Right Wing Nut House

Mitt Romney spent about $660 per voter to win the Ames Straw Poll held yesterday on the campus of Iowa State University. And that might be low balling the amount. Rudy Giuliana said he didn’t want to spend the $3 million it would take to be competitive at the event which means Mitt spent at least that much and probably much more. The long and short of it is that Romney could not afford anything less than a big win in Ames and he got it.

Let’s hope Mitt can make some economies between now and election day (if he gets the nomination). Spending $600 bucks a voter might not be too bad for a straw poll but when you multiply it by the 60 million votes that Bush got in 2004, you’re talking about spending an amount equal to the national debt of most countries on earth.

Romney had the most to lose at this straw poll. The question being asked today is does his victory matter? And does the non-participation of Giuliani, McCain, and Thompson hurt their chances when it will count next January?

The answer to both questions is not much. The most recent polls have Romney ahead by 10 points in Iowa. If he can maintain or expand that lead for another 2 or 3 months, look for Giuiani and McCain to pull out of Iowa to concentrate on later primaries. In the game of expectations - which is what the Iowa caucuses are all about - leaving the field to Romney will blunt some of the momentum he would ordinarily get coming out of the Hawkeye state. In fact, it may put pressure on Romney to “run up the score” in Iowa as anything less than a big win without the presence of the other frontrunners will not give him any momentum at all.

Finishing second in the straw poll was Mike Huckawho…or is it Huckawhat. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. If the American people elect a man named Huckabee president, I will move to Australia. Or maybe Montana.

The former Arkansas governor benefited from the absence of 3 of the top 4 candidates, including Fred Thompson who garnered 200 votes without even showing his face in Iowa. The former Tennessee Senator plans on visiting the state this week but it is unclear if he will spend his limited funds in mounting a challenge to Romney.

Finishing 3rd was Senator Sam Brownback, darling of the social conservatives, who closed fast the last two weeks by mounting a negative telephone campaign against Romney, accusing the former Massachusetts governor of switching his position on abortion.

Big surprise since this is where both Romney and Giuliani are most vulnerable; not their positions on abortion but the fact that they’ve changed their minds about the issue. One can just see Hillary and James Carville salivating over running against either one of those flip floppers.

Perhaps the least newsworthy item to come out of the straw poll was the probability of Tommy Thompson withdrawing from the race. Most Americans didn’t even know he was running, don’t know who he is, and could care less. That just about sums up my feelings on the matter as well.

So Romney in a walk with Huckathing crowing that he’s the shocker of the day and Tommy Thompson crying in his beer over what might have been (What might have been if his name was Kennedy and he had a gazillion dollars.)

And many of us could really care less. I don’t think it shows much of anything to hire a couple of hundred buses to get people who may or may not be your supporters to a straw vote. Getting them to caucus sites in the dead of winter will be the real trick. And Romney appears to have the organization, the money, and the strength to carry that off as well.

Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute is the Czar of all the Wars here in the United States. You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of him or from him. He is the most invisible of the President’s national security team.

His official title is “Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan.” You can see why with a handle like that, they decided to christen him “The War Czar.” But the kicker is in a description of his responsibilities:

In the newly created position, Lute will coordinate often disjointed military and civilian operations and manage the Washington side of the same troop increase he resisted before Bush announced the plan in January. Bush hopes an empowered aide working in the White House and answering directly to him will be able to cut through bureaucracy that has hindered efforts in Iraq.

The selection capped a difficult recruitment process for the White House, as its initial candidates rejected the job. At least five retired four-star generals approached by the White House or intermediaries refused to be considered. Lute, a three-star general now serving as chief operations officer on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in effect will jump over many superiors as he moves to the West Wing and assumes authority to deal directly with Cabinet secretaries and top commanders.

I never knew that it was “bureaucracy” that was hindering our war effort in Iraq. Is that shorthand for stupidity? Incompetence? Lack of planning? Myopia? Ideology supplanting military common sense?

Who would’ve known?

And the fact that 5 retired generals with nothing better to do decided to turn the job down does not give me a lot of confidence in the abilities of General Lute, although I’m sure he’s a competent enough fellow. He certainly can’t do anything to make things worse in Iraq. No one could.

Unable to cause too much mischief overseas, General Lute decided to make some headlines here at home.

Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush’s new war adviser said Friday.

“I think it makes sense to certainly consider it,” Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

“And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation’s security by one means or another,” said Lute, who is sometimes referred to as the “Iraq war czar.” It was his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.

President Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Restoring it, Lute said, would be a “major policy shift” and Bush has made it clear that he doesn’t think it’s necessary.

“The president’s position is that the all-volunteer military meets the needs of the country and there is no discussion of a draft. Gen. Lute made that point as well,” National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

In the interview, Lute also said that “Today, the current means of the all-volunteer force is serving us exceptionally well.”

Obviously, anyone with half a brain (and judging by the number of lefty sites that have picked up on these comments, we can exclude them) knows full well that there is a better chance of a George Bush pictorial in Playgirl Magazine than there is for a draft. It isn’t going to happen in this war or any other war America will ever fight. For better or worse, our military will remain all volunteer, all the time. If Viet Nam taught us anything about domestic politics, it is that there will always be a sizable, vocal segment of young people who will refuse to be drafted for a variety of reasons, not always because they would refuse to defend America or her interests. This is the lay of the political landscape and I doubt even an invasion by a foreign power or powers would change it.

As for those with half a brain (or less), leave it to Kos himself to bring up the chickenhawk argument:

There’s only so much that war supporters are willing to do in their might and heroic struggle against Islamofacism. For example, they’re willing to endlessly talk macho. But they’re not willing to, you know, actually wear combat boots.

This clash of civilizations is only the Most Important Struggle Of Our Time as long as they don’t actually have to do anything about it. That’s for the poor shlubs who signed up to deal with.

So does Kos support a draft? In order to make his chickenhawk smear stick, he has to. He supports the idea of sending war supporters to Iraq so I guess he’s for a draft to accomplish that, right?

Watch the 26%ers, who support the occupation of Iraq from afar by buying car stickers, jump to agree with Bush and suggest Lute was a bad choice…while quietly checking out entry requirements for Canada.

As for us lefties? We’ll just smugly point out that a draft wouldn’t need even passing consideration if Bush hadn’t wasted all that time and all those resources, as well as exhausting the Army, by invading Iraq instead of concentrating on Afghanistan.

But we should “consider” a draft, right Cernig? Since you don’t come out against it, you must be for it.

Actually, a draft might be just what this country needs to finally - finally get these lazy ass lefties off their fat behinds and get them in the streets so that they can put something on the line to end this war besides their hurt feelings when righty bloggers insult them. Their fathers and mothers (or older brothers and sisters) stopped a much larger war that was much more popular than the Iraq conflict (support for the Viet Nam war never fell below 50%). And they did it in a nation much less tolerant of dissent

I have made the point several times that it is ridiculous for the left to castigate Iraq war supporters for not putting their money where their mouths are when they themselves sit safely behind their monitors, allowing the war to go on. This is a war they claim to hate with a passion. A war that is ruining the country. A war that is leading to dictatorship. A war that is destroying our standing in the world. A war for oil or to satisfy the bloodlust of the President and Vice President. An evil, despicable, unnecessary, unjust, war started by evil, despicable men, right?

Holy Jesus! And the best you can do is sit in your parent’s basement writing not very clever slop about “chickenhawks?” Get up off your ample behinds and CONFRONT the “evil” if that is what you believe. How much courage does it take to talk a good game when you have the example of the Berrigans, David Sloane Coffin, Martin Luther King, and thousands like them who went to jail in order to stop a war.

Your ideological ancestors were getting clubbed over the head or hauled off to jail 35 years ago. But the best these anti-war “heroes” can do today is stay safely hunched over their keyboards, writing idiotic, exaggerated, diatribes against a president they hate while engaging in childish name calling. It is truly pathetic. And speaking as someone who marched against the Viet Nam War many times, getting a whiff of tear gas on more than one occasion (I was too much of a coward to get myself arrested back then), you make me sick.

General Lute is right that the military is near the breaking point. God knows our soldiers have given their all and then some and have been ill-served by both their civilian and military commanders. But there will not be a draft. And my advice to Lute is that he go back to his bureaucratic cubbyhole in the basement of the White House and keep his mouth shut.

They all invoke his name with a reverence that the down to earth Reagan would probably have found amusing if he were alive. They identify their policies with his. They promise to emulate his strength, his purposefulness. They all promise to be true to his legacy.

Republican candidates for President vie with each other on the stump and during the debates to prove which one of them deserves to wear the mantle of successor to Reagan because not to do so - to reject the icon and strike out on your own - would be suicidal. As one wag put it, it would be “like asking the Vatican to give up St. Peter.”

Indeed, there is almost a religious element to this Reagan worship in the Republican party. And the fact that true believers in the former President’s legend will make up a large percentage of primary voters means that it is simply a given that GOP presidential candidates must pay lip service to the Reagan legacy in order to have a chance at the prize.

And it isn’t just Reagan’s legacy to which these candidates pay homage. All the major players find it necessary to adopt the Reagan agenda of lower taxes, smaller government, and a strong national defense as their Ur issues. This despite the fact that most Americans - thanks to the Reagan revolution - pay little or nothing in taxes already and the GOP Congress spent an entire decade making hash out of the idea of “smaller government,” going on a spending spree that, as John McCain will eagerly tell you, “gives drunken sailors a bad name.”

No matter. Ronald Reagan’s presence in the Republican party still overshadows all who seek to lead the GOP. And this raises an interesting question: Is it time for Republicans to move beyond the memory and legend of Reagan and re-invent the party and re-tool conservatism to more realistically reflect the times in which we live?

The Cold War is over. Ruinously high marginal tax rates are a thing of the past. The language of debate over the size of the federal government has been permanently altered to the point that even Democrats hesitate to advocate Washington-only solutions to social problems like health insurance. Welfare reform has changed the way we look at entitlements, although real reform of the welfare state has not been attempted in any serious way.

In short, the issues and conditions that gave rise to Ronald Reagan either no longer exist or have already been changed to reflect the success of the revolution he initiated. And yet Republicans keep pushing issues like “tax reform” despite the fact that, according to The Tax Foundation, a whopping 52 million American households paid no income tax whatsoever in 2005. That’s up from around 30 million in 2000.

Today’s debate over taxes has been reduced to elimination of the death tax or making the Bush tax cuts permanent - important issues to be sure but hardly the across the board cut in rates that seemed so radical back in 1980. There are various schemes to completely overhaul the tax system - as there has been in every presidential election since the end of World War II. But outside of The Fair Tax proposal that seems to be picking up a little steam in the grassroots, there is not much chance any proposals to abolish the IRS or impose a flat tax will see the light of day in Congress.

And while the need for a strong defense is more vital than ever, we are already spending nearly half a trillion dollars to defend this nation - not including emergency appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan. There is little room for the 30% increases in spending advocated by Reagan back in 1980. Nor is there a need for those kind of increases. It is a different military today, asked to perform a very different mission. Rather than massive increases in spending, most defense experts are looking at targeted increases in the size of the army, of Special Forces, and other areas vital in fighting the War on Terror. In other words, the kind of bold, world altering changes that Reagan managed in the 1980’s are neither possible nor necessary.

And what of reducing the role and shrinking the size of government? In an age where the political pendulum is swinging back toward the center rather than reaching its apex on the right, in order to get elected, Republicans are going to have to stress more efficient government while addressing the growing concerns of the American people with such non-Reaganesque issues as health care, child and elder care, and other middle class quality of life matters. There are conservative alternatives to federal funding of these programs and Republicans ignore these issues at their peril.

The Democrats faced a similar dilemma back in the 1960’s and 70’s with the haunting presence of Franklin Roosevelt hanging over the party. The perceived commitment of FDR to the less fortunate among us allowed the Democrats to invoke his name while opening the floodgates of government spending on social programs. The debate back then was not whether a program for the poor should be passed but rather how much we should be spending to fund it. And the party continued that kind of suicidal rhetoric well into the 1980’s until the Reagan revolution squelched it for good.

Might the Republicans be in similar danger with their reliance on the Reagan legacy to win elections and run the government? The Reagan leadership personae has moved from fond memory into the realms of myth and legend. This makes us forget certain inconvenient truths about those years such as huge deficits and the leadership failures brought to light in the Iran-Contra imbroglio. There is much good to take away from that time. But how much of the good can be transported to the present and grafted on to the current Republican party and the ideological movement that is conservatism?

Reagan stands a silent sentinel over the modern GOP still evoking powerful emotions and loyalty among conservatives. Perhaps it is time to carefully place his legacy and memory in our national treasure chest, taking them out on occasion to examine them for the lessons we can learn rather than pushing that legacy front and center in a futile attempt to recapture the power and the glory of days long gone and a time that will never come again.

UPDATE

Several emailers have made the excellent point that taxes, reducing the size of government, and national defense are not just Reagan issues but Republican issues as well.

I fully acknowledge that. However, the point I was trying to make is that those issues should be reframed - perhaps receive a new coat of paint - that would more accurately reflect the realities of 21st century America.

The idea is seductive to the left. Bring the troops home from Iraq in dignified retreat, patting ourselves on the back that we did the best we could while that country explodes in sectarian conflict. Bravely, we take the blame before the world, say three our fathers, three hail Mary’s, and go about the business of turning America into a bastion of democratic socialism.

The only problem is, it isn’t even remotely possible:

These are unpleasant realities for a nation that prefers all of its solutions to be simple and short. The reality is, however, that even if the US does withdraw from Iraq, it cannot disengage from it. The US will have to be deeply involved in trying to influence events in Iraq indefinitely into the future, regardless of whether it does so from the inside or the outside. It will face major risks and military problems regardless of the approach it takes, and it will face continuing strategic, political, and moral challenges.

Anthony Cordesman went to Iraq recently. His travelling companions were none other than Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack - the Brookings Boys whose Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled “We Maybe Could Be, Just Might Possibly, Conceivably, Perchance Win This Thing (Depending On The Breaks)” was touted as “proof” that not only was the surge working (a fact confirmed by even some of the most jaundiced observers of Iraq who have come back from there recently) but that its success could lead to “sustainable stability” in Iraq and a sort of “victory.”

Now there’s a rallying cry for you; “Remember Sustainable Stability!” Or perhaps “Onward to Sustainable Stability!”

At any rate, Cordesman is one of those hard eyed military men who works for think tanks as kind of the “Warmonger in Residence.” He doesn’t have quite the take on the Iraqi situation that O’Hanlon and Pollack brought back. In fact, it is quite a bit more pessimistic (which is bringing huge sighs of relief to some on the left this morning)

From my perspective, the US now has only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq. It cannot dictate Iraq’s future, only influence it, and this presents serious problems at a time when the Iraqi political process has failed to move forward in reaching either a new consensus or some form of peaceful coexistence. It is Iraqis that will shape Iraq’s ability or inability to rise above its current sectarian and ethnic conflicts, to redefine Iraq’s politics and methods of governance, establish some level of stability and security, and move towards a path of economic recovery and development. So far, Iraq’s national government has failed to act at the rate necessary to move the country forward or give American military action political meaning.

Gee…where have I heard that before?

If I were an anti-war lefty, I’d hold off on embracing this report too vigorously. Yes, it may offer some counterpoints to the O’Hanlon-Pollack piece. But you’re not going to like this:

The US has some 160,000 military personnel in Iraq and a matching or greater number of civilians and contractors. It has between 140,000 and 200,000 metric tons of valuable equipment and supplies, and some 15,000-20,000 military vehicles and major weapons. It is dispersed in many of Iraqi’s cities and now in many forward operating bases.

This does not mean that the US cannot leave quickly. It can rush out quickly by destroying or abandoning much of its supplies and equipment, and simply removing its personnel and contractors (and some unknown amount of Iraqis who bet their lives and families on a continued US effort). The more equipment and facilities (and Iraqis) it destroys or abandons, the quicker it can move. Under these conditions, the US could rush out in as little as a few weeks and no more than a few months.

A secure withdrawal that removed all US stocks and equipment and phased out US bases, however, would take some 9-12 months or longer [estimates of this vary but if it was 10,000 military plus 10,000 civilians and all equipment each month in Kuwait, that would likely take 16 months minimum; 2 years is what many military experts think would be a rapid, but deliberate pace].

So if, as many of you propose, we leave Iraq in 90 days, it would be Saigon, 1975 times ten. Not only military stocks but what becomes of the $20 billion in aid projects? Or the new US embassy being built there?

And for many of the rest of you liberals, what does this information do to your carefully thought out and “practical” redeployment of troops under the Democratic plan in Congress? You know, the one where we’re out by March, 2008?

And for all my conservative friends who talk blithely of “victory” as if there is any strategy or tactics we can employ that will change the perception out there in the world that Iraq is nothing short of a defeat for the US, Cordesman has this:

It is important to note in this regard that while Americans are still concerned with finding ways to define “victory” in Iraq, virtually the entire world already perceives the US as having decisively lost. Every international opinion poll that measures international popular reactions to the US performance in the war – Oxford Analytica, Pew, ABC/BBC/ARD/USA Today, Gallup, etc. – sees the US as responsible for a war it cannot justify and which has caused immense Iraqi suffering. Virtually every internal poll of Iraqi opinion with any credibility — Oxford Analytica, ABC/BBC/ARD/USA Today, ORB, etc. – has produced similar results.

The US probably cannot entirely reverse these attitudes in Iraq, the region, allied states, and increasingly in America. It may well, however, be able to greatly ameliorate them over time. It seems likely that the US will ultimately be judged far more by how it leaves Iraq, and what it leaves behind, than how it entered Iraq. The global political image of the US – and its ability to use both “hard” and “soft” power in other areas in the future, depends on what the US does now even more than on what it has done in the past.

What you are advocating - even though noble and desired by all patriots - is simply not possible.

Time to rethink Iraq - for BOTH sides.

The situation cries out for a bi-partisan solution between Congress and the White House. In order for that to happen BOTH sides have to recognize that neither of them can achieve their goals. The Democratic left is not going to be able to cut and run from Iraq. The Republican right is not going to be able to stay indefinitely, endlessly engaged in a struggle against ghosts.

(Parenthetically, Middle East and military expert Doug Hanson, speaking on my radio show yesterday, put the number of insurgents and potential insurgents in Iraq at “several hundred thousand.” These are former Saddam loyalists who were placed where they are and given instructions just for this kind of scenario happening in Iraq today. What is blood boiling about this number is US intelligence has known since 2005 that we are facing hundreds of thousands of fighters and potential fighters while Rumsfeld was assuring Congress there weren’t more than 20,-25,000.

We can’t kill them all.)

We can’t leave precipitously and we can’t stay forever. What’s the solution? The situation doesn’t lend itself to the easy talking points of either side which is why both my right and left leaning readers and commenters will not be pleased. Believe me, I’d love to write a post on Iraq just once where only one side gave me hell. But the times and situation in Iraq demand a little bit more out of all of us.

The only way out of Iraq that least harms our national security interests (interests made very plain and spelled out in English by Cordesman in his report) and that would leave Iraq with a chance at peace is together. And after we leave, the hard part begins. Staying engaged also would demand a bi-partisan consensus with the acknowledgement by both sides that there may be certain circumstances where we would have to send troops back into Iraq to save it from external threats or other disasters.

Cordesman’s report forms the basis for a long term commitment to Iraq and its people. Do we have the political will to make it happen?

I can dream, can’t I?

Many thanks to Pajamas Media for sending me as a representative of the press to cover YearlyKos. Not only was my sojourn among the netroots instructive, but the trip supplied enough blog fodder to keep me writing for a week - if I so choose.

Don’t worry. I have no intention of being that boring. However, allow me to share some of my pithy observations and razor sharp insights into what was going on both above and below the surface.

The number one thing I learned was that liberals are people too. This may not seem an earth shattering observation. After all, we’ve suspected for years that lefties shared many of our genes and that they may, at some point in their evolution, have even used stone tools and decorated their bodies with various kinds of artwork.

I can assure you that they are at least as similar to us as chimpanzees - except chimps are cuter and don’t constantly interrupt you when you’re speaking and trying to make a point. However, all that aside, liberals are pretty normal. They have a different sense of humor of course. And they may not laugh as much as conservatives although I wonder who will be doing the chuckling on election day 2008?

They have their radicals. So do conservatives. Both manifestations of extremism are humorless, boring, and smelly. Radicals are so intent to push their ideas on the rest of us that they’ve forgotten their way to the bathtub. And where conservative radicals tend to be younger (age being a leavening factor among conservatives) lefty radicals tend to be older. Also, liberal extremists may have a few years on their conservative counterparts but they try to look young and act young anyway. Lots of near seniors were present with body piercings and tattoos. And I swear some of them were wearing “earth shoes” and Jesus sandals.

Political red meat tossed to the attendees by speakers, panelists, discussion leaders, and presidential candidates was pretty harsh stuff. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that our republic has less than a year and a half to live - unless we elect all Democrats and throw many if not all Republicans in jail. Or behead them, or something. John Edwards, by the way, must be prevented at all costs from becoming President. First of all, the obvious reason that America governed by this metrosexual priss would be an invitation to every terrorist, thug nation, and rogue beauty consultant to descend upon this country en masse and make our lives a living hell. Not only terrorist attacks as a regular occurrence but just think of the damage to our masculinity.

John Edwards will be tougher on rich people than he will be on al-Qaeda. That might make us all feel better, seeing people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet reduced to paupery and forced to sell old copies of Windows ME and junk bonds in the street. Will it make us safer? I report. You decide.

I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Dennis Kucinich as President. We’ve never had a gnome as chief executive before and at the very least, it would be a novel experiment in discovering if psychoses are contagious.

Mike Gravel might make things interesting for a few years. His ideas of what constitutes global warming would be slightly skewed as a result of spending all that time in Alaska. Minneapolis would seem a veritable tropical retreat while Chicago might seem equatorial in climate.

Would someone please wake Chris Dodd up and tell him he can go home now?

As for the rest of them - Richardson, Obama, and Hillary - any of them would probably be alright. At least until Republicans regain their equilibrium. Then again, they only allow a President to serve two terms, right? Might want to make plans for that GOP Victory Dance in 2028 or so given our past experience on the back benches of government.

One observation I would never have dared put in a piece for PJ Media or anywhere else I write is that for a movement and party that prides itself on inclusion, the gathering appeared very white. There were definitely more people of color than there would be at a conservative or Republican event. But as I scanned the faces of attendees to the Presidential Leadership Forum where almost all YKos was gathered, my rough estimate was 75% white - perhaps larger.

I read nothing untoward into this figure. The conference had no control over the color of those signing up (unlike the Democratic convention that mandates racial diversity in precise amounts to the decimal point). And it can hardly be called hypocritical when attendance was voluntary. I’m also sure they didn’t turn anyone away because of race.

And yet, there it is. Does that say something about the netroots? About America? Or is it inconsequential?

The fact that is that if it had been a GOP event and that high percentage of whites were in attendance, we’d never hear the end of it. So perhaps the netroots will grant conservatives a little leeway in their criticism next time, right?

Right.

Lastly, I will sound this warning to the GOP and conservatives a lot between now and next summer. Ignore or make sport of the netroots at your own peril. Underestimate them and you will get the holy living crap kicked out of you in 2008. These people are organizing far beyond blogs and blog readers. And that organization extends almost down to the precinct level as I’m sure next year’s Netroots Convention will show (they’ve decided to rename the shindig in order to move it away from one guy’s blog).

They are determined, well funded, optimistic, committed, and excited. The GOP is uncertain, underfunded, hopeful but pessimistic, dispirited, and seemingly leaderless, rudderless, and without an agenda.

Who do you think is in better shape going into next year’s contest?

UPDATE

I’m not the only one who noticed how white the gathering was:

For all the talk about the increasing influence of this growing group — “We are a community . . . a movement . . . an institution,” Cooper said in a speech Saturday night — what gets scant attention is its demography. While the Huffington Post and Fire Dog Lake, both founded by women, are two of the most widely read blogs, the rock stars are mostly men, and many women bloggers complain of sexism and harassment in the blogosphere.

Walking around McCormick Place during the weekend, it became clear that only a handful of the 1,500 conventioneers — bloggers, policy experts, party activists — are African American, Latino or Asian. Of about 100 scheduled panels and workshops, less than a half-dozen dealt directly with women or minority issues.

All snark aside, this says more about America than it does about progressives, conservatives, or either party.

In order to come to YKos and participate, you have to be able to:

1. Afford air fare from wherever you are coming.

2. Afford to stay in a hotel like the Hyatt for two nights (won’t find anything cheaper in the city - not with the special group rate Ykos got).

3. Afford to be able to take off 2 or 3 days from work.

4. Afford to feed yourself at Chicago prices (largest restaurant tax in US)

Minorities who may have wanted to attend might not have been able to afford the trip as easily as their white counterparts.

It’s that simple.

What do you believe would happen if American forces invaded Pakistan to go after the Taliban without the permission of the Musharraf government?

Most analysts expect the Pakistani people would pour into the streets in protest, destablizing that already fragile country to the point that it would be possible for a much more conservative, Taliban friendly government to emerge from the chaos. Pakistan is already the most anti-American country in the world following our invasion of Afghanistan. It would be stupid to invade and threaten Musharraf’s hold on power.

Pakistan has 60 nuclear weapons. Need anything else be said about a government with that kind of destructive power in their hands with ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban?

Evidently, this doesn’t concern Senator Barak Obama:

In a strikingly bold speech about terrorism scheduled for this morning, Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama will call not only for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but a redeployment of troops into Afghanistan and even Pakistan with or without the permission of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

“

“I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges,” Obama will say, according to speech excerpts provided to ABC News by his campaign, “but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Blogger Sister Toldjah asks the obvious question: “Would this be before or after those unconditional meetings he would have with the world’s most despotic ‘leaders’?”

In fact, that remark about meeting with the thugs of the world without any preliminaries has evidently cost Obama dearly. The most recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll has Hillary Clinton widening her lead over the Illinois Senator to 43% - 22%. That’s up a whopping 14% since June and shows that Obama’s foreign policy gaffes are not giving Democrats or the American people much confidence in his abilities.

If Obama thought sounding a touger note in his foreign policy speeches would help, he might have least chosen a target to invade who was already an enemy of the United States. By showing a willingness to take the chance of handing al-Qaeda a nuclear weapon on a silver platter, Obama proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is not ready to be President now nor possibly ever.

COURAGE!

Dorothy: Your Majesty, If you were King, you wouldn’t be afraid of anything?
Lion: Not nobody, not nohow!
Tin Man: Not even a rhinocerous?
Lion: Imposserous!
Dorothy: How about a hippopotamus?
Lion: Why, I’d trash him from top to bottomamus!
Dorothy: Supposin’ you met an elephant?
Lion: I’d wrap him up in cellophant!
Scarecrow: What if it were a brontosaurus?
Lion: I’d show him who was King of the Forest!
All Four: HOW?
Lion: How?
Courage!
What makes a King out of a slave?
Courage!
What makes the flag on the mast to wave?
Courage!
What makes the elephant charge his tusk, in the misty mist or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
Courage!
What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder?
Courage!
What makes the dawn come up like thunder?
Courage!
What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the “ape” in apricot? What have they got that I ain’t got?
All Four: COURAGE!
Lion: You can say that again…

I was trying to decide whether to use this classic Bert Lahr bit from Wizard of Oz or another classic bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to illustrate how totally disgusted I am with Republican presidential candidates who fear getting questions via YouTube from well meaning but nutty citizens that would be gleefully culled and chosen by those totally impartial and fair minded editors and producers at CNN.

Hugh Hewitt, with what we assume will soon be the official Mitt Romney position, cries Humbug!

If the GOP candidates agree to this format, expect a series of cheap shots about all of the top tier candidates. Patrick worries that the Republicans will appear behind the times if they take a pass. Perhaps, but if that means skipping a no win set-up where MSM agenda journalists work for weeks to put a video shiv into one or more of the Big Three, I am for it. The second tier folks will no doubt show up hoping for a Hail mary moment, but Giuliani, Romney and Thompson ought to say no thanks.

To illustrate,take a look at this story –a bit of agenda journalism that Jonathan Martin at Politico.com told me on air today is built on a story that has been floating around for months. Imagine some YouTube video asking Rudy why he’s defending a suspected pedophile. No MSMer would dare ask such a loaded question, but imagine what the gang at CNN would do. They covered for the Dems with a series of overwhelmingly left-biased questions at the first YouTube debate, with a very few tough, serious questions thrown in. That dynamic would change completely in a GOP YouTube debate –they or their counterparts at a different network will be gunning for the Republicans, and the question set will be designed to embarrass or ridicule.

Hugh is missing the point. It’s not a question of partisanship necessarily. It’s a question of putting on a good show.

If you’re all doe eyed and worshipful about the “freedom of the press” and our grand experiment in democracy being safeguarded by these noble knights with printers ink on their fingers, allow me to disabuse you of something; these guys are not very noble and the only freedom they care about is the one that says they can make gobs of money while pretending to be journalists. Paddy Chayefsky’s nightmare screenplay Network has come true with a vengeance. It’s not about the news. It’s show business. CNN, Fox, MSNBC - the lot of them - are in “the boredom killing business” as Chayefsky so sharply observed.

Even more basic than that, it’s all about eyeballs. The news nets want your eyeballs and like the carny barkers of old, will do or say just about anything to make you stop clicking the remote long enough - 3 or 4 minutes at the outside - to watch as they dangle shiny, pretty, horrifying, funny, dramatic, titillating, and blood boiling baubles made of people and events in front of your eyes. Their goal; make you stick around until after the commercial break.

Are they partisan? Sure they are. But above and beyond that, they are consummate showmen. And a bunch of conservative Christian white men standing on stage all in a row like ducks in an old fashioned shooting gallery is just too much of a target rich environment to pass up. They’ll have every group of special pleaders (who happen to be Democratic constituencies) eager to get their shots in. Why do Republicans hate blacks? Or Hispanics? Or women? Or children. Or puppy dogs?

In the Democratic debate, the entertainment value came from the questioners themselves. The snowman, the guy who called his rifle “baby” - CNN could have cared less about the efficacy of the questions as long as the people asking them were interesting to look at.

The GOP debate would be a little different. Hugh is correct about the kinds of questions that would be chosen. But here, the entertainment value would be watching the Republican candidates squirm. The chickenhawk questions would be most entertaining - from CNN’s point of view. And can you imagine some gay guy asking Brownback why he’s persecuting him? Perfect!

So why bother, Hewitt is asking?

For God’s sake, Hugh! These people want to be President of the United States! If they can’t stand up to a little tough questioning from Democratic partisans (CNN included) how in God’s name are they going to stand up to Ahmadinejad who I guarantee will feel a helluva lot more empowered come November, 2008 than a gay guy from New York asking about gay marriage!

There would be something unseemly about Republicans ducking this debate - sort of like being too frightened to walk into a dark room full of treasure where you’ve been told a vicious beast is ready to pounce and eat you. That doesn’t mean you don’t go into the room. It means that you grab yourself a set of night vision goggles and the biggest gun in your arsenal and you go and face down the beast and grab the loot.

If Republicans don’t believe strongly enough in their ideals, then perhaps they should skip the debate. Case in point was Obama’s response to the question about meeting the thugs of the world his first year in office without pre-conditions. It’s a stupid idea. But was there any doubt in your mind that Obama didn’t believe in his answer 120%? Hillary has tried to make political hay out of Obama’s naivety but isn’t getting very far because people know that Obama believes what he’s saying.

Does Romney mean it when he says he’s anti-abortion or anti-gay marriage? Does Rudy believe it when he says he’ll name strict constructionists to the Supreme Court? Does anyone believe anything John McCain says anymore?

The GOP is in crisis because it has no leadership, no agenda, and is failing the test of history. It’s principles have crashed on the shoals of expediency and arrogance. It insists on putting its social agenda front and center in the mistaken belief that Americans care more about preventing gay people from getting married then whether they’ll have a job in six months. Or how in God’s name we’re going to get out of Iraq without leaving a bloody mess.

Stay away from the debate and the American people will judge you cowards. The press will see to that. Stand up like men, take your lumps, give back as good as you get, don’t fear the unknown, and move forward.

Or, perhaps the man behind the curtain will give you what you really need; a permanent pass to the back benches of government where you belong if you skip this debate.

For you lefty trolls out there, here’s some red meat to go with your scrambled eggs and coffee this morning.

And for my conservative friends who enjoy a little introspection on a lazy summer Saturday, here’s a piece that will will give you something to think about while you’re on the golf course waiting for the idiots on the green to stop dicking around and putt already.

First, it appears that Chertoff’s “gut feeling” about an impending attack is being taken seriously by some people in the government. Or, if you’re inclined to wear the latest fashion in tin foil chapeaus (Reynolds Wrap Haute couture is all the rage this summer) it’s just more evidence of Administration tomfoolery with terror alerts:

Fearing a possible coded signal to attack, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are studying an unusual pattern of words in the latest audiotape from al Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri.

On the tape, posted on the Internet Wednesday, Zawahri repeats one phrase three times at the end of his message.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

A new FBI analysis of al Qaeda messages, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, warns that “continued messages that convey their strategic intent to strike the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests worldwide should not be discounted as merely deceptive noise.”

A far cry from “John has a long mustache” or “Wounds my heart with a monotonous languor,” no?

Be that as it may, the FBI and Homeland Security seem to be taking this latest threat more seriously than some others lately. As for many on the left, not so much:

Let’s set aside for a moment the hollowness of the threat. Frankly the London and Glasgow plots were ill-conceived and miserably executed. It wouldn’t take much to “dwarf” them. Letting off a firecracker in a movie theater, for example.

First, this smacks of more fear-mongering by the administration. Chertoff had a “gut feeling” we’re going to be attacked, and now you see the media dutifully stoke up the panic with crap stories like this. (Yeah, a Taliban leader threatened big attacks in the US. And the head coach of the Raiders vowed to take his team to the playoffs.) The administration has a history of tweaking with terror alerts and fantasy plots to influence politics. That’s worthy of both impeachment and a swift kick in the *ss.

Second, if this threat is real and imminent, and something actually happens — it’s not the shrapnel I’ll be worrying about, it’ll be the overreaction of the government. This a group of thugs that kidnaps, tortures, and spies on its own people in times of safety. Think what they’ll do when the sh*t flies. Not to mention their track record against your standard-issue emergencies like, say, hurricanes.

I do not want these people in power in a time of emergency.

Well, whether you want them or not, they’re it and it does little good to fantasize about a Pelosi regime doing anything different.

Which brings me to the point of today’s ramblings; the respective views on terrorism and terrorist threats by the two sides and why, because of the viciousness and polarization of our politics, each side sees the other as a bigger threat than the terrorists.

One of the more thoughtful people blogging today is Matthew Yglesias:

Rick Santorum, appearing on the Hugh Hewitt show, predicts “some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK” over the next eighteen months or so that are going to lead people to have a “very different view” of the war in Iraq and the vital importance of “confronting Iran in the Middle East.” Avedon Carol wonders if it shouldn’t “concern us that Republicans are constantly talking about how people will all wise up when the next terrorist attack at home comes?” After all, they seem to really be “looking forward to it, and they take great delight in the thought that, by God, people will see things differently when it happens.”

There’s really, even, a larger structural issue here. Namely that while clearly on some level the conservative movement would like to make the country safer from terrorism, on another level everyone knows that mass fear of foreign threats to Americans’ physical security are a boon to the conservative movement’s fortune. On the one hand, this creates systematic incentives to overstate the extent and nature of the real threats facing America. On the other hand, it creates systematic incentives to ensure that such threats as do exist are never ameliorated. In particular, it gives everyone a very strong self-interest in not understanding the extent to which overreacting can be counterproductive since both the overreaction itself and the counterproductive blowback may serve the interests of the Republican Party.

On a superficial level, conservatives must plead guilty as charged. There is a belief by conservatives (not a “wish” or “desire”) that another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 would expose the liberal narrative on the War on Terror for what it is; an extraordinary myopic and paranoid view of the threat facing us and of the government charged with protecting us. This narrative is fairly consistent in downplaying the abilities of the enemy, complaining about false or faked terror alerts, ridiculing conservatives for reporting on successful or failed terrorist attacks, and generally positing the notion that the entire War on Terror is a manufactured political sideshow put on by the Bush Administration to jack up fear so that they can tear up the Constitution and set up a dictatorship.

Variations of that narrative exist depending on the reasonableness and thoughtfulness of the liberal writing about it. Some, like Yglesias, take the threat seriously but have huge problems (as many conservatives do) with the Bush Administration’s prosecution of the wider war. Others who are not quite as reasonable or thoughtful have a different perspective:

Democrat John Edwards Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a “global war on terror,” calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists.
In a defense policy speech he planned to deliver at the Council on Foreign Relations, Edwards called the war on terror a “bumper sticker” slogan Bush had used to justify everything from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison to the invasion of Iraq.

“We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological purposes,” Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery. “By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam.”

The mass of Muslims who believe we are attacking all of Islam and not the radical minority are beholden to that idea not because we’ve framed the issue as a war but because of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic propaganda - something Edwards himself has apparently fallen for. A couple of statements by ignorant American officials (including the President’s incredibly dumb “crusade” remark) that have been played up in Islamic countries do not reflect the policy of the US government in any way. If Edwards wants to criticize our own propaganda efforts, that would be a legitimate criticism. But his adherence to The Narrative in talking about the war as an ideological exercise by the Administration serves to proves my point.

But getting back to Yglesias and his thesis; that while “the conservative movement would like to make the country safer from terrorism, on another level everyone knows that mass fear of foreign threats to Americans’ physical security are a boon to the conservative movement’s fortune…”

The unwritten companion to that idea that Yglesias leaves out is that the reason conservative “fortunes” soar as a result of threats to the homeland is because of the perceived (and in my opinion, rightly so) weakness of the left on security issues. This is not an issue of smoke and mirrors but rather a decades long retreat from the left’s belief in an assertive American foreign policy and funding a military machine to back it up. The modern left never met a weapons system they didn’t try to kill at some point nor has there been an assertive move to protect American interests in the last several decades that they have supported. The American people have taken note of this and voted accordingly.

But what of the notion that this political advantage by conservatives is deliberately fostered by overstating the threat facing us and that this leads to creating “systematic incentives” to make sure the war continues ad infinitum?

The two issues should have been separated by Yglesias because they deal with two different assumptions. 1) Conservatives want to win elections, and 2) The only way the right sees itself as succeeding in this is to make the War on Terror a generational conflict so that a constant state of fear is used as a club to beat the left over the head on security issues.

As for the first part, Yglesias has a point. I think there is a psychological desire on the part of the right to see the country unified behind its point of view on terrorism. And I think this desire at some level includes the notion that the best thing that could happen as far as unifying the country (and making the left’s views on terrorism an irrelevancy) is for a terrorist attack to occur on American soil. I don’t see any “great delight” being exhibited by conservatives in anticipation of such an attack - an attack that every living expert on terrorism has warned is a virtual certainty - nor do I see conservatives “looking forward to it” as Avedon Carol so generously states. But to see the outcome of another 9/11 in superficial political terms, then I think Yglesias has a good point.

Of course, this throws up all sorts of questions about the leadership of President Bush, Republicans in Congress, and conservative intellectuals who have failed miserably in making the case for this wider war on terrorism to the American people. There are other, less destructive ways to unify the country without having an American city reduced to rubble.

But as with the War in Iraq, President Bush has failed to sustain any coherent defense of his policies. This has allowed his political opponents free reign to color his actions in the worst possible light. And while some intellectuals of the right such as Norman Podhoretz and Donald Kagan have defended the Administration’s policies in Iraq and the wider War on Terror, the intellectual underpinnings that should be girding our efforts in the war of ideas against Islamic radicalism as well as offering a rationale for our actions to those willing to listen overseas has been sorely lacking.

As for the second assumption made by Yglesias - that this desire by the right to extend the life of the war by creating “systematic incentives to ensure that such threats as do exist are never ameliorated…” I believe him to be on much shakier ground.

Matthew places that statement in the context of what he terms “over-reacting” to both the threat of terrorism and terrorist incidents themselves. From another Yglesias post following the London/Glasgow incidents:

I’m pretty sure I haven’t been “ignoring” the bomb attempt, but I’ve certainly said less about it than, say, the NBA draft. That said, I find there to be two curious presumptions built into the question. One is that “you’re paying less attention than you should to failed bombings in a foreign country!” is framed as some kind of cutting accusation. Second, is that it’s taken as a given that hyping-up the threat of terrorism is something conservatives will want to do whereas downplaying it is something liberals will want to do.

It’s interesting because on another level if a liberal wants to make the case that Bush has been a horrible president implementing horrible policies, probably the most natural response is to say “look, some of what you say is true, but at the end of the day there haven’t been any more attacks since 9/11.” At that point, it falls to the liberal to point to all this international data indicating a substantial surge in Islamist violence during the Bush years as evidence of the administration’s failures.

Again, on one level, Yglesias has a point. But rather than “over reacting” to gin up fear in the country, I would describe the right’s focus on such attacks - failed or otherwise - as a psychological need to validate their views on terrorism as a genuine threat. (”See? The world is a dangerous place even if liberals downplay these attacks!”) Since part of The Narrative is that there is no such thing as a War on Terror and that even if attacks occur, the jihadis are a bunch of ignorant, 15th century goat herders so there’s no reason for all this fuss, conservatives feel compelled by politics and self-image to play up every incident of terror as part of the larger war against Islamism - a war they feel should engage the continuing interest of the American people to the exclusion of other, more mundane considerations like the economy or health care.

Yglesias points up the political danger of this exercise by the right; that even though no terrorist attacks have occurred here since 9/11, there is little doubt that Administration strategy has created more terrorists than there were prior to that date and that the threat has not been reduced in the nearly 6 years since. I might add there is also a danger for conservatives in that the absence of an attack on our soil since 2001 has brought those “mundane” issues to the fore in 2008, giving Democrats a distinct advantage in domestic policy. Focusing on terrorism as the major concern of the American people is rapidly becoming bad politics - unless we are hit again. Then the question of those increased numbers of jihadis will become a political nuclear weapon with each side tossing screaming allegations back and forth in the aftermath.

I have wrestled with this question of our creating more terrorists by confronting them in several posts over the last year. The reason the question is relevant is because there seems to be a consensus on the left that if only we hadn’t gone into Iraq, the terrorist threat wouldn’t be what it is today.

I find little evidence that our Iraq adventure alone is responsible for the increase in jihadi recruitment. One need only look at the reaction by Pakistanis to our invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan has become the most anti-American nation on earth not because of our invasion of Iraq but because of what we did to the Taliban.

But the real question remains: Would not confronting the terrorists after 9/11 have made us safer? If we had lobbed a few cruise missiles at Bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan rather than going for regime change, would there be Muslim doctors trying to blow up airports? It’s an interesting thought experiment but one I have never seen tried anywhere on the left. They have simply accepted the notion that the War in Iraq is singularly responsible for the surge in terrorist numbers.

And even if there were no terrorists in Iraq prior to the invasion (a still debatable point given the curiously unpublicized revelations contained in the Saddam papers) there’s no doubt there are many in Iraq now. If killing them only creates more of them which in turn makes us less safe, logic would dictate that we basically surrender to the idea that from time to time we are going to be attacked and that the best we can do is work with our allies to mitigate that possibility as much as possible by smashing their cells whenever we find them. Is this the basis of the left’s strategy for dealing with terrorism? It would seem to me and to many conservatives that this forms the basis for a “fear-free” War on Terror that appears to be embraced by many on the left.

Perhaps they don’t like the idea that such a strategy would put them at a distinct electoral disadvantage against Republicans so why not rage against perceived “fear mongering” by the right on the issue. In that context, there’s not much conservatives can do except embrace the left’s strategy for dealing with Islamism which would also include changing our foreign policy so we don’t experience any more “blowback” as a result of our standing with Israel or confronting that other threat in the Middle East Iran.

I’m not sure Yglesias would go as far as that but there’s little doubt that sympathy for the Palestinian cause and a general aversion to confronting the theocrats in Tehran is a part of the left’s solution to Bush’s “failed” policies in the War on Terror. What that would mean as far as our safety and security is concerned is another question - one the American people will have to decide next year. But one thing both left and right better start thinking very hard about if we are attacked again is that the solution to security will eventually have to be found in unity and not in these tiresome partisan dust ups where the motives of both sides are questioned and the War on Terror becomes a weapon to be used by one side or the other for political gain.

UPDATE

Right on cue, Ron Paul shows why unity in the War on Terror is an impossibility at the moment:

Presidential candidate Ron Paul says the U.S. is in “great danger” of a staged terror attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation while also warning that a major collapse of the American economy is on the horizon and could be precipitated by the bombing of Iran and the closure of the Persian Gulf.

“I think we’re in great danger of it,” responded the Congressman, “We’re in danger in many ways, the attack on our civil liberties here at home, the foreign policy that’s in shambles and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense.”

Ooookay, Ron. You can go back to the barbecue now. And next time make sure they don’t grill your brain instead of the steak.

HT for the image: SondraK

There are lessons to be learned from the Great Capitol Hill Sex Scandal of the Summer of 2007 except I’m not exactly sure what those lessons should be.

But first, we’ve got to come up with a better name. Something catchy. Something that will fit easily into newspaper headlines. Something that rolls off the tongue and spits out of the mouth with the proper amount of indignation and contempt. Something that will fit in that space under the TV picture where the “crawl” of headlines rolls by all day long.

“Pantygate?” Not bad but needs work.
“Progate?” Too obscure.
“Ho’gate?” Don’t go there.
“Zippergate?” Getting warm. As in “Why can’t these “family values” Republicans keep their zippers zipped?

I will say to my Republican friends that it does no good to whine about double standards. You’re going to have to concede the hypocrisy point to our Democratic friends on this one. If your going to lecture people about the sanctity of marriage as it relates to banning gay unions or campaign on a platform stressing “family values,” it would be best if you didn’t go whoring around on your wife, wetting your wick at $300 a pop.

Mindboggling stupidity.

And it appears that more good news for the GOP is on the way. The Hill reports that Larry Flynt, pornographer, guardian and promoter of public immorality, and paragon of Democratic party virtue, has smoked out a few other lawmakers whose inability to resist the temptations found in Washington, D.C. fleshpots will no doubt be making headlines soon:

Larry Flynt, the porn-industry magnate who first linked Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) to the escort service of the “D.C. Madam,” said Wednesday that his investigators are tracking more than 20 leads on alleged congressional sex scandals.

As Vitter remained missing in action for two Senate votes on defense policy, Flynt insisted that he exposed the conservative lawmaker’s sexual indiscretions only because they contradicted Vitter’s longtime defense of the “sanctity of marriage.”

“If someone’s living a life contrary to the way they’re advocating … then they become fair game,” Flynt told reporters. “I don’t want a man like that legislating for me, especially in the area of morality.”

Should this condemnation of hypocritical behavior include Mr. Flynt? After all, his magazine is full of good looking, shapely models, women who were are told in a rather disappointing disclaimer that the stories and descriptions accompanying the girlie pictures do not necessarily reflect the lifestyle or moral character of the woman being photographed.

Full disclosure, Mr. Flynt. How many of those models really would like to urinate all over their lover? How many would like to perform other scatological sex rituals that you seem so nauseatingly obsessed with in your magazine?

America wants to know, Mr. Flynt! They deserve to know! Have any of these models ever done the do-do on you?

Considering that most of the Republican party would like to oblige Mr. Flynt’s curious proclivities toward bathroom sex and take a dump right in his lap, maybe he could get a couple of good photospreads out of it.

Flynt setting himself up as arbiter of American morals is funny enough. But the kicker is that he apparently has no intention of publishing the names of Democratic lawmakers caught with their pants down:

The 20-plus new leads, Flynt said, come from the newspaper ad and not Palfrey. The Hustler publisher, arrested and jailed multiple times during his decades-long career, vowed to provide clear proof and only out lawmakers whom he perceives to be hypocrites.

“You guys always know, [from] the past, I deliver,” Flynt said. “And if I fail to, the mainstream media will crush me like a bug.”

The Vitter scandal has touched off new anxiety among Republicans over whether their party will pay the price for members who fail to live up to their moral principles. Flynt, an unabashed Democrat, acknowledged that the GOP provides him with easier targets.

First, it’s hard to crush a bug who lives in a sewer. But does anyone else find it riotously amusing that Flynt gets to decide who’s a “hypocrite” and who isn’t?

The publisher of a magazine that promotes gratuitous and consequence-free sex is now sitting in judgment of people who have simply followed his formulaic lifestyle and engaged in a little slap and tickle with a willing partner. Despite his magazine’s clear message that there’s absolutely no downside to having easy morals, that in fact, it is a preferred way to live one’s life, Flynt is about to lower the boom on people for living up to his own misogynistic credo.

Why should whether they are “hypocrites” matter to him at all? In Flynt’s moral universe, you’re only a hypocrite if you don’t screw anything that moves three times a day. The idea that anyone who visits a prostitute - married or not; spouting allegiance to family values or not - should be held up as an object lesson in sanctimony by the purveyor of a publication that features the most nauseating racist, homophobic, and chauvinistic cartoons while showcasing women in the most degrading way imaginable is beyond funny, beyond satire - it is beyond belief.

And lest anyone take me for a bluenose, readers of this site know my affection for classic porn from the 70’s and 80’s as well as the early 90’s and the advent of videotape. It is not the fact that Flynt is a pornographer that makes him such lowlife pond scum. It is his own sanctimony, his own shtick as Champion of the First Amendment. He deliberately abuses that freedom not in order to express himself but to bully and browbeat his ideological foes while lowering the bar of acceptable political combat to unheard of and unimagined levels. For this reason alone, we should condemn this execrable man to slither in the shadows and back alleys of society where his kind belong.

Anything Flynt comes up with will be used by the Democrats to try and make a larger point about Republican hypocrisy. As I said above, this is fair game. But perhaps - just perhaps - Democrats will want to look a little harder at who their allies are in this sexfest. The excrement smeared on the bodies of Flynt’s models may just migrate to the faces of Democratic politicians who attempt to tar an entire political party using the actions of a few hypocrites who don’t have the good sense or common decency to remain true to their wives.

There are many disturbing aspects to the Bush Administration that historians will examine and perhaps, if they are charitable, chalk up to an overreaction to the 9/11 attacks or perhaps a zealotry for securing the United States from another, bigger catastrophe.

But there is one facet of the Bush Presidency that historians will universally and roundly condemn; the politicization of governance that, top to bottom, has interfered with many of the vital functions we expect the government to carry out. From the office of the Attorney General, to the Environmental Protection Agency, to NASA, to the National Park Service and more, politics has intruded into what traditionally has been non-political or apolitical functions of government. Science issues seem to be a favorite target of the Bushies for political massaging but other important government operations have also seen the heavy hand of politics interfere with public policy decisions - decisions that affect the health, safety, and security of the American people.

The latest evidence of this practice comes from former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona who testified before a Congressional Committee that the Administration fiddled with public health reports because of political considerations:

Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional committee today that top officials in the Bush administration repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

Dr. Carmona, who served as surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, said White House officials would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues because of political concerns. Top administration officials delayed for years and attempted to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand tobacco smoke, he said in sworn testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

He was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of every speech he gave, Dr. Carmona said. He was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings, at least one of which included Karl Rove, the president’s senior political adviser, he said.

Just because the Surgeon General is nominally a political appointment in that the post is filled by someone nominated by the President doesn’t mean that the job itself should be politicized. And to believe that reports and studies that would have an immediate impact on the health of American citizens should be held hostage to some myopic political views promoted by the White House is outrageous.

This attitude of politicizing government functions that should be non-political is not confined to health issues. The Administration has also grossly interferred in EPA rulemaking regarding issues such as auto emissions, management of public lands, pesticide bans, and other matters that would ordinarily not be political footballs. And the Administration practice of hiring lobbyists as regulators - 100 such hirings in the last 6 years - smacks of asking the fox to watch the chickens. One such lobbyist turned regulator, Philip Cooney, routinely altered reports by Administration scientists on climate change despite the fact the gentleman had a law degree and knew little of science.

A certain amount of political oversight of federal regulatory agencies is to be expected. The Clinton Administration subjected climate change data from their own EPA to “inter agency review” which indicated a political interest in seeing that the information coming out of various studies was in tune with their message of man-made global warming. George Bush #41 did something similar with AIDS research. But no Administration in memory has politicized the functions of government to the extent that this Administration has.

Should conservatives care about this issue? Altering findings of scientific studies to bring them in line with an Administration’s political agenda is not only dishonest but makes for very inefficient government. It’s a waste of taxpayer’s money to ask a government agency to study a problem and then alter the findings to suit the politics of the moment. Besides, there are legitimate safety and health issues at stake and if the government politicizes these questions to satisfy industry supporters, it stands to reason that the American people will be put at risk for the sake of politics. No responsible conservative can possibly countenance such practices.

The US attorney firings at the Department of Justice are another example of this idea that the Administration has tried to politicize too many government functions that are best left outside the purview of politics. If one were to look at this particular issue separately, it might just be a question of a desire to put a Bush imprimatur on the offices of dozens of federal prosecutors. But when placed in the context of what else has been going on in government over the last six years, it becomes one more example of politics intruding where it has no business intruding. Not only were the firings themselves badly botched but the reasons didn’t make much sense. In fact, one could say that the only reason it was done is because it could be done. And that’s no way to run a railroad - or a government.

There’s nothing illegal in all of this. But charges of incompetence, cronyism, and just plain bad governance have dogged this Administration for several years. And the reason is that when you politicize government where it should be apolitical, the people you depend on to make the government run smoothly and efficiently become more concerned with pleasing their masters in the White House than getting the job done. This leads to inefficiency, error, and a lowering of morale in the permanent bureaucracy.

Perhaps the Bushies just can’t help themselves. If so, the damage their lack of willpower has done to the functioning of government will be difficult to repair when the next President takes office in 2008.