taken together, give a much more nuanced snapshot of how the people actually look at Iraq, the “anti-war mandate” claimed by Democrats in the aftermath of the election dissolves into mush.

Not pro-war by any stretch and certainly indicating that they have zero patience with both an endless continuation of past strategies as well as political gamesmanship by the Democrats, the American people - practical, realistic, and desirous of getting on with the task of meeting our goals and getting the hell out - have proved once again that they actually understand the stakes in Iraq as well as realizing that things are going poorly and that changes are needed if success is to be ours.

Perhaps if we all stopped treating the public as little children who need to be told what to think, what to believe about Iraq, we could get beyond the one dimensional critiques of the war on both sides and work together on a plan consistent with their wishes to get out of Iraq with the goal of leaving an Iraqi government in place that can handle its own security and not be a threat to us or her neighbors. If those goals are achieved, I think it’s pretty clear that the majority of Americans would see our efforts in Iraq as a success. Perhaps not a “victory” in any realistic sense - but far from a defeat and definitely something to build on in the years ahead as Iraq will continue to struggle with instituting democracy.

Support for our war aims in Iraq will endure only as long as the people believe we have a chance of succeeding. The next 6 months will be critical to that perception as the surge currently underway will seek to create conditions for the Iraqi government to work toward political goals that should broaden its base of support and negotiate with the factions to end the cycle of violence that has Baghdad and its environs in its grip. The patience of the American people has worn thin. It’s time for the Iraqi government to do what is necessary so that our troops can start coming home.

The sooner - the better.

UPDATE

In addition to linking to the raw data, James Joyner also has an interesting summary of the poll results:

“The survey shows Americans want to win in Iraq, and that they understand Iraq is the central point in the war against terrorism and they can support a U.S. strategy aimed at achieving victory,” said Neil Newhouse, a partner in POS. “The idea of pulling back from Iraq is not where the majority of Americans are.”

“The key group driving public opinion here are what we call the “nose-holders”, said Newhouse. “They don’t believe we should have gone to war or should still be there, but they believe we should stay and do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and provide security for their own country.”

Both pro and anti war advocates have ignored “nose holders” for far too long. These are the practical and nuanced Americans I wrote about above. They are smarter than most of us and probably have a lot less patience than pro-war supporters believe. They probably voted Democratic in the elections last November. But they will almost certainly punish the Democrats if they go through with their slow bleed the troops strategy - especially if Republicans get off their duff and make the case that this cynical strategy is nothing short of “cut and run” on the sly.

And I will say to my fellow conservatives that we shouldn’t be doing too much crowing about these numbers. While some of these responses give the lie to any “anti-war mandate” claimed by the left in the aftermath of the election, neither do they represent much good news. Clearly, the American people want out of Iraq quickly. As long as progress is made toward that goal, the President will be able to maintain this support. But if things go south with the surge or Maliki proves himself to be even more of an empty suit than he already has, that support will disappear in a heartbeat.

David Broder is:

It may seem perverse to suggest that, at the very moment the House of Representatives is repudiating his policy in Iraq, President Bush is poised for a political comeback. But don’t be astonished if that is the case.

Like President Bill Clinton after the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, Bush has gone through a period of wrenching adjustment to his reduced status. But just as Clinton did in the winter of 1995, Bush now shows signs of renewed energy and is regaining the initiative on several fronts.

More important, he is demonstrating political smarts that even his critics have to acknowledge.

His critics will never acknowledge anything positive about this President so we can safely throw that last sentence in the wastebasket - along with most of this piece.

Broder is an old Washington hand who knows all the right people, attends all the right parties, and is an expert at the Washington rumor and gossip mills. He’s made a good living telling us what the high and mighty really think about each other as well as offering some excellent “inside politics” insights into how personalities and issues interact in our capitol city and how this affects the way things get done.

But he’s reaching here:

When Bush faced reporters on Wednesday morning, he knew that virtually all those in the Democratic majority would be joined by a significant minority of Republicans in voting today to decry the “surge” strategy.

He did three things to diminish the impact of that impending defeat.

First, he argued that the House was at odds with the Senate, which had within the past month unanimously confirmed Gen. David H. Petraeus as the new commander in Iraq — the man Bush said was the author of the surge strategy and the man who could make it work. Bush has made Petraeus his blocking back in this debate — replacing Vice President Cheney, whose credibility is much lower.

Second, he minimized the stakes in the House debate by endorsing the good motives of his critics, rejecting the notion that their actions would damage U.S. troops’ morale or embolden the enemy — all by way of saying that the House vote was no big deal.

And third, by contrasting today’s vote on a nonbinding resolution with the pending vote on funding the war in Iraq, he shifted the battleground to a fight he is likely to win — and put the Democrats on the defensive. Much of their own core constituency wants them to go beyond nonbinding resolutions and use the power of the purse to force Bush to reduce the American commitment in Iraq.

Where the non-binding resolution will have no teeth, Bush himself will have little influence over the “slow bleed the troops” strategy that leaked on Politico yesterday. House Democrats are in dead earnest to undermine the President’s surge plan. Just because they don’t have the moral character or political guts to call for an up and down vote on funding the war doesn’t mean Bush has trapped them in the slightest. They will get both their resolution going on record against the surge and an end to the war on their terms regardless of what Bush says or does.

Jeralyn Merritt recognizes this:

Sure the Dems support with the base is going to suffer if that happens. But more than that, Dems will join Bush in being blamed on Iraq if that happens. The Dems must see that a position on Iraq can not be avoided. And the choices are binary - in or out. Vote funding for the war and the Iraq Debacle becomes your Debacle too. Vote against it and it does not. It is that simple.

It is “cut and run” all over again. In 2006, the Dems were smart enough not to bite on Rove’s gambit. I smell them biting this time, and taking the Iraq Debacle on their shoulders. Incredibly stupid politically as well as being bad policy.

And when that happens, Bush will look better relatively in comparison. Call it an Einstein Bounce.

I disagree with Ms. Merritt in that I don’t think the Democrats will “bite” this time. Murtha and his “slow bleed the troops” strategy will give a nice cover to even those Democrats who might be wary of voting to cut off funding directly for the war. That’s the genius of Murtha’s cowardly proposals. While his party believes the war is lost and our men and women should be “redeployed,” Murtha and the Democrats are perfectly content to allow our soldiers to bleed in the field while they stay politically safe by gradually undermining the ability of the Pentagon to carry out the orders of the Commander in Chief rather than advocate an up or down vote to defund the war immediately.

Republicans will gripe about it but in the end, Democrats will probably get a sizable number of them to vote for at least some elements of the Murtha plan. So much for a Bush “comeback.”

And that makes the rest of Broder’s musings ironic in the extreme:

In other respects, too, Bush has been impressive in recent days.

He has been far more accessible — and responsive — to the media and public, holding any number of one-on-one interviews, both on and off the record, leading up to Wednesday’s televised news conference. And he has been more candid in his responses than in the past.

While forcefully making his points, he has depersonalized the differences with his critics and opponents. He has not only vouched for the good intentions of congressional Democrats, he has visited them on their home ground, given them opportunities to question him face to face, and repeatedly outlined areas — aside from Iraq — where he says they could work together on legislation: immigration, energy, education, health care, the budget.

With the public eager for some bipartisan progress on all these fronts, Bush is signaling that he, at least, is ready to try.

The question that echoes through everyone’s mind is what the hell took so long? Why did it take a massive defeat at the polls for Bush to reach out and attempt a little bi-partisanship?

If he had tried from the beginning of the War in Iraq to make the Democrats partners rather than playing political games with the AUMF vote (Authorization to Use Military Force) and then rejecting the advice of wise Democrats on war policy for three years, I daresay we wouldn’t find ourselves in this mess today. I know I’m going somewhat against the grain here when it comes to how my conservative friends view the history of the last few years but for every slight, every insult, every bric-a-brac thrown at the President, there has been one returned. It takes two parties to poison the political atmosphere - just like it takes two parties to fashion bi-partisan consensus. And now, in this country’s hour of need in Iraq, when we desperately need a bi-partisan consensus in order to avoid catastrophe, it is impossible to find.

Instead, we have one side trying to undermine the other - Democrats seeking to undermine the President’s plan while Republicans seeking to make Democrats partners in defeat; an Alfonse and Gaston dance that if the stakes weren’t so unbelievably high, it would be fodder worthy of a Shakespearean comedy - or perhaps tragedy. For in the end, there are 150,000 men and women in Iraq who will be doing Murtha’s “slow bleed” while surging in futility unless the Iraqi government can find a way to bring all the factions together to live in peace.

I frankly don’t care if Bush gets a “bounce” for being clever about placing the onus of defunding the troops on the Democrats. He shouldn’t care either. What they should all care about is salvaging something from this debacle short of a humanitarian and strategic disaster.

And that, gentle readers, would give a bounce to everyone.

“Beware lest clamor be taken for counsel” (Desiderius Erasmus )

“Are we nothing more than a pack of digital yellow journalists writing pixelated scab sheets vying to see who we can lay low next? If this be the way to fame and fortune in the blogosphere, I truly fear that, like television, the last great technological breakthrough that promised to change the world, we will degenerate into a mindless, bottomless pit of muck and mudslinging, dragging down the culture and trivializing even the most important issues.” (Me)

Learning came late in life in my case. For 25 years, I goofed off in school, barely squeaking by as I was ushered from grade to grade, from high school to college, graduating only because of the kindness of professors I was wise enough to suck up to.

After college, I persisted in my ignorance, wearing it like a badge of honor and mouthing the liberal platitudes and pablum of the times. But forced to finally confront my ignorance as I set out to make a living in the world, I realized how truly deficient my knowledge of the larger world of ideas was and I began a conscious effort to rectify the situation.

Not having read much philosophy, I began by reading the Greeks Socrates and Aristotle, moved on to Erasmus, devoured Kant, Hume, and Rousseau and ended my initial explorations with Hegel and Marx. To this day, it is hard to put into words the excitement I felt when the ideas of those giants slammed into me, so powerful was was the force of their logic and personalities. This started my journey as an auto-didact. And for the nearly 30 years since those heady days in the summer of 1979, I have experienced the joy of learning simply for the sake of knowing.

Knowledge for its own sake is a concept perhaps out of style at today’s educational assembly lines where we churn out lawyers, accountants, and B-school grads. I guess when you’re paying in excess of $100,000 a year to educate your child, you tend to demand that what they learn is “relevant” to the employment conditions they will find after graduation.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this kind of education - as long as it is augmented with a well rounded curriculum that includes the humanities, the sciences, and the arts. My understanding is that these opportunities are still available to the undergraduate - even if you are pre-law or pre-med. It would be my advice to anyone going off to college to take advantage of everything the school has to offer including the study of subjects that hold no promise to assist you in whatever field you have chosen to make your life’s work.

But the accumulation of knowledge is only part of the equation. As Confucius said “Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance.” Knowledge does not automatically lead to wisdom or infallibility nor does it insulate us from making mistakes in judgement. And that, my friends, may be the most important idea you read today.

The reason for this personal digression is that I wanted you to understand not how smart I am but how truly ignorant we all are. If, as Erasmus said “Humility is Truth” then surely it follows that before one can glimpse the truth, we must recognize and admit to our own ignorance, our own mistakes. Anything less reveals a towering conceit born of ego - a hubristic mindset that brooks no opposition and where ideas are set in stone rather than existing as free agents capable of altering their shape, their texture, even the very foundations on which they exist.

Long time readers of this site know exactly what I’m talking about. You can trace the arc of my support for the Iraq War, for the President, for Republicans, even for conservatives from where I started to where I am now and see where my ideas have changed to reflect the knowledge I have gained as well as changes in perception that have colored my thinking on a host of issues. Does this make me wishy-washy? To some, perhaps. I prefer to think that it proves I am at least receptive to examining other ideas that may clash with some of my long held beliefs.

Specifically with regards to Marcotte and the left in this matter, it is obvious their desperation to shift debate on this issue from Marcotte’s hate filled spewings to what they consider to be similar sins committed by conservatives precludes their having to examine their own beliefs, their own complicity in her shockingly corrupt ideological rantings.

In truth, they see nothing wrong with her warped view of Christians, Catholics, conservatives, men, and any other enemy she targets with her vile invective. Nor do other liberal commenters who have hurled obscene racist epithets at Michelle Malkin or made wild accusations about me, about my brother, or any other individual who has questioned Marcotte’s fitness to serve in any capacity on the staff of a major Presidential candidate demonstrate the slightest ability to examine what Marcotte’s insults and hurtful diatribes mean in a wider context.

By maintaining their silence or even voicing approval for what those outside the left side of the blogosphere almost universally condemn as hate speech, the left proves once again that ignorance is bliss and that self examination, like a little knowledge, is a dangerous thing, something to be avoided at all costs lest one lose their place in the stratified pecking order of lefty blogs.

But I cannot leave this subject without examining the role of those of us on the right who flogged this story into the mainstream media and may have cost Marcotte her job. Certainly our motives lacked nobility. I will be the last to argue that anything more than “scalp hunting” animated this effort. And the questions I raised in the quote at the top of this page remains valid: Is this all we are? Is this what we have become?

In the heat of battle, it is easy to lose sight of those questions. This is not an excuse but rather an explanation. And whatever the outcome of this latest blogosphere dustup, it may be well to ask a third question: Is there anything we can do to change this dynamic? The constant back and forth of charge, counter-charge, revelation followed by the inevitable attempt to alter the discussion by pointing to the sins of the other side - all of this has become an all too familiar pattern of behavior that any rational person would have to say cheapens us all on both sides of the aisle and doesn’t solve anything. Instead, it actually breeds resentment so that the next rhubarb will follow exactly the same course with perhaps even more intensity in the use of language and invective.

I don’t have any answers. And the only thing I’m sure of is that I and everyone else will be guilty of the exact same sins the next time blogs swarm in and target someone for scalp lifting.

Nature of the beast? Or something that can consciously be changed? I don’t know. I just don’t know.

UPDATE: A LITTLE HONESTY WOULD BE A GOOD START

Statement from Edwards:

The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwan’s posts personally offended me. It’s not how I talk to people, and it’s not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it’s intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I’ve talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith, and I take them at their word. We’re beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can’t let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.

“…[I]ntended as satire, humor, or anything else…”? How about deliberately hurtful? And the idea that Marcotte’s intention was not to malign anyone’s faith is a baldfaced lie. “Reproductive issues” - including anti-abortion beliefs - that she denigrated in such a scurrilous and vile manner are the essence of some Catholic’s faith! That and her disrespecting the Pope show that it was fully her intention to malign the Catholic faith and any statement that says otherwise is meaningless drivel.

The left now has their champions ensconced in a campaign after the principal releases a statement full of what everyone with an ounce of decency recognizes as lies. I’m all for forgiveness but how about a little honesty? If Edwards had come out and said that while he recognized that Marcotte’s views were hurtful to some Americans, they didn’t reflect his beliefs or what he was trying to accomplish with the campaign. Instead, he pretends that Marcotte’s screeds were humor or satire and he further pretends to believe them when they say that they weren’t trying to be hateful or hurtful to anyone.

None of the players covered themselves in glory over this - least of all Edwards.

Also, check out the comments by The Anchoress below as well as her post here.

UPDATE II

James Joyner agrees with me:

These statements have all the believability of 5-year-olds being made to shake hands and apologize. Further, while I have no doubt both these women believe in the 1st Amendment, it’s utterly ridiculous to claim that they never intended to criticize people’s religious views. They did so routinely. The only way that religious people would not have been offended by any of dozens of statements on their blogs was by not reading them.

Of course, that was likely the case in most instances. Blogs that appeal to rabid partisans often devolve into ridicule and dripping condescension toward those who disagree. That’s great for building a fan base, as numerous bloggers (and talk hosts) on both sides of the aisle can attest. It’s not very effective for holding a national conversation, though, let alone a presidential campaign.

Malkin: “Meanwhile, the nutroots are waving their guns around in triumph.” Yep. Firing off their weapons in celebratory triumph like all the other primitive peoples of the earth.

Goldstein:

But lost on these Marcotte supporters—who are cheering on the power of the “netroots” to cow a politician into keeping on an ugly and hateful liability—is that Edwards just showed up Marcotte and McEwan as frauds and posturing blowhards, writers who have been pulling the wool over their audiences’ eyes by posting vicious “arguments” they never truly believed. To use the loaded language of establishment feminism—he publicly castrated them—and in so doing, he made fools out of their audiences, to boot.

Further, in doing so, he has shown himself to be nothing more than a calculating political opportunist of the worst sort—one who believes the voting public so daft they might actually buy a statement like the one he just released.

See also some interesting thoughts somewhat similiar to my own about blogs and blogging from Sister Toldjah.

Allah is on fire. Keep scrolling.

Lambchop and TT-Boy at a recent strategy meeting of left wing bloggers.

It’s been a while since I’ve felt the need to fend off the chigger bites and gnat stings of some of my friends on the left. Oh, there has been the odd snarky comment, the snide reference to some post or other that the dufus either never bothered to read or couldn’t understand. But frankly, I’ve felt neglected of late by the port side of the sphere. In fact, I was getting worried that I was losing my ability to get a rise out netnuts.

It’s not been for lack of trying, I assure you. It’s just that it seems I’ve been getting a helluva lot more criticism from my friends on the right than the unhinged crowd on the left recently. Perhaps this says more about the inability the left to understand words containing more than 2 or 3 syllables than the unsettled nature of conservatism at present.

At any rate, my post on Marcotte below - specifically my update where I link Terry’s piece that asks some rather uncomfortable questions that the lefties have deigned to ignore entirely - has really flushed the cockroaches out from under the floorboards and sent them scurrying hither and thither, making a stink about my links to Dan Riehl and Michelle Malkin’s compilation of bigoted Marcottisms as well as making the charge that Terry and I somehow coordinated our posts, echoing each other’s talking points.

Terry is a big boy and can take care of himself. He hardly needs (nor, I imagine, wants) any input or “coordination” with me.

As for my linking Dan and Michelle, it is certainly a curious way to delegitimize any of my arguments by trying to say that Marcotte’s own words, which was the reason for my linking those posts in the first place, are somehow less bigoted, less hateful, less of a problem for her if they appear on blogs that the lefties don’t approve. The reason that is “ironic” escapes me as I’m sure it does most people with an IQ higher than your average marmoset.

This, of course, removes TT-Boy from that list:

Rick “The Lesser” Moran writes about Amanda and then he invites his readers to go see the ever-sensible Michelle Malkin and Dan Riehl.

I could have stayed up all night and not come up with anything near that funny…

The fact that TT Boy does indeed stay up all night in his job as grocery store stocker means that he truly can’t come up with anything near as funny as Marcotte’s nauseating, hate filled rants that I linked at those two websites. I’m sure if he really put his mind to it (or checked his archives) he could come close.

Meanwhile Atrios, about whom Chris Bowers gushed:

“Atrios has somehow managed to put up twelve posts a day, every day, for five years. A superhuman effort few can match.”

Well, let me play Superman for a moment and try to match the “twelve posts” put up by Duncan Black every day..

1. Open Thread
2. Open Thread
3. Open Thread
4. Bush Sucks! No more War.
5. Open Thread
6. Open Thread
7. Open Thread
8. Conservatives are Poopies!
9. Open Thread
10. Open Thread
11. Beware the Theocrats!
12. Open Thread
13. Open Thread

Befitting my Superhuman abilities, I went and did Mr. Black one better.

At any rate, The Reverend Mr. Black has made Terry “Wanker of the Day” calling him my “sock puppet.” A singular honor for which Terry is, I’m sure, grateful although since we disagree on almost every issue under the sun, that sock sure has a lot of holes in it - perhaps as many as we could find in Mr. Black’s head.

Yes, it sure is great to be back in the left’s bad graces. Now I can sit back and enjoy all the ever more imaginative insults and verbal bric-a-brats hurled in my direction, secure in the knowledge that when it comes to pissing off the lickspittle left, I haven’t lost my touch.

UPDATE

Terry responds to his critics here.

Well done, brother. And thanks.

The strange and bizarre saga of William Arkin endures as the Military Affairs columnist and blogger for the Washington Post continues to offer up explanations for what he really meant in his January 30th post savaging the American military.

Yesterday, Arkin posted an incoherent defense of his position that referred to his critics as “arrogant and intolerant” while furiously trying to backtrack from his original thoughts by lying about what he said in the January 30th post.

Not surprisingly, this didn’t work very well. In fact, a couple of hours after the response to his critics was posted, it was hastily taken down. Someone somewhere at WaPo may have seen Arkin’s response as not only inadequate but insulting as well and subsequently removed the offending post from Arkin’s webpage.

Arkin proved himself nothing if not dogged by posting a second, less inflammatory but still incoherent response to his critics that still contains obvious falsehoods about what he said in the original post while saying that he knew all along that his words would draw a huge negative reaction and that he did it on purpose to get a dialogue started on the issue of the military being put on a pedestal:

I knew when I used the word “mercenary” in my Tuesday column that I was being highly inflammatory.

NBC News ran a piece in which enlisted soldiers in Iraq expressed frustration about waning American support.

I intentionally chose to criticize the military and used the word to incite and call into question their presumption that the public had a duty to support them. The public has duties, but not to the American military.

So I committed blasphemy, and for this seeming lack of respect and appreciation for individuals in uniform, I have been roundly criticized and condemned.

Mercenary, of course, is an insult and pejorative, and it does not accurately describe the condition of the American soldier today. I sincerely apologize to anyone in the military who took my words literally.

Long time readers of this site know that I rarely use profanity in a post but Arkin’s words impel me to make an exception:

What a crock of shit.

Everything he writes rings hollow. I don’t believe for one minute he could have possibly sensed the firestorm of controversy that erupted over his insults. And his “apology” - that he’s sorry anyone in the military took his words “literally” - is a shocking prevarication.

He didn’t just use the word “mercenary” in passing. He used it as part of what passes for humor on the left. It was a deliberate smear - the kind that keeps you in good standing with the anti-war crowd. It is a wink and a nod at the hard left, telling them that he agrees with them but that the mask must stay on so that the slack jawed, goober chewing, shotgun toting, mouthbreathers in the hinterlands don’t get their panties in a bunch:

But it is the United States, and the recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

In effect, he was telling his friends on the left to take the insult literally while maintaining a certain deniability by making an awkward bon mot out of the phrase.

Where Arkin refuses to back down is in his belief that the American soldier shouldn’t be dissing the home folks - not when patriots like him “support” them:

Those in uniform who think about and speak out about this predicament are rightly frustrated and angry. Many seem to find some solace in blaming the media or anti-war “leftists” or the Democratic Party or the liberals, or even an ungrateful or insufficiently martial American public.

But if those in the military are now going to argue that we are losing in Iraq because the military has lacked for Ssomething, then the absence of such support should be placed at the feet of the Bush administration, Rumsfeld and company, and a Republican Congress — not on the shoulders of the American public, who have been nothing but supportive, even those who have opposed the war…

In the middle of all of this are the troops, the pawns in political battles at home as much as they are on the real battlefield. We unquestioningly “support” these troops for the very reasons that they are pawns. We give them what we can to be successful, and we have a contract with them, because they are our sons and daughters and a part of us, not to place them in an impossible spot

Is it “solace” those men on the NBC report were seeking? It sounded to me like they were seeking an answer to a very good question - a question that Arkin refuses to even try and answer (except by muddying the waters by saying they shouldn’t be asking questions in the first place): How can you “support the troops” without supporting their mission?

Arkin is silent on this point except to say that of course you can be supportive of the men while opposing the war! How dare you even raise the question!

No explanation. Just platitudes about free speech - a curious defense given his scolding of the soldiers themselves for speaking out. I agree with Arkin that it is possible to be a patriotic American and oppose the war and agitate for bringing the troops home now. And while we shouldn’t question their patriotism, we damn well can question their judgement. Of course, they can similarly question the judgement of those of us who support our continued deployment. This is called democratic debate. Perhaps Arkin has forgotten how that works and that the soldiers also have every right to participate.

All of this comes back to the mask being worn by Arkin and many on the left and how it hides their true feelings about the military and the United States in general. At the beginning of the war, we heard much from our lefty friends about how this time, unlike what happened in Viet Nam, they wouldn’t blame the war on the troops. No spitting please. No calling them “baby killers.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that they don’t really think that. They’re just not going to make the political error this time around of getting the rest of the American people angry at them for what they truly believe.

This why it is impossible for Arkin and others to answer the simple question posed by the soldiers. There literally is no answer because the soldiers are correct. But for very good political reasons, most of the anti-war crowd will obfuscate and set up straw men about “free speech” rather than give a direct response. Simply saying that it is possible to support the troops while opposing their mission doesn’t cut it. By putting the onus on the troops for asking it, Arkin tries to shift the focus from the obvious answer - he doesn’t “support” the troops or the war effort - to why the interlocutor was wrong for inquiring in the first place. They are “intimidating” the American people or they are “blaming” the citizenry for our failures in Iraq by asking the question.

We got a glimpse of Arkin’s mindset yesterday from this exchange that Michelle Malkin transcribed from an interview conducted by Fox’s John Gibson on his radio show yesterday:

GIBSON: The general tone of this piece is that the troops owe us, that we continue to support them through the war that they are losing.

ARKIN: Oh, come on, John, that’s your characterization! (Voice rising) I don’t say they owe us anything! I just say that when the troops start to express their dissatisfaction with the American public, they should look in the mirror and ask themselves whether or not the American public is their servant or they’re the servant of the American public. (Voice louder) I nowhere suggested that the troops shouldn’t have the right to speak up. I merely said we shouldn’t put them on such a pedestal that they are above criticism IF THEY SAY STUPID THINGS!

GIBSON: Well, what is so stupid about…[plays NBC segment...Staff Sergeant: "If they're going to support us, support us all the way."]

GIBSON: What is so wrong…

ARKIN: (Going bananas, sputtering at top of his lungs) HE’S JUST TOTALLY WRONG, JOHN. PEOPLE CAN SUPPORT THE TROOPS AND NOT SUPPORT THE WAR. AND THE FACT THAT THESE GUYS IN UNIFORM DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT TELLS ME THAT THEY ARE BADLY SCHOOLED IN THE REALITIES OF [unintelligible]…

Note that Arkin still makes no attempt to answer the question of how one can support the troops without supporting the war. He simply states it as fact - as if it were as much a part of the natural world as the sun rising and setting. No explanation needed. And his contention that he never asked the troops to shut up is patently false. In his original post, he hoped that their commanding officer took them aside and read them the riot act:

I’m all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn’t for them to disapprove of the American people.

He is clearly saying - despite his caveat about his supporting the idea of “everyone expressing their opinion” - that it “wasn’t for them” (not their place) to disapprove of the American people.

This does indeed sound like he thinks they shouldn’t be able to express an opinion on the subject despite his hollow nod to the First Amendment. No amount of explaining. No attempt to set up additional straw men will change that singular fact. The only thing he can do is apologize - something Mr. Arkin seems intent on avoiding at all costs.

In my post yesterday, I wrote that I was going to email the editor and publisher, asking them to fire Mr. Arkin. I didn’t do it because of this post by Don Surber that made me change my focus. I don’t think it’s necessarily “stupid” to ask for his resignation but I get Don’s point about not stifling debate. Arkin didn’t quite go far enough in his insults to warrant removal. But I don’t think it too much to ask for his apology - a full, honest, and complete mea culpa for the disrespect he showed to our people in uniform.

In Stanley Kubrick’s wildly funny and depressingly dark comedy Dr. Strangelove, Peter Sellers, playing several roles including both the President and the title character, just can’t help himself as Dr. Strangelove. The more Strangelove talks about the end of the world and nuclear annihilation, the more his Nazi instincts try to take over. He struggles to keep his arm from flinging upwards in a Nazi salute. His feet desperately want to do the goose step despite his being wheel chair bound.

Finally, almost swooning with ecstasy over the possibilities in a post nuclear world, Strangelove loses the battle and his arm shoots up in a Nazi salute, calling the President “Mein Fuhrer.” In the end, he forgot that he was trying to fool people about his true feelings and gave in to his natural inclinations.

In similar fashion, try as they might to suppress their natural proclivities regarding the American armed forces, many on the left get so carried away sometimes they forget that they are trying to fool the American people into believing that they are but simple patriots, concerned about the lives and welfare of the troops and, in a spasm of hate and loathing, reveal exactly what they think of the young men and women who have volunteered to serve.

Of course, some never try and hide their contempt for our military. One of the major players in the anti-war movement, Code Pink, picketed Walter Reed hospital where many of our wounded vets are being treated. They even accosted and razzed some soldiers who were out-patients coming in for further treatment on wounds suffered in battle.

The press was extremely careful not to report these demonstrations. Gather half a dozen anarchists, greens, or moveon.org types on a street corner asking people to “honk for impeachment” and that will get you a page 3 write up in most newspapers. But somehow, there were no reporters available to cover these demonstrations at Walter Reed that showed such monumental disrespect for the volunteers who have suffered wounds in service to their country.

But the Democrats and their allies on the left have largely been successful in subsuming their real feelings about the military with only a couple of exceptions marring the record. Predictably, John Kerry’s “botched joke” about the intelligence of soldiers serving in Iraq was one such example of this subsurface hate for those in the military. It apparently sank his presidential ambitions and probably saved the Republicans a couple of House seats in the election. But at the time, it was generally felt that Kerry’s revealing anecdote was just a demonstration of his long time loathing of active duty personnel. Like Strangelove, Kerry just couldn’t help himself.

Now we have William Arkin of the Washington Post revealing in spectacularly ignorant fashion, his own contempt for the men and women who currently wear the uniform. In what can only be described as a shockingly inappropriate post on his blog, Arkin complains that the men and women in the military who speak out in favor of the mission in Iraq and complain about the lack of support from the American people are a bunch of ungrateful wretches who who should shut up and do their jobs - a job that Arkin believes is akin to one that a mercenary does:

So, we pay the soldiers a decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead, defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are above society?

I can imagine some post-9/11 moment, when the American people say enough already with the wars against terrorism and those in the national security establishment feel these same frustrations. In my little parable, those in leadership positions shake their heads that the people don’t get it, that they don’t understand that the threat from terrorism, while difficult to defeat, demands commitment and sacrifice and is very real because it is so shadowy, that the very survival of the United States is at stake. Those Hoover’s and Nixon’s will use these kids in uniform as their soldiers. If I weren’t the United States, I’d say the story end with a military coup where those in the know, and those with fire in their bellies, save the nation from the people.

But it is the United States and instead this NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer - force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

You can put your hand down now, Arkin.

For those who can’t fathom why Arkin would write such a post in the first place, I would say that these are obviously feelings he has suppressed for a long time for so much bile and hate to spill out so nakedly and in such a public way. The entire post reeks of self serving hypocrisy as Arkin sets up one straw man after another, posits logical fallacies again and again, and then, most shockingly, questions the motives of the troops who volunteered to keep him safe in his bed at night.

For a specific refutation of Mr. Arkin’s execrable ideas and statements, I would visit first Blackfive. Although this is the kind of post that is emotionally satisfying to read and write, if you get beyond the name calling, the author does indeed make several valid points answering questions raised by Arkin’s writing as well as easily knocking down several of the strawmen propped up by the Post blogger.

Hugh Hewitt has some background info on Arkin as does Marc Danzinger. Apparently, WaPo hired a raving, anti-military lefty loon to write about military affairs. Ben Domench anyone?

Michell Malkin has her usual thorough round up and posts some of the comments left at Arkins blog - 504 and counting as of 6:30 AM Central time this morning.

John Hinderaker wonders where WaPo’s editors were prior to the publication of Arkins blog post.

AND IF YOU READ ANYTHING TODAY ABOUT THIS ISSUE, YOU ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY HAVE TO READ THIS ARTICLE BY JOHN AT OP-FOR:

And with that piece, every frustration that I’ve felt over America’s new fifth column, every insult that smug anti-war pundits have hurled at the silent stoics in our armed forces, all the false pity, all the overused meaningless cliches (”we support the troops but not the war”) that we in the military have endured, every bit of anger that I’ve suppressed in the name of good manners and honorable debate, reaches a fist-clenching apex…

If there is a war that’s unwinnable, it’s the war on this type of horrid ignorance. The type of uniformed, intellectually lazy thinking that can only exist in the sheltered bubble of cocktail parties and classrooms. Arkin is a gazer. A man forever condemned to peering out the window into the real world, watching the exertions of men better than himself. And yet he fancies himself the educated one. Any logical human being would trade career in journalism for the expertise gained by serving a mere one month in the box, yet this slime fancies his opinion so informed, so expert, so utterly irrefutable that even the very soldiers who are fighting this war are shamefully ignorant for daring to challenge his infallibility.

Go. Read. Now.

If, as Dan Reihl speculates, the press is now in open opposition and is making no effort to hide their bias, then we should expect to see more of this kind of truthiness coming from the left. After all, the election is over. They won. They successfully fooled enough of the American people into actually believing they cared a tinkers’ damn about the troops or about the United States for that matter. They successfully allowed people to believe that they had no intention of cutting and running in Iraq before some semblance of victory could be achieved all the while planning to do exactly the opposite.

But with the moves afoot to not only cut off funding for “the surge” but also attempts to micro manage troop levels, mission goals, and benchmarks that must be achieved by the Iraqi government, a sick sense of defeatism and helplessness is running through our political class, weakening any remaining resolve to bring the Iraq adventure to some kind of honorable conclusion. The politicians - both Republicans and Democrats - simply want the issue to go away. And with it, the hundreds of thousands of American servicemen who have served courageously, honorably, and despite what Arkin says, with few complaints. They have done all that they have been asked to do and then gone beyond that and heroically done much more.

And this is the thanks they get. Not just from the Arkins of the world and other leftists who, after all, just can’t help themselves. But also from people who should know better.

I don’t know where these young men and women will be in two years. But I hope that wherever they are, they are at least given credit for carrying out their mission with honor and that sense of duty that only a true calling to serve others brings to life.

UPDATE: ARKIN RESPONDS TO CRITICS

Michelle Malkin has the gist of Arkin’s response. Basically, he’s a liar:

Contrary to the typically inaccurate and overstated assertion in dozens of blogs, hundreds of comments, and thousands of e-mails I’ve received, I’ve never written that soldiers should “shut up,” quit whining, be spit upon, or that they have no right to an opinion.

I said I was bothered by the notion that “the troops” were somehow becoming hallowed beings above society, that they had an attitude that only they had the means - or the right - to judge the worthiness of the Iraq endeavor.

I was dead wrong in using the word mercenary to describe the American soldier today.

These men and women are not fighting for money with little regard for the nation. The situation might be much worse than that: Evidently, far too many in uniform believe that they are the one true nation. They hide behind the constitution and the flag and then spew an anti-Democrat, anti-liberal, anti-journalism, anti-dissent, and anti-citizen message that reflects a certain contempt for the American people.

Beggin’ your pardon kind sir, but where in God’s name in the original post do you write, hint, or dream of anything you claim you were saying? Where, for instance, do you posit the notion that our soldiers believe they are “the one true nation?” Or that they “hid behind the constitution?”

In fact, after an obligatory nod to their constitutional rights, you then attempted to take that right away:

I’m all for everyone expressing their opinion, even those who wear the uniform of the United States Army. But I also hope that military commanders took the soldiers aside after the story and explained to them why it wasn’t for them to disapprove of the American people.

Sounds pretty clear cut to me. You don’t think it “was for them” to disapprove of the American people. How do you get around the fact that you hope that their commanders shut them up? Or that they should just keep their criticisms about the American people to themselves?

William Arkin is a bald faced liar. His “response” is replete with instances like the one above where he claims he’s just some poor, misunderstood newspaper guy with people making death threats against him and saying he should leave the country.

Welcome to the blogosphere, chum.

His meaning in the initial post was clear. Trying to muddy the waters with this response will not wash away his rhetoric about “obscene amenities” and the ridiculous and insulting scenario where our robot-like troops would follow a General James Matoon Scott in some kind of military coup against the government - all because the troops were mad at the press and politicians.

Doesn’t he realize what a monumental insult that is to the honor and integrity of every member of the United States military both living and dead to intimate that any of them would violate their oaths to the Constitution so cavalierly?

Sorry Mr. Arkin. If you had left well enough alone and not tried to throw sand in our eyes about what you truly meant to say with your original post, the issue may have faded away on its own.

But since you have seen fit to compound your monumental errors in judgement by trying to school your readers in what you really meant - equally reprehensible in any case to what you originally wrote - I am going to write a letter to the editor and publisher calling for your resignation.

And if you had an ounce of decency, you’d beat them to it.

UPDATE II

Allah has some audio from Arkin’s appearance on Fox last night.

Most people don’t put much stock in opinion polls - unless you’re a liberal and the majority supports your position. Then the poll takes on all the characteristics of holy writ. Moses and his commandments have less truthiness than a liberal clutching the results of an opinion poll that agrees with one of his positions. Then, waving the piece of paper aloft a la Chamberlain home from Munich, we lesser beings are informed that Vox populi, vox dei, (”The voice of the people is the voice of God”) and that unless the government alters their policies to conform with the latest skewed data from such unbiased sources as AP, USA Today, and the New York Times, liberals will get mad and throw a tantrum while accusing their political opponents of setting up a dictatorship.

It’s all well and good for a lefty to chortle and point to a poll showing 70% of the American people believing that George Bush is an incompetent fruitcake with the brains of a marmoset and the integrity of a tree sloth. And any old poll on the Iraq War showing the massive discontent in the country with this botched adventure is enough to send the left into paroxysms of joy, seeing vindication of their position as proof positive that while there may not be a God, there is schadenfreud to be celebrated.

Every once and a while, however, some dumb ass pollster will ask a really stupid question that reveals a teensy bit more about the nature of the left than they intend. And in doing so, a shocking truth is revealed that would give the rest of the country pause - if there was a ghost of a chance in hell that the information would be as widely disseminated as say, the number of people who think George Bush has the brains of a marmoset and the integrity of a tree sloth:

A sizable minority is optimistic that the president’s plan will work. About one in four think it is either very (10 percent) or somewhat (29 percent) likely the plan will succeed, 27 percent think it is not very likely to succeed and another 25 percent say not at all likely.

Even though a majority opposes Bush’s new plan and many are doubtful it can succeed, that does not mean they want it to fail: 63 percent of Americans say they want the plan to succeed, including 79 percent of Republicans, 63 percent of independents and 51 percent of Democrats.

On the larger political front, more people think “most Democrats” want the Bush plan to fail and for him to have to withdraw troops in defeat (48 percent), than think Democrats want the plan to succeed and lead to a stable Iraq (32 percent).

There are three separate issues here. First, while most Americans are doubtful that the surge will succeed, a sizable minority - certainly enough to prevent Congress from scuttling the plan - believe it will work. No wonder Pelosi is going to give Bush his head and allow funding for the plan to go forward.

But the real shocker here is the number of Democrats who want the plan to succeed. A bare majority of Democrats (51%) want the United States military to prevail on the field of battle. Now if I were to posit a logical fallacy, I could say that since 49% of Democrats want the military to fail, then it follows that they wish large numbers of American soldiers to die to make their wish come true. But I would never accuse Democrats of any such thing, would I?

What I am accusing them of is that they would rather see the President, and by extension, the United States of America suffer a humiliating defeat than see their cherished ideas of defeatism dribble away like so much frozen custard on a hot summer’s day. They would rather the US lose than be proved wrong.

An exaggeration? The last number quoted above is even more telling. Here’s the breakdown of people who think the Democrats want the surge plan to fail:

Democrats 42% 38 7 12
Republicans 21% 67 7 5
Independents 30% 42 11

The first number refers to respondents who think the Democrats want the plan to succeed. The second number are those who believe Democrats want the plan to fail. The third number reflects those who believe some want one thing, some another. The last number represents those Americans in perpetual obliviousness; they don’t know.

What I find extraordinary is that 38% of Democrats believe that their own party is made up of…what? Traitors? Too harsh. How about a bunch of brainless twits whose myopia is so profound that they would wish for disaster to befall American arms. The fact that this could only mean that a lot of American soldiers would be killed for nothing makes their disconnect from reality complete.

You can be sure that this aspect of the poll will never, ever see the light of day on any other network save Fox News. Nor will it be reported in any major media outlet. And to the extent that lefty blogs pay any attention the poll at all, it will be to highlight the American people’s opposition to the surge.

But there it is in black and white. And no amount of spin or whining about the source or savaging the pollster for even asking the question will change what those numbers represent: That a sizable portion of the Democratic party has a vested emotional interest in the defeat of American arms.

One can argue (and I’m sure the left will) that Iraq is already “lost” and that therefore the poll is meaningless. But the question was specifically about the President’s plan and whether or not the respondent hoped that it would succeed. Even allowing for respondent stupidity (as Ace does here) that still leaves a sizable portion of the Democrats devoutly wishing for failure of the United States military on the field of battle.

Patriotism may be the last refuge of scoundrels. But cowardice is where the scoundrel goes first.

UPDATE

Dean Barnett calls it “The Most Depressing Poll Ever.” I have to agree. Despite my rather cavalier tone above, I find it incomprehensible that people would allow their opposition to the President or even the war itself to overcome their innate sense of patriotism that the overwhelming majority of Americans feel when it comes to our military.

Michelle Malkin contrasts the poll numbers with some steps foward in Iraq.

Sister Toldjah: :

Got that? 59% of Democrats say they would vote against funding the current level of US troops in Iraq in order to try and force a troop withdrawal and 8% “don’t know” (uh huh).

Bbbbut they support the troops.

Curt at Flopping Aces:

I’ve been saying this for so long my fingers cramp from all the typing. Liberals want nothing more then the United Stated to run from Iraq with our tails between our legs, knowing that would make the sacrificies of our troops to have been in vain, all so they could say “See! Bush was wrong!”.

How friggin disgusting.

My post yesterday taking lefty bloggers to task for their gloating over AP confirming the existence of Jamil Hussein generated some comments that were, to put it mildly, revealing.

Ed, a frequent commenter on this site, spoke for those who see any attempt to discredit AP by questioning either the existence of their sources or the veracity of their information as disingenuousness by the right:

You really didn’t read the ‘Jamilgate’ blogs if you interpreted the attacks on the AP as anything other than just another attempt to intimidate the liberal MSM because they were reporting things that partisans didn’t want to hear. It wasn’t that there were inaccuracies, it was that inaccuracies could be used to discredit the AP’s overall coverage of the war. And yes, that is meant to insinuate that things would be different if people knew the “real” story.

So yes, a little crow-eating might be in order.

First, the idea that any blogger or group of bloggers could “influence coverage” by AP or any other major news outlet to the extent that they become war boosters is absurd. But if Ed means that we wish to influence the editorial coverage so that “fake but accurate” is not used as a matter of course in reporting on the war, he is absolutely correct.

In fact, this seems to be the de facto position of many commenters from that post; that it really doesn’t matter if 6 Sunnis were burned alive or not. It doesn’t matter if 4 mosques were destroyed or not. It doesn’t matter if any violent incident Jamil Hussein has been a confirming source for over the last 10 months actually occurred or not. The fact that Iraq is in chaos is what is important and that an inaccuracy here or a piece of enemy propaganda there is not going to change that overarching fact one bit.

Challenge them on that point and, like Ed, they change the subject to pre-war intel - as if there was even the slightest comparison between “news” in the form of intelligence analysis that was never meant to see the light of day (the information was leaked in violation of the law) and stories written for publication by AP or any other news organization.

And lest you think that I’m misstating or exaggerating the point about “fake but accurate,” here’s a follow up comment by Ed (an intelligent guy who contributes to reasoned debate on this site):

The major news from Iraq is and has been for a long time:

What other news are we missing, exactly? Perhaps you think our “rebuilding efforts” are more important news that the three points above that is what is usually referred to as the missing news from Iraq)?

The news that we’re “missing” from Iraq is of the factual variety - a point highlighted not only by the burning Sunni story but by many other stories commented on by this site and others.

As an example, there was the reporting on the Haditha massacre. Leaving aside the army investigation for a moment, the news stories that were written about that incident were wildly different and varied enormously. Here’s what I wrote when the story of the massacre first came to light:

While it is not unusual for small details to be lost or found in different translations, these discrepancies are huge, up to and including one 12 year old girl (or 13 or 15 depending on which report you are reading) being in different houses, being shielded from the wrath of the Americans by 3 different family members, and telling completely different and ever more bloodcurdling details of how the Marines killed her family.

Then there is the weird case of Aws Fahmi. In an AP report, he is reported to have been a victim of the massacre, left to bleed in the street after being shot by the Americans. But the Washington Post story in which several eyewitnesses are interviewed, features Mr. Fahmi’s testimony prominently and in which the “victim” has morphed into an eyewitness, viewing the events from his house with no mention of his being shot and left to bleed to death in the street.

I want to be extremely careful here because there may be other, more mundane explanations for the discrepancies in eyewitness accounts than what appears on the surface to be a coordinated disinformation campaign by the insurgents that has taken in reporters for AP, Reuters, and Time Magazine to name a few.

I feel constrained again to point out that there is no more difficult job than reporting from a war zone. Whom to believe? Whom to trust? Individual reporters, guided only by their personal code of ethics and common sense, have to sort out the facts from the confusion, the terror, the grief, and the hate that contributes to discrepancies in eyewitness reports in a battle zone.

But the Jamil Hussein story is different. Here is someone who, although not an authorized spokesman for the Iraqi government, has been used as a sole source on dozens of stories involving the worst of the war’s violence; sectarian massacres, blood curdling murders, and police or army collusion in the violence. And questioning the judgement of the stable of AP reporters in Iraq who have used Hussein as a sole source these many months - despite his distance from most of the incidents among other problems - would seem to me to be a reasonable and responsible way to hold AP to standards they themselves have set.

As for Hussein being in danger as a result of bloggers trying to find him, I find this incredible. AP didn’t use him as an anonymous source or try to hide his identity. They gave his name and location in any number of stories. Dan Riehl:

For Carroll’s assertion that Hussein is in danger one must assume that there is an element of the Iraqi government that would harm him for having been a primary source for the story. The other initial source, Imad al-Hashimi, retracted his statements after a visit from the Iraqi Defense Ministry.

Without arguing that first point, one need only answer two simple questions to reach the conclusion that the blog coverage of this incident would be more to Hussein’s benefit, than harm. Assuming he was in danger for being an AP named source, which is more likely: that these assumed to be dangerous elements of the Iraqi government would quietly take out an individual after the drive by media was long gone and onto another story? or that they would be reluctant to do so because blogger coverage has kept the issue and Jamil Hussein’s name in the news?

Some bloggers are still questioning whether or not Hussein exists, that until AP produces the police captain in the flesh, there will be a question. I am satisfied Hussein is a real person and works as a police captain in Baghdad. What I am not satisfied with is whether the information he has been feeding AP is factual or not. And until AP deals forthrightly with questions about the accuracy of Hussein and other sources, all the gloating in the world won’t change the fact that AP has a credibility problem.

I can’t really get too upset about the rank triumphalism being exhibited by our lefty friends over the official opening of the 110th Congress. After all, if the shoe were on the other foot, I would be writing something similar (albeit much better written and a lot funnier).

But having said that, in perusing lefty blogs this morning, there is a distinct whiff of grapeshot in the air - an undercurrent of self righteous smugness that goes beyond triumphalism, beyond gloating, even beyond the left’s usual exaggerated self image of saving the country from Republican tyranny.

What is on display is not the understandable human desire for revenge born out of more than a decade of slights and insults at the hands of their enemies but rather the cold, calculated hunger for a reckoning, a settling of accounts. It isn’t enough to put Republicans in their place. It isn’t enough to humiliate them, to poke fun at them, to kick them in the head while they’re lying on the ground. It is time to rack the bastards, to stretch their necks and watch them dangle and twist slowly, slowly in the wind.

I am referring, of course, to the braying and crowing emanating from the left in response to the news that Jamil Hussein has probably been found - and right where he was supposed to be:

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.

The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP’s initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein’s identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.

My two posts on the AP are here and here. I was wrong about Michelle Malkin debunking the possible problem with transliterating Arab names into English for as Allah posited at the time and points out here, that appears to have been the reason for the inability of the Iraqi Information Ministry and CENTCOM to track Hussein down.

It does little good to point out that the real story is not whether Hussein exists but rather whether the information he was a confirming source for in 61 stories is true or false. That’s because the left doesn’t seem interested in whether or not the news from Iraq is real or imagined. “Fake but accurate” is fine with them. And no, even if every one of the Hussein sourced stories was a lie, that wouldn’t change the grim reality that Iraq is a bloody, violent mess. For the left to make that charge is ridiculous. There aren’t more than a handful of right wing blogs who have been stupid enough to make that claim. But for liberals to willfully self delude themselves into thinking that there isn’t a problem with the AP or any other news outlet who knowingly or unknowingly prints the propaganda of the enemy is incredible.

And the fact of the matter is that the story that set this hunt for Capt. Hussein in motion - that six Sunnis were burned alive and that 4 mosques were destroyed by rampaging Shias - is still open to question. The New York Times was unable to confirm the story and CENTCOM has stated that patrols in the area were unable to confirm the destruction of any mosques much less 4 of them.

But our unquestioning lefty friends - who apparently don’t care if the news is true or false just as long as its bad for Bush and America - have jumped on the Hussein story and, as only leftist twits can do, ignored the implications of the real story and instead directed their venom at bloggers who questioned Hussein’s existence:

And, to their great credit, AP — which continues to aggressively defend its imprisoned-without- charges Iraqi photojournalist Bilal Hussein (whom right-wing bloggers repeatedly accused of being a Terrorist) — fought back against these accusations. And now the right-wing blogosphere stands revealed as what they are — a pack of gossip-mongering hysterics who routinely attack any press reports that reflect poorly on their Leader or his policies, with rank innuendo, Internet gossip, base speculation, and wholesale error as their most frequent tools of the trade. The operate in packs, constantly repeating each other’s innuendo and expanding on it incrementally, and they then cite to each other endlessly in one self-feeding, self-affirming orgy of links, as though that constitutes proof.

And they are wrong over and over and over — and not just in error, but embarrassingly so, because so frequently their claims are transparently, laughably absurd, and they spew the most righteous accusations without any sort of evidence at all. The New Republic has its Stephen Glass and The New York Times has its Jayson Blair. But those are one-off incidents. The right-wing blogosphere is driven by Jayson Blairs. They are exposed as frauds and gossip-mongerers on an almost weekly basis. The only thing that can compete with the consistency of their errors is the viciousness of their accusations and their pompous self-regard as “citizen journalists.”

Yes, I know it’s Greenwald and that his over the top, laughable exaggerations of the vast majority of righty blogs are usually fodder for snarky commentary. But notice the hint of hysteria in his attack. You really should read the whole post because the feeling of smug superiority drips from almost every word, not to mention the paranoia, the tiresome falsehoods, and the outright lies that only our Lambchop can feed to his ravenous, sycophantic readers who hang on every out of control word as if from Gaia herself.

And then there’s this:

Nothing yet from TIDOS Yankee, though I would point out that today is the anniversary of the National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer, declared by President James Buchanan in 1861. National “Days of Humiliation” were a regular feature of Anglo-American political life from 1648 until the early 20th century; although such days are still declared every now and again, the political language has shifted somewhat to the use of the word “humility” rather than “humiliation.” Nevertheless, for Bob Owens, Michelle Malkin, the guy from Flopping Aces — and every right-wing soldier in the Army of Davids who linked to these wankers over the past month — today must certainly a day of humiliation in the traditional as well as the more contemporary senses.

One wonders if admitting error is enough for these folks. Obviously not. Nothing less than self flagellation and a knee walk up the cathedral steps while wearing sackcloth and choking on ashes will do.

And for all the ink and snark and failed attempts at humor, there is still the elephant sitting in the settee; how good a job is the media doing reporting from Iraq?

To not ask the question shows an incuriousness bordering on somnolence. I will take a back seat to no one in expressing my admiration for those reporters who have braved the wilds of Baghdad and done a thankless job while risking life and limb to ply their craft (Jill Carroll comes to mind). And for those reporters who, by necessity, rely on local Iraqi stringers for news and background, I sympathize with their plight. Confirming information in that bloody nightmare of a country must be an extraordinarily difficult undertaking.

But where is it written that reporters are infallible - even if they have the best of intentions? Are we to simply accept what we read and hear about what’s going on in Iraq from some in the media when others (not associated with the government or Administration) are telling a different story or, as in the case of the AP, the information can’t be confirmed?

It would seem to me to be the height of irresponsibility as a citizen not to question the sensationalism, the myopic obsession with body counts, and the almost total lack of context that accompanies every story out of Iraq. It is beyond belief that this is the best our journalists can do even under the trying circumstances in which they are forced to work - especially when there are stories coming from people like Bill Ardolino, Bill Roggio, and other embeds that, while still giving a horrific picture of what’s going on, also seem to be able to give a context to their stories that is missing from almost all the reporting we see and hear from Iraq.

I don’t think any righty blogger is looking for miracles when it comes to getting news from Iraq. Despite what many lefties are saying, no one that I’ve read on the right thinks that if only the “real” story of what’s going on could be “revealed,” the American people would do a 180 degree turn and support the war. But is it too much to ask that what is disseminated to the American people is a more complete and accurate picture of what is going on when we have 140,000 of our sons and daughters in harms way?

Apparently for the left, that is too much to ask.