Right Wing Nut House

Have American reporters, ensconced comfortably in Iraq’s “Green Zone” and relying on stringers and runners to gather information on the chaos that continues in the wake of the Samarra Shrine bombing, been duped by al Qaeda operatives into reporting widespread violence that never happened? How accurate a job can reporters do when chaos reigns and they must rely on second and third hand reports to write their stories?

On Saturday, I wrote a post about how so many media analysts have been predicting an Iraq civil war almost since the statue of Saddam was toppled. I supplied about a dozen links to stories over the past three years that all said the same thing; civil war was imminent and nothing could be done to stop it.

I feel constrained to point out that this theme is a no brainer. Sectarian tensions were kept tightly under wraps by force when Saddam was in power so it stands to reason that once the tyrant was removed, these tensions would bubble to the surface and spill over into violence as age old hatreds and blood feuds were allowed free reign.

You may recall something very similar happened during the break up of the made-up country of Yugoslavia after the death of Marshall Tito. Yugoslavia was an afterthought, the solution to the intractable problem of what to do with the flotsam and jetsam of the old Hapsburg empire following its collapse after World War I. With Tito’s death, the region exploded as the dictator’s careful power sharing regime among the factions collapsed and old nationalist aspirations came to the fore. The problem of the Balkans is far from being solved and only the presence of UN peacekeepers and NATO troops keeps the lid on sectarian and nationalist violence.

The Iraq “civil war” theme almost immediately became media short hand for the failures of the Bush Administration. It has since become a yardstick to measure the incompetence of the authorities to deal with the daunting set of problems facing the country in the aftermath of the war and in trying to build a strong government based on democratic values. But has the expectation of civil war led to reporters in Iraq swallowing disinformation from al Qaeda cells about horrendous death and destruction across the country that simply doesn’t exist?

Following the destruction of the Askariya Shrine in Samarra, it appeared that predictions of civil war would finally come true. Apparently, sectarian violence exploded across the country as Shia militias - aided and abetted by the Shia dominated police and army - burned Sunni mosques, killed innocent Sunni civilians, and spread death and destruction throughout the country.

I say apparently because there are conflicting reports on just how many mosques have actually been damaged or destroyed, how many people have been killed, and most importantly, how close the country really is to actual civil war. Here’s today’s New York Times:

Sectarian violence appeared to be ebbing across Iraq on Sunday, with more people venturing outside for the first time in days. Nonetheless, Shiite militiamen retained control of some Sunni mosques they had raided, and scattered mayhem left at least 14 people dead, including three American soldiers. At least 227 people have been killed since the shrine bombing.

Please note that number of 227 dead carries with it no authoritative confirmation. The number is not coming from the Iraqi government or the American military. As far as we know, it is the best guess of the reporter. And the reports of “dozens” of Sunni mosques being attacked and damaged is still being reported by AP.

The Iraqi Interior Ministry (which has an interest in downplaying the violence) reported on Saturday a different story. From Iraq the Model:

Mosques attacked/shot at without damage: 21 not 51
Moderately damaged: 6 not 23
Mosques destroyed totally: 1 not 3
Mosques occupied by militias: 1 not 2 (evacuated later).
Civilians killed: 119 not 183

Why the discrepancy?

I think it’s a given that the Interior Ministry is downplaying the violence to some extent. But consider this from Iraqi Bloggers Central: on who carried out the attack on the Shrine and why:

They (al Qaeda) have made it clear since late 2003 or early 2004 that platform number one in their mission is to generate a sectarian civil war in Iraq between Sunni and Shi’a Arabs to drive out the U.S. A war between these parties is also useful to them in that if Shi’a are (or perceived to be) attacking Sunni Arabs, the Return Party (Sunni insurgents) can step in as the Sunnis’ protectors. The great thing about a plot like this is that the perpetrators need no higher goal than chaos for the sake of chaos. It fits with their M.O. (ala Tal Afar). Their propaganda cells can run around spreading false stories about attacks on Sunnis and Sunni mosques, or they can sit back and let Iraqis do it for them. They can put on black pajamas, Iraqi Army uniforms, or come as they are. It doesn’t matter. They can launch attacks indiscriminately on Sunni or Shi’a Iraqis (They don’t care. Either they’re turn-coat deviants or “traitorous apostates”), or they can let Iraqis do it to each other. There is no sense in which blowing up a holy site in Iraq redounds against them. They’ve been sending carbombs and murder-suicide bombers against plenty of mosques up until now. How could this hurt them more?

The point being how much information are we getting first hand? How much information from the Interior Ministry has been confirmed?? How many stories regarding these atrocities have been verified? And as the blogger points out, anyone can dress themselves in army uniforms or in the black, hooded costume of Muktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Militia. So when the New York Times says that some of these attacks have been carried out by Sadr’s militiamen or elements of the armed forces, can we really take that information at face value?

I don’t envy the job of reporters who have to try and sort all of this out and try to make sense of it. But it seems pretty clear to me that there has been at least some exaggeration of the violence and mayhem. Some of that is the natural result of reporting in a war zone. Some of it is probably disinformation being spread by al Qadea as well as rumor mongering by ordinary Iraqis. And some of it may include some wishful thinking on the part of reporters that the long awaited civil war has finally started.

I would recommend you read a lot of Iraqi blogs to get a sense of what is really happening. The two hours I spent going through about a dozen sites brought me to two conclusions:

1. The violence is serious and people are afraid.

2. No one thinks a civil war is imminent. In fact, almost all believe that the destruction of the Shrine in Samarra has accomplished exactly the opposite of what the perpetrators were hoping for. Instead of a civil war, it has brought the Sunnis and Shias closer together with a firm belief that no outside force like al Qaeda is going to derail what they are trying to build - a democratic, united Iraq.

I doubt very much you’ll see that theme mentioned much in the media over the next few days.

Lights! Camera! Meltdown!

The hearings on domestic spying that will get underway today had the potential to actually answer some very fundamental questions about executive power in wartime and the limits that should be placed on government spying. Too bad that Democrats have to be involved. And it’s also a shame that this is an election year.

Put those two factors together and instead of a serious debate all we’re likely to see is some more off the wall antics by Democratic Senators and, by necessity, over the top responses by their Republican colleagues in defense of the President.

The fact that this does a huge disservice to our democracy will be lost in the overheated rhetoric by Democrats who will set the stage for potential impeachment hearings next year if the Dems get control of the House. The following is intended to give the readers some hints of what to look for during these hearings:

1. Whichever Democratic Senator gets to lead off the questions, I will bet a week’s wages that the name “Nixon” will be spoken within 2 minutes. And I will bet an additional week’s wages that the ex-President’s name is raised by Democrats more than the current President’s.

2. Much will be made of the charge in the Washington Post yesterday that “only” 10 or 20″ terrorist suspects were caught in the NSA digital dragnet while 5000 or so American citizens had snippets of their communications looked at by NSA analysts. I really hope the Democrats take this tack because it will highlight the fact that the program actually works. Those are 10 or 20 terrorist suspects that we didn’t know about before.

3. Democrats will go nuts over AG Gonzales rationale for the program. They will say that when they voted to give the President broad powers to protect the nation after 9/11, they really didn’t mean it. They were for expanding the powers of the executive before they were against it. And we know how well that meme works, don’t we?

4. Ted Kennedy will be incoherent.

5. Arlen Specter will have one foot firmly planted on each side of the issue until the polls tell him which way to jump.

Speaking of Specter, the Pennsylvania Senator came out yesterday and said the NSA intercept program was illegal…without knowing much about it. He said it was “in flat violation” of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA). Unless the Senator, who is not a member of the Intelligence Committee, has been seeing a soothsayer lately, he really can’t make such an extraordinarily broad claim.

6. Count the number of blue ties worn by Senators. I will bet that more than half of them will be wearing ties of that color.

7. Joe Biden will have a perpetual smile on his face that will need to be surgically removed by the end of the hearings.

8. Diane Feinstein will be wearing a red dress. No word on whether or not Chuck Schumer will also wear a red dress or whether he will go with something more subdued - like a clown suit.

There will be serious questions asked about the NSA program. But since no one can give the kind of technical details that would enlighten the members about whether or not the program is legal and constitutional, the issue will not be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. Because in the end, there is no alternative but to trust the President that what he’s doing is right.

This is an impossibility for liberals and getting to be a chore even for many Republicans and libertarians. But unless we want our intelligence secrets plastered all over the front pages of the world’s newspapers (or at least more than they are already), no definitive word can emerge that will allow us to judge the efficacy of the program.

The one thing that has struck me about this program and the response by lawmakers is that even Democrats like the ranking House Intelligence Committee member Jane Harman have not called for the termination of the program and indeed, have not even pushed much on reforming FISA to bring the program retro-actively under its auspices. This seems to be a dead giveaway that the program is both necessary and probably technically legal. At least, that would be my reading of the Democrat’s reaction.

Don’t expect too many fireworks between Senators although if the AG proves too much the moving target, Democrats may get frustrated and begin to weep.

I hope they brought their blue hankies with them today.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin rounds up blogger previews on the hearings. And Mark Coffey has an excellent primer that looks back at how this imbroglio came about.

Lori Byrd and I are on the same wavelength this morning (Not about the blue ties and hankies…about how useless they will end up being.)

As I have written many times, what appears to be media bias can instead actually be an institutional laziness on the part of reporters or even groups of reporters. In these cases, there is little effort made to explain an issue or event and put it in context so that the reader is left with an entirely different impression of a story than one would ordinarily perceive.

This is especially true of stories that involve nuanced, multi-layered statements from politicians and diplomats. We may have joked about John Kerry being “nuancy boy” from time to time in reference to the Massachusetts Senator’s penchant for long winded and rambling answers to questions. But in truth, Kerry’s problem with the English language was nothing compared to the problem of reporters trying to crystallize his answers and boil them down into a few. well chosen paragraphs. Of course, Kerry’s “nuances” involved issues that most Americans saw as pretty straightforward, black and white matters like who we are fighting in the War on Terror and why. But on other issues like our relations with Russia where the Senator actually had a position that was well thought out, the press in general failed to report the subtleties in the Senator’s position, reducing the complexities of the issue to mindless generalities.

We have also seen this deficiency when wondering if reporters know anything about the internet and have ever heard of Google. How many stories has the blogosphere - right and left - totally debunked simply by using a search engine?

I bring this up today because of the horrible job done by reporters who wrote about the statement yesterday by the US State Department regarding the Danish cartoons. The official statement on the matter came from spokesman Sean McCormick at the daily press briefing. Here, the Department issues a ringing defense of freedom of the press:

Our response is to say that while we certainly don’t agree with, support, or in some cases, we condemn the views that are aired in public that are published in media organizations around the world, we, at the same time, defend the right of those individuals to express their views. For us, freedom of expression is at the core of our democracy and it is something that we have shed blood and treasure around the world to defend and we will continue to do so. That said, there are other aspects to democracy, our democracy — democracies around the world — and that is to promote understanding, to promote respect for minority rights, to try to appreciate the differences that may exist among us.

We believe, for example in our country, that people from different religious backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, national backgrounds add to our strength as a country. And it is important to recognize and appreciate those differences. And it is also important to protect the rights of individuals and the media to express a point of view concerning various subjects. So while we share the offense that Muslims have taken at these images, we at the same time vigorously defend the right of individuals to express points of view. We may — like I said, we may not agree with those points of view, we may condemn those points of view but we respect and emphasize the importance that those individuals have the right to express those points of view.

For example — and on the particular cartoon that was published — I know the Prime Minister of Denmark has talked about his, I know that the newspaper that originally printed it has apologized, so they have addressed this particular issue. So we would urge all parties to exercise the maximum degree of understanding, the maximum degree of tolerance when they talk about this issue. And we would urge dialog, not violence. And that also those that might take offense at these images that have been published, when they see similar views or images that could be perceived as anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic, that they speak out with equal vigor against those images.

(HT: LGF)

I see no backing down on the issue of press freedom whatsoever. And as Hugh Hewitt points out in one of the more thoughtful takes on this controversy, whether we like it or not, the cartoons were offensive to Muslims:

The cartoons were in bad taste, an unnecessary affront to many of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, just as Joel Stein affronted the military, the families and friends of the military, and as Toles did the same to the wounded, and their families, friends and admirers. Of course each of them had the absolute right to publish their screed, and the Danish (and now Norwegian) governments must reply to demands that these papers be punished with a steely refusal to be dictated to as to their culture of free expression and the protection of the vulgar and the stupid.

But don’t cheer the vulgar and the stupid.

So just where did the State Department get it wrong? They stand up for free speech. They recognize that the cartoons offended Muslims. They tell the idiots in the Middle East to look to their own portrayals of Jews and Christians before going off half cocked about the Mohamed cartoons. And they call upon everyone to settle down.

But all we got from press reports was the fact that the State Department seems to be condemning the Danes and other European publications for running the offending cartoons and an obligatory nod to the First Amendment. This is from Reuters:

“These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims,” State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. “We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.”

(HT: Powerline)

Note that according to Reuters, the statement is given by Kurtis Cooper. Cooper is listed as a “Press Officer for AF, DRL, HIV/AIDS, S/WCI, T. Did the Reuters reporter just corral someone in the hall outside the briefing room? What would a press officer whose job was to liaise on HIV be doing talking about the cartoon imbroglio? And what was the problem with the official US statement on the matter? And what else did Mr. Cooper say that the Reuters reporter isn’t telling us?

This is almost the exact same blurb via AP but from Janelle Hironimus:

While recognizing the importance of freedom of the press and expression, U.S. State Department press officer Janelle Hironimus said these rights must be coupled with press responsibility.

“Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable,” Hironimus said. “We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.”

I don’t doubt that Ms. Hironimus is a very nice lady but she isn’t even on the State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs personnel listings for the press office. Again, what was the problem with the official US Statement which was pretty inclusive of the issues that needed to be addressed?

Finally, one more statement from another State Department “spokesman.” This time it’s Justin Higgins doing the honors:

“These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims,” State Department spokesman Justin Higgins said when queried about the furore sparked by the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish newspaper.

“We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility,” Higgins told AFP.

“Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.”

Mr. Higgins is also apparently another low level press liaison as he isn’t listed on the organizational chart either.

This is not to say that these press officers are contradicting Mr. McCormick when he gave the official US statement on the controversy. But instead of the nuances and subtleties contained in the official US statement, the reporters have each latched on to what they consider to be the most “newsworthy” part of the statement at the expense of what the State Department was actually trying to say. Is this bias or laziness? From my point of view, it’s just lazy reporting not to even try to put into context that paragraph as it relates to the rest of the US statement.

It is not entirely the fault of reporters. I recently looked at some of the historic newspapers I have in my possession including the Kennedy Assassination, the moon landing, and Nixon’s resignation. It was an eye opening experience. The meatiness of those 30 and 40 year old publications is in stark contrast to the fluff we get today from the “dead tree” press.

The difference is even more striking in the news magazines Time and Newsweek. Where today those publications rarely have a story longer than 3000 words, the depth of coverage contained in those old issues is remarkable, with stories sometimes running more than 7,000 words (7 -8 pages).

But this only accounts for part of the problem. Because at bottom, today’s journalists are just plain bad writers.

I get carried away on this site at times and ramble on about this or that. But that’s the difference between journalism and writing for a blog. Reporters and editors seem to have lost the ability to write succinct articles that give the facts in a clear and concise manner. This is the problem when practicing so called “advocacy” journalism. In order to be an advocate, you have to use too many adverbs and adjectives - a subjective style of writing. This may make great copy but given that a reporter is given only so many column inches to report on a given story, those extra words add up and something has got to go. And that something is usually facts and/or context.

As newspapers and magazines continue their slide into irrelevancy, will this necessitate a change in the newsroom culture? As more and more inches are given over to advertising, it may be that the age of advocacy journalism is waning and something closer to what journalism used to be all about will re-emerge.

UPDATE

Bird Dog at Maggies Farm has an excellent, reasoned take on the entire controversy:

Our opinion is that people, in the “free world,” have and should have the freedom to mock, criticize, and satirize anyone and anything: Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Indians, atheists, whites, blacks, hispanics, Poles, Norwegians, and every other human category. All are fair game.

We do not particularly enjoy it when such things are done in rude, crude or socially unacceptible ways, but that’s just too bad: hypersensitivity is the problem of the hypersensitive and, as they say in AA, “Feelings aren’t facts.” Besides humor, expressions of anger and hate need to be permitted. When Julian Bond terms all Republicans “Nazis,” some folks just laugh, some are upset, and some are deeply disturbed. But freedom means freedom to be a dumb jerk, and to express hate, however loony or untrue. Thankfully, we have the freedom to talk back and to satirize such malignant idiocy.

Amen.

Displaying a contempt for democracy not often seen on the pages of a major American newspaper, the New York Times today is asking the Senate to reject the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court not because he is a bad judge or a bad man but because he is a conservative.

And not just a conservative, but a “radical” conservative - a scurrilous charge that the Times makes no effort to prove or justify. Instead, they fall back on the tired old, cliche- ridden leftist cants that have been used by liberals to soil the good name of conservatives since the days of Barry Goldwater:

If Judge Samuel Alito Jr.’s confirmation hearings lacked drama, apart from his wife’s bizarrely over-covered crying jag, it is because they confirmed the obvious. Judge Alito is exactly the kind of legal thinker President Bush wants on the Supreme Court. He has a radically broad view of the president’s power, and a radically narrow view of Congress’s power. He has long argued that the Constitution does not protect abortion rights. He wants to reduce the rights and liberties of ordinary Americans, and has a history of tilting the scales of justice against the little guy.

As senators prepare to vote on the nomination, they should ask themselves only one question: will replacing Sandra Day O’Connor with Judge Alito be a step forward for the nation, or a step backward? Instead of Justice O’Connor’s pragmatic centrism, which has kept American law on a steady and well-respected path, Judge Alito is likely to bring a movement conservative’s approach to his role and to the Constitution.

To all but the most willfully self deluded, the idea that Judge Alito will ” reduce the rights and liberties of ordinary Americans” and tilt the scales of justice “against the little guy” is a total fiction. The Times must have called upon the individual who writes the horoscope column for the paper in order to come up with that kind of preternatural nonsense. What the Times is really objecting to is not Alito’s temperament or his knowledge of the law - both rational reasons to oppose a judicial nominee - but rather that he would apply the law as it was intended not as he would wish it or because of some blithering twaddle about the mythical “little guy” getting the shaft.

Judge Alito has consistently shown a bias in favor of those in power over those who need the law to protect them. Women, racial minorities, the elderly and workers who come to court seeking justice should expect little sympathy. In the same flat bureaucratic tones he used at the hearings, he is likely to insist that the law can do nothing for them.

Who does the New York Times think represents those “little people” they believe are going to be trod upon by the evil Alito? Are they talking about the lone, heroic “worker” fighting the grasping corporation by asking the court to uphold workers’ rights? Or are they talking about the AFL-CIO who is pretty good at the grasping for power game themselves and who contribute a couple of hundred million dollars in hard and soft money during an election cycle to liberal politicians?

Some little guy.

The certainty with which the Times looks into its crystal ball in order to find Judge Alito wanting is breathtaking. They have “no doubt” that Alito would change “the court’s approach” by advocating the “unitary executive theory” that the Times calls “fringe.” Here’s what the Times means by talking about a unitary executive. It’s from a question posed by Ted Kennedy during Alito’s confirmation hearings:

Our questions in this hearing is: What is your view of the unitary presidency?

You’ve responded in a number of our people, but we were interested in your view and your comments on the Morrison case, which you say is the controlling, but we want to know your view.

And it includes these words: “that could lead to a fairly strong degree of presidential control over the workings of the administrative agencies in the areas of policy-making.”

Now, that would alter and change the balance between the Congress and the president in a very dramatic and significant way, would it not?

It is certainly a novel legal view that “Administrative agencies in the areas of policy making” - i.e., cabinet departments - are under the control of Congress. They are, of course, agencies controlled by the executive branch - unless you are Ted Kennedy or the New York Times. Then they are simply part of the permanent bureaucracy in Washington and as such, a wholly owned subsidiary of the left and the Democratic party. Here’s John Hinderaker:

As we have repeatedly noted, one of the fundamental problems faced by any Republican administration is the entrenched hostility of the federal bureaucracy, which is overwhelmingly Democratic. During President Bush’s five years in office, this hostility has most critically been manifested by the CIA and the State Department, elements of both of which have worked actively to undermine American foreign policy. If the President were able actually to control the federal bureaucracy, as the Constitution contemplates, it would indeed effect a major change in the balance of power in Washington–not, in principle, between Congress and the executive, but between Democrats and their allies in the bureaucracy, and elected Republican Presidents.

The Times also believes it is “likely” that Alito was chosen for “his extremist views on Presidential power.” This also requires a crystal ball to believe. Paul Mirengoff:

The major theme seems to be that Alito will be the tool of a power-hungry, imperial president. The problem is that there’s no evidence of this in his rulings — apparently he hasn’t ruled on any big-ticket questions relating to the president’s war power or the war on terrorism (ironically, John Roberts, with a much shorter judicial tenure, had). Once Alito agrees with Justice O’Connor that war does not provide the president with a blank check, and salutes Justice Jackson’s analysis of the relationship between presidential and congressional power, where do the Dems go?

The answer Mr. Mirengoff is that they just make it up. Since they don’t have a clue about what Alito’s attitude toward the NSA intercept program would be, they believe feigning certitude is enough for the ever dwindling number of subscribers who bother to read what they say about anything.

In the end, the Times reveals its real reason for opposing Alito. They don’t think that national elections should matter:

The real risk for senators lies not in opposing Judge Alito, but in voting for him. If the far right takes over the Supreme Court, American law and life could change dramatically. If that happens, many senators who voted for Judge Alito will no doubt come to regret that they did not insist that Justice O’Connor’s seat be filled with someone who shared her cautious, centrist approach to the law.

Quick! Someone tell the editors at the New York Times that we had an election more than a year ago and that a liberal didn’t win nor did a “centrist.” A conservative won the Presidential election of 2004, one who promised to appoint conservative judges if he were re-elected. He didn’t promise to appoint centrists or women or minorities or anyone the New York Times could remotely approve. President Bush ran on a platform and repeated constantly that if given the opportunity, he would appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court.

This is what sticks in the craw of the Times’ editors. The people of the United States elected George Bush because he is a conservative. And the Times thinks that overarching fact should not matter. It bespeaks a contempt for the very concept of democracy that more and more, the editors of the New York Times are having a hard time in hiding.

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey and I are on the same wavelength this morning:

If ideology is to be considered, then the New York Times has it even more wrong. It asks whether a conservative should replace a centrist on the court. If ideology has suddenly become a qualifier, then one has to look at who nominates the candidate. The President won election twice, and at least during the last election, Supreme Court nominations clearly were a major issue. He has the mandate of the election to pick the ideological bent of the replacements for any opening on the Court; there is no quota system for leftists, centrists, and conservatives, nor have Presidents been particularly apt at guessing which categories their nominees would fill in the long run anyway. Bush’s two elections show that the people want a more conservative court — so as long as the Times considers ideology a basis for selection, then a conservative judge should be the most acceptable as a manifestation of the demand of the people.

Amen.

UPDATE II

Maybe Karl Rove is sending all of us conservatives invisible thought waves so that we all think alike. Those pithy pachyderms from Elephants in Academia also think the Times needs a remedial class in civics:

Furthermore, I wasn’t aware that the confirmation process for a supreme court justice was some sort of popularity contest. Good lord, are these people in high school? The President won his election and the Republican congresspeople who hold the majority in the legislature won their respective elections, and it is indeed up to them to nominate justices and then vote on them. The number of dinner invitations that Judge Alito receives from the editors of the New York Times is an irrelevant indicator of how they should vote.

Yep.

Also, Patterico links to a Bench Memo takedown of the Times and points out that they misspelled Lincoln Chafee’s name.

What. A. Crew.

Give credit when credit is due. Some of the larger newspapers this morning are asking some questions of Judge Alito that any of us would want him to answer. In fact, I would say that judging by the seriousness with which the Washington Post, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Times all approach today’s confirmation hearings, I would say it bodes well for the public debate over the qualifications and temperament of the nominee.

I say public debate because you and I both know where the debate in the Senate is headed; into the sewer. Or lower if the Democrats can manage it.

That said, here are some excerpts from some very thoughtful editorials in the above mentioned newspapers:

THE WASHINGTON POST

The Post frames the issues fairly while eschewing the tactics of the radical left in trying to personalize the confirmation debate:

So for the nominee, the hearings are a chance — his only chance, really — to allay Democratic hostility toward his nomination, which has been stoked both by legitimate concerns about his record and by no small amount of fevered and unfair political rhetoric. For senators, meanwhile, it is a chance to try to tease out whether Judge Alito is a traditional conservative of the type who ought to be confirmed or an outlier or extremist who ought to be rejected. The stakes are high, as they always are with Supreme Court nominations and because in this particular instance, Judge Alito would be replacing one of the court’s swing voters.

At the same time, the hearings are unlikely to provide big surprises. Judge Alito, in any formal sense, is obviously well qualified — as the American Bar Association recently recognized. Allegations of impropriety on his part seem trivial, and the ideological questions about him are well known: Does he have too limited a view of congressional power and too robust a view of states’ rights? Will he respect privacy and abortion rights? Does he consider affirmative action programs presumptively unconstitutional? How broadly does he see presidential powers, particularly in wartime? What does he think now about the “one man, one vote” principle he appeared to question in the 1980s? Has he read civil rights statutes too narrowly? And perhaps most important, what are his views concerning how readily settled precedent should be disturbed?

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Times points out where the burden of proof falls given that Alito has written more than 300 opinions that outline his judicial philosophy for all to see:

The burden of proof falls on Democrats to show why not. “We look forward to supporting you,” Sen. Ted Kennedy told Judge Alito in his 1990 appellate-court hearings, calling the then-nominee “distinguished.” On Friday, Mr. Kennedy was quoted in The Washington Post accusing Judge Alito of supporting “unfettered, unlimited power of the executive.” If Democratic opinion of Judge Alito has changed for reasons other than political expediency (and we can’t read those words as anything other than a Democratic gamble that extremely dubious charges of wiretapping overreach and illegality will stick) then the argument should be aired.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Even the rabidly anti-Bush LA Times is behaving itself this morning. Outside of a couple of gratuitous swipes at the President, the paper frames some interesting points:

As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor eloquently stated in a Supreme Court decision reining in an instance of executive overreach: “We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.”

There is reason to press Alito, who would replace O’Connor on the court, on whether he agrees with this statement. And it’s not simply because he is a conservative judge, which this president is legitimately entitled to nominate, or that he served for many years as a lawyer in the executive branch, as many of Washington’s best and brightest lawyers have done. It’s because Alito in the past has asserted a radically expansive theory of presidential power.

While I would take issue with the use of the adjective “radically” in describing Alito’s view of expanding executive powers, the question is a legitimate one and I would be very interested in hearing the Judge’s views on it.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Times actually does something interesting. They asked 6 legal experts to write 5 questions they would want Judge Alito to answer.

They range from the interesting -

Do you think judges are at least in part responsible for the fact that, while Americans might profess reverence for the law, they often criticize the legal system? Does some of the public’s criticism stem from growing use of foreign and international sources of law by some judges in interpreting the meaning of the Constitution?

asked by Federalist Society Executive VP Leonard Leo, to the ridiculous -

In light of your having been a member of a Princeton alumni group that opposed the university’s admission of women, criticized its affirmative action policies and urged the admission of more alumni children, can you offer two examples of any efforts by you to promote gender or racial equality?

asked by moonbat ex Clinton impeachment attorney Cheryl Miller, to the thoughtful -

Do you believe that the 9/11 attacks put the United States in a state of war with Al Qaeda and its allies?

by former influential Bush Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, to the specific -

In 1944, the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent. Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in a concurring opinion that an action taken in wartime “is not to be stigmatized as lawless because like action in times of peace would be lawless.” He and others in the majority believed that in times of war, security interests outweigh rights that would otherwise be controlling. Do you agree or disagree, and do you think that the issues raised by this event (for which the United States later apologized) are like or unlike the issues raised by the current detention of enemy combatants?

asked by Professor of Law Stanley Fish.

Of course, the chances of Alito answering any of these questions specifically is just about nil. But if you listen how the Judge frames his answers to questions that are sure to come about executive power, precedent, minority rights, and other hot button issues, you should be able to get a handle on where the Judge might come down on some of those excellent questions.

It’s too bad that Senate Democrats couldn’t follow the example of the press and give these hearings the seriousness they deserve. Instead, the cold political calculation of partisan advantage will rule the day as Alito and the Republicans will be forced to parry the blows as best they can.

This is one of the more curious stories I’ve seen in a while. Did you know that the Italians arrested 3 terrorists with connections to al Qaeda who may have been planning an attack on America that would have dwarfed 9/11?

Three Algerians arrested in an anti-terrorist operation in southern Italy are suspected of being linked to a planned new series of attacks in the United States, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said Friday.

The attacks would have targeted ships, stadiums or railway stations in a bid to outdo the September 11, 2001 strikes by Al-Qaeda in New York and Washington which killed some 2,700 people, Pisanu said.

The Algerians, suspected of belonging to a cell established by an Al-Qaeda-linked Algerian extremist organisation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), were named as Achour Rabah, Tartaq Sami and Yasmine Bouhrama.

(HT: Red State)

AJ Strata has been on this story since Friday but I was unable to confirm that the terrorists were targeting America. In fact, according to this Google search that AJ made, the farthest that the big wire services would go on that score was that the attacks would have taken place “outside of Italy.”

Why would even the Italian press bury the remarks of their own Interior Minister about the potential target of the attacks?

We have one of two possibilities here. Either Turkish Press has misquoted the Italian Interior Minister or they have extrapolated facts from his statement that aren’t there. In fact, what may be likely is that Turkish Press heard the Minister’s comparison to 9/11 and may have jumped to the conclusion that the target was America. I make this assumption based on the fact that AP, UPI, Reuters, and even RAI do not mention America specifically as a target.

However, the size and scope of this planned attack is so massive that it certainly should have been reported and commented on in America. Why?

The three Algerians detained on Tuesday in the Italian cities of Brescia and Naples were planning a massive terror attack - “on a ship as big as the Titanic, packed with explosives” - that aimed to kill “at least 10,000 people”, as well as an attack on “Italian citizens and interests” in Tunisia, according phone conversations between the three men, which Italian anti-terror police say they intercepted after al-Qaeda’s deadly 7 July attacks on London and on the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh

A “ship as big as the Titanic” could very well be an oil tanker.

Anyone want to guess how many people would die if a docked oil tanker in Houston or some other coastal American city were to suddenly blow up? The number 10,000 sounds about right.

And it wouldn’t have to be an oil tanker. The accidental explosion in Texas City of a ship carrying ammonium nitrate in 1947 killed 600 people - and that number would have been many times higher except for the fact that the ship had been on fire for nearly 24 hours before the explosion. I daresay that al Qaeda would not vouchsafe us 24 hours warning before detonating a floating bomb like an oil tanker or chemical ship.

It is too much to say that the media is deliberately burying this story. Rather, they have made a collective determination that we do not need to know about this - and other stories of a similar nature. To the gatekeepers, this is just one more terrorism story in a far away place that Americans have no interest in knowing about. Terrorists are arrested all the time. That is not news. Terrorists are targeting America. That is not news. So goes the reasoning of our information minders.

What would be news, of course, is if they succeeded. Then and only then would we hear of arrests in Italy and Britain and other European countries. Then these kinds of stories give context to the attack.

If media coverage in the days and weeks following 9/11 is any guide, this is exactly what transpired on the pages of the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other media outlets. This website - while full of conspiracy theories and other idiocies about 9/11 - has links to literally dozens of stories in the American press following the attacks of arrests and hints from foreign intelligence sources that were in the foreign press weeks, months, and even years before September 11.

Rather than seeing a conspiracy of silence on the part of the press I believe that what we have is a culture of arrogance in our media that sees the American people as a bunch of ignorant children that must be spoon fed news - information that these gatekeepers determine we need to know.

If Jeff Jarvis is right, this culture of arrogance will be the death of the old media. For our own safety and security, let’s hope that day comes sooner rather than later.

If I could sputter on line, I would do so…

This piece of rancid apologia that appeared in today’s New York Times is one of the most extraordinary examples of smug, self righteous, self-pitying, and self-aggrandizing editorializing I can ever remember reading.

No, I mean it. I’ve racked my brains for a couple of hours trying to think of something even remotely similar in brazenness, in the the twisting of facts, in outright lies, and in sheer, breathtaking arrogance toward its readers but cannot for the life of me come up with anything that approaches the intellectual corruption and demonstrable immorality represented in this cynical 300 word essay defending its outing of the top secret NSA intercept program.

If ever one needed proof that the liberal worldview (if ever its adherents were voted back into power) would be dangerous to the safety and security of the United States then this editorial should put all doubts to rest. Simply put, this editorial proves once and for all that liberals would prefer that terrorists succeed in attacking us rather than do what is necessary to protect us. The key word here is “necessary,” of course. And the fact is that the Times definition of “necessary” seems to be so limited and constricting that, if left up to them, the terrorists would have a gigantic head start and a leg up in trying to kill as many of us as they can. Any possible defense that they are serious about national security can therefore be ignored.

Either you believe there is a grave threat to the Republic and will do everything in your power to support the government’s legitimate efforts to protect us or you believe that abstract notions and ivory tower formulations of Constitutional limits on the exercise of executive power should outweigh the judgment of people who we elected to protect us from harm. The debate over executive authority itself is not the issue. Responsible opposition to any expansion of executive power is a necessary element in a democracy such as ours. But to willfully blind oneself to the consequences of one’s position - or in the Time’s case, to cynically exploit the debate for partisan political purposes - is to walk down a road I daresay most Americans would be unwilling to travel.

There are so many lies, exaggerations, and calumnious thinking in this editorial that analyzing all of it would be a tiresome job, something fit for a janitor tasked with cleaning up an overflowing toilet. I will instead take some of the more egregious violations of logic and the truth in order to try and set the record straight:

A democratic society cannot long survive if whistle-blowers are criminally punished for revealing what those in power don’t want the public to know - especially if it’s unethical, illegal or unconstitutional behavior by top officials.

This would be true if we were talking about bribe taking at the Department of Health and Human Services or contract shenanigans at the Department of Defense. But we are talking about the most closely guarded secrets in government - signals intelligence. And if, as the Times so cavalierly assumes, their sources for the story are “whistle blowers” why did these sources break the law? If they are in the intelligence community, they must take their concerns to the Inspector General. That is how they receive protection as whistle blowers not running to the New York Times. The last I looked, the Times was not even a part of the United States government, although I’m sure they think of themselves in some way as more important.

And of course the government doesn’t want us to know about the NSA program, but why? The Times automatically assumes it is because the program is “unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.” I guess we must take our pick because the editorial is silent about what part of the program is unethical. And unless the Times is holding back information that would buttress their case for illegality or unconstitutional actions by the executive, they are talking through their hat. No one knows if this program constituted a crime. No one knows if the President exceeded his authority in authorizing the intercept program. This would all depend on technical aspects of the program that the Times is either hiding from its readers - the same readers who have a “right to know” about the program in the first place - or is ignorant of and can therefore be accused of rank partisanship in stirring up a pot; the contents of which they know little or nothing about.

Reporters need to be able to protect these sources, regardless of whether the sources are motivated by policy disputes or nagging consciences. This is doubly important with an administration as dedicated as this one is to extreme secrecy.

Leaving aside the potshot at an Administration dedicated to secrecy (someone should write a letter to the editor informing the Times that we are at war) I agree that whatever the motivation, reporters should be able to protect their sources. But wouldn’t it behoove the Times to inform its readers - you remember…the readers that have a “right to know” - what the motivation of the leaker might be? If the motivation is, in fact partisanship or a dispute over policy, I don’t know about you but I’d sure like to know that. Instead, the Times assumes that we should simply take their word as gospel and that everything the leaker has related to Mr. Risen, the Times reporter, is completely truthful and not colored in any way that would cast aspersions on any individuals. In fact, the Times assumes that everything on its pages should be taken as the truth, as something handed down from above and placed on the pages of that august and honorable institution by the finger of God; sort of like the Ten Commandments but without the burning bush or thunder and lightening.

The Times then tries to slough off its law breaking by bringing up the Plame case and with chutzpah worthy of a daylight cat burglar, they contrast the “good leak” that has probably severely damaged a program vital to our national security with the “bad leak” of outing a CIA desk jockey who a Special Prosecutor determined was not a covert agent at the time her name appeared in the press and who was part of a partisan group at the CIA seeking to undermine a policy they opposed - the Iraq War:

There is a world of difference between that case and a current one in which the administration is trying to find the sources of a New York Times report that President Bush secretly authorized spying on American citizens without warrants. The spying report was a classic attempt to give the public information it deserves to have. The Valerie Wilson case began with a cynical effort by the administration to deflect public attention from hyped prewar intelligence on Iraq. The leak inquiry in that case ended up targeting the press, and led to the jailing of a Times reporter.

First of all, I agree that there is a “world of difference” between the two cases for reasons I stated above. But did President Bush “secretly authorize” the intercept program? Considering that the program’s legality was vetted through the Department of Justice on a monthly basis as well as being examined by White House lawyers and attorneys at the NSA itself not to mention several Congressional briefings, it would seem that the Time’s definition of “secret” needs an overhaul. If the Times means that the President didn’t inform their reporters of the program then they have a case. But if the Times means that no one else knew about the intercept program, they are lying. This was not John Mitchell authorizing the Watergate Plumbers to break into Democratic headquarters to place wiretaps or even other Nixon era abuses that were not authorized and where Congress was not briefed. The program has at least the veneer of legality in how it was vetted. Any judgment that it was unconstitutional or even illegal can only be made by an examination of the program in its totality - not by reading some slap-dash summary put out by a blatantly partisan newspaper.

And any “targeting of the press” in the Valerie Plame case was not the result of the Administration’s investigation but of an Independent Counsel’s probe that the Times itself had been screaming for. This kind of dripping hypocrisy is par for the course where the Times is concerned. They believe that their readers are idiots who can’t remember anything that happened more than 24 hours ago.

The White House has yet to show that national security was harmed by the report on electronic spying, which did not reveal the existence of such surveillance - only how it was being done in a way that seems outside the law.

The Times felt it necessary to inject a little humor into the editorial. The disingenuousness and irony here is so thick you can put it on a scoop of ice cream. In order for the White House to “prove” that national security was harmed by the outing of the program, they would have to compromise national security further - all to satisfy the New York Times! The Administration would have to publish more details of how we are keeping track of our enemies in order to satisfy the New York Times challenge - a challenge that the Times knows full well the Administration cannot answer.

Finally, the Times plays the martyr and takes a stand on the battlements, waving the bloody shirt:

Leak investigations are often designed to distract the public from the real issues by blaming the messenger. Take the third leak inquiry, into a Washington Post report on secret overseas C.I.A. camps where prisoners are tortured or shipped to other countries for torture. The administration said the reporting had damaged America’s image. Actually, the secret detentions and torture did that.

Illegal spying and torture need to be investigated, not whistle-blowers and newspapers.

The fact that most leak investigations are not designed to “distract the public” but rather to punish people who break the law may be a matter of opinion. But when the “messenger” takes part in blatantly illegal actions that could endanger national security, the idea that the government shouldn’t be asking questions is ludicrous. The First Amendment protections for the press in this country as they relate to national security are among the broadest in the industrialized world, if not the most expansive. Mr. Risen would be in jail if he wrote for a British newspaper given their Official Secrets Act. But the idea that the Times and its employees should be exempt from what, in some quarters, could be considered traitorous activity goes beyond sophistry and enters the realm of cynicism. No one believes them when they claim to be serving “the public good.” Their self-interest and partisanship evidently knows no bounds.

It may prove out that this NSA intercept program is a clear cut case of abuse of executive power by President Bush but to date, there is no such evidence and in fact, what little we know would tend to point to the opposite case; that the program was necessary in the aftermath of 9/11 to protect us. But as long as the New York Times continues its assault on the Administration’s justifiable attempts to battle an enemy that has infiltrated this country with hundreds, perhaps thousands of agents, operatives, sympathizers, and financiers, then the country will be at risk not of dictatorship but of having its citizens incinerated just to satisfy the partisan blood lust of the New York Times and their ideological allies in the Democratic party.

UPDATE 1/5

Tom McGuire also has a jaw dropping post…As in “jaw dropping good:”

What if what “those in power” are concealing are important national security secrets in wartime? Who makes the call? And how long can we survive if every disputed wartime decision is debated on the nation’s front pages?

Read it all as Tom also presents some interesting corallaries with the Plame case.

The Department of Justice will investigate leaks to reporters that led to the series of articles by the New York Times and others on the top secret NSA program to intercept communications from al Qaeda to their operatives and sympathizers here in the US:

Justice prosecutors will examine whether classified information was unlawfully disclosed to the New York Times, which reported two weeks ago that the National Security Agency had been conducting electronic surveillance on U.S. citizens and residents without court-approved warrants.

The probe is the latest in a series of controversial investigations into leaks of classified information during the Bush administration, including the disclosure of a CIA agent’s identity that has resulted in criminal charges against former vice presidential adviser I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

A “series” of investigations? Two investigations hardly constitutes a “series” of anything but it was the only way for Post reporter Dan Eggan to get the Plame investigation and Scooter Libby’s indictment mentioned in the same sentence. The proprieties of partisanship must be observed at all times at the Post, dontchya know.

The wheels of justice may also start to grind away for Post reporters who broke the story about no-longer secret CIA prisons overseas:

The Justice Department has also opened a probe into whether classified information was illegally disclosed to The Washington Post, which reported on a network of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

The disclosure of the domestic spying program by the NSA, which is normally confined to overseas operations, has setoff a firestorm of criticism from civil liberties advocates and prompted plans for hearings on Capitol Hill. The secret program has also angered some judges on a special court that is supposed to oversee clandestine surveillance within the United States, including one who submitted his resignation.

Will the career prosecutors and investigators at the Department of Justice dig into this investigation and carry it out with the sustained vigor and intensity it deserves? Or will they simply go through the motions and tiptoe around the press as they normally do, fearing the anger of the editorial boards of the New York Times and Washington Post?

In order for this investigation to succeed, they will need the wholehearted cooperation of the National Security Agency. And given the leaking proclivities shown by Department of Justice bureaucrats during the Plame investigation, they may feel some trepidation in giving too many details of the intercept program (or who may have had access to the information in the first place) to prosecutors to assist them in their investigation.

I am frankly not very hopeful that much will come of this investigation. The DOJ has never been very aggressive in the area of national security leaks to the press, seeing it as a First Amendment issue rather than a national security one. And unless some kind of link can be found in some of the leaks, I doubt whether a Special Prosecutor could be appointed.

I’ve always wondered why rival reporters don’t try and find out who the other fellow’s source is, especially when an investigation is being carried out. The clique of national security reporters in Washington is actually pretty close, sharing information and sources on several stories.. It makes me wonder if some of them don’t actually know who the other guy’s source is for a story, in which case it would be an incredible scoop to report on it.

I guess that just wouldn’t be the polite thing to do. But doesn’t that ring a little hollow when the security of the country is being compromised?

Just wondering…

The holidays are a horrible time for bloggers. Capitol Hill is deserted as Congress goes into Christmas hibernation, our wallets blessedly safe for a few weeks. Moonbats and idiotarians alike are busy mending political fences back home while trying to squeeze that extra few hundred thousands bucks out of the special interests that will insure their political survival next November . The nation itself settles down for something of a long winter’s nap, looking forward to a week filled with family, parties, college football, and the inevitable overdose of nachos.

Even the MSM seems to be on its best behavior although this gaffe by the LA Times will be eagerly snarfed up by ravenous blog beasts across the political spectrum for its sheer goofiness. For some reason though, my blog was hungry for something else today and the story of a major metropolitan newspaper using in a front page story a quote from a press release put out as an April Fool’s joke just wasn’t going to sate the appetite my own personal demon of a website. After all, it can get pretty tiresome poking fun at an enterprise as clueless as the LA Times. I mean, how many times can you tell the same joke before it goes irretrievably stale?

So it’s after 6:00 AM and I haven’t started to write anything when to what my wondering eyes should appear but this gem from MSNBC’s Craig Crawford:

I have been watching dozens of back episodes of Fox Broadcasting’s “24″ over the holidays, and so far I haven’t seen rogue U.S. anti-terrorism agent Jack Bauer stop once for a court warrant — not even when he sawed off the head of an informant he was interrogating. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard the Constitution mentioned a single time as Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, repeatedly breaks the rules to thwart terrorist plots.

This is how the President wants us to see the real world. Indeed, George Bush is the Jack Bauer of presidential power. There are no rules in Bush’s world when it comes to the War on Terror — only wimps like the whining bureaucrats on “24″ balk at torture, spying, propaganda, whatever it takes.

I guess I am one of those constitutional wimps. Even the reality cop shows get me riled, as we watch the police routinely trample the individual rights of hapless suspects. Maybe we do live in a Jack Bauer world where constitutional liberties take a back seat to stopping killers. But I’d rather live in Patrick Henry’s world: Give me liberty or give me death.

(HT: Anklebiting Pundits).

I want to publicly thank Mr. Crawford for rescuing me from blog ennui. This kind of fresh, jaw-dropping idiocy is what makes writing for this site so much fun. And the fact that he used my favorite thug Jack Bauer as a sophomoric metaphor to describe the Bush presidency is so perfect, so right, that if Craig was here now I’d give him a great big wet kiss full on the mouth.

Well…maybe I’m not that grateful.

Taking the last part to begin, the first thing one notices about this piece is that Crawford is laughably ignorant of history. To reference “constitutional rights” and “Patrick Henry” in the same breath is, to put it mildly, loony. Henry, like most of the more radical patriots who were in the forefront of the movement for independence, became unreconstructed opponents of the Constitution during the ratification debate. They saw it as something of a counter-revolution, an overreaction to the weaknesses inherent in the Articles of Confederation. Not only that, the establishment of a strong chief executive as well as mandating a Supreme Court who could overrule Congress was an anathema to patriots like Henry.

This Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting; it squints toward monarchy, and does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? Your president may easily become king. Your Senate is so imperfectly constructed that your dearest rights may be sacrificed to what may be a small minority; and a very small minority may continue for ever unchangeably this government, altho horridly defective.

The irony of Crawford’s intellectual conceits regarding “liberty” is unfortunately lost on someone whose knowledge of history apparently comes from watching episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle where Mr. Peabody and Sherman go back in time in their Wayback Machine to learn about the past.

But the meat of Mr. Crawford’s “critique” of the Bush presidency is his comparison of the world as seen by the President with the world in which Jack Bauer of “24” fame lives.

Would that it were true. In fact, we should be extremely fortunate if Jack Bauer was a real person working for a real agency like CTU (Counter terrorism Unit). But what is really interesting would be to ask Mr. Crawford if, during any of the scenarios in the history of the TV series that would, God forbid, come to life - nukes, assassination, power plant meltdowns, and bio-terror - he thinks the rest of us would prefer not to fully, completely, and to the letter respect the Constitutional rights of foreign terrorists and their American collaborators and sympathizers or die a horrible death and have the country destroyed.

This would be a no brainer - except for Mr. Crawford who evidently was stuck in the washroom when God was handing out that vital organ. Any of the terrorist scenarios that have played out on 24 would in real life necessitated the very actions that Jack Bauer and other law enforcement representatives took to prevent them. For, in real life, if the terrorists had been successful, the subsequent investigation that revealed a government and a President that followed Constitutional niceties while tens of thousands of Americans died, would have resulted in the immediate and justifiable impeachment of the President. And I daresay that the relatives and loved ones of the dead would not be quoting Patrick Henry in praise of the President’s Constitutional forbearance.

The reason liberals like Crawford are likely to get a great many of us killed if they are able to hoodwink the American people into giving them power again is their willingness to allow the terrorists to win rather than do what is necessary to protect us. This is perfectly summed up in Mr. Crawford’s little blurb. By quoting Patrick Henry, he is embracing the idea that he would rather die than bend the Constitution to the exigencies of the times. That way lies madness - and death.

Using the example of poor Abraham Lincoln in this debate is getting tiresome but one wonders if Lincoln had not placed government’s extraordinarily heavy hand on the rebellious border states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri as well as other restless parts of the country whether he would have been victorious or not. Mr. Crawford is fortunate indeed not to have lived during those times. His writings may have landed him in jail.

As for Jack Bauer, Crawford misses the point. Jack is enormously conflicted by what he has to do to save the country. His methods have cost him the life of his wife. They have ruined his personal relationships as women recoil in horror after watching Jack in action. He has gone so far in so many critical situations that it seems as if at times he seeks the release that only death can bring.

In this letter I had published in The American Spectator, I pointed out the similarities between Jack and two other mythic American heroes; Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett. Both Boone and Crockett were single minded in their determination to succeed and would do whatever it took to come out on top. But Jack has another dimension to his personality:

The myth of the hunter/hero gave way to the lone hero motif popularized by Hollywood. This hero, usually played by a small town sheriff (Gary Cooper in High Noon) or the gunfighter with a heart of gold (Alan Ladd in Shane), used violence to defeat greater violence. This concept was turned on its head in the 1960s and 1970s as the great ” anti-heroes” of Clint Eastwood blurred the distinction between good and evil. Dirty Harry got the job done (as did the Man with No-Name) but at what cost?

Enter Jack Bauer who’s not quite the Clint anti-hero but not the pure, small town Gary Cooperish protagonist either. He is, in fact, the perfect hero in a post-9/11 world. Torn as America is between getting the job done at all costs while upholding American ideals, Jack simply can’t help himself. He necessarily sees the world in stark relief, a black and white universe populated by some really nasty thugs who don’t even blink at the idea of murdering hundreds of thousands of people. We recoil at some of Jack’s tactics. But we recognize that Jack is the guy doing what needs to be done to keep us safe.

In one respect, Crawford is correct in his comparison of Jack with Bush; they are able to clearly distinguish between good and evil, between who is right in this war and who is wrong. Crawford and his ilk can’t. This makes Crawford not only someone to be laughed at but someone to be feared as well. For if we ever have a government headed by a President who sees gray where there is clearly black and white, the chances of enjoying both liberty and security in the United States will disappear as surely as Jack Bauer will end up stretching the Constitution to its breaking point this season in order to protect us from disaster.

In what has to be considered a breakthrough moment for the MSM, my hometown Chicago Tribune actually brokedown and practiced the craft of journalism. They examined 9 of the reasons that President Bush used prior to the war to justify and, lo and behold, reached a rational, sane, conclusion:

After reassessing the administration’s nine arguments for war, we do not see the conspiracy to mislead that many critics allege. Example: The accusation that Bush lied about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs overlooks years of global intelligence warnings that, by February 2003, had convinced even French President Jacques Chirac of “the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq.” We also know that, as early as 1997, U.S. intel agencies began repeatedly warning the Clinton White House that Iraq, with fissile material from a foreign source, could have a crude nuclear bomb within a year.

Seventeen days before the war, this page reluctantly urged the president to launch it. We said that every earnest tool of diplomacy with Iraq had failed to improve the world’s security, stop the butchery–or rationalize years of UN inaction. We contended that Saddam Hussein, not George W. Bush, had demanded this conflict.

Many people of patriotism and integrity disagreed with us and still do. But the totality of what we know now–what this matrix chronicles– affirms for us our verdict of March 2, 2003. We hope these editorials help Tribune readers assess theirs.

Imagine that! A major metropolitan newspaper put a little time and effort into an investigation of things that bloggers have been writing about for more than 2 years and reached exactly the same conclusion!

Not only that, but their criticisms of the Administration’s case for war are not based on Democratic party talking points but rather intelligent assessments of what information the Administration had available as opposed to what they were publicly saying. The Trib can’t quite make the psychic leap and say that the US couldn’t afford to be right about Saddam’s WMD, but their criticism comes off as reasonable and well thought out.

And they may be the only major metro paper that actually admits that WMD was not the only reason we went to war:

The administration didn’t advance its arguments with equal emphasis. Neither, though, did its case rely solely on Iraq’s alleged illicit weapons. The other most prominent assertion in administration speeches and presentations was as accurate as the weapons argument was flawed: that Saddam Hussein had rejected 12 years of United Nations demands that he account for his stores of deadly weapons–and also stop exterminating innocents. Evaluating all nine arguments lets each of us decide which ones we now find persuasive or empty, and whether President Bush tried to mislead us.

In measuring risks to this country, the administration relied on the same intelligence agencies, in the U.S. and overseas, that failed to anticipate Sept. 11, 2001. We now know that the White House explained some but not enough of the ambiguities embedded in those agencies’ conclusions. By not stressing what wasn’t known as much as what was, the White House wound up exaggerating allegations that proved dead wrong.

This is an excellent article to save and refer back to in the future when we hear for the 5,000th time from some lefty loon that “Bush lied. People died.”