Right Wing Nut House

My latest at PJ Media is up and it deals with our slowly evolving policy toward Iran, begun during the Bush administration and carried on by Obama’s team, that the US has rejected the military option entirely (or nearly so) and is working toward containment and deterrence.

A sample:

The number one unpleasant truth the UN refuses to face is that the Iranians are not going to stop their drive for developing the capability to build a nuclear weapon unless someone physically restrains them from doing so. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made this perfectly plain and there should be no reason to doubt him. He has tied the Iranian nuclear program to the issue of Iranian sovereignty and demands the same rights any other nation has to a nuclear program granted under international law.

The “P-5 + 1? talks (the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) in Geneva will simply confirm what everyone already knows: no sanctions regime will prevent Iran from continuing their nuclear work. There are no enticements, no blandishments that the Iranians will accept in exchange for abandoning what they clearly see is a matter of national pride and international prestige. To think otherwise is not logical.

There have been all manner of grandiose proposals for a “grand bargain” that would establish a multinational enrichment facility on Iranian soil, or a vastly increased inspection regime by the IAEA, in exchange for inducements to Iran that consist of sponsoring Iranian membership in the WTO to increased trade with the West.

But when Iran refuses, what then? And here is where I think it fairly obvious that the United States, the West, and the rest of the world have already accepted the idea that Iran is going to eventually develop the capability to construct a nuclear bomb.

It’s easy to declare that bombing Iran will get them to see reason (how this is so is never quite revealed). But taking a hard headed look at the military option necessarily means trying to ascertain what you would gain by a strike versus what you would lose. And I think in the fall of October, 2006, the Bush administration finally reached a consensus that the military option would cause far more problems than it would solve.

The recent revelation about a previously unknown Iranian enrichment facility drives that point home. For any military action to be successful, we would have to identify the the targets that would have to be destroyed in order to set back the Iranian program several years (the relentless logic of zero sum benefits/consequences demands that we don’t have to go back and do the same thing in a matter of months). But it is likely now that Iran has been surreptitiously adding to their capability by building facilities of which we are totally unaware.

You can’t bomb what you don’t know about. And given the ruinous consequences of military action to American interests, you damn well better be sure that any such strike took out enough of the Iranian program that they could not threaten anyone for at least a couple of years. (I am not even going to address invasion and regime change. Such notions are silly.)

And what of the consequences to the innocent? No one has ever - repeat ever - deliberately bombed a nuclear enrichment facility (the Israeli strike on the Osirak reactor never hit the reactor itself, targeting the vast infrastructure that supported it). But by definition, a strike on Nantanz or the vast complex we would be hitting centrifuges and reactors full of enriched uranium:

The Persian Gulf nations of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran have more than half the world’s known oil reserves. The 1981 study by Fetter and Tsipis in Scientific American on “Catastrophic Releases of Radioactivity” estimated that bombing a nuclear reactor would cause 8600 square miles around the reactor to be uninhabitable, depending on which way the wind blows. Bombing the Bushehr reactor will mean half of the world’s oil is instantly inaccessible. Bombing Iran means that Americans will not be driving cars any where, any more, for a long, long time. The American Way of Life will be finished. An economic collapse unimagined by Americans will follow. Mechanized farming and food transport will be finished. Famine is a possibility. Food riots are a certainty, in the land of plenty, with the fuel gauge on empty.

By the way - we’d probably end up killing some Russians if we bombed Bushehr as they are assisting the Iranians in construction.

And Israel? Richard Clark sums up the Israeli dilemma on bombing Iran:

Well, put yourself in Israel’s shoes. The President of Iran has said repeatedly that he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. He’s repeatedly denied that the Holocaust ever took place. He talks in mystical terms about the invisible Imam and the return of the expected one, the Madi, all of which sounds like an Islamic version of the fundamentalist Christians talking about rapture and final days and if this person had the authority to throw nuclear weapons around, would he perhaps throw them at Israel without further provocation because he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? From the Israeli perspective, two or three nuclear weapons going off in their country is the end of their country. This is an existential issue for Israel. So, we, as Israel’s ally, have to take that into account. This is not just a question of another country getting a nuclear weapon like, say, Pakistan or India. It’s a question of a country that has actively supported terrorism, has had complete disregard for international law and talks openly about destroying Israel. So, this is a serious question for the United States and for Israel. But it doesn’t mean that because it’s a serious question that the answer is necessarily a military option.

As I point out in the PJM piece, Israel is apparently taking a wait and see attitude - at least until the end of the year. At that point, unless the world applies “crippling” (word used by the Israeli ambassador to the US) sanctions on Iran, all bets are off and the clock may strike midnight.

Israel is in a horrible position - but so are we if they strike. Iran will simply blame us anyway and the same consequences that would accrue if we ourselves bombed the Iranians would probably be visited on us anyway. Logically, this would mean that we may threaten Israel with a cutoff or a substantial reduction in aid if they choose the military option towards Iran. My guess is, they’ve already been told that which has probably delayed a strike on Tehran to this point.

If the rest of the world has already accepted the fact of Iranian nukes, this means that Israel is probably alone in their desire to start a war over the issue. Would that stay their hand in attacking? Obama would not stand still for an Israeli strike on Iran where America was blamed so in addition to all the other consequences that the Jewish state must calculate, there is the very real possibility of an actively hostile America to consider. If that becomes part of the calculation, it is very possible that Israel would not bomb Iran and would work with us to develop missile defense and other countermeasures short of war.

I fully realize that many supporters of Israel would like to see either the US or the Jewish state bomb Iran. Sometimes, a military response is necessary regardless of the consequences. But in this case, where the gain in bombing is so uncertain while the consequences of military action are stark and predictable, responsible policy makers here, and in Israel, I believe, will eventually come to the conclusion (if they haven’t already) that the second option - unsatisfying as it is - of not taking military action while working to protect our friends and deter the Iranians otherwise, is probably the wisest course.

My latest at Pajamas Media is up and it’s on the revelation that Iran has constructed another enrichment facility despite their protestations to the contrary.

A sample:

The question asks itself: why would a nation that claims to be interested only in the nuclear fuel cycle hide a facility capable of secretly enriching uranium to the 85-90% level necessary to construct a bomb?

Nothing Iran has ever publicly said about the extent of its nuclear program has ever proven to be true. The have brazenly and repeatedly lied about matters vital to the peace and security of the world.

What’s the “world” going to do about it?

Why should anyone believe the Iranians when they claim they have no interest in constructing a bomb? And if no one believes them, then the world has two choices: try and prevent Iran from developing a bomb or learn to live with them possessing it.

Obviously, the milquetoast Security Council sanctions we have applied to Iran previously have failed to convince them to stop their drive to build nuclear weapons — or at least develop the capability to build them in a matter of months. Searching for a solution short of war, Western nations will now seek much tougher sanctions against the regime in hopes that it will bring concessions by Iran at the bargaining table in Geneva, where talks are scheduled to begin on October 1.

The major element of any new sanctions will almost certainly be a cutoff by the world to Iran of refined gasoline. Despite sitting on a sea of oil, the Iranians import about 40% of their fuel needs from abroad. Such a cutoff would not only bring the Iranian economy to a standstill; it would more than likely feed the discontent already boiling over in the streets as a result of the stolen election last summer.

I believe President Obama has handled this the correct way, although I think some hard questions should be asked of our intel people whose National Intelligence Estimates appear to be quaintly naive about Iranian intentions to build a bomb.

The fact that the Iranians have lied, and lied some more, and lied again about the extent of their enrichment program is pretty damning evidence that they are trying to hide something. There really is only one logical - and safe - conclusion to reach; the regime is trying to surreptitiously develop the capability to construct a nuclear weapon.

I hasten to add that this does not mean they are close to possessing a nuclear weapon. As I have pointed out previously, many experts believe a likely scenario is for Iran to enrich enough uranium for several bombs at the 5% level suitable for commercial reactors while secretly developing the infrastructure (a secret “pilot enrichment plant?”) to have the capability of enriching that uranium to the 85-90% bomb-grade level so that they could rapidly construct a bomb in a crisis. It is thought that Japan and perhaps other nations have this capability but for obvious reasons, haven’t advertised it.

The non-enrichment activities relating to bomb infrastructure could be conducted without western knowledge. Bomb and warhead design, missile development, and assembling other parts of the bomb would only be discovered by luck - as it happened two years ago when we penetrated the Iranian computer network (thanks to a lost laptop) and discovered that until 2003, this other activity was going on and no one was any the wiser.

But the president did well to keep this information secret. As did Bush before him. It was a nice little tidbit that would have proven invaluable either as a stick to beat the Iranians with if nuclear talks were ever to materialize, or as an inducement for additional sanctions against Iran if the need arose.

Now, apparently, we are going to use this information in both scenarios. Russia is appears ready to support more serious sanctions while the talks that start next week with Iran just got a lot more interesting thanks to this revelation.

But my question in the title stands; is the world about to get serious about denying Iran nuclear weapons?

Perhaps. It all depends on how far Russia will go with sanctions, and how far Obama is willing to push the Iranians. Would the Russians join a general boycott of supplying gasoline to the regime? Iran imports 40% of its gas so such a sanction would be stiff indeed. There is already legislation in Congress that would make such an action American policy with the added stinger of preventing the US government from doing any business with any nation that supplied the Iranians with refined gas.

But both Russia and China could easily circumvent such a sanction which is why if there is an attempt to impose this on the Security Council, the Russians will probably refuse to go so far. They might support restrictions on refined gasoline but not a total ban.

In this sense, the world is not going to get serious about stopping the Iranians which brings us to what Israel is going to do about it.

Netanyahu’s instinct is to bomb. But he just as clearly is willing to give the international community a chance to see if their negotiations/sanctions strategy can do the trick. I think a ban on refined gas could result in regime change in Iran. But since that is not likely to happen (and even if there was regime change, the chances are good that a government just as hostile to Israel as this one would emerge), the only hope to avoid a catastrophe for us and for the world that would result from an Iran-Israel war is for a solid phalanx of big powers to make it clear to Iran that their enrichment program is unacceptable and that a strict, draconian inspection and verification regime must be put in place and enforced by the Security Council.

How strict?

Now that we know about at least this one covert facility, it is the time to reach a deal with Iran about placing a multinational enrichment facility on Iranian soil. This may seem paradoxical, but such a facility is the best way of ensuring that Iran cannot set up other secret enrichment facilities later. We obviously now know that “suspension” is not the answer; they can use the freedom such inactivity gives their workers to setup new plants outside the prying IAEA inspectors’ view. We need to be with the Iranian scientists and engineers 24 hours a day, seven days a week to understand what they are doing. Of course, the first step will be to require lists of workers at both the covert and overt enrichment plants as well as enough supporting documentation (shift schedules, pay stubs, payroll accounts come immediately to mind) to instill confidence in the West that we know everyone who has worked there. Of course, while we are checking those documents, Westerners can be working in the plants; keeping an eye on those already there. They could start that tomorrow.

This revelation of a covert facility might be just the bargaining chip the West needs to force the measures necessary to build up confidence Iran is not establishing other secret plants.

Would anything be worse than war with Iran? John McCain and others believe that the only thing more dire than war would be Iran actually possessing nuclear weapons. I agree - in theory. But in an imperfect world, it is perhaps inevitable that imperfect solutions to problems present themselves. The world can’t operate in the theoretical. And any open causus belli by Iran is not likely; no nuke tests, no parading nuclear tipped Shahab missiles down the streets of Tehran. For that reason, the world will never believe that Israel - or the US - would be justified in bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.

So we are left with trying to stop the Iranians through negotiations and sanctions. They might work. More probably not. But let’s deal with failure if and when it occurs, planning for any eventuality while keeping in mind Iranian past duplicity when sitting down with their representatives next week.

I penned a special column for PJ Media on the 9/12 protests yesterday, pointing out the historical significance of the event; that it represents the first truly mass movement of conservatives in American history.

A sample that will no doubt bring the wrath of the right down on my head:

It is definitely an opposition movement, however. Certainly there is mass unhappiness with President Obama and his policies. And there is opposition to the Democrats in Congress. But does this really translate into electoral strength for Republicans? I am going to go out on a limb and say no. The anger here is a reaction (reactionary?) against a growing government, higher taxes, and the sense that the country that they grew up in is slipping away right before their eyes.

This is all fed, of course, by the pop conservatives on talk radio who have ginned up outrage against Obama and the Democrats. I say “ginned up” because what the president and his party have already done doesn’t need the added fear mongering being promoted by Beck, Hannity, Rush, and Savage in order for conservatives to rally. Raised taxes, cap and trade, health care reform, bailouts and takeovers, and other liberal agenda items should be sufficient to outrage anyone on the right and motivate them to protest these horrific policies. It is unnecessary to brand Obama a “communist” or even a “socialist” to realize that his policies spell disaster for individual liberty and the free market economy.

Getting caught up trying to guess the number of attendees at Saturday’s protests (as I and many others are doing today and will continue to do) is irrelevant. This is history in the making, something the United States has never seen: a genuine grass-roots conservative mass movement, activated by the new technologies, communicating effectively using the new software and hardware — and it is growing.

I received an email from a long time reader yesterday who was concerned I couldn’t see that the protests were, at bottom, “anti-American, racist, and dangerous…” There’s nothing “anti-American” about protesting anything. We are, after all, a nation born out of protest, nurtured in the bosom of contrarianism, and defining progress by going against the grain in order to right significant wrongs in our society. This is not “dangerous” by any stretch of the imagination - except to the comfort of the elites who always believe it dangerous when the hoi polloi become restless and disagree that only they in their superior wisdom are fit to tell the rest of us what to do.

As for the charge of the protest being “racist,” well, that’s nonsense. If you’re going to tar an entire movement with that epitaph based on the beliefs of a tiny fraction, then you should have no trouble referring to the civil rights movement of the 1960’s as a “Communist” movement since the CPUSA played a prominent role in the SCLC and other civil rights organizations. The same holds true for the anti-war movement where you couldn’t attend a protest without tripping over a Communist or two.

This protest movement encompasses the right in all its contradictions, it’s factions, and its various conceits. From far right nullification supporters to Rand Objectivists, conservatism in all its glory was on display. The dominant theme as it appeared to me was “Don’t Tread on Me” - the words emblazoned on the iconic Gaddsen Flag. This is both a warning and a statement of fact. The truth is, whether due to agitation by talk radio hosts or the very real belief held by millions that President Obama is going too far, too fast, in his quest to “remake” America, there is a sizable segment of the population who has stood up and said “enough.”

In their struggle to define what it is they don’t like about the direction Obama and the Democrats are taking the country, I believe they mis-identify their concerns as fighting “socialism” or “Communism.” But at bottom, I believe above all else, that they wish to “conserve” their own vision of what America is and what it should aspire to be. This vision is no more invalid than that of the presidents’ despite attempts on the left to delegitimize it. It is Burkean in its roots, and has to do with classic conservative values that have been at the root of conservative thought for as long as the republic has endured.

Change is coming to America. Change always comes to America because we are a dynamic society that stands still for no one. But the value of conservatism has always been that, in Bill Buckley’s words, conservatives “stand athwart history yelling Stop!” It is always better to manage change, to channel the revolutionary nature of our society into acceptable, and accepted paths that lead to consensual change. Any other path leads to blood and revolution. Just ask the French.

President Obama and the Democrats are moving too far, too fast. They have exceeded the comfort level for change that many Americans - perhaps most - believe is right and proper. You can argue the merits of the president’s agenda. That’s politics. But the pace of change is structural in our society. We aren’t set up for the kind of rapid, dizzying alterations that Obama and the Democrats are proposing. This is especially true because some of what the president advocates would change the fundamental relationship citizens have with the government.

“Small moves, Ellie. Small moves…” was the advice that Elenore Arroway’s dad gave to the youngster as she fiddled with the dial of her ham radio in the film Contact. By moving the dial in small increments, she was much more likely to be rewarded by making contact with another ham radio enthusiast.

Hundreds of thousands of people at the Capitol yesterday gave President Obama the same message.

My latest at PJ Media is up and instead of examining what the president said in his speech before Congress on Wednesday night, I sought to examine his underlying political philosophy — something he shared with us toward the end of his address.

A sample:

It is not often that a president opens his mind and allows us to see its inner workings, to view the philosophy that animates his actions and drives him to achieve a vision formed from personal experience and thoughtful contemplation.

I believe Barack Obama is indeed a thoughtful man. Not a scholar or intellectual, but someone who has an interest in living what the philosophers refer to as “an examined life.” Perhaps no modern president has spent as much time nor traveled so far in an effort to discover meaning and place as far as the threads of his life are concerned. This much was evident before he became president. Dreams from My Father was, if nothing else, a dissertation on one man’s journey of self-discovery and his drive for self-actualization.

What made that autobiography unique was not so much Obama’s age when he wrote it (33), but rather his almost melancholy realization that he really didn’t fit in anywhere and that he must create his own community in order to feel as if he belonged.

If one word could describe the president’s political philosophy it would be “community.” Not perhaps the way we commonly understand it, but rather a more personal community he himself wishes to create. Michael Powell of the New York Times refers to him as a “communitarian.”

The communitarian strain in Mr. Obama’s thinking often surprises liberal supporters. Roughly put, communitarianism holds that individual rights must be circumscribed by the communal, with all the cross-generational, religious and patriotic obligations that implies. Sweeping change must be approached slowly; when government enforces individual responsibilities, a moral crisis looms.

Communitarians also hold that government and corporations are bound by obligations to citizens, like a clean environment, education and health care.

That crisis is upon us as the president is seeking to impose individual mandates on all to buy health insurance. The president sees this as simply an entry fee in order to join his personal idea of a community, one that if you are not willing to ante up, government will force you to fulfill your obligation.

Needless to say, any outrage against personal liberty can be justified with this kind of a philosophy. The president sought union when he first got to office, hoping that by imparting this vision of community, we could raise ourselves up and defeat the forces of partisanship and excessive ideology that has so tainted our politics these last decades.

Alas, it was not to be. And it was the president’s own vision of community that proved the biggest stumbling block.

It is this vision that has gotten in the way of Mr. Obama’s “post-partisan” personae. One can immediately see that it is impossible to reconcile his admiration for our “rugged individualism” with what he sees as the needs of the community. Those who fail to recognize those needs must be coerced and “obligations” enforced. Who but government can fulfill the president’s desire to form this “more perfect” community?

I admire the presidents desire “to seriously examine the skein of his thinking to discover a rational and coherent political philosophy.” Perhaps no president since Reagan has thought more deeply about government and its relationship to its citizens.

The irony is, both men started from roughly the same place and ended up with wildly different notions of “community” and “individual rights.”

And I think that is something to celebrate.

In case you missed it, here is my latest PJ Media column that was published yesterday. It’s on Pat Buchanan’s wretched column from September 1 in which he seeks to absolve Adolf Hitler of most of the blame for starting World War II.

A sample of Buchanan’s ignorance:

What follows are just a few of the more jaw-dropping errors of fact that Buchanan has included in his article, as well as the answers to some of the many questions that he should have known before even asking them.

After Munich in 1938, Czechoslovakia did indeed crumble and come apart. Yet consider what became of its parts. The Sudeten Germans were returned to German rule, as they wished. …

How could they wish to return to a place that in the entire thousand-year history of that enclave had never belonged to Germany in the first place?

From the 13th century on, the Sudeten Germans (making up about 25 percent of the population of the Sudetenland) had been ruled by the Habsburg Empire. The old Austria-Hungarian province of Bohemia claimed most of the land, and when the empire disintegrated following World War I, the Sudetenland was annexed by the new nation of Czechoslovakia.

Churchill tried without success to get Chamberlain to stop referring to the “return” of the Sudetenland to Germany in order to refute Nazi propaganda which was claiming otherwise. In effect, Buchanan is parroting the Nazi party line on the Sudetenland by claiming that Germany was only threatening war because they wanted their territory back.

It’s not that Buchanan is playing at revisionism that I object to. There has been much scholarship in recent decades that has shed light on pre-World War I British moves against Germany that were to have profound consequences for Europe for much of the rest of the 20th century. That kind of revisionism enriches our understanding of history and can be argued on the basis of fact.

Buchanan’s thesis is without merit because he fails to contextualize his arguments, placing them in a vacuum where the actions of Hitler can be examined without reference to any other events that were occurring simultaneously or in the past. It’s a clever manipulation of chronology - not serious analysis: A writer’s trick and not reasoned argument.

It’s a rather long piece and by no means a complete takedown. Buchanan asks too many rhetorical questions for that. But I think I captured the most egregious errors of fact and logic in Mr. Buchanan’s sad attempt to excuse one of the greatest mass murderers in history his foul deeds.

My latest at Pajamas Media is up today, a piece that is about 95% satire. It is exaggerated, over the top, and bears little resemblance to facts or the truth.

If you lack a sense of humor, please do not read or comment on it. But the idea of informing on your fellow citizens is creepy even if the White House won’t be making a list or keeping the emails. Pity if some of you can’t see it.

Anyway, here’s a sample of my brilliant, amusing prose:

I was too young and too obscure to make Richard Nixon’s enemies list back in the day. Not yet out of my teens, my attendance at subversive rallies against the Vietnam War and my contributions to a wildly anti-Nixon publication at my high school we bravely called The Truth just weren’t enough to bring me to the attention of Charles Colson. Thus, I never had a chance to get my name listed along with other great Americans like Ted Kennedy, Paul Newman, and Joe Namath.

I was a good little radical back then, mouthing all the idiocy we heard our elders spouting about evil corporations, evil conservatives, and the evil, evil military. Alas, the world passed me by and the one great opportunity of a lifetime to be recognized as an enemy of the state was lost.

Until now.

Having since grown up, gotten a job, and been disabused of the idea that there is, in fact, such a thing as a free lunch — along with other magical ideas liberals hold — you can imagine my delight when I heard that President Obama is going to be starting an enemies list of his own.

This time, I am absolutely determined to make the grade. Nothing will stand in my way. Come hell or high water, I am going to get my name on that list if I have to camp out in front of the office of Linda Douglass, communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform, until she slaps my moniker on that list just to get rid of me.

Read the whole thing.

Two unlike subjects but don’t worry, they are the subjects of two different articles.

First, my weekly PJ Media column is up and you’re going to love it. I will give you the last graf so you will be forced to read the whole thing:

But when the stakes are this high — not just for the Iranian demonstrators but for the U.S., the Israelis, the region, and the world — I am willing to cut the president a little slack and recognize that while we all want him to say what is in our hearts about freedom and justice, his response so far has been about as good as we can expect.

The piece is self explantory. I will have no further comment.

Now for a piece of good news. I have been hired on as a weekly columnist at the excellent site of an excellent organization.

The American Issues Project will feature a little different material from me. Instead of the usual political blather you are used to, I will put on my wonk cap and concentrate on delving into many of the issues facing us today.

A sample from my first effort, “Public Pensions, Public Crisis:”

Trillions for banks, hundreds of billions for car companies and other poor little rich corporations — one wonders when we taxpayers are going to stop being so generous with our hard-earned coin. I am sure these giant corporations are overflowing with gratitude for the beneficence we have bestowed upon them, no doubt dreaming up ways as I write this that they can show their appreciation for our generosity.

Don’t hold your breath, though.

Bailing out failed corporations is one thing. Politicians are famous for being generous with money not their own. But the money in taxes we and generations of Americans yet unborn will be forced to part with as a result of the foolishness, chicanery, and procrastination of our state and local officials who deal with public pension funds will probably make us pine for the days when the Federal Reserve only had to print a few hundred billion or so to enrich a few bankers.

In truth, the “Time Bomb” of underfunded, overly generous public pensions, which many observers have been predicting for years, appears ready to blow up in our faces. Recent losses in the stock market have devastated these funds to the tune of $2 trillion, monies for which we taxpayers are still responsible. And considering that more than half of these plans were underfunded to begin with, we are faced with a potential tsunami of pension fund failures that, by law, taxpayers will be forced to make right.

Read and enjoy.

My latest column is up at PJ Media and it is receiving the usual love and respect of commenters there.

Evidently, I was insufficiently harsh and brutal on the president, on Muslims, and on the media. But in reading a lot of react to the speech from yesterday and today, I don’t think my analysis is that far off from many on the thoughtful right. We all had problems with much of what Obama said but also acknowledge that the effort was necessary and that there were places where the president was very good.

I think in particular, Obama’s themes were, while rather ordinary, very successful in making the speech accessible to his audience. And I can’t see anyone on the right quibbling with the president’s strong, unequivocal statement that he would defend this country and citizens from terrorism - implying he would do so even if the Muslim world disagreed with him. Alas, that kind of strength was missing from much of the speech.

Here’s a sample but please do me a favor and read the whole thing before commenting:

The fact that this perception has been fed by the controlled press of the holy terrors who rule much of the Islamic world as well as the holy men who seek to control their flocks through fear of the “crusader” and hate for the infidel only made Obama’s job of breaking through the ignorance and isolation that is the sad lot of most of the world’s Muslims that much harder.

Even if you have a very low opinion of President Obama, I don’t see how you can honestly criticize him for trying to alter the dynamic that currently exists between Islam and the West. And keeping in mind that we are at war with a large segment of Islam (much larger than the president would have ever dared say in public), the rhetorical tightrope that Obama was forced to walk between unequivocally condemning the extremists while attempting to placate the sensibilities and feelings of hypersensitive Muslims who believe they have been stereotyped as mad bombers was worthy of anything Barnum and Bailey could have produced.

There are many on both the left and right who are criticizing the president for making a speech that didn’t accomplish anything or actually played into the hands of our enemies. While I found plenty that was objectionable in the speech, I think that kind of criticism misses the point.

As the president said, no one speech was going to change things. Rather, it was the fact that speech was made in the first place, and where it was given that impacted the consciousness of the Muslim world. Right now, they’re not listening to us — even with our Lightworker president in office. Announcing to the world that the president of the United States was going to address the Muslim world and do it in a Muslim country you have to admit at least got the planet’s attention.

Every journey begins with a first step. And if the minimum President Obama could accomplish would be to get the Muslim world to pause in their headlong dash toward history’s gasoline dump with a stick of dynamite in their mouth and a fistful of lit matches, while forcing them to listen to a few (too few, as it turned out) truths about Islam and the threat of extremists, then the president would have accomplished as much as could be expected.

I wrote a column this morning that was originally headed for publication here but that Aaron, my editor at PJ Media, decided to steal.

It’s on the Sotomayor choice, of course, and the more I read about her, the less I like it. But there’s not much to do about it since Obama’s got the votes. I only hope the GOP doesn’t embarrass itself by attacking her for something besides what she’s said in public and her court opinions.

A sample:

President Barack Obama seemed to have lost his deft touch in recent weeks as several controversies simmered, then exploded out of his control, making his life miserable and exposing his administration to criticism from some unlikely sources — including his own far left base and the press.

Arlington Cemetary

My latest piece is up at Pajamas Media. It is a Memorial Day tribute to small town heroes and, more importantly, the small town values that animated their patriotism.

I also take to task elites who look down their noses at these values and citizens.

As sample:

Perhaps it is no accident then that so many of America’s fallen hailed from towns with place names that are familiar only to those who live but a stone’s throw from where these heroes grew up.

Who has ever heard of Clairsville, Ohio, birthplace of Medal of Honor winner Sylvester Antolak? Among the heroic deeds mentioned in his citation were:

With one shoulder deeply gashed and his right arm shattered, he continued to rush directly into the enemy fire concentration with his submachinegun wedged under his uninjured arm until within 15 yards of the enemy strong point, where he opened fire at deadly close range, killing 2 Germans and forcing the remaining 10 to surrender. He reorganized his men and, refusing to seek medical attention so badly needed, chose to lead the way toward another strong point 100 yards distant. Utterly disregarding the hail of bullets concentrated upon him, he had stormed ahead nearly three-fourths of the space between strong points when he was instantly killed by hostile enemy fire. Inspired by his example, his squad went on to overwhelm the enemy troops. By his supreme sacrifice, superb fighting courage, and heroic devotion to the attack, Sgt. Antolak was directly responsible for eliminating 20 Germans, capturing an enemy machinegun, and clearing the path for his company to advance.

Hundreds of other Medal of Honor winners can lay claim to a similar background, growing up in rural villages and hamlets that, in many cases, time has forgotten and the world has passed by. America’s small-town culture has been ridiculed, criticized, and dismissed - especially over the last few decades - by an elite that cannot fathom why anyone would wish to live more than a couple of miles from a world class opera house or art museum. Nor can they understand why someone would choose country quiet over the babble and cacophony of the big city.

So they disparage these simple citizens - the ones who do most of the living, loving, fighting, and dying for America - because at bottom, they are what they accuse small town folk of being: narrow-minded and bigoted.

If these elites were to open their eyes, they may discover that people who live in small towns have exactly the same values as those who live in larger cities and suburbs. American values are the same regardless of where you live. The difference is they are perhaps taken to heart in a more fundamental way in small towns than in places that boast large populations and cultural diversity. Patriotism seems more heartfelt and genuine in rural parts of the country, more a regular part of life than in urban or suburban America.

Perhaps because showing one’s patriotism has been equated with having an “unsophisticated” attitude - a lack of world weariness and cynicism that the smart set personifies - the elites accuse those of us in flyover country of possessing a dullard’s sense of how the world really works. In this context, patriotic feelings and gestures are worse than futile, they are dangerous. Outward manifestations of patriotism come perilously close to upsetting the cosmopolitan self-image held by Americans not vouchsafed the blessing of living in a more pastoral setting. Such rash displays of emotion where America is concerned are contrasted with the blasé, more refined attitudes of our betters, who appreciate the splendid opportunity to feel smugly superior to the rubes who show reverence to the flag rather than dream of burning it.

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