Right Wing Nut House

I must confess to having a secret admiration for those protesters who willingly get themselves arrested in order to make a statement of defiance against the war as well as standing up in a very public way for what they believe in.

Some may call them traitors and perhaps, in the strictest interpretation of the law, they may be considered as such. I know that in another time, a less tolerant era, they would face considerable jail time. Even today, those who have dedicated their lives to protesting our stockpile of nuclear weapons have faced jail terms up to 18 years for some serious infractions at top secret missile sites. We don’t have to agree with these people to admire their sense of purpose and steadfast adherence to their own set of principles. In fact, we can and should vigorously condemn their myopia and stupidity. But that shouldn’t lessen our respect for their sincerity.

Others may object to my romanticizing the activities of these people but in truth, they follow in the footsteps of a long line of principled Americans who believed so strongly that their government had lost its way that they were willing to disobey the law and, just as importantly, accept the consequences of their disobedience by going to jail. Civil disobedience like this takes true courage. Perhaps not the same kind of courage exhibited on the battlefield but nevertheless a kind of courage that recognizes the fact that doing what is right will entail a personal cost. For the soldier, it may mean his life. For the anti-war protester, or the civil rights advocate, or the anti-apartheid demonstrator, it may mean the loss of liberty and the shame of prison.

The motivations of those who get themselves arrested these days is certainly a mixed bag. This group, for instance, seems to be made up of some of our scruffier peace-loving, anarchist brethren whose reasons for getting thrown in the slammer may revolve more around the fact that one is able to procure “3 hots and a cot” rather than any grand, anti-globalization crusade. At the same time, there appear to be many citizens who are dead serious about their beliefs and are willing to risk injury and jail time to bring public attention to them.

Selfish or sublime, the motivations of this subset of anti-war activists stands in stark contrast to the lazy, loud, insufferably arrogant rantings of the netnuts who talk a good game but refuse to put their hides on the line when other, more courageous souls run all the risks. These are the same goofs who continue to insist on calling their opponents “chickenhawks” while ironically exhibiting true cowardice by sitting safe and secure behind their little keyboards, ranting and raving about evil George and the Neocon wars of conquest, with the full knowledge that their execrable, rambling screeds are protected by both American tradition and the Constitution of the United States. In short, they have as much chance of going to jail for what they write as I do of winning the Miss America title.

Instead of thousands or tens of thousands of these “activists” (a misnomer if ever there was one unless one were to include watching Keith Olberman as anti-war activism rather than the cruel and inhuman torture it should be defined as), peacefully protesting on a daily basis, getting themselves arrested for blocking traffic in and out of military bases or chaining themselves to the White House fence or gathering in front of the Pentagon, all we get out of them is talk, talk, talk, and more talk.

Hint to netnuts: Activists are supposed to, you know, engage in “activities” not sit at a computer spitting out incoherent rants that few people outside of the digital asylum inhabited by your ideological compatriots ever read. Why not get up off your overly ample posteriors and do something about ending the war rather than simply whining like the spoiled brat, upper middle class sloth brains you appear to be?

Being smug, self-righteous, and cowardly will not end the war in Iraq in your favor (i.e. America losing). Yes, a large majority of Americans hate the way Bush is handling the conflict. And a majority of Americans believe that the war was a mistake. But you’ll never get American troops to come home until you start clogging the jails of this country with protesters who willingly break the law and are equally willing to take the consequences of prison time in order to achieve their goal. About the only inconvenience you’ve suffered in your “activism” is in missing episodes of MTV’s Pimp My Ride. Let me tell you, that just won’t get it done.

This is why you are held in such contempt by most of us. It would be one thing if you backed up your bluster with concrete citizen’s action. But your simpering, sniveling, hateful missives only serve to make you a target of derision and disapprobation - the fate of those who posit empty headed platitudes instead of directly acting on your beliefs.

Last year, I jokingly referred to the community of faux activists who were backing Cindy Sheehan’s camp out in Crawford without actually joining her as “chickendoves:”

You’d think with all the ink spilled and pixels filled with Cindymania that there would be thousands of lefties down there, screaming their rage and anger at Bush for not doing what they want – which is basically roll over and die.

What’s the matter? Don’t have the courage of your convictions? Don’t want to camp out under the broiling west Texas sun and suffer for the cause? Is the issue of war and peace so unimportant to you that you’re not willing to leave your families, you jobs, all the comforts of home and endure the danger of tripping over a camera cable or getting hit by a speeding satellite truck? Are you afraid you’re going to get poked in the eye by a wayward reporter’s pencil? Does the prospect of being in such close proximity to a bunch of tobacco chewing, bible reading, shotgun toting, red state goobers give you the cold sweats?

The answer was apparently yes. Sheehan never had more than a couple of hundred activists join her at the Bush ranch. All the more reason to start asking serious questions about the commitment of people to “peace” when they fail to show the courage of their convictions by standing up and being counted when the roll is called and the tocsin sounds for the kind of action that would mark them as true “warriors for peace.”

Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon.

UPDATE

As if on cue, Darksyde at Daily Kos has a “Memorial Day” post up that criticizes those conservatives and Republicans who never served in the armed forces.

This from a guy whose closest brush with standing up for his convictions that risked anything except contracting Carpel Tunnel Syndrome from sitting on his ass, typing away at his keyboard was watching an episode of Judge Judy.

How much courage does it take to call people names while a war that you purport to hate more than anything (except maybe George Bush) rages on with Americans and Iraqis dying and being maimed without you lifting a finger to oppose it?

Calling political opponents chickenhawks may be emotionally satisfying - if you happen to have the maturity of a 6 year old. But when it comes right down to it, you are all fakes, phonies, and hypocritical cowards who would let George Bush take the United States into dictatorship and who don’t have the courage of their convictions to protest this war en masse in order to put the kind of pressure necessary on the Administration to bring this war to a close.

What kind of a patriot sits behind a keyboard and writes about the country slipping into a dictatorship without getting up off your fat behind and doing something about it - even picking up a gun if necessary? Your words are meaningless. If you are really serious about this dictatorship business, what the hell are you people doing sitting at home?

I guess it’s true. Liberals really don’t love their country as much as conservatives do. Because I don’t care how old I was, if I thought for one second that a President, regardless of party, was trying to establish a dictatorship, I would be carrying out some kind of direct action - even if I was alone. And that’s the difference between liberals and conservatives; the left are intellectual cowards who don’t have the guts to do what is necessary to act on their beliefs.

For a little less emotional response (and one more devastating), please see Mark Coffey’s excellent post quoting Hitchens on the chickenhawk criticism.

**SEE UPDATE BELOW FOR NEW INFORMATION AND APOLOGY**

It’s the old Washington two-step; when under investigation, change the subject.

This may have been the case yesterday as it has been revealed that House Speaker Dennis Hastert is “in the mix” of Congressmen being investigated by the Justice Department for possible illegalities connected with the Jack Abramoff case:

Despite a flat denial from the Department of Justice, federal law enforcement sources tonight said ABC News accurately reported that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is “in the mix” in the FBI investigation of corruption in Congress.

Speaker Hastert said tonight the story was “absolutely untrue” and has demanded ABC News retract its story.

Law enforcement sources told ABC News that convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff has provided information to the FBI about Hastert and a number of other members of Congress that have broadened the scope of the investigation. Sources would not divulge details of the Abramoff’s information.

“You guys wrote the story very carefully but they are not reading it very carefully,” a senior official said.

This news comes on the heels of protests yesterday by Hastert and other House members regarding the legal search carried out by the FBI of Congressman William Jefferson’s Capitol Hill offices in connection with a bribery investigation. The novel legal position taken by our upstanding Representatives is that the law does not apply to them due to the sacrosanct nature of the Capitol building and how the separation of powers doctrine prevents the executive branch from enforcing the law.

One would agree with the House member’s position if we lived in medieval Europe and Jefferson had set up his bribery operation in a church. Their bleats for sanctuary could then be adjudicated by the Pope rather than the courts, which is where this issue will end up. However, the American people may have a little different take on the matter; such as wondering how many freezers in how many offices may, like Jefferson’s home, contain wrapped bundles of of tens of thousands of dollars in $100 bills.

But that’s an entirely different issue than what is happening with Hastert. Apparently, the Congressman engaged in a time honored tradition involving Capitol Hill horse trading with lobbyists:

One focus involves a letter Hastert wrote in 2003 urging the Secretary of the Interior to block an Indian casino that would have competed with tribes represented by Abramoff.

The letter was written within days of a fund-raiser held for Hastert at Abramoff’s restaurant in Washington. Federal campaign records show more than $26,000 was raised at the time from Abramoff and his clients.

Hastert has denied doing anything unlawful and says he has a long history of opposing certain types of Indian casinos.

Hastert is correct. It is perfectly legal to be bribed in this manner. As long as the fig leaf can be maintained that there is no direct evidence of a quid pro quo, the Congressman can make laughable statements like he has a “long history” of opposing certain types of Indian casinos. No doubt true, although it might be interesting to check and see if any of those tribes he opposed raised any money for his political campaigns.

This raises the age old argument about lobbyists and money: Do representatives receive campaign contributions because of their positions on the issues or do they take positions on issues as a result of campaign contributions?

This is not an inconsequential question. Just ask Denny Hastert. The difference may well be the only thing standing between him and jail time. Because if it can be proven that Abramoff raised the $26,000 in exchange for Hastert’s intervention (and how many 5 year olds believe that this was not the case) then what Hastert did varies little from what Duke Cunningham did; trading votes and influence for cash. Whether he got the cash to put in his campaign war chest or for his personal use is beside the point - at least as far as the law is concerned.

If however, Hastert is able to show that indeed, his legislative history on the matter of Indian casinos is consistent with or without Abramoff’s largess, he is probably in the clear. Of course, it doesn’t change the morality of the situation one iota. The practice is widespread according to Common Cause and is extraordinarily difficult to regulate given the expectations of lobbyists and lawmakers in this dance of money and politics.

I can’t imagine that Hastert was stupid enough to run afoul of the law in this case so expect the Speaker to walk away clean. Or, at least as clean as any Congressman can be these days where the confluence of big money and high powered lobbyists join to tempt even the most upstanding of our legislators.

UPDATE

Dan Riehl has a rundown of ABC’s problems with truth telling as well as some facts on what happened when Hastert actually sent the letter to Interior on behalf of Abramoff’s client - in short, nothing. The casino deal Abramoff wanted killed went forward despite the intervention by Hastert and others including Harry Reid.

While Dan is correct in pointing out that this is an old story and that ABC fails to mention this (as well as the involvement of Democrats in sending the letter), this would be non-germane to the question of whether or not Hastert was induced to send the letter in the first place as a result of campaign contributions raised by Abramoff. It is this tit for tat that Justice is looking into, buttressed by new information from Abramoff himself who is now singing as a result of his plea deal with prosecutors.

As I said, however, unless Hastert was incredibly stupid about leaving a paper trail leading directly back to Abramoff’s request, he is probably in the clear.

Michelle Malkin has the link round-up including this from Bob Owen:

Ross provided an initial report with carefully constructed sentences that are phrased in such a way that even the best of minds inferred that Hastert is most likely the target of the investigation.

Bravo, Mr. Ross. Very well played.

Semantics aside, it appears that Ross (who Allah points out “broke” the story last week that the FBI was “tracking” the calls of reporters) has exaggerated an old story and recycled old news for the purposes of garnering cheap headlines.

But what of his source? Is it beyond the realm of imagining that the “leak” occurred at this particular moment to put pressure on Hastert in some way?

Stay tuned…

UPDATE: NEVER MIND…

ABC’s Brian Ross should be fired:

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is demanding a full retraction from ABC NEWS after it led its WORLD NEWS TONIGHT broadcast with a report that claimed he was being investigated for “bribery.”

ABC claimed the Hastert turn was a “major development” and possible “political earthquake.”

The only earthquake should be taking place at ABC News headquarters right about now. And slipping into one of the fissures and disappearing forever should be correspondent Brian Ross, who “broke” this story late yesterday afternoon on the ABC blog The Blotter.

Couple this episode with his wild exaggerations about the FBI leak investigation “tracking” the phone calls of ABC news correspondents and his attempt to tie that information disingenuously into the NSA telephone program (the two were entirely separate and unrelated) and you have what should be grounds for kicking Ross off the ABC blog and perhaps even terminating his employment outright.

I am embarassed to have carried the story - not Hastert’s shenanigans with Abramoff but rather the ABC News contention that Hastert is under investigation at all, in any way, for what was apparently a perfectly legal (yet still immoral in my opinion) practice.

I apologize to Representative Hastert and my readers who should expect better from me.

FINAL UPDATE

This makes me want to vomit:

The widening FBI investigation of congressional corruption is being fueled by two convicted Washington insiders, who federal officials and defense lawyers say are telling the FBI “anything they want to know.”

[snip]

As for Abramoff, federal law enforcement officials say he has spent “hours and hours” with FBI agents detailing his relationships with dozens of members of Congress.

Since our report, the Justice Department has twice denied that Hastert is under investigation or “in the mix.”

Get it? By writing right up front that Abramoff is cooperating with the feds by “telling the FBI anything they want to know,” Ross is letting himself and ABC off the hook by saying “Hey! It’s not our fault that we’re reporting Abramoff’s lies. Our source is bad.”

And they’re still sort of standing by their story, by the way.

For more than 60 years, the United States Armed Forces have made freedom in the western world possible. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard have patrolled, monitored, guarded, and fought and died so that the interests of the United States and the freedoms enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people in Europe and elsewhere are protected.

Anyone who believes any differently has the blessed luxury of never being vouchsafed the opportunity to be proved wrong.

I actually wish sometimes that people like this insufferable lout would have had such an opportunity. For contained in this piece by the Times Online’s Martin Samuel is all the snide, superior, self-important, simpering, self-indulgent CRAP that we’ve been hearing from the European left almost since the sound of Nazi jackboots stopped echoing down the cobblestone streets of Mitteleuropa.

Never recognizing an enemy in the Soviet Union, the European left and their American cousins (who were more than eager to copy their more fashionable relations in denouncing their own country) always had the safest perch on the planet from which to pontificate and lecture America regarding her wayward course. Shielded by both American arms and the tolerance of their own governments for dissent, the titanic irony inherent in the left’s critiques of American foreign policy completely escapes them. They are so full of themselves and their utter, self-congratulatory goodness not to mention being blinded by the light of personal moral truth, that the very thought of even needing protection from anything never enters their minds.

And so, we must shine the light of day on writings from Mr. Samuel and other leftist scum so that their hubris and willful self-delusions can be seen for what they are; birdcage lining.

Writing about the inspiring story of a new warship being built using the steel salvaged from the wreckage of the twin towers, Samuel reminds us why it is sometimes amusing to fantasize about a world with no America where people like this useless git of a man would be exposed to the cruelty and capriciousness of the various nation states who have sought to enslave him and his fellows for almost 100 years:

On August 28, 2002, Mr Pataki’s wish was granted with the result that 24 tons of steel from the stricken buildings was taken to New Orleans and put to use by Northrop Grumman Systems in the construction of an amphibious assault ship that should be ready next year. In this way, the 2,800 souls that perished as an indirect result of an interventionist foreign policy that achieved the exact opposite of its stated aims can be honoured by a vessel built to ensure that this flawed cycle of violence continues. The USS New York will carry 360 soldiers and 700 combat-ready Marines. It puts to sea with the motto: “Never forget.” Except they do. They always do.

No sooner had work begun on the New York when the Secretary of the Navy announced that sister ships were to be built called the USS Arlington, after the Pentagon site that was hit by terrorists, and the USS Somerset, the Pennsylvania county in which Flight 93 came down. The ships would commemorate the attacks, if that is the right word, which it is plainly not. Exactly what is being commemorated anyway? Not the memory of the victims, as nothing is known of how they want to be remembered, and certainly not whether they would wish a warship to be dedicated in their name. Who knows in which direction their anger would be channelled? It could be that some of the dead might have thought over-reliance on warships was their downfall in the first place.

First, as to the “memory of the victims” and what they would think of a ship constructed of pieces from the twin towers, let’s ask a few of the families:

For Patrick Cartier Sr., the ship is an honorable way to remember his son, James Marcel Cartier, who was killed when the South Tower collapsed.

“You’ve got the very soul of the event in that mangled steel, and all of that steel which housed all the people fell along with them and they were all consumed in that terrible fireball and that collapse,” the New York City man said.

Using the steel for the new ship would capture the spiritual essence of those who died in the World Trade Center, Cartier said.

“If you would you use that steel, it would almost be a resurrection,” he said.

New York City firefighter Bill Butler also praised turning the steel from the World Trade Center into a fighting vessel.

“It’s a great testament to the strong will of the people who died that day,” said Butler, who was in the North Tower when it collapsed.

A “resurrection” indeed. One would think that many of the survivors of that horrible day would wish that the remains of their loved ones, which due to the heat and pressure of the collapse have been fused and made one with that very same steel, would deeply appreciate the significance of constructing a ship made to fight a war to make sure that such an event doesn’t happen again.

Not surprisingly, this sentiment escapes the clueless Mr. Samuel and instead, we’re treated to a laughable recitation of leftist canards about American foreign policy:

The respected columnist Roger Cohen, writing in The New York Times, identified just 14 years since 1945 when America had not been at war, in some form or other, either metaphorical (the Cold War, the War on Terror) or literal (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq). Some might think the two states do not compare. Then again, some of us have never tried to form a left-wing government in Chile, appeared before the Senate Permanent Investigations Sub-Committee led by Senator Joe McCarthy or been instructed to form a naked pyramid by a gap-toothed cracker with a semi-automatic weapon and a weird girlfriend.

Some aspects of metaphorical wars turn out very real for certain people. They have a habit of becoming tangible for the rest of us, too. The Cold War became a very hot one in Asia. The War on Terror unleashed the invasion of Iraq. And while USS New York may currently be serving metaphorically as a symbol of American indefatigability and courage, it will one day be engaged in a genuine sense in the propagation of a foreign policy that continues to contribute to recycled violence, from continent to continent, with New York office workers the occasional collateral damage. To turn the rubble they left behind into the machinery for the next big mistake shows an ignorance of cause and effect that explains why some still believe George Bush and Tony Blair were right about the war, but wrong about the peace; as if the two can be separated. Our mistake was that we didn’t have an exit strategy, they say. Makes the entrance a pretty dumb-ass move, then, doesn’t it, Sparky?

Everyone who “still believe[s] George Bush and Tony Blair were right about the war, but wrong about the peace” please raise your hands. Anyone? Buehler? Buehler? And of course, the next canard being “Our mistake was that we didn’t have an exit strategy, they say,” evokes more cricket chirping if one were to ask for a vote on who in their right mind ever said or even contemplated saying such a thing.

That’s not even a strawman that anyone can knock down, it’s an invisible man. And the confidence shown by Samuel that that the “next big mistake” will happen as a result of these other mistakes that were never made because they exist only in his fevered imagination makes for some real cramping of the Cerebral Cortex when trying to ascertain just what the heck he’s trying to say. I guess it gave him a chance to use the phrase “dumb-ass” (hyphented, of course) in the staid and august Times, perhaps even a first.

As for the rest of Samuel’s morally relativistic rant, it is the exact same foofooraw Americans have been listening to from our intellectual superiors in Europe for more than 50 years. There’s a recording somewhere, I’m sure, that these lickspittles listen to several times a week that sings the same tune about America and the “cycle of violence” and Allende (a thug who admired that other leading light of illiberality Fidel Castro), and Joe McCarthy’s mean spirited yet frighteningly spot on anti-Communist crusade that was sung by their older brothers, fathers, and grandfathers. I see that Samuel has added something new to the old song by throwing Abu Ghraib up in our faces. Good thing we don’t delve too deeply into the colonial history of his country. They had some torture parties in India and Africa that made Abu Ghraib look like fraternity hazing.

Samuel belittles the way workers at the shipyard handled the steel from the towers while positing the outlandish notion that a vessel built to replace other, more obsolete vessels, somehow is an indication that our force posture is, by definition, aggressive and hostile:

Since the September 11 attacks, the familiar argument is that the West did not start this war, but is determined to finish it. Yet the USS New York with its 700 combat-ready Marines was already on the drawing board before the World Trade Centre was hit, in all but name. Had the towers not fallen, there would still be a deadly billion-dollar vessel under construction in Louisiana. It would just be called the Saucy Sue and might not be built from the habitats of dead people and imbued with such heavy symbolism that workers in the shipyard are said to have treated its components with religious reverence.

This is why the left in America voted against every major weapons system during the 1980’s. Their reasoning was “We already have a tank. What do we need another one for?” and “Who cares if our bombers were built in the 1950’s?” fails to take into account the obsolescence of systems and hardware. The USS New York is a new kind of ship that is being built to replace an older class of assault craft that will be retired by 2015. The USS New York will be part of a Navy that has seen its surface ships reduced from 489 to 267 since 1991. The Army has been reduced by almost a third. Only the Air Force has maintained its strength, being reduced less than 10% during the same period.

But don’t tell Samuel any of this. It will explode his thesis of American “aggression.”

And what of the yard workers who “imbued” that steel from the twin towers with such significance?

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the ship’s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, “those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,” recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.”

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the “hair on my neck stood up.”

“It had a big meaning to it for all of us,” he said. “They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. We’re going to be back.”

Yes, we silly, stupid Americans, getting all choked up about the fruits of our aggression. Kind of makes one wonder how Samuel would enjoy a ride in the New York with those 700 Marines. Who knows, they might even go to somewhere that he would approve; say, Darfur? Of course, Mr. Samuel doesn’t mention that anytime, anywhere in the world such missions are needed, there is only one nation that can undertake the rescue of the threatened. And it ain’t France.

The idea of turning the twisted, melted steel from the twin towers into a ship of war was one of the most scathingly brilliant ideas our military has had since 9/11. And the tired, familiar complaints from lefties like Samuel notwithstanding, I have no doubt the vast majority of Americans agree.

UPDATE

In Training weighs in with some pithy comments directed toward Mr. Samuel:

Mr. Samuel, go jump in a lake. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be upset over this, he’s just another one of those peace-loving-everybody-hug-and-the-bad-will-all-go-away guys. I know this. Really I do.

And then this - an interesting trade, no?

OK, Martin, let’s make a deal. We won’t use steel from the WTC to construct warships. We’ll use them for cages at secret prisons.

Hee!

And Perry de Havilland makes several excellent points in his brilliantly understated way:

I love it when ’sophisticated’ and ‘nuanced’ Brits and Europeans lecture Americans about history, given the millions and millions of corpses littered across Europe within living memory. Attacks by people from abroad are caused by interventionist foreign policies, clever Mr. Samuel tells us, with his wise Old World perspectives, which of course explains how places like Poland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Czechoslovakia etc. managed to sit out World War II in peace by minding their own business.

Moreover whilst nothing is guaranteed in this life, as close to certainty as you may ever come is when someone says “While not excusing wicked acts committed by terrorists…” they are about to do exactly that.

I never thought in a million years I would see it.

In the telephone survey of 1200 individuals, just 47% agreed that “the 9/11 attacks were thoroughly investigated and that any speculation about US government involvement is nonsense.” Almost as many, 45%, indicated they were more likely to agree “that so many unanswered questions about 9/11 remain that Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success.”

Un. Be, Lievable.

This is a direct, purposeful consequence of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Or let’s just call it what it really is: Hatred. Unreasoning, stupid, blind, insane hatred for George Bush and the people who support him.

It’s not difficult to see what happens when the fringe politics of hate goes mainstream. The conspiracy theories, the dark forces that people imagine are controlling their lives (so much easier to blame for life’s failures and disappointments), the Men in Black, the aliens, corporate plots, the Freemasons, and yes, The Davinci Code - these are no longer relegated to the the dark recesses of people’s minds. The beasts have been loosed and they now run amok, wreaking havoc wherever there’s an internet connection and a chat room.

Egged on by supposedly mainstream liberal websites like Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and other blogs associated with the left, the dark hints and barely concealed innuendo that He knew…He knew…He wanted it to happen… have found an eager audience in the population at large. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is a de-emphasis during the last 25 years in secondary education of subjects that develop critical thinking skills. And Jeff Goldstein could explain better than I the consequences of the battles between intentionalists and their enemies, the post modernists. But more than anything, it is a loss of faith.

The politics of hate has enabled the worst in us to get the better of us. Believing your political opponent capable of such monstrous evil that presupposes thousands of dead Americans bespeaks a sickness in thought and reason for which there is no cure. Not even giving them what they desire more than anything - power - will assuage the psychic pain that causes them to descend into such fits of paranoia and fantasy. If given the opportunity, they would see enemies behind every tree and plotters under every bed.

The politics of paranoia afflicts both right and left for sure. But it has been fully mainstreamed by liberals, wrapped up and sold in slick, well written brochures and talked up in the leftist salons of both Hollywood and New York. Celebrities casually mention their belief in cockamamie theories and are inserted into the 24 hour news cycle so that their inane, idiotic comments are repeated ad nauseum every news update on the half hour. Every time a member of the Glitz and Glitter crowd whose intellectual achievements may include being able to count the number of times they grab their crotch while performing on stage, mouth some ridiculous anti-Bush sentiment, an army of worshipful reporters and cynical paparazzi report and repeat their incoherent ramblings as “news.”

And ordinary people who don’t have the time nor inclination to read the 9/11 Commission report or Popular Mechanics or the dozens and dozens of scientific, peer reviewed articles in the most respected professional journals in the world that fully, completely, and totally debunk most conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks find it easier and more exciting to believe in make believe rather than the cold, hard truth.

After all, believing in conspiracy theories is fun! You’re “in the know.” You know something that others don’t. It makes you feel important. And it gives you a feeling of belonging - belonging to a group of people more noble, more important, than the rest of us simple, drab, hum drum humans.

Except this sort of thing isn’t supposed to happen in educated, western populations. Daniel Pipes did a scholarly study of the history of conspiracy and found that the idea had been declining in western countries over the last 50 years until recently. A resurgence occurred with the Clinton hating of the far right a decade ago as one conspiracy theory after another was advanced against the President, none of which achieved anything close to mainstream acceptance by conservatives.

But when you have a Congressman of the United States - Cynthia McKinney - accusing the President of the United States of having advance knowledge of the attacks on 9/11, you’re not going to get much more mainstream than that.

What enables all of this is hatred of the President. And what is truly frightening is that there are those who don’t hate the President as much as they hate the United States of America and are using the hatred of the conspiracists to advance their agenda.

It might be interesting for some enterprising blogger or reporter to look into the funding for this group, 9/11 Truth.Org. The Zogby poll referenced above was commissioned by this group in conjunction with a conspiracy spectacular they are putting on in Chicago in early June. What is enormously worrying about this “movement” is that the facts don’t matter one iota. You can talk until your blue in the face about the study done by the American Society of Civil Engineers about why the World Trade Center towers fell and it simply goes in one ear and out the other. They will insist, despite the fact that there is not one piece of evidence to support it, that the towers were brought down by a demolition crew.

And with this kind of fevered, religious belief at work, someone could very easily turn such a movement into a crusade. Such shows of emotionalism are not healthy for supposedly rational societies and the leaders they throw up are not usually candidates for the Democracy Hall of Fame.

If this irrational hatred has led us to this point, what will it be like 2 years from now? And if the left were to win back power, would we on the right descend to that level of rage and stupidity? Is it ever going to be possible to find our way back to sanity in our politics and political discourse?

Perhaps part of the answer is at the conspiracists “education and strategy session” coming up in a couple of weeks. I plan on attending this conference and report on what I find there. Stay tuned.

Like his namesake from the Friday the 13th horror films, Jason Leopold never seems to tire of goring us with ever more outrageous claims of insider knowledge regarding the impending indictment of Karl Rove.

Also like the slasher from the teen horror movies, Leopold has upped the body count by reporting that Rove is cooperating with Fitzy’s effort to take down Vice President Cheney. Since most of those same observers who believe Rove will be indicted any day also believe that Cheney isn’t even a target of the Special Prosecutor, one wonders what our Jason is smoking and may I please have some.

But the hell of it is, since an indictment of Rove seems imminent, we will be forced to sit and listen while Leopold crows like a morning cock about his “scoop” - despite the fact that his prediction of when Fitzmas actually arrived was so off base that only dyed-in-the-wool Leopoldists will continue to take this charlatan seriously as a journalist.

The sane left has as much skepticism about Jason and his fantasies as anyone on the right. Kevin Drum:

I, of course, have no way to judge the truth of either side, although it continues to be strange that Leopold claims to have multiple sources on this story and no other media outlet has even one. In any case, there’s damn little wiggle room left here. One side or the other is wrong on a truly spectacular scale and is now set up for an implosion of credibility on a galactic scale. Stay tuned.

Steve Benen:

The problem here isn’t about aggressive reporting that gets “too far out in front of the news-cycle”; the problem is reporting information that appears to be false. Either the Leopold article on Rove’s indictment was true or not. Ash’s “partial apology” doesn’t say either way.

Truthout’s Marc Ash (who Howard Kurtz informs us is a former ad man and fashion photog) is sticking by Leopold and is now simply calling Rove attorney Robert Luskin’s categorical denials about everything in the Leopold article a pack of lies. One would think that this ups the stakes for Truthout if it turns out Rove isn’t indicted until next month but don’t worry. The fact of the matter is that Truthout could print any number of lies, exaggerations, or falsehoods and still be considered a major news outlet on the left. That’s because their heart is in the right place on this and other issues. Why bother with the truth when it’s the sentiment of speaking truth to power that counts. If the story is false, it’s not because Jason Leopold is a serial liar and fabricator, it’s because the MSM has the story and won’t go with it because they are “afraid” of the White House.

Contrast this attitude on the left with the reaction on the right to the Ben Domenech plagiarism scandal, when there was unusual unanimity of opinion regarding the blogger’s resignation. No such disapprobation will fall on our Jason, despite this summary of his record from Mr. Kurtz:

Leopold acknowledges in a new book, “News Junkie,” that he is a past liar, convicted felon and former alcoholic and cocaine addict. An earlier version of the book was canceled by publisher Rowman & Littlefield last year.

Salon retracted a 2002 piece by Leopold involving Thomas White, then secretary of the Army. The online magazine apologized, saying it had been unable to confirm the authenticity of an e-mail that Leopold attributed to White. Leopold, a onetime reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Dow Jones, accused the online magazine of being “wimpy” and caving to pressure.

“Jason is a character, but he’s been straight with me and I’ve checked him out very carefully,” Ash says.

One familiar with how sincere drug addicts can sound about “turning their life around” will immediately recognize Mr. Ash’s mistake; trusting Jason Leopold that he’s telling the truth is like trusting a crack head not to steal your car the minute your back is turned. As much as you care for the fellow, its better not to enable him by leading him into temptation.

I like the Commissar’s take on a final outcome here:

Whatever one’s politics, this sure is interesting. I can’t ever recall such a potentially explosive story being presented in two wholly contradictory versions for so long. The Lefties must be freaking out. Popcorn, anyone?

I prefer plain but will eat low fat buttered in a pinch.

UPDATE

Byron York:

Even if Rove were indicted—and no one outside Fitzgerald’s office can say with any confidence whether or not that will happen—everything that has been reported in this latest round of theorizing would still be wrong. And if in the end Rove is not indicted, there will undoubtedly be confidently worded reports that he was saved only by some sort of corrupt dealing. What this latest round of Internet theorizing shows is that there are people who have a deep emotional investment in the belief that Rove is a criminal, and that those people will suspend their critical faculties to accept almost any scenario that supports their belief. Nothing that happens—or doesn’t happen—will change that.

Bill Ardolino waxes cynical:

My money is on further, catastrophic shaming of Leopold. Or at least what would count as “catastrophic shaming,” if indeed there were any real consequences in Blog World …

I have to join Ardolino in his cynicism. Witness the Debbie Schlussel imbroglio where her hate filled rants against Jill Carroll even after it was revealed the journalist’s statements were made under duress only served to increase her popularity.

Go figure…

I remember well the arguments over whether or not to give the franchise to 18 year olds back in 1971. I was to turn 18 in 1972 and at the time, many sober minded people actually believed that passage and ratification of the amendment would kill Richard Nixon’s chances for re-election. It didn’t, of course. To this day, 18-21 year olds are the least participatory age group in American democracy. But at the height of the Viet Nam war, the powerful slogan used by pro-26th amendment groups - “If they’re old enough to fight, they’re old enough to vote” - won the day and the amendment was ratified in almost record time.

Anti-amendment forces made the losing argument that 18 year olds were too intellectually unsophisticated to vote. The House Judiciary Committee Chairman at the time:

Representative Emmanuel Cellar, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, a staunch opponent of the proposal who had routinely killed the measure in committee. Representative Cellar thought that “Young people are idealists. They tend to see things as black and white. That makes it easy to manipulate them.” Proponents of lowering the voting age feared that Representative Cellar would scuttle the legislation once again.

Cellar was wrong. Young people should not be denied the vote - especially when they aren’t the only age group who are idealists and “tend to see things in black and white.” Age has nothing to do with an inability to think and act like an adult. Just look at the self-destructive conservative wing of the Republican party today.

Rather than self destructive, perhaps we should refer to them as the Spoiled Brat wing of the Republican party. In a shocking exhibition of immaturity and intellectual shallowness, not to mention a cavalier attitude toward the safety and security of the United States, some conservatives have begun to throw the mother of all tantrums 6 months prior to the election because, quite simply, they are not getting their way. They are threatening to “punish” Republicans by, one supposes, staying at home on election day and allowing the Democrats a clear path to majority status.

If conservatives were to abandon the party and vote Democratic to effect that changeover, I could countenance their choice as one made with the full, honest realization that they were voting to promote a liberal agenda along with a worldview that many of us believe would threaten the safety and security of the United States. In a democracy, this is a legitimate way to “punish” your party of choice and “send a message” that they must change in order to win back your loyalty.

But the Spoiled Brat Conservatives are contemplating no such thing. Using the withholding of their vote as an unconscionable political ploy, they seek to affect a Democratic takeover literally by default. They are going to hand the country over to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi not because they agree with them but because they value their own, selfish, petty agenda over the good of the nation.

It is one thing to become frustrated with the personalities and even the politics of lawmakers who make compromises in order that the business of the nation be carried out with a modicum of orderliness and dispatch. It is quite another to demand that the politicians of one’s party commit political suicide just to satisfy the legislative cravings of a minority. The fact of the matter is, we aren’t called “the base” for nothing. In order to win an election, even in a relatively safe district, a politician needs the votes of not only of us bedrock conservatives but also moderate conservatives and independents.

An argument can be made that Republicans have pissed off any number of these voters, some of whom will almost certainly be voting Democratic in November. But to posit the notion that the alternative is better in the short or, as some have suggested, in the long term is ludicrous. Counting votes two years out is an exercise in sophistry and worse, a demonstration of monumental stupidity. If we don’t know which events may or may not transpire in the next six months that will affect this election, how in God’s name can you make the preposterous assumption that an outcome more than two years away can even be guessed at?

In truth, the anger shared by all of us over immigration, spending, the pork barrel, and even issues of competence regarding the President pale in comparison to the anger we would all feel if the Democrats enacted parts of their agenda.

Have problems with the President’s immigration plan? Let’s act like 2 year olds being denied their way and watch as the Democrats eviscerate the President’s admittedly inadequate and modest proposals for enforcement and embrace changes that will send you to the medicine cabinet for your high blood pressure medication.

Don’t think that taxes have been cut enough? Sit in your recliner eating nachos on election day, gloating at how you “showed” those Republicans, and then watch as the Democrats make Sweden look like a tax haven.

Too much spending for your delicate sensibilities? Try to imagine the various social engineering schemes and legislative sops Democrats have ready to drop into the hopper in January of 2007. Along with the tax increases (which we all know will be spent on the pet projects of liberals and not used to reduce the deficit), how do taking steps toward socialized medicine, “reform” of the prescription drug bill, and other liberal big government spending initiatives sound to you?

Oh, and let’s not forget Iraq and the War on Terror. But then, what’s the security and safety of the United States of America mean when stacked against the foot stomping, ill natured “lesson” you plan to teach the GOP?

Let me make it clear that I’m not trying to defend the indefensible here but rather make the point that elections are about choices. That’s all they are. They are not about “sending messages” or “punishing” someone. You can tell yourself that until you’re blue in the face but that won’t make it so. By staying at home, you are making a choice just as surely as if you pull the lever in the voting booth for the Democrats. There is absolutely nothing intellectually sophisticated about withholding your vote for “strategic” reasons. It is, in fact, simple minded to have faith that you can effect change by not participating in the process.

And what of the congressional districts lost if Republicans go down to defeat in November? It will be no simple matter to win them back, I assure you. The power of incumbency is such that even in districts that lean heavily Republican, a clever Democratic politician can twist and squirm his way to acceptance. And, of course, being fanatically devoted to constituent services in the district always goes a long way to cementing a politicians political prospects. It is chimerical to believe that the GOP can win back lost districts simply by putting up a “true” conservative to run against a Democrat. History teaches us an opposite lesson.

We are at war. The party you are hoping comes to power uses quotation marks when talking and writing about the conflict we are in, as if it only exists in the minds of George Bush and a few misguided Republicans. How serious do you believe the Democrats will be about national security? Are you willing to take the chance of finding out?

And for those conservatives who continuously point to Ronald Reagan’s Administration as a model of conservative governance, I would suggest you read a history of that period so that you can be disabused of such fairy tales. Reagan’s term in office was marked by compromise and practicality, so much so that the President’s hyper-conservative Interior Secretary James Watt famously wailed at one point “Let Reagan be Reagan” - as if the Gipper could be anything else. I distinctly recall Richard Viguerie, whose OpEd in the Washington Post yesterday must set some kind of standard for petulant huffiness, doing a little wailing himself back then about the men around the President preventing RR from acting like a “true” conservative.

This ain’t the 1980’s. Reagan’s success during that period came about as a result of his ability to pull conservative southern Democrats along with him on a few big ticket items like taxes, defense spending, and some reform measures. This kind of bi-partisanship is not vouchsafed his successor as the liberals have purged the apostates from the south and now stand united, almost in lockstep against President Bush. This has made the President’s ability to maneuver, to wheel and deal on legislation in order to affect an outcome that would satisfy “the base” problematic indeed. With so few Democrats willing to peel off and support the President on any number of issues, in order to get anything done at all, Bush has had to govern closer to the middle - as Bill Clinton found out following the election of 1994.

So go ahead and throw your tantrum by not voting on election day. But do so realizing the consequences to the country and not just your ego or your political sensibilities. Working to change the party is hard work and must be done at the grass roots level. How much street cred are “real” conservatives going to have with party loyalists - the people who largely make up the grass roots - if the Democrats win in November and the blame clearly falls on you?

I personally plan on voting, seeing the act of casting my ballot as the only mature, responsible way to express my choice in our representative democracy. In my humble opinion, not doing so would be tantamount to placing your own personal interests over the interests of the country. And in a time of war, I find that enormously troubling.

UPDATE

Bravo to Bruce Kessler for expressing many of the same sentiments I did above, although he seems a little too sanguine about the prospect of forming an “independent conservative force” that would work to put forward a conservative agenda and conservative candidates. I would say that such a force already exists in spades. You can’t shake a stick in Washington without hitting a conservative think tank or presure group. That said, Bruce makes several excellent points in his must read post.

And Ed Morrissey also thinks like me, that conservatives are guilty of “unrealistic expectations.” Ed, however, is more polite and accomodating than I am, he being much more gentlemanly about his criticism of the Pouting Thomas Republicans.

I would like to congratulate Representative William Jefferson (D-LA) for his outstanding contribution to the Democratic party’s grand strategy to unseat the Republicans in the November elections. Singlehandedly, the New Orleans Democrat has simplified the Dems message enormously, allowing them to drop one of their major selling points - the corruption of Republicans - so that they can concentrate on their other equally fallacious talking points: “We’re not Republicans,” and “Did I mention we’re not Republicans?”

As for Jefferson, you may recall the last time the Louisiana Democrat was in the news. He shanghaied some National Guard troops who were in the process of trying to bring order to New Orleans and ordered them to take him to his house so that he could gather a few possessions.

“I did not seek the use of military assets to help me get around my city,” Jefferson told ABC News. “There was shooting going on. There was sniping going on. They thought I should be escorted by some military guards, both to the convention center, the Superdome and uptown.”

The water reached to the third step of Jefferson’s house, a military source familiar with the incident told ABC News, and the vehicle pulled up onto Jefferson’s front lawn so he wouldn’t have to walk in the water. Jefferson went into the house alone, the source says, while the soldiers waited on the porch for about an hour.

Finally, according to the source, Jefferson emerged with a laptop computer, three suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator, which the enlisted men loaded up into the truck.

Kind of makes you wonder what was in those suitcases after reading this from the AP about how Congressman Jefferson has been caught on tape with his hand in the cookie jar:

As for the $100,000, the government says Jefferson got the money in a leather briefcase last July 30 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington. The plan was for the lawmaker to use the cash to bribe a high-ranking Nigerian official _ the name is blacked out in the court document _ to ensure the success of a business deal in that country, the affidavit said.

All but $10,000 was recovered on Aug. 3 when the FBI searched Jefferson’s home in Washington. The money was stuffed in his freezer, wrapped in $10,000 packs and concealed in food containers and aluminum foil.

Needless to say, the Democrats are probably going to back into their majority as the Republicans in Congress continue to prove their stupidity. In fact, if I were a Democrat I would send Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, and most of the high profile party members who appear regularly on national television some super glue so that they don’t forget to keep their mouths shut. Every time one of those worthies opens their yap they cost their party 50,000 votes.

I frankly don’t know what the answer is to political corruption. The problem isn’t that its more prevalent today than it used to be. I’m not sure that’s the case. It’s the sheer brazenness of it. Representative Cunningham and his “menu” of bribes. Abramhoff and his shameless hustling, legally bribing Congressmen with trips, meals, golf outings, and other perks. It’s almost as if these people are daring someone to catch them stealing money. It’s pathetic.

Public financing is not the answer although I’m terrified that since it’s the easy way, that’s what we’ll end up with. Public financing will make it even more difficult for a challenger to unseat an incumbent.

Term limits are unconstitutional. And if they’re not, they should be. We already have term limits - it’s called election day. I find it repulsive that people are willing to retire someone else’s Congressman and not take responsibility for their own. And if you think congressional staffs have too much power now, just wait until they get to break in some new guy every 6 or 8 years. It is a congressman’s staff, by the way, that most often meets with lobbyists and representatives of pressure groups. And there’s no law against “bribing” them (with obvious caveats) to put in a good word for some lobbyist’s pet project or bill.

The problem is incumbency, yes - but term limits are not the way to fix it. The fix is making the races more competitive.

These days, the political parties have become so adept at redrawing congressional districts that they can draw a district that makes it nearly impossible to defeat the incumbents - Democrat or Republican. And while their redistricting maps must pass certain legal tests to make sure they don’t dilute the black or hispanic vote, there usually is no reason to try and game the system that way.

This is because we Americans are pretty transparent about our voting preferences. You might be surprised to find out that Republicans tend to gather in the same neighborhoods, towns, and zip codes as do Democrats. The demographers who work with the parties to draw the lines have at their disposal literally thousands of pertinent statistics courtesy of the US Census Bureau. Hyper accurate surveys of household income, religion, race, education level, combined with the historical results precinct by precinct including turnout percentage, party affiliation (in states where it is listed), percent of voters registered, and other telling information are all entered into the matrix and after the computer chews on it a while, out comes your map, guaranteeing 92% of incumbents will win re-election.

We can’t go back to “at large” elections. The Supreme Court ruled those unconstitutional because they discriminated against minority representation. But that was back in the 1960’s and 1970’s when a black man in the south couldn’t get elected dog catcher if a majority of whites were voting. Yesterday, we saw Mayor Ray Nagin get re-elected largely as a result of white voters abandoning someone of their own race to vote for a black man. For someone who remembers the Freedom Riders, this truly is remarkable (even though I think Nagin is an incompetent boob.)

Have we come far enough in our development as a nation to attempt some kind of electoral reform that would allow generally for at-large elections of Congressmen? I personally think that this could be part of an answer along with computer programs drawing Congressional districts based solely on population disbursement. Politicians wouldn’t like it which is why it would take a grass roots movement of unusual size and energy to pull it off.

One thing is for sure. Unless Congress is able to start policing itself, the people will do it for them.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

The hearings to confirm General Michael Hayden as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency have had some unintentional effects. The culpability of Congress in what almost all observers agree is the dysfunctional nature of our intelligence community is on view. It is evident that Congressional oversight has grown far beyond its original charge of “reining in” the CIA and has become instead a drag on our intelligence community’s ability to carry out its task of protecting the country from another terrorist attack.

The cure has become the new disease.

Prior to the 1970’s, intelligence gathering was the exclusive responsibility of the executive branch of government. Presidents from Washington to Nixon enjoyed an almost unlimited ability to use intelligence assets as they saw fit. Between 1947 when the CIA was established and 1976, there was an informal arrangement between some members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and the CIA where a few members were kept loosely informed of some covert operations as well as joint consultation on some budgetary matters. Institutionally, the shortcomings of this haphazard arrangement became clear during the course of the Church and Pike Committee hearings that explored many of the CIA’s more questionable operations including some blatantly illegal activities directed against domesetic targets.

The revelations resulted in the first real attempts at Congressional oversight of intelligence activities in American history. Beginning with the Hughes-Ryan Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 which prohibited covert operations unless there was a “finding” by the President that the operation was necessary and important to the national security and that such a finding be shared with the appropriate committees in Congress, lawmakers attempted to control the CIA’s ability to do its job by using its perogative as holder of the purse strings. When presented with a CIA plan in 1975 to covertly assist Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA faction in the Angolan civil war against the Cuban backed government, lawmakers refused to fund the program due to fears that Angola would become another Viet Nam.

When the intelligence committees of the House and Senate were created in 1976, they initially fought for turf with other, more established committees like Armed Services and Foreign Affairs. What finally emerged from this internal fracas were two pieces of legislation that have had a direct bearing on how the Bush Administration has gone about the business of protecting American citizens from another terrorist attack while leading to controversey and now confrontation with Congress over who controls our intelligence agencies.

The first of those laws, the Foreign Inteligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires that a court order be obtained from a special court established by the Act for all electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes within the United States, has been in the news as a result of the President’s decision to by pass the FISA court while ordering the National Security Agency to collect data on overseas calls that either originate or terminate in America. The question of whether or not the program is legal has been addressed on these pages by my good friend Clarice Feldman . However, the legality of the program takes a back seat to the oversight issues involved. As Clarice points out in her piece:

In 2002 both the New York Times and Newsweek reported that cumbersome legalities related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 prevented crucial dots from being connected, which could have stopped the 9/11 plot. Federal Judge Royce Lamberth’s criticisms and investigation of the FBI official charged under FISA with preparing FISA warrant requests had essentially shut down the process in the critical pre 9/11 period. This, in fact, was the reason why the agency had not sought a warrant to view the contents of Moussaoui’s computer, a search which as we now know might have prevented 9/11. Indeed, the Joint Senate and House Intelligence Committee report detailed just that.

In the wake of 9/11 it is clear that President Bush decided to “stretch the envelope” of executive privileges relating to intelligence activities as they impact on both judicial and congresisional oversight. He has done so, basing his decisions on powers granted to him by the Constitution in his role as Commander in Chief.

The second piece of legislation whose strictures the President has come in conflict with is the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 which requires the President to notify members of both the House and Senate intelligence committees of all “intelligence activities.” This requirement is waived when the President determines that informing the entire committees of covert actions would reveal intelligence “sources and methods.” In this case, the President is required to inform what is known as the “Gang of Eight” that includes the House and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairmen and Vice Chairmen as well as the Majority and Minority Leaders of both Houses of Congress. The President is also authorized to inform any other legislator he deems fit to receive the information.

Where the President has come a cropper of Congress with the NSA program is in the notification department. Some lawmakers are complaining that they were kept “out of the loop” and therefore unable to discharge their oversight responsibilities. House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Jane Harmon complained that briefings on the program should have been disseminated to the entire Committees of both the House and the Senate. Just yesterday, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) observed:

“The notification to a very limited group — they could do nothing much with that information, essentially — is not the kind of checks and balances that I think our founding fathers had in mind.”

Snowe’s comment reveals problems that has plagued congressional intelligence oversight from its inception; that politics and personalities have played a disasterous role in emasculating our intelligence collection efforts while making the agencies themselves more timid and even more political.

This has been borne out by the way that Congress has shaped the way our government gathers intelligence in the last 30 years. While the excesses of the CIA revealed by the Church Committee led to some much needed reforms within the agencies themselves, Congress essentially mandated that the CIA drastically reduce its human intelligence capability and start relying more on the marvelous technological tools available to it through the use of spy satellites. The reasons are explained by Stephen F. Knott, author of Secret and Santioned: Covert Operations and the American Presidency:

The damage done to the CIA by this congressional oversight regime is quite extensive. The committees increased the number of CIA officials subject to Senate confirmation, condemned the agency for its contacts with unscrupulous characters, prohibited any further contact with these bad characters, insisted that the United States not engage or assist in any coup which may harm a foreign leader, and overwhelmed the agency with interminable requests for briefings (some 600 alone in 1996). The committees exercised line by line authority over the CIA’s budget and established an Inspector General’s office within the agency, requiring this official to share his information with them, causing the agency to refrain from operations with the slightest potential for controversy. The CIA was also a victim of the renowned congressional practice of pork barrel politics. The intelligence committees forced the agency to accept high priced technology that just happened to be manufactured in a committee member’s district.

On some occasions, members of Congress threatened to leak information in order to derail covert operations they found personally repugnant. Leaks are a recurring problem, as some member of Congress, or some staff member, demonstrated in the aftermath of the September 11th attack. President Bush’s criticism of members of Congress was fully justified, despite the protests from Capitol Hill. Leaks have occurred repeatedly since the mid-1970s, and in very few cases has the offending party been disciplined. One of the Founding Fathers of the new oversight regime, former Representative Leo Ryan, held that leaks were an important tool in checking the “secret government.”

Lost in all of this politiking was assisting the intelligence community in doing its job. It’s clear that President Bush and Congress apparently disagree on what the role of intelligence oversight should be. While the executive sees oversight as a simple matter of informing Congress of activities mandated by statute, lawmakers want virtual veto power over these same activities. And this collision becomes overheated especially when secret activities such as the NSA intercept program are leaked to the press. Congress plays the injured party of not being “informed” while the President has followed the letter of the law and briefed the appropriate members. Meanwhile, the President’s opponents can accuse the Administration of carrying on a program with “insufficient oversight” despite the fact that Bush has discharged his responsibilities in this regard.

In the end, it comes down to who controls the intelligence apparatus of the United States government. This has led to politicizing the agency as high level appointees owe their allegiance to the executive while the careerists are closer to Congress. Professor Knotts comments on the consequences:

Ultimately, the CIA’s ineffectiveness stems from the fact that it is, as its former Director Robert Gates observed, “in a remarkable position, involuntarily poised nearly equidistant between the executive and legislative branches.” In becoming a partner (if not outright owner) of the CIA, Congress has put itself in the uncomfortable position of having to approve of objectionable measures. This most democratic branch of government is simply not designed to make the tough and often distasteful decisions that are required of nations competing in the international arena.

He might have added that when measures to safeguard domestic security are made public, “the most democratic branch of government” sways in the winds of domestic opinion and as a result is unable to come to grips with their legitimate oversight responsibilities.

To some responsible civil liberties absolutists as well as irresponsible political opportunists, The President’s actions in defending our security have bordered on the criminal and are designed to defeat the purposes of oversight in general. To others, the President is simply redressing a balance that for 30 years has favored the legislative branch of government and impacted negatively on the ability of the executive to carry out its duties to use our intelligence agencies to protect American citizens.

It is an interesting debate with good arguments to be made by both sides. Ultimately, where one comes down on the issue rests on the question of trust. Do you trust George Bush or any President to use the awesome power of his office in a constitutional and legal manner?

On such a question, the fate of the nation may ride.

Reading this post at Attywood about how the New York Times received a tip in July of 2001 that al Qaeda was planning something big - probably within the United States and then failed to publish anything on it, a great and basic truth came to me; that the unreasoning hatred of anything and everything about Bush will continue long after he is gone and regardless of who succeeds him in the White House.

Attywood is posting about a Raw Story piece which reports that Judy Miller and the New York Times had a specific warning from a “high Administration official” about a terrorist attack within the United States:

Because just now, some 56 months after the fact, we are learning that both Judy Miller and her editors at the New York Times had information that foretold the 9/11 terror attacks and elected not to publish it. Reading the new story carefully, it does seem that a decision to publish the article in the summer of 2001 was not a “slam dunk,’ that there were legitimate questions whether Miller’s tip was enough to hang a story on. But the episode does raise a couple of other serious questions — surely about the pre-attack ineptitude of the Bush White House, but also over the Times’ handling of this explosive info both before and after 9/11.

The money graphs from Raw Story makes the devastating charge (again) that the Bush Administration should have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks with the twist that the New York Times and Judy Miller should have gone with the story:

Now, in an exclusive interview, [Judy] Miller reveals how the attack on the Cole spurred her reporting on Al Qaida and led her, in July 2001, to a still-anonymous top-level White House source, who shared top-secret NSA signals intelligence (SIGINT) concerning an even bigger impending Al Qaida attack, perhaps to be visited on the continental United States.

Ultimately, Miller never wrote that story either. But two months later — on Sept. 11 — Miller and her editor at the Times, Stephen Engelberg, both remembered and regretted the story they “didn’t do.”

“But I did manage to have a conversation with a source that weekend,” [Miller said]. “The person told me that there was some concern about an intercept that had been picked up. The incident that had gotten everyone’s attention was a conversation between two members of Al Qaida. And they had been talking to one another, supposedly expressing disappointment that the United States had not chosen to retaliate more seriously against what had happened to the Cole. And one Al Qaida operative was overheard saying to the other, ‘Don’t worry; we’re planning something so big now that the U.S. will have to respond.’

“And I was obviously floored by that information. I thought it was a very good story: (1) the source was impeccable; (2) the information was specific, tying Al Qaida operatives to, at least, knowledge of the attack on the Cole; and (3) they were warning that something big was coming, to which the United States would have to respond. This struck me as a major page one-potential story.

Whether the Times should have gone with the story is certainly open to question as Attywood points out. But the clear aspersions cast once again on the Administration for its failure to “act” on intelligence prior to 9/11 is brought up by Attywood himself:

This has been said so many time before, so we won’t belabor the point, but how much more evidence do people need that the Bush White House had plenty of information about the pending 9/11 attacks, and failed to take the threat seriously? The relatively high marks that Bush gets on terrorism issues, even today, just aren’t supported by the facts.

First of all, it is ridiculous and dishonest to ask the question “how much more evidence” do people need to tell them the Administration was culpable for not doing anything about warnings pre-9/11. There is nothing new regarding this evidence as it has already been brought out and used as a club to bludgeon the Administration already. Here’s the 9/11 Commission on this particular warning:

The headline of a June 30 briefing to top officials was stark: “Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks.” The report stated that Bin Ladin operatives expected near-term attacks to have dramatic consequences of catastrophic proportions. That same day, Saudi Arabia declared its highest level of terror alert. Despite evidence of delays possibly caused by heightened U.S. security, the planning for attacks was continuing.

Now a little perspective. Also from the Commission report:

On June 28, Clarke wrote Rice that the pattern of al Qaeda activity indicating attack planning over the past six weeks “had reached a crescendo.” “A series of new reports continue to convince me and analysts at State, CIA, DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency], and NSA that a major terrorist attack or series of attacks is likely in July,” he noted. One al Qaeda intelligence report warned that something “very, very, very, very” big was about to happen, and most of Bin Ladin’s network was reportedly anticipating the attack. In late June, the CIA ordered all its station chiefs to share information on al Qaeda with their host governments and to push for immediate disruptions of cells.

And this, a few weeks later in the summer of 2001:

Tenet told us that in his world “the system was blinking red.” By late July, Tenet said, it could not “get any worse.” Not everyone was convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might just be deception. On June 30, the SEIB (Senior Executive Intelligence Brief) contained an article titled “Bin Ladin Threats Are Real.” Yet Hadley told Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questioned the reporting. Perhaps Bin Ladin was trying to study U.S. reactions. Tenet replied that he had already addressed the Defense Department’s questions on this point; the reporting was convincing. To give a sense of his anxiety at the time, one senior official in the Counterterrorist Center told us that he and a colleague were considering resigning in order to go public with their concerns.

These and other hints, glimmers, false leads, and outright wrong guesses were being explored, debated, examined, and analyzed in the 6 weeks prior to 9/11. What the Commission showed (and what they concluded) was that in many ways, the Administration was suffering from too much information - that much of it was contradictory, vague, non-specific, and like the warning that an attack would take place in July, ultimately wrong.

But we’ve been over and over this ground before. Everything that could be cherry picked from this report has been cherry picked. But for Attywood and the rest of the Bush deranged mouthfoamers, that’s just not good enough. Now we must be exposed to more “evidence” (even though there is absolutely nothing new about this) that the incompetents in the Administration should have stopped 9/11.

Perhaps the next most studied attack on America in our history is the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The similarities are eerie. In the fall of 1941, the American government was also receiving intelligence of an impending attack. Where and when it would occur was fiercely debated. Thanks to an advantage not vouchsafed our government vis a vis al Qaeda - the cracking of the Japanese diplomatic code (MAGIC) - we had a good idea of what the Japanese government was thinking prior to the attack. Some signs pointed to an attack on the Philippines. There were even indications of an attack on the Aleutians. But Pearl Harbor? The Navy concluded that given the number of ships and planes protecting the harbor, the Japanese could never mount a successful assault.

Despite numerous warnings and even the specific information about the date and approximate time of the attack being discovered thanks to the MAGIC intercepts, the Japanese delivered a crippling blow to the fleet at anchor.

Roosevelt immediately covered up the extent of the damage to our fleet which probably blunted some criticism that would have echoed many of the charges made against Bush. In the end, as with this Administration, there are those who see conspiracy in the attacks as some historians have taken the position that Roosevelt had to know of the attacks and let them happen so as to give the United States a causus belli for going to war.

Both Bush and Roosevelt, unlike Attywood and his ilk, did not have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight prior to these devastating attacks on America. Yes there were warnings in the lead up to 9/11 as there were at Pearl Harbor (and prior to the embassy bombings in 1996, and the attacks on the USS Cole) But until a pair of glasses are invented that can peer into the future and give policymakers a clear picture of where and when an attack will occur, we will continue to suffer from our inability to see the future.

All that policymakers can do is prepare. In that respect, it is clear that the FAA, the military, and yes even the White House were too sanguine, too laid back on 9/11 and thus were woefully unprepared for what was visited upon us. But was this attitude due to incompetence? Or merely the result of the entire American government sleepwalking as it had done through the 1990’s, chasing al Qaeda like a cop in pursuit of a bank robber while Bin Laden planned his Pearl Harbor.

It is a continuing source of amazement to me that people will point to one “warning” or another prior to the attacks and say “Aha! They had this information and failed to act upon it.” Taking each warning individually, such a case could be made. But given the flood of information, some of it pointing to an overseas attack, some to a domestic strike, it is baffling what these critics expected the Administration to have done. The “actionable” intelligence pointed to an attack. But where? When? How?

Somehow, the critics never get around to answering those questions.

The tiresome attacks on the Administration recycled here by Raw Story and dressed up in new clothes to include the New York Times “failure” to publish a telling SIGINT intercept - one out of thousands, some of which proved true, many more proving to be false - only proves that like Reagan, Bush will remain a focus of hate for the left long after he leaves the White House and goes into retirement.

Call me a masochist. Accuse me of being simple-minded. Laugh at my naivete. Weep over my stupidity. But unless something horrific happens to change my mind between now and election day, I plan on trudging down the street to our 100 year old city hall and doing my civic and patriotic duty by voting Republican on November 6.

For a while, I toyed with the idea of staying home on election day. Then it hit me; my reasons for doing so reminded me of what a seven year old does when he solemnly announces to all assembled that he is running away from home for good and never coming back and don’t try and talk him out of it because he’s made up his mind.

Stifling snickers, the parents bid their charge adieu. Invariably, after walking a block or two, our young runaway will realize there’s no where to go and returns home, suitably chastened by the experience.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that those who wish to sit on their hands in November are acting like petulant, foot stomping, spoiled little children who are throwing a tantrum because they’re not getting their way and will therefore “punish” their party by staying home on election day. (”I’ll show ‘em! I’ll show ‘me all!”)

Then again, maybe I am.

Because in the end, like that little kid, there’s no where else to go and nothing else to do if you consider yourself a patriotic American. I make no apology for giving those of you who contemplate spitting on your birthright a good tongue lashing and a remedial course in civics. It is good to be reminded every once and a while how precious a commodity the democratic franchise is and that misusing it by employing the vote as some kind of political punishment for wayward legislators is selfish, cowardly, and in the end, self-defeating.

While some of you are sitting at your keyboards railing against the Republicans and dramatically announcing to one and all how you will teach them a lesson by staying home on election day, there are Americans in Iraq putting their hides on the line every day of the week so that you have the choice in the first place of either acting like a drama queen or a responsible citizen of the republic.

And it goes without saying that the Iraqi men and women who are working with Americans are fighting and dying so that they can have the same choice - although somehow I don’t think they are going to be quite so cavalier about their options. They may not be familiar with the subtle strategies being employed by some of our pundits who have brilliantly devised a way to make themselves feel good while punishing Republicans at the same time. In fact, I daresay if you were to try and explain how staying home on election day is a good thing and will lead to a better future, they would look at you in astonishment.

A similar look would cross the face of a protester in Belarus. Citizens there would love the opportunity to sit out an election and punish their party for transgressions real and imagined - except they don’t have a party to choose from save that of their ruthless, heartless dictator. A few weeks ago when they went into the streets to demonstrate for the freedom to sit at home on election day, they got clubbed on the head for their trouble. The poor rubes who got in the way of the truncheons of President Alexander Lukashenko’s bully boys probably do not have the sophistication to understand the elegance, the sheer brilliance of an electoral strategy that advocates non-participation in a process they can only imagine existing.

Am I making you feel a little guilty yet?

Surely I don’t have to talk about the sacrifices made by generations of Americans to protect your right to vote. Whether on the battlefields of the world where tyrants and murderous ideologies sought to marginalize that right or on the streets of America where countless millions have fought, marched, and died so that the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution actually mean what they say about freedom and justice, our ancestors took seriously their responsibility to pass that precious birthright down to you intact. But have we become so sophisticated, so cold and calculating about politics that we can afford to belittle this notion? Has it become quaint to look upon our past as irrelevant, that the words and deeds of Americans who lived 50, 100, or 200 years ago are only pertinent to high school kids sleeping their way through social studies class?

When I was contemplating staying home this November, I wrote this before I made up my mind:

John Adams said “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” I wholeheartedly agree. There is no such thing as a “wasted” vote. A vote is a statement of one’s innermost and most passionately held beliefs. It cannot be “wasted” anymore than getting up at a PTA meeting to speak against an overwhelmingly popular motion is a wasted exercise. Being heard even if you are a lone advocate is what is important. And the fact that this right to be heard is protected and cherished in our republic is a true blessing, something we take for granted far too often.

But is influence the goal of voting? Or self-expression? I would argue that given that we live in a representative democracy, voting as a civic act is expressing a preference. Like a piano tuner wearing boxing gloves, a voter cannot fine tune his society by casting a ballot. He can, however, make noise like the piano tuner, pounding on either the higher register or lower sounding keys, making a generalized statement of being satisfied with the status quo or agitating for a change.

If you are dissatisfied with the choices on the ballot, each and every voting booth in America has a pencil and a place on the tally sheet to write in your preference. And, of course, you can always vote for the Democrat to punish the Republicans. Either way, by the act of voting, you are keeping faith with those who came before you, trailing all the way back to Concord and Trenton, and Valley Forge, and Yorktown. You don’t think those guys weren’t serious about the franchise? Read some of what they have to say about concepts like “liberty” and “freedom.” You will discover that they did not use those terms as politicians today use them - as throwaway lines in speeches no one listens to or as obligatory sops to interest groups. They were deadly serious about winning the right to live those words in the flesh. And because they were, here we are today rationalizing a decision to spit on their graves and in effect say to them “What a bunch of chumps.”

In the end, it may be quite unsophisticated and old fashioned to think the way I do about voting. But I can’t dishonor the past sacrifices of those who believed so passionately in things that we take for granted at our peril. Politicians and even political parties will come and go. What we’re left with after all the speechifying and political posturing; after all the strategizing and punditocracy is you and your conscience.

I hope I’ve pricked it ever so slightly so that you reconsider your decision not to vote.

UPDATE

My good friend Ogre in the comments points out that not all states have write in preferences.

That astonishes me. Makes me realize that I’m even luckier than I thought to live in a state that takes voters and the franchise seriously, not just treating people as dumb brutes to be led around by the nose.