Right Wing Nut House

There’s something surreal watching the left’s excitement at the so-called revelations contained in the Downing Street Minutes and their pathetic belief that they finally have the goods on the Bush Administration which will lead to the President’s impeachment.

No less a personality than Representative John Conyers - the man who wanted to hold hearings on the probability that the vote for President in Ohio last fall was rigged - has picked up on the idea that the DSM shows that the Bush Administration should be impeached for…what? The details don’t really matter. It’s enough that once again, the moonbats think they have a political club to beat the Administration over the head. Abu Ghraib? No soap, doc. Koran Abuse? So sorry, please.

Like Bullwinkle’s magician tricks, they keep coming up empty. (”Sorry…wrong hat!”)

Conyers, who more than any other Congressman, panders to the denizens of the leftist fever swamps on the internet, wants to hold hearings on the DSM’s. He also wants office space and pretty much an unlimited budget to do it. For months now, Conyers, who’s Vice Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has taken it upon himself to hold informal hearings or “Forums” on topics the Democrats on the Committee want to highlight - all designed to skewer the Republicans and President Bush of course. Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner played along for a while, but now he’s put his foot down:

Majority spokesman Jeff Lungren said the Republicans have given Democrats three opportunities to make clear that the forums are not official committee business. Nevertheless, Lungren said, in at least one case, members were addressing Conyers as “Mr. Chairman.”

“They were unwilling or unable to make those changes,” Lungren said. “At this point, if they want to hold these forums, they’ll have to find some other place to do it.”

Sean McLaughlin, deputy chief of staff for Sensenbrenner, recently wrote to a minority staffer in more pointed language.

“I’m sitting here watching your `forum’ on C-SPAN,” McLaughlin wrote. “Just to let you know, it was your last. Don’t bother asking [for a room] again.”

Imagine the indignation of the moonbats when they realized that their sideshows have now been sidetracked:

I can’t believe this. The Hill is reporting that James Sensenbrenner will not allow John Conyers to use offices with which to conduct his Downing Street Minutes investigations.

Sensenbrenner may have just handed us the big story that we need, as many of you have noted below. If the MSM was looking for some signal that the Republicans are hiding something here (aside from Bush and Blair presser last week), this should be it.

That tone of pathetic hopefulness is being heard on the left a lot these days. Here’s DU moonbat on NBC “confirming” the authenticity of the DSMs:

NBC News has verified the memos. And they’ve put Andrea Mitchell on the story. This could be the MSM break we’ve been waiting for:

The “confirmation” of the memos would be big news except for one small detail; no one has disputed their authenticity!

What is is it that has engendered so much hope and excitement on the part of the left? It turns out to be a single phrase in these rough minutes of a 2002 meeting between Tony Blair and his defense advisor’s that has set the moonbat hearts racing and blood pumping:

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

Both Blair and Bush deny any “fixing” of intelligence. And both the Senate Intel Committee and the 9/11 Commission have cleared the Bush Administration of putting political pressure on analysts to shape intelligence about WMD’s in the lead-up to the Iraq war. So what do the inhabitants of the fever swamps think they have?

It’s VITALLY important, NOW, THIS MINUTE, to do something about it, to further this story, to give it water and sunshine and nourishment. Follow this up with a call to your congressman/woman (or SOMEBODY ELSE’S congressman/woman, urging them to get to the bottom of this. We ALL, Democrats AND Republicans alike, deserve ANSWERS, and THE TRUTH about WHY we were dragged to war on false pretenses. WHY WE WERE LIED TO. WHY THE CONGRESSMAN/WOMAN HIM/HERSELF WAS LIED TO. And what is he/she going to do about it? Hint: They can START by signing John Conyers’ letter and getting fully behind him, if they aren’t there already.

The Powerline boys were on this story the weekend it came out - days before the British elections. Their reasoned analysis (compared to Professor Juan Cole’s hysterical screed) put the kibosh on any idea that the “Bush lied! People died!” bunch would make any headway using the memo as a political club:

It isn’t clear, however, what it was intended to mean. Cole’s implication, and the constant implication of the BUSH LIED! lefties, is that the administration really knew that Saddam didn’t have any WMDs, but fixed the intelligence to make it appear that he did. But we know that isn’t true. The consensus estimate of the U.S. intelligence community has been made public, and it clearly says that, with a high degree of confidence, Iraq possesses chemical and biological weapons. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report has confirmed that this is what the intelligence community believed and reported to the President, and that there is no evidence that the administration improperly influenced the gathering or reporting of intelligence (”The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities.”)

And, whatever the British note-taker meant by the sentence quoted by Cole, he obviously didn’t mean that there was any doubt on the part of British intelligence or Blair’s government that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. On the contrary, the notes specifically refer to Iraq’s WMDs, in sections not quoted by Cole:

And that’s the sticking point for the left. No matter how much they try and shake and bake these minutes, they keep coming up empty handed. To believe that the Administration actually knew there were no WMD’s in Iraq before the war, you have to believe that either the President had no interest in being re-elected or that he actually wanted to lose. Why would any politician worth his salt let his political opponents have a potential election winning issue?

If we went into Iraq knowing full well there were no WMD’s there, logic tells us that this also means the Administration knew we wouldn’t find any WMD’s once the war was over! And since the left gives Karl Rove credit for everything from manipulating Osama Bin Laden to causing earthquake-generating Tsunamis, the idea that “The Architect” would not have thought of the political consequence of being called a liar by the Administration’s political opponents is daffy. To believe otherwise is to think that George Bush deliberately took a course of action that had a pretty good chance of costing him the election. Only the fact that, in the end, the American people didn’t trust John Kerry to protect them from terrorists gave Bush his narrow victory.

So this “new” theme by the left that pre-war intelligence was somehow “fixed” is a yawner even for the MSM. And the left’s excitement that the story might be gaining some traction is a case of pathetic wishful thinking rather than a cause for celebration that the President is about to be laid low.

In fact, the subsequent release of additional memos - 7 in all - about that meeting strongly support the President and Prime Minister’s denial of pre-war intelligence manipulation:

Ironically, the same people arguing that the DSM contains some sort of smoking gun against the Bush administration also claim that this memo supports the same argument. However, when taken together, it becomes apparent that British intelligence could not make up its mind what Bush had in mind for Iraq; it prepared two different memos with mutually-exclusive analsyes. Tony Blair told the Times of London (which published both memos) that the only people who knew what Bush planned were George Bush and Tony Blair, and that the DSM had incorrectly analyzed the situation.

This latest revelation should be called the Emily Litella memo: Never mind.

It’s a telling sign that the left has latched onto the DSMs like a drowning man hanging onto a life preserver. Their attacks on the Administration have been reduced to wishful thinking and daydreaming. And what makes this so puzzling is that there are issues revealed in the memos that they could use as a hammer to bash the President. Clearly, there was a dearth of post-war planning for occupied Iraq, an unconscionable failure of leadership that our military is paying dearly for. The reason that the left won’t highlight this failure, however, is because it’s not an impeachable offense. In their quest to bring the President down, they’re missing a good trick when it comes to old fashioned political bashing.

My prediction is that the MSM will indeed pick up this thread and run with it. The DU’ers and Kossaks won’t be happy about it, but it’s the best they’re going to get.

My post earlier today equating the Time article on the detention log of one of the Gitmo prisoners with the Monty Python “Spainish Inquisition” skit was done with the hope that finally the rest of the world had come to its senses and put the brouhaha at the detention facility into some kind of context.

I didn’t bank on conservatives and Republicans adopting the themes and memes of leftist apologists and supporting a shut down of the most important interrogation center that we have.

This is nuts. As several commenters around the Shadow Media have pointed out this morning, the techniques as described in the detention log are less severe than the rigmarole that fraternity pledges go through. How far are we prepared to go to satisfy those who will never, ever, ever, be satisfied?

It’s time to face facts: The only thing that will satisfy our war critics is the complete and total withdrawal of American forces and an abject apology on the part of President Bush with an admission that the war was illegal . Even then, they would push for the President’s impeachment.

Such a course of action would not satisfy our critics in the Muslim world. Nothing less than a total withdrawal of all American troops from the middle east and an apology for the last 1000 years of western atrocities would settle the score.

And now some prominent conservatives like Bill Kristol and Senator Chuck Hagel have called for the closing of the camp at Guantanamo ostensibly to boost our image abroad. The reasoning is that keeping the facility open causes us more harm internationally than any return we’re getting in intelligence.

First of all, I wonder how they could possibly know something like that. Secondly, if you don’t know the whole picture of what we’re getting from detainees - what little bits and pieces are fitting into a larger puzzle - how can you make any kind of a guesstimate that it’s not worth the bad press?

Because that’s what we’re talking about here. This is a story that has been massaged, manipulated, fondled, and embraced by people who could give a good goddamn about the prisoners health, or America’s image, or America’s values, or anything else except their out of control, unreasoning hatred of George W. Bush and their desire to lay him low.

Michelle Malkin:

The new GOP anti-Gitmo squad’s position amounts to a cut-and-run strategy–panicking in the face of ill-informed, hysterical attacks from our military’s enemies at home and abroad. Even if, as Kristol claims, unnamed JAGs and senior NSC staffers and State Department officials have problems with how Gitmo has been run, there is no question from the mountains of documents the Pentagon has released to the ACLU and others that the military tracks and investigates alleged abuses, and has taken corrective action when they are warranted. I don’t know who Kristol’s anonymous sources are, but I’ll take Gen. Myers’ word over theirs sight unseen.

Amen, sister. It seems that since the election victory, Republicans have massively retreated on the very principals and ideas that got them elected in the first place! This does the party no good. It does the President no good. All it does is garner a little publicity in the MSM for the likes of McCain, Hagel, Voinovich, and others who have found the quickest way to get a sound bite on the nets or quoted in the New York Times is agree with our leftist opponents. The consequences are there for all to see:

1. Failure to get an up or down vote on all the President’s judicial nominees.
2. Failure to break Democratic delaying tactics on UN Ambassador-designate John Bolton
3. Failure to move social security reform along, including the abandonment of private accounts

A visitor from another planet reading the newspaper today might wonder who won the election in 2004?

Captain Ed of Captains Quarters is a passionate man. Upon seeing that the Senate was going to pass a resolution apologizing to the American people for filibustering anti-lynching laws during the last 100 years, the Captain let it all hang out:

The more I think about this story, the more incensed I become. The Gang of Fourteen stood in front of the American people and proclaimed that rescuing the filibuster amount to “saving the Republic”, and the other thirteen stood there and endorsed that point of view from Robert Byrd, of all people.

What I would like to know is what lives the Senate saved through the filibuster? What overarching principle has the filibuster ever protected that would counter the cost of the innumerable victims of lynching that the filibuster allowed? The only principle the filibuster has ever protected, as far as I see, is naked partisanship and in the case of lynching, racial oppression and terror. And yet, these same modern-day Senators stood with a man who used the filibuster to keep blacks from voting and justified its use against confirming judges to the appellate court.

I too was nauseated at the sanctimoniousness exhibited at that press conference. The shameless preening before the cameras by those Senators - both Democratic and Republican - reminded me of a gaggle of peacocks strutting in the barnyard hoping to get laid. Pretty good for a peacock, but unbecoming a bunch of United States Senators.

My beef with the so-called compromise rested on the assumption that elections mean something:

The idea that a minority should be able to dictate to the President on judicial nominations or anything else for that matter, goes against the very idea of free and fair elections. Why bother to have an electoral contest when the losers can act like winners? What’s the penalty for being, like the Democrats have been, obstructionists?

The penalty is that you lose elections. And looking at Congressional and Senatorial elections, the Democrats were slaughtered. Especially in the Senate where Republicans picked up 4 seats, the Democrats entire electoral strategy failed miserably. But wait! Here come the Republican RINO’s to the rescue. It’s enough to turn one’s stomach.

I believed at the time that the compromise was a betrayal of the electoral process. I still believe it.

That being said, I have to agree with those who say the Captain went too far this morning. At the same time, his critics - including the Commissar - are acting like the Republicans are the obstructionists:

The compromise, you see, was not about approving five judges, moving on, and getting the people’s business done, it was about “protecting the filibuster” and facilitating lynch mobs.

In his sarcasm, the Commissar doesn’t realize that he’s half right. The Compromise was about protecting the filibuster - protecting it in language so broad and hazy that the Democrats will not only have a right to filibuster just about any Supreme Court nominee that comes down the pike (any nominee that would shift the balance of the court, that is) but there’s nothing in that agreement that restrains Democrats from blocking any future judicial nominee except their word that they’ll do so only in “extraordinary cicrumstances.”

I guess what it comes down to is ideology. Does a President have the right to name judges who relfect his basic ideology? The fact that I’m even asking that question is unbelievable. Of course he does! Evidently, conservative judges are unpalatable to the Democrats. If so, let them fight for getting judges confirmed who relfect their ideology the way its been done for 217 years - at the ballot box, not in the cloakroom of the Senate.

The Captain’s rhetoric comparing the filibuster over civil rights and anti-lynching legislation to filibustering judicial nominees was rhetorical overkill. But his critics need to take a look at what’s being done here in the name of “compromise.” The Republican Senators who eagerly crowded around the microphone at that press conference echoing their Democratic colleagues that “the Republic was saved” were being used. This is just the preliminary bout, a meaningless scrap between unranked fighters. The Main Event takes place later this summer when, by many reports, Justice Rehnquist will retire.

The Democrats will not, cannot allow, an anti-abortion judge to be confirmed. And since there will be two judicial nominations to deal with - one to replace the Chief Justice and one to fill the vacancy - they will filibuster. They will fight it tooth and nail. Too many of their supporters see that one issue as of paramount importance. To believe otherwise - to think that some magic bullet “compromise” will somehow prevent this is delusional.

Oh, the Democrats will couch their opposition in other terms. “Extremist,” “out of the mainstream,” and “activist” have been their favorites so far. But the sticking point will be abortion. The reason is simple; if the President gets one ant-abortion judge confirmed the balance of power on the court will shift and the anti-abortion judges will be in the ascendancy. While I would personally oppose the repeal of Roe V Wade the President was reelected by the majority of citizens knowing full well his opposition to a woman’s right to choose. The idea that he would pick judges that didn’t reflect that position would be a betrayal of the majority of people who voted for him.

The “compromise” will be history before then. But the consequences for the inept Republican leadership that allowed it in the first place will come into focus when the possibility arises that the Supreme Court will have at least one vacancy until after the next election in 2008.

UPDATE

The Captain has drawn back a bit from the precipice:

Perhaps I should refrain from blogging when I get pissed off … but if you read this carefully, you will not see me calling the Gang of 14 lynchers or racists. Their self-aggrandizing rhetoric about saving the Republic, especially coming from the only member of the Senate to have filibustered the Civil Rights Act and vote against both black Supreme Court justices, is something I find appalling considering the history of how the Senate has used the filibuster in the past. And given that history, its use in keeping Brown off the appellate bench — given her childhood and its relation to the lynching that the filibuster allowed to continue — is particularly repellent. And I’m still waiting for an example of some greater good accomplished by the filibuster that makes up for all of its victims.

On the other hand, at least the compromise resolved that particular injustice, which may be the only positive aspect of it from either a Constitutional or historical point of view. I’m mindful of Beth’s admonitions, but as the Post article shows, you can’t talk about the filibuster in honest terms without pointing out its application in keeping the federal government from interceding on behalf of black Americans for decades. Next time, I’ll try to temper my irritation before I post.

Been there…done that.

And Beth…Well, Beth once again reminds us why we listen when she writes:

You know, there’s a reason why the DU and Kos and other such moonbat sites exist; it’s because of the hysterical rhetoric spewed by those ON MY SIDE. (You’re not off the hook either, moonbats–your s**t is every bit as ridiculous, and happens ALL the time.) Quit acting like a bunch of f**king amateurs. This is NO WAY TO WIN AN ARGUMENT. No way to ensure conservatives are elected or even respected. It’s disgusting, and I’m tired of it.

Let me head that off right now: All I’ve got to say to those people is PISS OFF, amateurs. Come on over here and call me a racist or a liberal and you’ll probably not just find your comment deleted–you might be banned as well. I don’t put up with idiots, period.

Based on this report’s antecedents and the fact that it was leaked, can there be any doubt that it is nothing but a political hack job, cobbled together by a minor Beltway Bandit who was directed as to what to find, rubberstamped by some disgruntled members of the former administration, and leaked to cause embarrassment and thus exact a measure of revenge on their current political opponents? Of course there isn’t.

Owen Johnson, CIA (Ret.), on an intelligence report leaked to Bill Gertz of the WA Times saying that intelligence analysts “missed” the military buildup of China over the last decade. (Via Powerline)

Somewhere, there’s a perfect world where intelligence analysis and politics are entirely separate. A place where politicians and policy makers do nothing except make policy and analysts do nothing except analyze.

This is not a perfect world.

The bottom line is, our intelligence system is a mess, an alphabet soup of competing bureaucracies scrambling to protect their turf and all jostling for the attention of the President. Presidential attention means that your views are listened to. Being listened to by the President means having the power to shape the agenda. Shaping the agenda means you’re a player. Being a player in Washington is an ego trip of the highest degree, something most of the permanent bureaucracy strives for all their lives.

In a town where status is determined by such arcane nuances as how long you can keep someone on the phone without picking up, how big one’s office is, and whether or not you’re invited to the cocktail party du jour, being a player in the policy game is pretty heady stuff. Generally speaking, someone who’s “in” can have their secretary place a call and keep the recipient waiting for minutes. And if someone of lower rank or not on the “list” is unlucky enough to call you, the game can become even more ridiculous. You can choose to keep the poor schmuck waiting forever or you can have your faithful, underpaid secretary take a message. Some sadists do both.

Of course, the chances of getting back to you are directly related to a very specific but unwritten set of circumstances. What’s your title? Who’s your boss? How much good can you do me? If I help you, how much good can I do you? Can I afford to offend you?

And this is the drill for people on their way up. I can imagine what it is for people who’ve already arrived at the top of the ziggurat.

There are exceptions to every rule but this game occupies Washington bureaucrats and is a source of endless speculation and chatter at Washington social events. It’s the #1 game in town.

The #2 game in town is the “stab in the back” game. This game is directly related to #1 in that backstabbing is an art form played to the hilt by those who are usually “out” against those who are “in.” Occasionally, it’s played by someone who’s “in” against someone who’s an “in” wannabe.

Jealousy is the #3 game in Washington.

This Bill Gertz piece in the Washington Times detailing apparent intelligence failures relating to the Chinese military buildup is, according to ex-CIA analyst Johnson, a perfect example of game #2. Johnson’s email to the Powerline boys is an eye opener. The Gertz article quotes unnamed sources criticizing analysts for the failure in intelligence. As it turns out, Johnson takes exception to this because he was one of the primary China hands at the CIA during the time in question. He says he didn’t “miss” anything and I believe him. Especially when he writes what happened to this “missing” intel:

But as often happens, a legitimate debate among analysts was misused by many during the 1990s to either try to inflate the Chinese threat or to downplay it or ignore it for political reasons. This latter group was lead — not by some “close-knit fraternity” of analysts out to fool the government — but by Bill Clinton himself. Clinton went so far as to declare certain collection activities against China as “off-limits” and also put certain topics off-limits as well. In practice that meant, while we knew what was going on, we were not allowed to say some things, or to officially report certain obvious conclusions. Parenthetically, I say this not to justify anything that was “missed” because nothing mentioned in the Washington Times article — and I dare say in the leaked report — falls into those categories. I say it to point out that the former U.S. official who said the report should help expose that “self-selected group” that supposedly fooled the Government by suppressing evidence out of a desire to have good relations with China must be talking about him/her/itself. The quote by this former official is a fairly apt description of Clinton’s China policy, which owed nothing to any group beyond Clinton’s own band of cronies. If anything, it was Clinton who was attempting to fool the rest of us.

That deserves at least a “wow.”

The fact that Mr. Johnson is willing to put his name to this criticism speaks volumes. It reinforces his credibility tenfold. And if you read Johnson’s entire missive, you’re left with the unsettling feeling that politicians - both Republican and Democratic - are fully capable of “fixing” intelligence so that it meets a policy goal.

In this context, the Downing Street memo is thrown into an entirely different light as is the pre-9/11 intel on Bin Laden and al Qaeda.

I always thought that the 9/11 Commission was a waste of time. It’s obscene partisanship in the face of real world problems that needed to be solved was a slap in the face to the nearly 3000 Americans who lost their lives on that horrible day. And their recommendations, well-intentioned as most of them may have been, were mostly cosmetic in nature, simply adding a whole new layer of Washington bureaucratic “players” to the mix.

As for the pre-war intel on Iraq WMD’s, while there were warning signs that something may have been amiss, I can’t get the picture of George Tennant, then CIA Director, sitting in the family quarters at the White House and telling the President that WMD intel was “a slam dunk.” If you’re George Bush and your CIA Chief tells you something like that, I don’t see how you can possibly ignore it.

Tenant should have been fired a lot sooner and left in disgrace rather than given a medal. I said so at the time and I’ll say it again. The intelligence failure with regard to WMD can be laid directly at his doorstep. He not only missed the big one (9/11), but his screw up with Iraqi WMD was the cause for the biggest embarrassment that the US government has ever had to endure.

I can guarantee you that things are no better today than they were on September 10, 2001. Whether they’re worse or not we won’t know unless or until we’re hit again by al Qaeda or some other group. Since most terrorism experts say that this will happen sooner rather than later, it’s probable that we’ll have to endure another exercise in futility like the 9/11 Commission as well as more backstabbing and finger pointing.

Owen Johnson’s email will not change the culture at any of the intelligence gathering agencies into which we pour at least $50 billion annually. But it may wake a few people up to the problems that occur where politics and intelligence come together.

I hope that Powerline post receives the widest possible circulation.

UPDATE

Gary at The Owner’s Manual thinks that the revelation about Clinton’s China policy could hurt Hillary in ‘08:

Those who believed Clinton was in China’s pocket may be exonerated. Hillary’s run for the White House could stumble over the revelations in a retired CIA China expert’s email to the folks at Powerline.

It’s a pleasant thought but somehow I doubt if that revelation will receive much play in the media. Gee…I wonder why?

It’s been a truly frightening experience watching the disintegration of the left over these last few years. Right before our eyes, the old “New Left” coalition of academia, the media, the intelligentsia, and the pulpit has dissolved into a ranting, raving, raging bunch of paranoid lunatics whose hyperbolic rhetorical flourishes regarding culture and politics are rapidly condemning its adherents to social oblivion.

It’s one thing to use rhetorical excesses and exaggerations to score political points. It’s quite another to actually believe and try and justify language that on any other planet where intelligent life exists would land the interlocutor in a windowless room with padded walls.

Think about it for a second. Do so many on the left really believe that George Bush can be compared to a man who gassed 6 million human beings, deliberately started a war that killed 80 million more, and brought a nightmare of oppression and murder to most of the rest of the inhabitants of Europe? After all, these are people who proudly claim to be members of a “Reality Based Community.”

The answer is yes, they really do believe that George Bush can be compared to Hitler. A large segment of them also believe, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, that the 2004 election was stolen by the President and the Republican party. Many of them are convinced that the electronic voting machines - the very same machines they lobbied for following the 2000 election debacle - were hacked by the President’s corporate allies and vote totals showing a Kerry victory were altered to give the President the election.

Is it a sign of desperation? Has the hard left, never really in the mainstream but nevertheless extraordinarily influential, been marginalized in our political debates to the point where lashing out with surreal analogies and apocalyptic warnings of impending doom is the only way it can get attention?

We make fun here of some of the truly batty things said by such luminaries as Noam Chomsky, Ramsey Clark, Ted Kennedy, and the various toadies and hangers-on that inhabit the fevered environs of Moveon and the Democratic Underground. In truth, however, these bloviations are symptomatic of something much more serious.

They represent a loss of faith - faith in the ultimate victory of ones ideas, faith in the correctness of ones perceptions or worldview, and perhaps even a loss of faith in the country that has nurtured them.

The left has always approached things with a mildly attractive, wide-eyed innocence, as if the world were new and the ideas that sprang forth from their fertile minds could shape mankind in a way that would eliminate “injustice” from which all other evils - poverty, racism, war, and now, of course, terrorism - flowed. And while many of their proscriptions against racism and especially poverty have turned into a nightmare of bureaucratic oppression, there was still the hope that these things could be fixed with a little tinkering. Much like their European brethren who are still not apologizing for 50 years of support of murderous communist regimes because they believe that communism can still work with the “right people” running things, our domestic left believes in the illusory notion that government can solve problems that have plagued the planet since the time of Adam with the right combination of laws and regulations.

While not necessarily delusional - no one disputes that improvements in the lot of the poor and justice for minorities who’ve been discriminated against can’t be accomplished - the worldview espoused by the left has always been tinged with a sense of unreality. It’s as if human nature itself can be improved upon with a little societal fiddling. Hence, the belief that “conflict resolution” and “multicultural studies” for children can somehow rip out the hard wiring in the human brain and replace it with the software of love. A noble undertaking for certain, but one doomed to failure by the exigencies of the nurturing process. If children could be kept in school 24 hours a day such an experiment would have a chance of success. But since children spend twice as much time with their peers and parents as they do with teachers and school administrators, any fundamental change in human behavior is sabotaged by the influence of others.

So after nearly 40 years of intellectual dominance, the left is seeing its previously unchallenged ideas and ideals ripped to shreds by both the intrusion of reality and the attack of the right. It’s hard to tell which has been more devastating. One could argue that 9/11 exploded so many leftist myths about the world that they have yet to recover any kind of equilibrium and instead, have retreated into name calling and apocalyptic warnings of disaster (not for the United States, but for the rest of the world if US power remains unchecked!). Similarly, with the rise of the new media, previously untouched bastions of liberalism such as the mainstream press and even academia have felt the sting of criticism and the embarrassment of having patently false assumptions explode in their faces.

Lately, an effort has begun to reverse this trend. There’s a move afoot to emulate the rise of the right over the last quarter century by funding think tanks, encouraging “progressive” scholarship, recruiting attractive, articulate candidates for office at all levels of government, and generally sowing the seeds that will hopefully start bearing fruit in the near future. With George Soros behind this activity you can be sure it will be well funded.

But is it, in one of the more overused words of my youth, “relevant?”

It could be, if the left embraces the idea that the defense of the United States during this time of war is the “Ur” issue with the American people. They can whine all they want to about how the President has turned the issue to his political advantage but the fact remains that the President didn’t make national defense such an overarching issue with the American people, Osama Bin Laden did. And the fact that the left is in full throated denial of that singular reality is why the American people are paying less and less attention to them and why their candidates are not taken seriously for high office.

It remains to be seen also whether or not the left can jettison some of the more unsavory characters who inhabit the outer reaches of the fever swamp of conspiracy theories and childish notions of theocratic regimes and Hitlerian nightmares. The right, of course, has its own problems with charlatans and self-appointed holy men and this may prove to be a political problem in the future. But when the left applauded Michael Moore’s portrayal of the terrorist beheaders in Iraq as the moral and actual equivalent of the American revolutionary minutemen, the American people stopped listening and began to laugh.

There’s no doubt that liberals have a long, hard road to travel before they achieve any relevance in the national debate. It remains to be seen whether “tweaking” their message to include soothing words to people of faith and a new found hard headedness in foreign policy will be enough to overcome a constant case of foot in mouth disease that takes them on ever increasing flights of hyperbole and rhetorical nonsense that the American people have already judged to be extreme and just plain wrong.

UPDATE

Van Helsing and I were on the same wavelength this morning:

Many grown adults who continue to cling to the adolescent ideology of the Left need to lean on irony. But even if they can look you in the face and tell you that 9/11 was about the “haves and have-nots” without smirking, there’s not much chance they’ll give up their Club Med vacations for stints at terrorist training camps, if only because deep down most of them know that their point of view is a fashion accessory, and if The New Yorker changed its editorial policy, their professed beliefs would quickly follow suit.

But teenagers don’t have the balance and perspective that comes with accepting yourself as a total fraud. When they adopt a pose, they are likely to think it’s real. So when you force-feed the young a constant diet of anti-American propaganda — as our media and schools do — the troubles and confusion that often accompany the adolescent years can result in a very dangerous sociopathology that might last into adulthood with disastrous results.

He then documents the strange case of one Adam Gadahn, American moonbat turned jiahdist. Read the whole thing. It’s an eye opener.

Also, check out this excellent post from The New Editor about “The Sandbox Left.”

Cross Posted at Blogger News Network

THE PRESIDENT AND HIS DOG SPOT. THE PRESIDENT IS THE ONE HOLDING THE LEASH

The President’s 15 year old Scottish Terrier “Spot” was arrested today and charged with aiding and abetting torture as well as other “crimes against humanity.” The human rights organization Amnesty International, that had threatened to arrest the President, the Secretary of Defense, and other current and former Administration officials if they traveled to foreign countries, urged the arrest of the canine saying “no one in the Administration is guiltless.”

William Schulz, President of A.I. in America applauded the action saying that “In a conspiracy like this, you have to start at the outer edges and work your way toward the middle. One slip and everyone feels safer.”

When told that his statement sounded like “Deep Throat’s” admonition to Bob Woodward in the movie All The President’s Men Schulz would only say “I am not Deep Throat. You must have the wrong fellow.”

Schulz added that “If we can’t get the big fish, we’ll go for the small fry. This dog is one of the President’s most loyal supporters. He was in the White House at the time these crimes were being planned and carried out. The fact that he didn’t speak up and protest these actions is just as bad as if he committed the acts himself.”

When asked if this action would lead to more donations and publicity for the human rights group, Schulz denied any connection. “I’m insulted that anyone would think such a thing. We are not trying to increase donations to our hotline at (800) 555-0011 nor are we seeking additional publicity or did we ask to appear on Lary King Live tonight at 9:00 pm eastern.”

A.I. President Irene Kahn applauded the action adding “Mr. Spot will now face the justice his master has so far escaped.” Kahn also pointed to the fact that dogs were routinely used to scare prisoners at Abu Ghraib and that the President’s pet “could act as a stand-in for dogs all over the world who deliberately bark, snarl, and drool in order to frighten innocent terrorists.”

Spot will be held at Prince George’s County Animal Shelter until his trial. No bail has been set and the dog had no comment to reporters assembled outside the shelter as he was led into the facility. Spot could be heard whimpering piteously as shelter personnel hustled him into the building.

The President had no comment however, a spokesman speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was taking the arrest well but that Mrs. Bush was considering military options to rescue the beloved pooch. “She’s ready to send in the Seals.” the source said.

In a totally unrelated development, the Internal Revenue Service announced it was looking into the tax exempt status of Amnesty International’s American chapter.

Michelle Malkin has a link to a Wall Street Journal piece by International Freedom Center President Richard J. Tofel in which he seeks to calm fears regarding the 9/11 memorial turning into an orgy of anti-Americanism:

Then there will be the Memorial Center, a museum devoted to the events of September 11 itself, with exhibit space roughly equal in size to that at the International Freedom Center. The Memorial Center will tell the stories of the day–of heroism and sacrifice, of rescue and service, of courage and resolution, of memory and loss. It is the Memorial Center that will contain the iconic artifacts of September 11.

That is necessary, but not sufficient.

Why not? Why isn’t a simple memorial to the memory of those who perished on that terrible day enough? What possible addition could one make to such a memorial that wouldn’t seek to horn in on the sacred homage we owe to the nearly 3,000 of our countrymen who lost their lives in what Norman Podhoretz has called the “opening salvo” of World War IV?

This, from Martin Palous, a founding member of the Czechoslovakian human rights group “Charter 77″ along with Vclav Havel:

“9/11 is a story of courage, hope, and freedom: the courage to make the decision to go into the buildings to save someone, the hope to start anew after disaster, the wish to base our society on free will in the context of a pluralistic public sphere. It was a moment of truth in the story of freedom, and it connects the United States with democratic revolutions around the world, which share this quality of believing in the possibility of new beginnings.” Out of the tragedy of September 11 came a renewed civic spirit, and the International Freedom Center will work to sustain that. This is work that can unite people of goodwill everywhere…”

Very poetic but hardly the point. Mr. Tofel quotes Palous and indicates he’s one of the “35 scholars of freedom” who are advisor’s to the IFC. Since one of the driving forces of the IFC is Tom Bernstein, head of Human Rights First, an anti-Bush, anti-American group that would love to turn the memorial into a paean to all of the sins, both real and imagined, in America’s history, one wonders how much of Mr. Palous’ “advice” is going to be taken and how much from Mr. Bernstein and his Moveon crew.

Then Mr. Tofel gets to the nub of the matter:

To be sure, the International Freedom Center will host debates and note points of view with which you–and I–will disagree. But that is the point, the proof of our society’s enduring self-confidence and humanity. Moreover, the International Freedom Center will rise above the politics of the moment. It will not exist to precisely define “freedom” or to tell people what to think, but to get them to think–and to act in the service of freedom as they see it. And it will always do so in a manner respectful of the victims of September 11.

Why do moonbats think that every statement made in praise of America or in America’s defense needs to be “balanced” with some opposing point of view while the statements of America’s enemies and detractors need to be left standing alone so that we can better understand why the murderous thugs we’re fighting oppose us?

It’s loony.

This has got to be nipped in the bud now. Go here and contact the people on this list. Let them know that 9/11 is sacred ground and should be perhaps the one place in the country reserved to honor America, not denigrate her.

UPDATE

Jacob Laskin at FrontPage has an extraordinary article outlining the controversey. A sample:

In remarks posted on the International Freedom Center’s website, (historian Eric) Foner explains that the memorial will require a “critical eye,” and stresses that, “There have been many points in our history where freedom has been restricted, and has gone backwards.” What relevance this has to a September 11 memorial is unclear, but it does suggest that leftists like Foner intend to use the memorial to project their view of American history as an unabated stretch of oppression and intolerance.

This is almost too unbelievable to be true. I wonder if people who donated to this project knew what they were giving money for?

I needn’t have asked:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this message, coupled with the center’s less than diverse assemblage of advisors, has enticed the moneyed left to bankroll the center’s memorial. Sponsors include the Open Society Institute, the grant-making arm of leftist financier George Soros. Another sponsor is the left-wing Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The fund’s interest in the memorial is easily deciphered: its administrators have long maintained that the greatest threat to the post-911 world comes from the United States. As the fund’s Peace and Security Program has understatedly put it, “At the start of the 21st century and in the wake of September 11, 2001, there exists a pressing need to examine the content, style, and tone of U.S. global engagement and to ensure that they reflect an understanding of the reality and implications of increasing global interdependence.”

Open Society Institute is also funded by the Heinz Foundation. Maybe they’ll have a little space highlighting the 2004 election that was “stolen” from Senator Kerry?

And Kevin at Wizbang weighs in on Tofel’s damage control:

Unfortunately for us the thoughtful response amounts to little more than, “trust us.” There’s lots of quotations, but very little on specifics. Surely the vagueness with which he describes the IFC content is by design, as reactions to the revelations provided by Burlingame were nearly instantaneous and vociferous.

Lime Shurbert has more including a letter from a soldiers mother sent to Mr. Tofel. One word of advice to Mr. Tofel: Don’t get the mothers of soldiers mad at you.

Proving the adage “Nothing is Sacred Anymore” Michelle Malkin links to a piece in the Wall Street Journal from Debra Burlingame, sister of Charles “Chic” Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines fight 77, which terrorists crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, that should open some eyes about who and what is currently in charge of the memorial to the fallen planned for Ground Zero.

Take a couple of deep breaths before you read this…you’re gonna need them:

More disturbing, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is handing over millions of federal dollars and the keys to that building to some of the very same people who consider the post-9/11 provisions of the Patriot Act more dangerous than the terrorists that they were enacted to apprehend — people whose inflammatory claims of a deliberate torture policy at Guantanamo Bay are undermining this country’s efforts to foster freedom elsewhere in the world.

The driving force behind the IFC is Tom Bernstein, the dynamic co-founder of the Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment Complex who made a fortune financing Hollywood movies. But his capital ventures appear to have funded his true calling, the pro bono work he has done his entire adult life — as an activist lawyer in the human rights movement. He has been a proud member of Human Rights First since it was founded — as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights — 27 years ago, and has served as its president for the last 12.

The public has a right to know that it was Mr. Bernstein’s organization, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, that filed a lawsuit three months ago against Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was Human Rights First that filed an amicus brief on behalf of alleged “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, an American citizen who the Justice Department believes is an al Qaeda recruit. It was Human Rights First that has called for a 9/11-style commission to investigate the alleged torture of detainees, complete with budget authority, subpoena power and the ability to demand that witnesses testify under oath.

Malkin refers to this as a “sacrilege” which Websters defines as “gross irreverence toward a hallowed person, place, or thing.” I don’t know about you but I’d say that was spot on.

It’s times like these that words absolutely fail me. The fact that this has been allowed to happen in the first place only proves that like rambunctious two year olds, you have to watch the moonbats every minute lest they touch something they shouldn’t.

Since they’re not my two year old, maybe we could leave the cabinet that has all the household cleaners in it invitingly open with the caps conveniently taken off.

Who knows…maybe they’ll get thirsty….

John Cole alerted me to this story:

A conservative Christian group launched a boycott against Ford Motor Co. Tuesday, saying the second-largest U.S. automaker has given thousands of dollars to gay rights groups, offers benefits to same-sex couples and actively recruits gay employees.

“From redefining family to include homosexual marriage, to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to support homosexual groups and their agenda, to forcing managers to attend diversity training on how to promote the acceptance of homosexuality… Ford leads the way,” American Family Association chairman Donald Wildmon said in a statement.

Yes…and your point is? If Ford Motor Company wants to include in its outreach programs Gay Rights groups, what the hell business is it of AFA and loonbat Wildmon?

Quite simply, this is getting embarrassing. Yes Bill Ford, CEO of Ford Motor Company is a moonbat of the first order:

Young Bill got a prep school education before going to Princeton and MIT. He is a tae kwon do blackbelt, a student of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism and a folk guitar player.

His most notable contribution since becoming chairman 2 years ago has been to try to make Ford the most environmentally friendly automaker. He has horrified many in the industry — and many at the company — by publicly blaming auto emissions for greenhouse gases causing climate change. He speaks passionately about a future with cleaner alternative fuels, recyclable cars and compostable parts.

The fact that his most “notable” contribution since becoming chairman has been to turn Ford into a green oasis will catch up to him soon enough. One would think that the most notable contribution a CEO could make to his company is to, like, you know, make some effing money for the shareholders! The fact that his interests lie with Buddhism rather than profits may eventually be his downfall. And if he wants to waste the time of his managers on “diversity sessions” rather than building cars he better brush up on that folk guitar because the only job he’ll be able to get after the stockholders fire his ass is street musician.

Well, that won’t happen…after all he is a Ford.

This still doesn’t excuse the AFA and Mr. Wildebeast from going after companies that…do what”

Laymon added that other automakers — including General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp. — provide benefits for same-sex partners and market their vehicles to the gay community.

“It is one of the things that makes us proud to be part of the auto industry,” Laymon said.

It’s high time that the Republican Party started to distance themselves from these crazies. You can’t tell me that a majority of Republican lawmakers find this sort of thing acceptable. You can’t tell me that 10% of Republican lawmakers agree with this. It’s loony politics. Why take a position that’s opposed by a vast majority of the American people who support most of the rights for gay people outlined in the boycott statement? I’m the first to line up against things like teaching 8 year olds the why’s and wherefore’s of gay sex (or any kind of sex for that matter). But this? This is nuts.

It’s hard to defend the religious right sometimes when people like Wildmon and Dobson constantly make such gigantic asses of themselves.

Alright, trolls. You’ve been bugging me for weeks to say something negative about President Bush and now you’re going to get your wish.

Somewhere in the archives is a post I did on blogger that will echo many of the same things I’m going to take the President to task for today. And scattered throughout other posts are various criticisms of the President’s profligate spending, his myopia on stem cell research, a general unhappiness with his catering to the fundamentalist wing of the Republican party, and a host of other minor annoyances that would prove to any fair person (liberals excluded) that I’ve got plenty to be upset about when it comes to the President’s policies.

Other center-right secularists like Bill Ardolino, Jeff Goldstein, John Cole, and Glenn Anderson have expressed similar dissatisfaction with the President. And while all of those worthies have said in the last month or so that they’re near the “tipping point” in their support for Bush, I’m not that close to joining them. Why?

I look at John Kerry, think of the alternative, and breathe a sigh of relief that it’s George Bush as President and not a man who would have entered office with a mandate to end the war.

That being said, George Bush has made a number of mistakes during his Presidency. Here, in my opinion, are just a few:

“WELL ARE WE AT WAR…OR AREN’T WE?”

That’s a question I asked during the first week this site was open. At that time, the terrorists were just beginning to step up their bombing campaign and the hell hounds in the media were baying at the President’s military strategy. My criticism, however, went back to early 2003 when it became clear that war with Iraq was a necessary adjunct to the war on terror.

My criticism had to do with the President’s entire approach to the coming conflict. I said at the time “it didn’t feel like we were going to war,” that the President didn’t step up to the plate and ask the American people to sacrifice anything, that indeed any sacrificing to be done would be borne by the armed forces and their families.

I realize now that the “cakewalk” theme was in vogue at the White House and the President didn’t think it necessary. But by May of 2004 when it became clear that the terrorists weren’t going away anytime soon, the President could have rallied the American people by abandoning much of his domestic agenda, slashing the budget, perhaps even (gasp! Here’s a novel idea)…) raising taxes to pay for the war.

It’s a good thing Bush didn’t listen to me. He would have been slaughtered in the November election.

That being said, I still feel the burden of this war is falling disproportionately on the military and their families. I think the President should have put everything else on the backburner in order to win this war. If that meant abandoning social security reform, so be it. What we have in Washington is too much “business as usual.” What we need is a sense of urgency. At the moment, we have North Korea and Iran on the horizon. Either one of those problems could lead to some kind of crisis that would involve the military. And with 125,000 of our best troops tied up in Iraq, this severely limits our options.

The President’s failure to rally the people and instead, depend on the 50% of us who couldn’t stomach the idea of Kerry’s wishy-washy internationalist approach to the conflict was the biggest mistake of his Presidency. He could have done better.

RUMMY HAS GOT TO GO

I admire the President’s sense of loyalty toward Secretary Rumsfeld but while he was throwing Colin Powell overboard he should have made it a clean sweep and dumped his defense secretary as well.

Now don’t get me wrong. I like Secretary Rumsfeld. He’s very smart. He’s got some capital ideas for altering our force structure to bring it in line with the realities of a post cold war world. And by and large, he was responsible for the war plan in Iraq that vanquished that army lickety-split. But he’s got to go. The reason? I’ll give you two words.

Abu Ghraib.

I’m with John Cole on this one. Someone has got to take ultimate responsibility for that fiasco as well as other abuse allegations that will soon come to light as the FBI, the Army, and other investigative bodies finish their probes into what appears to be isolated instances of torture and even death. I totally reject the moonbat argument that this torture was planned and carried out by the Administration, But that doesn’t lessen the responsibility of the civilian commander for these atrocities. There has also been a troubling lack of responsibility taken by commanders in the field, although ultimately this too would fall under the jurisdiction of the Secretary. He could have recommended the removal of any general officer under which these incidents of torture occurred. The fact that he didn’t shows a lack of understanding of how much real damage these incidents have done to use abroad.

This isn’t the way things used to be. Government officials used to take responsibility for screw-ups by resigning. The moonbats aren’t going to like this but you can trace this new attitude directly to President Bush’s predecessor.

Janet Reno may have been the most disastrous Attorney General in history. Not too many of her predecessors could have been charged with negligence that lead to the death of so many at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Either one of those disasters should have resulted in her immediate dismissal. As it is, the cover-ups involved in the incident at Waco (see the Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Waco: Rules of Engagement) should have perhaps landed her in jail. Instead, Clinton kept her on despite the fact that her incompetence resulted in people being killed.

Reno wasn’t the only Clinton cabinet official who could have been sacked. Ron Brown, Henry Cisneros, the odd Justice Department official, the occasional White House staffer - any of these transgressors would have been fired in a minute by a Carter, a Reagan, or even one so loyal as a Bush #41. The fact that they weren’t set a precedent that’s being followed by the President hanging on to Rumsfeld.

YOU’VE GOT THE DAMN VETO…USE IT!

The Constitution grants the executive very few expressed powers. That’s why it’s been called both the strongest and weakest office in government. Strong Presidents are those who’ve taken the Congress by the scruff of the neck and wrung what they want out of them. They do this with the Presidential veto.

The very threat of a veto is usually enough for Congress to bend to a President’s will. In fact, Bush threatened to use the veto 40 times during his first term. And yet, he became the first President in 175 years not to use the veto during a term in office.

What gives? It’s not like he didn’t have the opportunity. Take any highway bill ever passed by Congress. Now there’s a likely candidate. How about agricultural subsidies? Ditto. If the President’s intent is not to undercut Congressional Republicans, he’s doing the opposite. He’s acting like the wife of an alcoholic who pours her husband into bed every night after finding him passed out on the front porch. He’s an enabler of profligate, wasteful, and unnecessary spending.

It would be quite another thing if the President was trying to reform entitlement programs. He’s not. Instead, the biggest entitlement program in a generation, his prescription drug bill, has saddled the nation’s taxpayers with a half a trillion dollar albatross that didn’t please anyone.

Now it appears that his first use of the most potent weapon in his arsenal will be to kill research into embryonic stem cells (see The Maryhunters comment in this post for an excellent explanation of this issue). While I admire his adherence to principles, the fact that this is the issue that has engaged his interest to the point where he feels it necessary to veto a bill desired by a majority of the Congress and the people is a little troubling.

WE NEED TO SEE MORE OF YOU

This appears to be changing a little in that the President’s has given two prime time press conferences in he last two months. Facing the press is, I’m sure, a distasteful task. But it’s also a duty. Kind of like having to eat your vegetables before the chocolate mousse. It’s something that has to be done but the rewards for doing it are satisfying.

A President’s give and take with the press shows the people he’s on top of the issues that are important to them. Who knows? Maybe regular press conferences will bring your approval ratings up a bit.

ADMIT YOU’RE WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING

I understand why this wasn’t possible during the campaign. What the press and the left wanted wasn’t so much an admission you did something wrong. They wanted you to admit you were wrong about Iraq. They wanted to wallow in your humiliation like pigs in mud. They are beyond reprehensible.

That being said, maybe if you admitted you were wrong about something else. Anything else. Like picking the wrong place settings for that dinner with Chirac. Or you underestimated the insurgency in Iraq. Anything. The way it stands now, it doesn’t look so much like you’re not giving your political foes ammunition to use against you as it appears to be arrogance.

Maybe you can take John Kennedy’s advice. Bobby Kennedy was worried about press reaction to his being named Attorney General. Kennedy joked that the way they’d announce it would be the President would wait until the middle of the night, go outside of the White House, and whisper “it’s Bobby” and then run back in.

Sounds like a plan.

There…I’ve given all my special trolls and DU moonbats who are regular visitors to the House exactly what they wanted. Now, anytime any of you loons accuse me of being myopic about Bush, all I have to do is link to this post and you’ll shut up faster than Michael Moore at an Overeaters Anonymous convention.

Now can I go back to being a partisan political hack?