Right Wing Nut House

For Cindy Sheehan, it was only a matter of time.

The self-proclaimed “Face of the Anti-War Movement” - such as it is - has decided to retire from the fray and try and find some peace in her own life:

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

Her reasons? They are many and varied but basically, she wants to quit because no one is listening to her anymore. She has been used up and spit out by a news media that demands drama, pathos, conflict, and above all, something new every day out of its media heroes. And Sheehan, at first portrayed as noble, then single minded, then weird, and now pathetic has seen her time on the national stage run out like a coin operated peep show that goes dark because we’ve stopped putting money into the slot.

I wasn’t the only one who predicted her ultimate fate. But when I wrote this a year and a half ago, the writing was on the wall already:

And Sheehan, once hailed as the Madonna of the American anti-war movement among the more mainstream Democrats finds almost all of her erstwhile supporters tip-toeing away hoping no one will notice or remember that they and their allies in the media made her such into such a heroic figure. No peacenik Joan of Arc she…

Sophocles rightly said “Only the dead are free from pain.” For Cindy Sheehan, there will come a time when she prays for the playwright’s wisdom to overtake her folly.

Most of the reaction on the left has been sympathetic with angry words for Democratic lawmakers who won’t commit political suicide and jump over the cut and run cliff with the rest of the netnuts and support either an immediate end to the war - as Sheehan and the hard left advocate - or try and defund the troops via the chimerical solution of timetables.

But in trying to assess Sheehan’s impact on the anti-war “movement” - which despite the polls showing Americans disgusted with Bush and the war, to this day still looks more like a disorganized rabble of anarchists, greenies, anti-globalists, conspiracy nuts, and Bush hating bloggers - one needs to look at how her crusade morphed from a vigil held outside of Bush’s Texas ranch in an effort manufacture a “Chief Brody slap” moment into a global crusade that included cozying up to anti-American fascists like Hugo Chavez and associations with anti-Semitic groups like the “Crawford Peace House” who posits outrageous conspiracy theories about Jews.

Sheehan was captured wholly and truly by a subset of the left that is not interested in ending the war as much as they are determined to bring down the established order in the United States through any means necessary. They are not mainstream in any sense of the word. The list of groups allied to her cause read like a Who’s Who of anti-American zealotry. And while she tried to disavow some of these supporters - including several openly racist and anti-Semitic neo-Nazi organizations - the stench of their nauseating ideologies became too much for most mainstream Democrats as well as the press who eventually let her slide into obscurity.

As far as more mainstream opposition to the war, Sheehan’s sins were either forgiven or ignored. All this group ever saw was the motherly visage, the genuine tears of sorrow at her tragic loss, and her over the top, exaggerated anti-Bush rhetoric that was quoted lovingly on lefty websites with the explanation that she was “speaking truth to power.” How calling New Orleans an “occupied city” and advocating the looting of stores because, after all, it’s just “stuff,” can be considered anything except the wild rantings of a disturbed woman is beyond me.

Tammy Bruce deconstructs Sheehan’s blog post that I linked above, pointing out the cloying self pity and self-serving nature of the screed. Here, she translates a few of Sheehan’s ravings:

6. I wasted all my money and ignored my family to try to prove to myself I am not the attention whore that apparently I am. (”I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an “attention whore” then I really need to be committed.”)

7. America is an ungrateful bitch. (”I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither.”)

8. I’m in debt and won’t pay my bills because America is evil. (”my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings.”)

9. Americans are stupid and vapid and don’t care. (”Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months.”)

10. Everyone is jealous of me because I get all the attention. (”This group won’t work with that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway?”)

11. Everyone is doomed, so I’m getting out while I can. (”Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death …I am going to take whatever I have left and go home.”)

12. I need money. (”Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer.”)

A strange mixture of sincere, grief stricken mom and shameless anti-war huckster, she. And I can’t help reflecting on the fact that the adversity faced by other boat rockers in American history - Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, Al Lowenstein, and Frederick Douglas to name a few - make Sheehan’s “ordeal” look like a walk in the park. All of those worthies had much higher mountains to climb and extremely powerful forces arrayed against them. They never quit. They all kept fighting to their dying breath for what they believed in. It makes Sheehan’s pathetic blatherings and whiny, self-absorbed musings seem wretchedly shallow and insincere by comparison.

The left may find cause to congratulate her and wish her well. My hope is that she returns home and seeks out a competent mental health professional to help her overcome the devastating loss of her son. I don’t expect her to recant her radicalism. But I think a little perspective gained would ease her suffering and perhaps bring a bit of peace into her tumultuous and ultimately tragic life.

This article in the New York Times got my blood boiling and my heart pumping today.

There is a new book out that answers a riddle the elites have been asking for 7 years now. Why did the American people elect George Bush President?

Answer? They’re as dumb as posts and irrational to boot:

Now Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University, has attracted notice for raising a pointed question: Do voters have any idea what they are doing? In his provocative new book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies,” Caplan argues that “voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational — and vote accordingly.” Caplan’s complaint is not that special-interest groups might subvert the will of the people, or that government might ignore the will of the people. He objects to the will of the people itself.

In defending democracy, theorists of public choice sometimes invoke what they call “the miracle of aggregation.” It might seem obvious that few voters fully understand the intricacies of, say, single-payer universal health care. (I certainly don’t.) But imagine, Caplan writes, that just 1 percent of voters are fully informed and the other 99 percent are so ignorant that they vote at random. In a campaign between two candidates, one of whom has an excellent health care plan and the other a horrible plan, the candidates evenly split the ignorant voters’ ballots. Since all the well-informed voters opt for the candidate with the good health care plan, she wins. Thus, even in a democracy composed almost exclusively of the ignorant, we achieve first-rate health care.

The hitch, as Caplan points out, is that this miracle of aggregation works only if the errors are random. When that’s the case, the thousands of ill-informed votes in favor of the bad health plan are canceled out by thousands of equally ignorant votes in favor of the good plan. But Caplan argues that in the real world, voters make systematic mistakes about economic policy — and probably other policy issues too.

Caplan’s idiotic notions regarding the irrationality and ignorance of voters is so far off the mark as to why people vote the way they do it is beyond belief. The elites ensconced in ivory towers in academia don’t have a clue about people like you and me. We may as well be from another planet as far as their understanding as to what motivates us to vote for one candidate or another. Trying to qualify our reasons is an exercise in brainless futility.

Voting is the ultimate exercise of personal freedom. To social scientists trying to examine the reasons for why people make the political choices they do, it becomes necessary to ignore the competing interests and yearnings of the voter and settle on seeing this tug of war between altruism and selfishness as “irrationality.”

People want to vote for the “right” candidate. They are as earnest in their “ignorance” in choosing the best person for the job as any lickspittle professor with advanced degrees up the wazoo. But they are moved in mysterious ways - likability of the candidate, thematic presentations of a candidate’s program, and always fear of the consequences of voting for the other guy.

And so far, the American electorate has done pretty well. In the nuclear age, when the choice of President could literally have meant life and death, the people have chosen like, well…college professors with advanced degrees out of the wazoo. A Truman as opposed to an isolationist Dewey. An Eisenhower twice as opposed to a cerebral and statist Stevenson. A Kennedy as opposed to a Nixon. (Picture Nixon during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Would a young Nixon have backed down so expertly?) Perhaps the Johnson-Goldwater race was more about a martyred President so chalk that one up to irrationality. But Nixon - putting aside his dark proclivities - in ‘68 was the answer to lawlessness in the streets and the Viet Nam quagmire while Humphrey promised more of the same - disaster.

Carter/Ford was a toss up - the people lost. Carter/Reagan was a no brainer. Ditto Reagan/Mondale. Ditto Dukakis/Bush. I would even say that Clinton circa 1992 was a better choice than a fatally damaged Bush who broke his promise not to raise taxes. And were the American people really going to elect Bob Dole President?

This brings us to 2000 and the idea that the American people made a mistake:

Of all the people who deserve some blame for the debacle in Iraq, don’t forget the American public. Today, about two-thirds of Americans oppose the war. But back in March 2003, when United States troops stormed into Iraq, nearly three out of four Americans supported the invasion. Doves say that the public was suckered into war by a deceitful White House, and hawks say that the press has since led the public to lose its nerve — but the two sides implicitly agree that the public has been dangerously unsure, or easily propagandized, or ignorant.

In 2003, Bush had the credibility to lay out a case for war that the public found logical and thus supported. It is not the voter’s fault that Bush and his Administration mucked it up. And if you’re trying to blame the voters for electing Bush in the first place, one might want to ask what the alternative was.

Al Gore was part of an Administration that virtually enabled al-Qaeda to attack America whenever it chose. It is difficult to know what Gore would have done after 9/11 but I think it more than possible that he would have lobbed a few cruise missiles at Afghanistan trying to take out Bin Laden and gone the United Nations route.; sanctions, resolutions, and words of solidarity couched in the usual apologetic tones of “So sorry we can’t do anymore.” Regime change would have been off the table. And Bin Laden would not only have been free and on the loose, but hugely emboldened and the biggest hero in the Arab world since Saladin.

No Iraq War but instead of hiding in a cave somewhere, Bin Laden would still be operating openly. To be fair, it’s pretty clear that if a Gore Administration listened to people like Richard Clark, a serious effort would have gotten underway to attack the terrorist group financially and via law enforcement by rolling up their cells. But smashing their infrastructure and destroying their safe haven in Afghanistan would probably not have occurred.

Would we have been better off? No one knows which makes this whole idea of voter irrationality an elitist fantasy. People like Caplan prefer to see their carefully thought out political choices as superior to the emotional, inspired, and intrinsically personal choice made by the rest of us.

There may be another reason Caplan sees the rest of us as idiots. Ann Althouse:

I’m picking up a bit of the old: if only people thought clearly, they’d agree with me. I’m never surprised when a professor discovers that democracy is defective because Americans aren’t more left-wing. But unlike Althaus, Caplan thinks voters are incompetent because they aren’t libertarian enough.

Voters are moved by so many different stimuli that it is silly to think that because they don’t agree with you that there is something wrong with them. I believe it shows the professor’s ignorance of not only politics, but human behavior as well to expect voters to make choices based on his “learned” criteria. People choose a candidate for many reasons - some good, some bad. But given the track record of the American voter over 219 years, they get it right a helluva more than they get it wrong.

Weekends are mostly quiet around The House. Visitors are few and far between and nobody bothers to read what I write.

Come to think of it - that pretty much sounds like what happens on weekdays too. In truth, blogging lately has been a depressing pastime. Events here and around the world are careening toward some kind of climax - perhaps not an explosion but certainly some sort of denouement that will alter the landscape and make the world a different place. Political re-alignment here at home is in the offing - something the Republicans in Congress seemed bound and determined to speed along. It smells like 1979 to me. All the signs that pointed to an overturning of the established order back then - deep discontent among our fellow citizens, a sense of events spinning out of our control, a world situation made dicey by our own missteps, and the nagging feeling that a change would probably do us some good - are eerily present in 2007.

Of course, the big difference is that the Democrats don’t have a Ronald Reagan to take advantage of the situation. Nobody will ever confuse Hilliary’s shrill denunciations with the twinkle in the Gipper’s eye when he zinged an opponent. Nor will anyone fail to see the difference between the inspirational yet empty platitudes of Obama with Reagan’s soaring rhetoric that touched something so American in people’s souls.

The Republicans don’t have a Reagan to save them either. Just as well. I think even The Great Communicator would find it hard to get through to the blockheads who control the party. From the national headquarters on down through my local Republican organization, the GOP is demonstrating all the symptoms of a sick puppy; lethargy, sleepiness, a pathetic and forlorn look on its face, and the disgusting habit of soiling its own house.

What the Democrats have is plenty of ammunition to use against the Republicans and the fact that voters are in a punishing mood. That and a curious death wish exhibited by the GOP means that chances are very good that even if a Republican is elected President, the House and Senate gains made by the Democrats will be augmented considerably in 2008. And given the enormous power of incumbency today, that will mean a virtual GOP lockout from regaining power on the Hill for the foreseeable future.

Those of you inclined to be more optimistic and wish to take me to task for being a gloomy gus, I have some news for you - it’s only going to get worse.

The Democrats have yet to really get busy investigating stuff that even if you are a dyed in the wool Bushie will make your hair stand on end. I’m talking about billions and billions of dollars that have disappeared in Iraq. Just up and went missing. No one knows where it is, whether it was spent on legitimate projects or whether someone just walked into the Coalition Provisional Authority offices and stuffed gobs of $100 bills down their pants. Estimates range from $4 billion to $7 billion dollars of taxpayers money down the rabbit hole.

Then there was the actual letting of contracts and that whole mess which will show not only favoritism toward Republican contractors but also a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse. There have already been at least two trials where contractors have been found guilty and the investigations continue.

Similar accusations (and proof that there is fire where that smoke is coming from) will be forthcoming when Democrats investigate the letting of Katrina rebuilding and clean up contracts. Some of that information has been out in the open for a while but we can trust the Democrats to tie it all up and present it to the voters with a nice, neat, bow.

Then there’s Iraq. I want to say that by November, 2008 Iraq will be well on its way to becoming a viable state, relatively violence free with a government who respects the political rights of all of its citizens. I want to say it but I won’t. Iraq then will probably look a lot like Iraq today. Less violence, perhaps. But the very same problems that have to be solved before the bleeding will stop are still not going to be addressed by the Iraqi government. They are incapable of dealing with reality. And I might add that no timetable or benchmark is going to get them off square one either. So much for the Democrat’s “plan” to end the war in anything but what they’ve desired all along; a humiliating retreat in the face of the enemy.

So there’s that to look forward to. And the almost certain collapse of the Musharraf government in Pakistan - or at least his less than graceful exit from power. Who replaces him will be one of the more interesting questions facing the United States over the next 18 months.

And Iran. Let’s not forget our friends, the mad mullahs. I’d like to say that by November, 2008 the threat of a nuclear Iran will have diminished and their dreams of becoming a regional powerhouse tossed on the dustbin of history. I’d like to say it but I won’t. I will boldly go out on a limb and predict that the Administration will not bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities nor will Israel. That’s because the mullahs are still having problems with the technical aspects of enriching uranium. (Note: The New York Times story last week about Iranian progress at Nantanz was incorrect. See here for a full accounting of what ElBaradei actually said. They are still 3-5 years away from having the bomb.)

Iran will still be making trouble in Iraq on election day - even if we have begun to pull out. This story in today’s Guardian - a situation with the militias I’ve alluded to many times in the South - shows what the mullah’s game is in Iraq. I have little confidence that we can do a damn thing about it.

North Korea will continue to drag its heels, trying to extort more and more from us as we pay them to abandon their nuclear program. Africa will continue to bleed in places like Darfur, Nigeria, the Congo, and points in between. Asia will continue to be roiled by Islamic fundamentalism. Europe will continue its slide into a stuporous defeatism with regards to the War on Terror and their ability to work with the United States in any meaningful way to defeat Islamism.

Yoikes! But my black dog’s got a hold of me today! I hasten to add that most of this is not the fault of the United States but rather historical forces that have been simmering since before the Cold War ended. Nor is it possible for the United States to “manage” or even “guide” events in most of these places to mitigate the worst of what is going on. No nation has that kind of power. This is simply the world as it is circa 2007. And we have to live in it.

It would be comforting to think that a change in parties controlling Washington will have much of an effect on what is occurring on this planet. It won’t. It can’t. The liberal Democrats are as bereft of ideas on how to confront most of these problems as the clueless policy makers and stubborn, turf conscious bureaucrats who currently run things. It’s hard for us Americans to admit it but some problems are just not solvable. Change comes whether we like it or not. Sometimes that change is accompanied by rivers of blood. Sometimes not. Our ability to determine one outcome or the other is extremely limited. Military power, “soft power,” economic power, cultural dominance - all pale in comparison to the tidal forces that are moving various peoples toward a far distant and unknowing shore.

This is the ebb and flow of history. All we can do is sit in the boat and ride out the storm as best we can.

Reading and listening to politicians talk about their Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill is an interesting anthropological exercise. Being a separate species of human, Homo Politicus exhibits all the characteristics one might expect from a breed apart.

The ability to talk out of both sides of the mouth at the same time is highly prized in Politicus although evolution has given the genus a forked tongue and a larger mouth to go along with this ability. This tends to force the nose to get out of joint on a regular basis which can be a hazard to the beast’s health considering all the hot air generated by an increased lung capacity. This tends to crowd the heart in the chest cavity, making that organ much smaller than ours. But evolution once again comes to the rescue as not only does Politicus have engorged bile ducts (a necessity given how much of that precious fluid they generate on a regular basis) but also a massive bladder - all the better to piss on the rest of us whenever they get the chance.

Many of these unusual attributes have been on display as Politicus has been busy trying to justify its sellout of the United States on immigration to a bored, cynical public who doesn’t believe half of what it hears and is depressed and discouraged by listening to the other half:

“The question is, ‘Do you want to solve the problem, or do you want to complain about it?’ ” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. “There will be people who want to complain and will miss the problem if they can’t complain about it. This is about solving it.”

Yep. My opposition is based solely on the fact that I won’t have anything else to write about if immigration goes away as an issue. Who knows. Maybe I’d be forced to write a series of articles on incompetent lickspittle bureaucrats running the most spectacularly inept and hugely wasteful executive department in history. A department that after 5 years of existence still can’t figure out how to organize itself or, more importantly, settle the bureaucratic turf battles that make protecting the homeland effectively an impossibility.

Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me angry.

And Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), a White House hopeful, warned that “the proposed bill could devalue the importance of family reunification, replace the current group of undocumented immigrants with a new undocumented population consisting of guest workers who will overstay their visas, and potentially drive down wages of American workers.”

The guy sounds more Republican than most Republicans. Two out of three ain’t bad, Obie although the idea that “family reunification” would be “devalued in this bill is silly. We’re going to allow 750,000 immediate family members a year for the next 8 years to come into this country legally. Just how many more would you let in?

“Year after year, we’ve heard talk about reforming our system. We’ve heard the bumper-sticker solutions, the campaign ads, and we know how divisive it is,” Kennedy said. “Well, now, it is time for action. 2007 is the year we must fix our broken system.”

A broken system is preferable to one that surrenders to lawlessness, panders to interest groups, sacrifices our security, and promotes separateness at the expense of assimilation. And speaking of bumper stickers, how about this one: “Ted Kennedy’s Car Has Killed More People Than My Gun.“ Or how about “I would rather hunt with Dick Cheney than drive with Ted Kennedy.”

“It is intended to reflect the labor needs of the United States in the 21st century, rather than the 19th century,” a senior Republican staffer said on condition of anonymity.

Actually, given the low skilled labor performed by most of the illegals today, the bill reflects very much our labor needs from the 19th century. And don’t mention the fact that the German, or Italian, or Slavic, or Mexican immigrant from 125 years ago was pretty much forced by circumstances to learn English or not work and that the immigrant’s social network - unofficial and not sanctioned or created by any government - worked just fine in helping the new arrival assimilate into American society.

What our anonymous friend is talking about are the 180,000 or so high tech, high end immigrants with advanced degrees or special skills (H-1B visas) who would be allowed into this country every year under the new bill. For the overwhelming majority of the rest - hardworking, diligent, family oriented and illegal - any 19th century immigrant would have little trouble performing most of the jobs taken by today’s immigrant scofflaws.

No wonder the staffer wanted to remain anonymous. He’s ignorant.

A voice in the wilderness:

“What part of illegal does the Senate not understand? Any plan that rewards illegal behavior is amnesty,” said Rep. Brian Bilbray (news, bio, voting record), R-Calif., chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus.

Such straight talk will get the Congressman in trouble, no doubt. He’ll be branded a “racist” before today is out.

Immigrant advocacy and labor groups also oppose the terms of a new guest worker program in which low-skilled immigrants would be forced to leave the country after temporary stints and would have limited opportunities to stay and get on a path to permanent legalization.

“Without a real path to legalization, the program will exclude millions of workers and thus ensure that America will have two classes of workers, only one of which can exercise workplace rights,” said John J. Sweeney, the AFL-CIO president.

I know, John. It’s tough to try and force unionization on people who are only going to be here two years. Not enough time to coerce enough people into checking that little box that allows you to grab a portion of their wages for political contributions.

Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., who helped shape the deal, called it “long overdue.” However, Mitt Romney said it was the “wrong approach,” which provided “a form of amnesty” to illegal immigrants. Fred Thompson, who is considering entering the race, said it should be scrapped in favor of a measure to secure the border.

I’ll tell you what’s “long overdue,” John. Your immediate and humiliating exit from Republican presidential politics. See Hugh Hewitt for Mitt’s complete remarks that strongly opposes the bill and takes a swipe at the soon to be ex-presidential candidate McCain. (Mama Romney didn’t raise no fool.) And good for Fred! Except this one is a no brainer if you’re running for President and want a “GOP” after your name on the ballot. It remains to be seen what would happen if Mitt or even Fred made it all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

What chance does this bill have in passing? They’ll fiddle with the family requirements a bit and fudge the numbers on the guest worker program. And they may even increase the security requirements thinking to peel off some GOP House members. But essentially, this is it. And since politicians love more than anything else to be able to announce to their constituents that they have “solved” a serious problem (or at least “addressed” it), the bill will pass overwhelmingly in both Houses - almost certainly before the July 4 recess.

But no matter what they do, the bill is still a disaster. It’s a disaster for the country first, party second, and I would even say a disaster for illegal immigrants as well. I devoutly wished they would have increased legal immigration and streamlined the path to citizenship to reward those who play by the rules and encourage new arrivals to assimilate quickly into American society. Draconian enforcement of workplace strictures against hiring illegals in the first place would make coming here a much more difficult proposition. And we could dramatically reduce the numbers of illegals already here that way while not having to “round up 12 million people” and send them home.

Not a perfect “solution” by a long shot. But to pretend this bill does anything except ensure that another 12 million people will cross the border illegally over the next few years waiting for their chance at the amnesty brass ring is stupid, silly, and self defeating. We have created a cycle guaranteed to keep illegal immigration a problem for the next generation to solve. And we will have devalued the rule of law, the security of our borders, and our national sovereignty in the process.

A pig in a dress is still a pig - even if you invite it to the Senior Prom and give it a corsage. You just can’t cover up the ugly stench of political pandering by gussying up a bill with so many flaws. It’s still a bad piece of legislation no matter how you try and sell it. And it should be soundly defeated if there were an ounce of sense left on the Hill.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin’s post from last night rounds up late reaction. And go ahead and vote in her poll on what you think of the bill. (Sorry - nothing stronger than “No” and “Hell No!”).

UPDATE

Allah’s contribtion this morning is a pretty straightforward take on the politics of the bill and the Democrat’s line of attack in attempting to exploit their obvious advantages:

The reason the nutroots has started to reframe racial politics as Republicans versus “brown people” (which Ace, for one, writes about regularly) instead of relying on the traditional Republicans-versus-blacks paradigm is because (a) they’ve already got 90+% of the black vote, so returns are diminishing, and (b) with immigration front and center after 9/11, there’s a whole new minority group affected by key policies that they can demagogue the hell out of for votes. Hence the new, expansive “brown person” formulation, which pits most racial minorities against conservatives in one fell swoop by suggesting that “brownness” itself is somehow frightening or intolerable to us and thus the real cause of all this hand-wringing over open borders. That term of art hasn’t trickled up to the party establishment yet, so far as I know, but it surely will have by the time illegals are legalized and begin to unionize and register in numbers. If the rhetoric is deployed skillfully enough (and the left is very, very good at this sort of thing), it could raise what they’d doubtless call “brown consciousness” to the point where it’s worth another 10-20% of the already large and growing Latino vote.

I’m not so sure. The dynamic in the Hispanic community has always been hard to read because there are actually different “communities.” I doubt whether you would lump Hispanics from south Florida with southwestern Hispanics (many of whom have families that have been here longer than any English speakers) or even “barrio” Hispanics from Los Angeles with illegals from Texas. As time goes on, Hispanics are becoming less monolithic a voting bloc as more and more immigrants move into the middle and upper middle classes. I see where Bush/Rove were heading in 2004 but it may have been a decade too soon. The entreprenurial spirit is alive and well in the Hispanic community and I have little doubt that these “natural Republicans” will only keep growing in numbers over the next few years.

If I could guarantee that this story won’t get any bigger, I wouldn’t take the time nor make the effort to analyze the many parts of it or try and place it in a context that is both realistic and logical.

In other words, the furious spin being given James B. Comey’s testimony before the Judiciary Committee by the usual suspects on the left, while leaving much to be desired with regards to the conclusions they reach about the way the NSA surveillance program was conducted and legally justified, nevertheless raises extremely troubling questions about the Bush Administration’s adherence to the law during the critical time frame of October, 2001 to March, 2004.

Did Bush violate the law by authorizing the NSA program? A federal judge has said so, although many respected and knowledgeable legal observers - not all of them Bush supporters - pointed out numerous deficiencies in that judge’s opinion that will most likely result in the decision being overturned. But if the President violated the law, is there any possible justification for it that would or should keep him from being impeached? It seems to me that the kinds of lawbreaking involved here are exactly what the Founders had in mind when they added the impeachment codicil to the Constitution; the executive branch overstepping its authority and carrying out actions expressly forbidden it by the Congress.

But do the obvious mitigating circumstances - 9/11 and its aftermath - mean anything in this context? Do we approach lawbreaking - if indeed laws were broken - with eyes blinded to the realities faced by our elected leaders? The left would dearly love to do so. For the rest of us, each must determine the answer to that question in their own heart, free of partisan taint or Bush hatred.

This is how important Robert Comey’s testimony is. It gives Congressional investigators a direct avenue to determining whether the impeachment and trial of President Bush is justified. And it does so because there is both a document trail to be unearthed and witnesses to be deposed who could possibly corroborate serious violations of the law.

For those of us not versed in the intricacies of the law, we are forced to rely on good old fashioned common sense and our innate belief in determining what is fair when examining both sides of the debate over what happened. For in truth, besides questions about the law, we must look at the people involved and try to determine their motivations, their state of mind when confronted with the unprecedented domestic threat in the aftermath of 9/11.

Comey’s testimony was, to put it mildly, a jaw dropper. He has been described as a staunch Republican and a straight shooter by some. However, there is a much different take on Comey - one that questions his close ties to Senator Chuck Schumer as well as personal animus he felt toward staffers in the Office of Vice President Cheney:

Comey came on board as DAG [Deputy Attorney General] at the beginning of December, 2003, and he had some unusual support for a Republican appointee–Senator Chuck Schumer was very much in his corner. So it was that Comey was pretty much brand new on the job at the time he decided to reverse what appeared to the Administration as settled policy on the NSA eavesdropping program–certainly a shocking and radical development in any Administration. But Comey had already taken actions that boded ill for the White House, and especially for the Office of the Vice President (OVP), with whom the transcript shows he was in serious, and probably personal, conflict.

Comey, when asked for names of his adversaries in the OVP, mentioned his disagreements with VP Dick Cheney and Cheney’s Legal Counsel, David Addington. Curiously, Comey failed to mention Scooter Libby–Cheney’s Chief of Staff, a prominent attorney in his own right, and a leading architect of policy at the OVP–even though it is known that Libby was also involved in these matters. It is scarcely credible to suppose that Comey had no dealings with Libby, nor that they were in disagreement over the NSA program. Perhaps Comey avoided mention of Libby because he wished to avoid the appearance of personal animus. After all, it is well known that Libby had beaten Comey in a contentious case in the Southern District of New York a few years earlier, and one of Comey’s first acts as DAG–before the NSA program came up for recertification–was to talk Ashcroft into recusing himself from the Plame affair. Comey then proceeded to appoint his former SDNY pal Patrick Fitzgerald to go after Libby, even expanding Fitzgerald’s purview to “process violations,” even though Comey knew that Armitage was the “leaker” and that the supposed “leak” violated no known law.

Not quite the “white knight” he has been made out to be by some on the left. Indeed, Comey’s testimony, taken in its entirety, raises questions about his motivations. However, there is a glaring deficiency in the above critique of Comey that must be highlighted if we are to understand why Comey’s testimony is so important: The arrival on the scene in October, 2003 of Jack Goldsmith as the new head of the Office of Legal Counsel.

The Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice is the fulcrum for this entire controversy. The OLC gives opinions to the Attorney General about the legality and constitutionality of proposals like the NSA intercept program. It should be noted that it is extremely rare for the AG to go against the recommendations of the OLC.

Goldsmith took over following the resignation in May of 2002 of Jay Bybee, author of the so-called “Bybee Memo” or “Torture Memo” that some believe was written at the behest of current AG Alberto Gonzalez and used legal justifications for ignoring the Geneva accords promulgated by Assistant AG John Yoo. It was on Bybee’s watch that the NSA intercept program was first vetted and approved by the Department of Justice. That particular OLC opinion has not been leaked or released so we don’t know the original justification for the program. We do know that President Bush signed an executive order that mandated continuous monitoring of the NSA intercept program by DOJ to the point that the Department had to re-certify the program’s legality every 45 days.

The gap between Bybee’s resignation in May 2002 and Goldsmith’s confirmation in October, 2003 is hugely significant. During that time, the DOJ signed off on the legality of the NSA program numerous times using as legal justification the original OLC opinion.

Enter Goldsmith and within 6 months, he carried out a review of the legal basis for both the “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the NSA intercept program. In both instances, he found the legal justifications wanting. In December of 2003, he informed the Pentagon that they could no longer use the Bybee Memo as a legal basis for carrying out torture. And then he turned his attention to the NSA matter.

By early March 2004, OLC apparently concluded that the NSA electronic surveillance program could not be defended on the basis of OLC’s prior legal opinions, and had convinced the Attorney General and DAG that DOJ had to refuse to sign off on the program — i.e., they were compelled to inform the President that the program violated FISA and could not legally be continued in its present form. Ashcroft and Comey agreed — or at the very least, they deferred to Goldsmith’s legal judgment, which is what happens in 99% of all cases once OLC speaks.

It is extremely rare for OLC to reverse its own opinions within an Administration. And that unusual course would be especially disfavored in this case, because all the relevant DOJ officials — e.g., Ashcroft, Comey, and Goldsmith — undoubtedly understood that repudiation of this particular OLC advice would mean shutting down the very program that the President had described as the most important intelligence program in the war on terror. Moreover, the theory that OLC was repudiating appears to have been one to which the Vice President and his counsel were deeply committed, and one that appears to have formed the basis for the Administration’s decision to disobey other important statutory constraints. Obviously, then, there were profound disincentives to such repudiation.

In other words, Goldsmith - another “staunch Republican” if that designation has any meaning in this context - overturned Bybee’s original opinion on the program’s legality and in one fell swoop, made potential criminals out of everyone who knew anything about it, including the President.

What happened next is confusing. Here’s Bush supporter John Hinderaker’s take:

Comey explained that it was immediately before Ashcroft was stricken with pancreatitis that he and Ashcroft came to the conclusion that they could not certify the legality of the NSA program, given the conclusions of the Department’s recent review. Comey described his conversation with Ashcroft, in which that conclusion was reached, and continued:

The Attorney General was taken that very afternoon to George Washington Hospital, where he went into intensive care and remained there for over a week. And I became the acting attorney general.

And over the next week–particularly the following week, on Tuesday–we communicated to the relevant parties at the White House and elsewhere our decision that as acting attorney general I would not certify the program as to its legality and explained our reasoning in detail….

That was Tuesday that we communicated that. The next day was Wednesday, March the 10th, the night of the hospital incident.

This strikes me as the information that is vital to understand what likely happened. Attorney General John Ashcroft had certified, over and over, that the NSA program was legal. Suddenly, Ashcroft was taken ill. The next thing that happened, according to Comey, was that Comey notified the White House that he would not sign the certification that Ashcroft had signed some 20 times. Comey did not say–amazingly, no one asked him–whether he ever told the White House that Ashcroft had agreed with this conclusion on the very day when he was taken to the hospital.

So it is hardly surprising if, confronted with sudden intransigence from a brand-new, acting attorney general, Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card thought that the problem lay with Comey’s staging a sort of palace coup. It may well have been reasonable for them to go to see Ashcroft to get the same certification they had gotten many times before.

When they got to the hospital, they found that Ashcroft seconded Comey’s legal concerns, based on the review that had just been completed. That caused some confusion, no doubt, but it led to the White House meeting between Comey and President Bush, followed by a meeting between Bush and FBI Director Robert Mueller. The upshot of those meetings was that Bush, apprised of the results of DOJ’s legal review, told Comey to do what he thought was right.

Most of the above sounds reasonable and explains much. Comey was mistakenly seen as going against the wishes of Ashcroft who had signed off on the legality of the program nearly 45 times during the previous 2 1/2 years. And because of Ashcroft’s illness, Andy Card and the Bush Administration was unable to discover that Ashcroft himself agreed with Goldsmith’s recommendation that the original OLC justification for the program was invalid and that it would have to be altered in order for it to continue.

Of course, this doesn’t solve the problem that if the original OLC memo was voided, did the President, the phone companies, the NSA, and anyone else involved break the law in carrying out the NSA intercept program?

Left-leaning Marty Lederman lists the consequences:

2. Repudiation of the theory would mean that the NSA and phone companies had been committing crimes for more than two years.

3. It meant DOJ doing a remarkable about-face and acknowledging profound error.

4. It was a rejection of the principal constitutional theory at the heart of the Vice President’s program for executive aggrandizement (and was presumably the basis for several other practices and policies as well) — and so it could be expected to be met with the considerable wrath of Cheney/Addington, to the point where one of the messengers of the bad news, Associate DAG (and former OLC Deputy) Patrick Philbin, had an expected promotion blocked (according to Comey’s testimony). Newsweek: “It is almost unheard-of for an administration to overturn its own OLC opinions. Addington was beside himself [when Goldsmith repudiated the Yoo DoD Torture memo in late 2003]. Later, in frequent face-to-face confrontations, he attacked Goldsmith for changing the rules in the middle of the game and putting brave men at risk, according to three former government officials, who declined to speak on the record given the sensitivity of the subject.”

5. The President demonstrated his profound commitment to the program by personally calling the Attorney General’s wife and urging her to allow the White House Counsel and Chief of Staff to cajole the AG in intensive care, where she had not been allowing visitors.

and

6. The White House told the DOJ officials that it was going to go forward with the program anyway, even after DOJ had opined that it was unlawful.

And yet not only would Ashcroft, et al., not budge — they were prepared to resign their offices if the President allowed this program of vital importance to go forward in the teeth of their legal objections.

And there you have it. The President and his people squaring off with their own Justice Department over a program that the most important constitutional expert in government had informed the White House that it was his opinion that they had been breaking the law for more than 2 years in authorizing the NSA to spy on Americans. And apparently most of the entire upper management at DOJ was prepared to resign rather than work for a government that violated the law.

What happened next is not in dispute. Once it was clear that Ashcroft backed Goldsmith, the White House acceded to changes in the program as recommended by DOJ. A new OLC memo was prepared that gave a legal framework for the program - that is, using the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) as a basis for Congressional approval of the intercept program - and the Justice Department went back to re-certifying the program’s legality every 45 days.

Some hysterics believe that the fact the program was still running in the two weeks between the time that DOJ repudiated the original justification for the program and when the new OLC memo took effect, that the Administration was not only carrying out warrantless surveillance but also didn’t have any legal justification from DOJ for doing so. Hinderaker makes a valid point:

Senator Schumer made a prolonged attempt to get Comey to say that it was illegal for the administration to continue, briefly, the NSA program without DOJ certification of legality. Democrats and others on the left will undoubtedly claim that they now have proof of the program’s “illegality.” But Comey refused to go along with this theory. He pointed out that DOJ certification was not a legal requirement. Rather, the DOJ process was part of the procedure that President Bush established by executive order. Thus, it was perfectly legal for the program to continue in the brief absence of DOJ certification, pursuant to the order of that same executive.

One other point to consider: What were the parameters of the NSA intercept program prior to that second memo being issued by OLC? And given the fact that the DOJ rarely reverses itself in matters such as this, can we assume that the legal justification - flawed according to Goldsmith, Comey, and Ashcroft - gave license to the Administration to go far beyond the program that was finally exposed in the New York Times in December of 2005?

We just don’t know. Only a Congressional investigation would be able to answer those questions, among others. And you and I both know (and any honest, non partisan lefty) that such hearings would turn into a partisan witch hunt designed not to get at the truth of the matter but rather form the basis for impeaching the President of the United States.

The efforts by the Administration to have Congress approve the NSA program failed last year largely because the current legal justification - the AUMF resolution passed by Congress - leaves most on the Hill unsatisfied and uncomfortable. They make the valid point that never in their wildest imaginings did they think their vote for going to war in Afghanistan mean that they were signing off on a domestic intelligence program of questionable legality.

Is there a case to be made for impeachment? Or is this simply one more partisan dust-up with the President’s enemies using a controversial program to try and undermine the war effort and perhaps even drive Bush from office?

It would be nice to believe that the Congressional hearings that are sure to come in the aftermath of the Comey testimony could answer that question. Unfortunately, the poisonous partisan atmosphere on the Hill gives me absolutely zero confidence that any such hearings would prove much beyond the fact that Democrats hate the President and will do anything to bring him down while most Republicans will defend Bush regardless of what evidence emerges that would call into question his fitness for office.

In the meantime, al-Qaeda and their offshoots continue to plot and plan. And the terrorists that are almost surely here (according to Bush critic George Tenet), get something of a breather while Congress and America itself tears at each other in open partisan warfare.

I wonder what the terrorists think of all this?

UPDATE

Orrin Kerr gives us some intelligence speculation on what may have been in that very first OLC memo authorizing the NSA intercept program:

As Marty notes, it seems likely that John Yoo had written the initial 2001 memo under OLC head Jay Bybee approving the NSA surveillance program entirely on Article II grounds. Presumably it said that the President as Commander-in-Chief can authorize whatever monitoring the President wants to authorize to protect the county. When Goldsmith took over at OLC, however, he probably repudiated Yoo’s Article II theory and instead tried to justify the program under the post 9/11 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF). That introduced a tailoring requirement — specifically, a need for the monitoring to be directed “against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks” of 9/11. (There might be a similar tailoring requirement under the Fourth Amendment depending on how you read the cases and how the technology works.)

What difference would that make? Well, we’re guessing, of course, but it may be that the restrictions on the program that the Bush Administration has emphasized — monitoring only with cause, when one person is believed to be outside the U.S., etc. — were the requirements that Comey and Goldsmith were insisting on at the hospital that night when Gonzales and Card came by.

If correct (and Yoo is known as a huge booster of sweeping executive powers in wartime using Article II as justification) then impeachment devolves back to a political question - unless the Dems can get the Supreme Court to rule that the original justification for the program under Article II itself is unconstitutional.

Fascinating question: Can a President act in a constitutional manner yet still break the law? Could the NSA program be illegal under statute but the President ordering it using his powers under Article II be acting constitutionally?

Can ‘o worms anyone?

UPDATE II

Tom McGuire catches the WaPo editors engaging in some gross hypberbole:

Let’s see - we are told that Gonzalez and Card “tried to coerce a man in intensive care”. Is that based on anything at all? Comey certainly did not mention any threats in describing their contact with Ashcroft, nor did he mention any attempted coercion of himself.

We are also told that Card and Gonzalez “were willing to defy the conclusions of the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and pursue the surveillance without Justice’s authorization”, but eventually the President backed down. Come again? The program did in fact proceed for several weeks without DoJ approval while changes were made. Nothing in Comey’s story tells us that Card and Gonzalez were unwilling to contemplate the changes sought by the DoJ; the problem seems to have been one of timing.

In fact, both Lederman and Lambchop use exactly the same kind of exaggeration to breathlessly describe the hospital scene with Ashcroft on his sick bed and Card thrusting a pen in his hands telling him he’s got to sign off on the program’s legality while the AG is near death’s door. (Well, that’s an exaggeration too. But what’s good for the goose…)

Funny how these things always seem to happen at the last minute in politics.

Republicans, including the President, have been saying for more than two years that his immigration “reform” bill was not - repeat - not an amnesty measure. Anyone who said any differently was a “racist” or paranoid. There was no way that this bill would be used to grant permanent legal status to the 12 million illegal immigrant scofflaws residing in the United States.

“Trust me:”

Senators negotiating a bipartisan immigration reform bill have settled on the details of a plan that would immediately grant legal status to all illegal immigrants currently in the United States.

The deal on “Z visas” for illegal immigrants is one of several issues where Democrats and Republicans have reached broad agreement.

But as senators emerged from what they had hoped would be a final round of negotiations Tuesday, they indicated that painstakingly slow progress would keep them from meeting the deadline set by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to begin debate on a bill today.

Late Tuesday, Reid agreed to push that deadline to Monday.

“They tell me they’re 80% of the way,” Reid said in announcing the delay. “That’s fine, the other 20% is hard.”

The plan to award legal status to all illegal immigrants who meet certain qualifications would occur only after other “triggers” are met. These triggers would require that certain border security and work-site enforcement measures be in place before other aspects of the overhaul go forward.

The Z visa plan would start with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States going on a probationary legal status. If the triggers are met — a process that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) estimated would take 18 months — then illegal immigrants who qualify could get Z visas. Those who have committed felonies would not be eligible, Graham said, and all participants would have to pass security checks, pay a fine and a processing fee and pass an English proficiency test.

I am a cynical old curmudgeon, having long ago lost my wide eyed innocence when it comes to worshiping the men and women who occupy seats in the House or the Senate. In fact, I lost my schoolboy notions of government and the people who serve the United States within about 6 months of coming to Washington. They are not paradigms of wisdom and virtue nor are they evil manipulators. They are human. There are nice ones and mean ones. Smart ones and dumb ones. Clever ones and clueless ones. Serious and unserious, trustworthy and untrustworthy - the whole, rich panoply of the human tapestry encompassing all the good, the bad, the bald, and the ugly resides in those chambers of lawmaking. So it is entirely possible to revere lawmaking but be cynical about the lawmakers. Such is the way of Washington.

But one thing that all politicians can’t help being - good, evil, and everything in between - are liars. The very same thing that you might spank your child for, politicians do on a regular basis. The very same thing that you would divorce your spouse for, politicians do without thinking.

Hence, the illegal immigrant amnesty bill and what seems like an abrupt about face by many of the politicians involved. Long time Hill watchers took a look at that immigration bill when it first saw the light of day and could smell the amnesty provisions in it a mile away. Despite the denials that this simply wasn’t so. Despite the name calling by proponents, tarring the opposition with horribly hurtful epithets questioning their fairness and empathy. Despite all of it, the opponents of the bill turn out to be right and the advocates are revealed as liars.

Our politics have become so cynical that politicians know there is a very good chance the public will not penalize them for their lies, that the people will simply shrug their shoulders and chalk it up to “politics as usual.” And they would be right. The infection of fatalism regarding our politics and politicians has so sickened the public that expecting honesty and integrity in our public officials is no longer a given. When someone like Representative William Jefferson (D-LA) can be caught with $90,000 in cash stuffed in his freezer and be re-elected by a comfortable margin, you know that something might just be amiss with the body politic.

It’s their fault, of course. And ours. And our parents and grandparents and the long, illustrious line of Americans going all the way back to the Founding Fathers. The Founders may not have imagined a republic the likes of which we have today. But they knew what men were capable of doing when in power and tried to set up a system that mitigated against the worst of what we were capable of. The fact that they largely succeeded is astonishing. It’s just too bad they couldn’t imagine an age where lying became second nature to the politicians that people have grown weary of making excuses for.

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey doesn’t seem alarmed, pointing to increased border security measures. better workplace enforcement, and a slight roadblock placed in the way of amnesty seekers.

Obviously, I’m a tad more hysterical. Allah less so. Hewitt - steaming.

My first reaction to hearing the news that Jerry Falwell had died was surprisingly the same kind of reaction to the news a couple of weeks ago that astronaut Wally Schirra had passed on: Sadness for having lost something from my youth. A reminder that the candle is starting to flicker and the skein of my life is unravelling faster than I thought possible just a short time ago.

Yeah, it’s selfish. And self-absorbed. But frankly, I view Falwell - like Schirra - as more of a talisman from my past than any great political/historical figure. He was a spokesman for a certain point of view among religious conservatives who thrived in a time of enormous intellectual upheaval for the conservative movement. And unlike some other TV evangelical preachers, he mostly avoided sins of the flesh in carrying out what I’m sure he saw as his mission from God.

Ed Morrissey is right. There will come a better time to assess the political legacy of the Reverend Mr. Falwell. But Ed is a fine Christian gentleman and I, a grubby minded atheist. So allow me to offer a few thoughts regarding the Reverend Mr. Falwell.

Every great political movement in American history has been driven by passion. The 19th and 20th century reformers who ended slavery, fought for womens’ rights, sought to ban demon rum, and agitated for unions were, for the most part, ordinary Americans swept up in historical tidal forces that altered the political and social landscape of America forever. What made them successful was the overarching, overweening, absolute belief that what they were doing was right and that people who opposed them were not just wrong but evil. They didn’t demonize the opposition out of political calculation but rather because they truly believed the fate of the republic or mankind was at stake in the successful prosecution of their cause. Ergo, if one opposes that cause, they are on the side of the dark one.

The period of the mid-1970’s to the late 1990’s could very well one day be remembered as another “Great Awakening” for American evangelicals. The first three “Awakenings” (or four if you subscribe to 1960’s “consciousness raising” as a religious movement) occurred during periods of great social ferment and spun off social movements like abolitionism, prairie populism, and prohibition. This particular “Awakening” inspired a generation of evangelical Christians to treat politics itself as a question of faith - that some political questions were answered not by reason, logic, and adherence to a set of political principles but rather by reading the bible carefully and gleaning God’s plan for man as laid out in the old or new Testaments.

The fact that secular Republicans who did indeed use reason, logic, and adherence to a set of political principles many times came to the same conclusions about issues as the evangelicals meant for an uneasy and at times, uncomfortable alliance with the party. And it was preachers like Jerry Falwell who first introduced these evangelicals - the “moral majority” - to Republican politics. They were never a majority (even of Republicans) and the “moral” failings of many prominent TV preachers in the 80’s and 90’s tarnished the image of the movement considerably with ordinary, secular Americans. But to this day, they make up a sizable (about 15%) and vocal minority in the party. Many analysts believe they were the difference in the last two presidential elections.

Falwell was perhaps the most visible of these TV preachers during the last 3 decades although other, more polished (bland) and carefully spoken leaders have supplanted him as a spiritual guide lately. They too, are not without their failures in resisting temptations of the flesh. But at least they don’t mutter outrageous comments about America being punished for our sins by planes being flown into buildings and a lot of innocents getting killed. While Falwell apologized for his comments following 9/11, there has always been this underlying threat in his sermons that unless America “reforms,” there will literally be hell to pay. In that respect, he is an echo of an earlier evangelical period where hellfire and tent revivals mixed easily with a population that was mostly rural and hungry for answers to life’s tragedies.

I have no doubt the left will make jokes about Falwell’s death as they are wont to do when it comes to anything where faith is involved. He was an easy target thanks to his simplistic world view and uncanny ability to say the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.

But Jerry Falwell was an authentic American, a linear descendant of Jonathan Edwards whose 1741 sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” echoed many of the themes in Falwell’s preaching and was a seminal moment in the first “Great Awakening.” These true believers have undeniably contributed much that is positive to our politics. Reformers will tend to do that. But their limited view of issues and their tendency to view opposition to their ideas as evil also makes them a danger to democracy. Thankfully, their numbers and influence has always been limited. This was true even of the biggest TV preacher in history who when all was said and done, lived life by the light of faith he truly and honestly believed was given to him by the Almighty.

UPDATE

Allah has the reaction from the left. I’ll just send you over there without comment and urge you to start clicking.

Michelle Malkin has a round up of mostly MSM sources. As is her wont, she will probably expand coverage as more react comes in.

But if we are not willing to do what is necessary to win, then the only sane, moral course of action is to bring the troops home as fast as humanly possible. Such a humiliation should not result in a single additional death or injury to the men and women who have performed so bravely and selflessly in the face of blunder after blunder by their superiors.

When I wrote those words in August of 2006, I hoped that the Bush Administration would react to the dire situation that had developed the previous six months in the country as a result of the bombing of the sacred Shia shrine in Samarra. (Note: There is considerable disagreement about whether or not the bombing of the shrine was a catalyst for the increased violence or whether it was coincidental to the march of the Iraqis toward civil war.) As it happened, the Administration decided to sit tight until after the Mid Term elections, hoping that a Republican majority could be maintained and they could go on their merry way, blundering toward disaster all the while telling us how swimmingly things were going.

Rudely awakened on election day, the Bushies realized the jig was up and that they would have to finally admit that mistakes were made and that a change of course was necessary. Firing Rumsfeld and initiating a “surge” with about 30,000 additional troops was the correct prescription. But like a doctor who prescribes a drug to kill an infection only after the patient is at deaths door, the medicine was administered too late to have much effect.

Not, I hasten to add, that the “surge” itself is a failure. Three months is hardly enough time to judge the overall effectiveness of a strategy that is still being implemented. The idea that our troops (who still have not been fully deployed) could rein in the death squads, tackle the militias, initiate their neighborhood policing, confiscate weapons, crack down on the criminal gangs, and bring order out of chaos in Baghdad in just 90 days is pure idiocy, something only the New York Times and partisan Democrats (or scaredy cat Republicans) would believe. A more realistic yardstick to judge success or failure would have been the end of the year. And I have little doubt that the professionalism and abilities of our troops would have seen to it that success would have been ours.

And yes, there has been remarkable progress in Anbar province in getting the tribes to fight al-Qaeda and even initiate political changes that have the potential of significantly affecting the Sunni insurgency. That part of the surge too, is being carried out with great dedication and skill.

But all of this is taking place in a vacuum. That’s because here at home, it should be apparent to even the bitter ender Bushies that there is no sustaining political will to fight on, that spilling American blood to give the Iraqis the necessary breathing room to implement the political changes that would make their country whole again has disappeared. And not just in the hinterlands but most especially on Capitol Hill. Republicans are jumping ship or, at the very least, adjusting their life preservers. Being practical politicians with their ears to the ground, GOP lawmakers are not going to put their political survival into the hands of a lame duck President whose stubbornness and inability to grasp either the political realities at home or in Baghdad could lead the Republican party into a massacre on election day in 2008.

The last 48 hours have seen one of the more remarkable political transformations that I can remember. The dam apparently began to break on Tuesday following a meeting between Bush and GOP moderates in the House. The lawmakers were desperately trying to get through to the President that their support for the war would be unsustainable past September given the Democratic party surge in their districts that is being driven by anti-war feeling among their constituents. Couple that with the fact that the Democrats have placed great big bulls eyes on these Republicans and are busy recruiting serious contenders to face them in 2008, and the political survival instincts of these fellows kicked in with a vengeance.

Karl Rove is furious that the tenor and tone of the meeting was leaked to the press:

White House political adviser Karl Rove, furious that Republican moderates had divulged a confrontational meeting they had on Tuesday with Bush on the war, started yesterday with an angry conversation with the meeting’s organizer, Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), according to several GOP lawmakers. Dan Meyer, the White House’s chief lobbyist, called the other participants to express the administration’s unhappiness.

But Bush struck a more conciliatory tone, pledging to include benchmarks of success for the Iraqi government in a final compromise on war funding legislation.

And it isn’t just the “moderates” who just want Iraq to go away. Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), a meeting participant, said that it “was reflective of where the whole [Republican] conference is.”

The heated meeting between the GOP moderates and Bush continued to reverberate through Capitol Hill yesterday, after several Republican conservatives told reporters that they shared the moderates’ fears that the war is wrecking the party. “There is no liberal-conservative divide on Iraq,” said one House GOP conservative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering the White House further.

With his own party in full blown revolt and Bush giving in on including benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet in order to continue funding the war - benchmarks there isn’t a chance in hell Prime Minister Maliki could achieve even if he showed the slightest interest in doing so - all that remained for total collapse of the Bush policy was a sign that it’s only going to get worse.

And the Democrats helpfully supplied that sign yesterday with their draconian “cut and run” bill - an up or down vote on funding the entire war, not just the surge. An astonishing 177 Democrats voted for it (and two Republicans). To say that this bill was the most irresponsible piece of legislation yet proposed by the Democrats doesn’t really matter. At this point, doing the responsible thing is not in the forefront of what passes for thinking by either party. Republicans want out. Democrats want to start sharpening their knives for the inevitable hearings on the Hill that will fix blame for this debacle squarely where it belongs - on the President and his subordinates.

I might add that even though the bill was irresponsible, it was about time that the Democrats put their money where their mouths have been for 4 years. It took some political courage to bring that measure up for a vote and Pelosi should be commended for doing so.

So, the Democrats want us out. The Republicans desperately want to disentangle themselves from the Iraq Tar Baby. The Iraqi Parliament voted to end the occupation (albeit with a sensible timeline that would keep enough troops to train the Iraqi army). And the American people most definitely want our mission in Iraq to end.

And if, as seems likely now, the Iraqi government fails to meet the benchmarks set for July or September (whichever date is decided upon doesn’t matter) and Congress cuts off money for at least the surge and possibly more, what’s a Commander in Chief to do?

Clearly, this is not going to be Saigon circa 1975 with desperate Iraqis clinging to the last helicopter leaving the American embassy (even though many liberals would dearly love to see that scenario play out). And it is just as clear that not all of our troops will be coming home. We will stay and train the Iraqi army while keeping up the pressure on al-Qaeda in Iraq who will find themselves more and more facing off against the Iraqis anyway. And I suspect we will have some kind of “tripwire” force in place to prevent mischief by Iraq’s neighbors in case they get a hankerin’ for military adventures against the very weak government there.

But it is just as clear that our days of nation building and democracy promoting are over - at least as far as our military can be of service in those areas. What is very unclear at the moment is how best to disengage. For that, the President will be forced into negotiations with the Democrats (something I was skewered for suggesting by my righty friends just a couple of weeks ago.) There’s no getting there from here while avoiding the worst of the consequences flowing from our withdrawal unless the two sides can sit down and try and do what’s in the best interests of the United States. I have no clue what the answer might be as to how best to leave Iraq. But the Commander in Chief in consultation with his generals along with the political leadership of opposition (who, after all, control the Congress) must come to some kind of an agreement on this vital question if we are to salvage anything at all from this misguided adventure.

Even if the bulk of our combat troops are out of Iraq by next summer, that may not be enough to save the Republicans from an historic defeat the following November. Most political experts smell political realignment in the air. Certainly the war has something to do with that possibility. But such an electoral outcome would occur more as a result of Republican disarray and a lack of new ideas to deal with the challenges of today than what has happened in Iraq. The war has been a catalyst that has altered the political landscape. But the incoherence of the GOP who will enter the political season with no recognizable agenda, no initiatives worth talking about, and for all intents and purposes leaderless is what should chill the bones of conservatives and give them cause for nightmares of a filibuster-proof Senate and veto-proof majority in the House.

For now however, our concentration should be on getting the troops redeployed with a minimum of casualties. They have earned far more than our respect and thanks in these difficult years. They have earned our fierce admiration. They have done all that has been asked of them with a dedication and professionalism that has been awe inspiring. And the sacrifices they and their families have been forced to make have been born with a singular fidelity to the highest traditions of military service.

And in order to validate their service and sacrifice, we must examine every action taken by our military and political leaders that has led us to this point and make sure that history holds those accountable who failed both them and the United States in this conflict. There will be other battles in this war. Learning the lessons from this fiasco will make sure that we will win through to ultimate victory in this war against Islamic extremism.

Congratulations to the netnuts! They have achieved their goal of capturing a large segment of Congressional Democrats and turning them into a quivering mass of genuflecting cretins, unable to buck the will of their most passionate (and off balance) supporters because they’re too frightened of the consequences.

Apparently, House Democrats are prepared to limit funding for the war to two months, answering the call of their online masters to toe the line or risk the disapprobation of the Krazed Kossacks and the rest of the internet ruffians who make up the far left of the party.

For the last couple of weeks, the drumbeat from the netroots regarding the Iraq Supplemental has been about initiating a strategy known as “the short leash.” That is, limit the appropriation to two months and load it up with impossible demands on the Iraqi government to get moving on reform (reforms that won’t be initiated for two years much less two months) and then when the inevitable failure occurs, try the same gambit again with cutting off funding for the extra troops hoping that panicking Republican lawmakers will desert the President and join the Democrats in an attempt to save their political hides.

The strategy has the disadvantage of being transparently ridiculous - especially after Democratic lawmakers swore that they would forgo the limited appropriation path and stick with funding the troops through September. But that was before the netnuts began to ratchet up the pressure on their cowering minions in the House.

Here’s the #2 Democrat in the House just two weeks ago:

Many senators, as well as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), say they’re not inclined to support a two-month supplemental.

“There are a lot of ideas being discussed, and Mr. Hoyer personally feels that at this time he doesn’t see that particular option moving forward,” said Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Farnen Bernards.

(HT: Ed Morrissey)

The issue is apparently dead in the Senate with even Harry Reid seeing the stupidity of a two month appropriation.

Even if House Democrats seek to pass a short-term bill, the Senate isn’t yet on board.

“I don’t think that’s the best approach,” Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich) said Friday. “I think it’s too close to the end of the fiscal year for that.”

Senate Democratic aides also downplayed the chances that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would agree to try to pass short-term funding bills for the war, noting that it likely would tie the Senate floor in knots and prevent Reid from bringing up other Democratic legislative priorities…

And the problem isn’t just Democratic “legislative priorities.” How about a severe disruption in the Department of Defense?

[Secretary of Defense] Gates told the panel that proposals for a short-term funding bill would be very disruptive and “have a huge impact” on contracts to repair and replace equipment. And if Congress votes in July to pull the plug on war funding, “I would have to shut down significant elements of the Department of Defense in August and September because I wouldn’t have the money to pay salaries.”

The fact that House Democrats have apparently become beholden to their most extreme supporters does not bode well for the party heading into 2008. One way or another, the war is going to be winding down by next spring as the Presidential primary season gets underway. And then what? Are Democrats on the Hill simply going to pat the netnuts on the head, thanking them for a job well done, and then expect them to go back to posting cat pictures on their blogs and trading recipes for meatloaf? Not hardly. Kos & Co. have real power now. They can taste it. And they are eager to exercise it.

What that means for the party’s agenda going into the 2008 campaign is unknown. But a lurch to the left, away from the carefully crafted positions of both Hillary and Obama to appeal to the center would almost certainly cause problems for the eventual candidate, giving the Republican ticket the opportunity to fall back on the time honored and very effective strategy of painting their Democratic opponent as an extreme liberal.

It’s proved a winning strategy in the past. And even in a Democratic year as 2008 is shaping up to be, it could prove the difference again.

As I watched the gaggle of Republican Presidential pretenders (for the most part - there are two who I could see with their hand on the bible taking the oath on the Capitol steps in January, 2009), I was struck by how truly bereft the GOP is of political talent at the national level.

The Governator seems hefty but, of course, can’t run because of that codicil in the Constitution that prevents Austrian-born body builders from becoming President. Still, there’s no doubting his talent for governance, having gone from novice to expert in just a matter of years while receiving high marks for many of his programs. And if a Republican is elected, they should absolutely find a place in their Administration to utilize Arnold’s considerable and varied talents.

But besides Arnold, who is there? Jeb? Puh-leese. After this election, I don’t want to see another Clinton or Bush as a candidate until Chelsea’s grandchild is eligible for office. This run of “power families” who have dominated American politics much of the last 50 years - the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Bush’s, - makes the United States look like a banana republic. Or worse, a debased aristocracy.

The whole point of inventing America was to create a place where it wasn’t supposed to matter who or what your father was, that you were judged on your own talents and merits. But given that these and other families like the Cuomo’s of New York, the Bayh’s of Indiana, the Boren’s of Oklahoma, the Ford’s of Tennessee, the Doles, the Gores, the Dodd’s, and the ever popular Rockefeller’s always seem to get one of their prodigies elected to high office, politics has become almost hereditary in some respects. At the very least, the scion of a well known political family has a huge leg up in any contest as far as money contacts and access to campaign expertise. It is unseemly in a republic for this to be so and I wish it weren’t.

Then again, I wish the talent on display last night would have approached the towering political figures who ran for President in 1980. That year, the Republican party fielded perhaps the most capable group of men ever to run for the presidency. There were two Presidents in Reagan and Bush. There was the 1996 Republican nominee Bob Dole. There was the larger than life, charismatic presence of former Democrat, former Texas Governor John Connally. There was the smooth inside the beltway Minority Leader of the Senate Howard Baker. There were two brilliant Congressmen in Phil Crane and John Anderson - either one would have made the pitiful group of small minded men who trudged on stage last night look like idiots.

Actually, a couple of them didn’t need any help in looking foolish. Tommy Thompson’s candidacy is over after answering a question about whether he would fire a gay person just for being gay in the affirmative. The crestfallen look on Thompson’s face after he was cornered into saying “yes” he would fire someone based on their sexual orientation showed he knew full well he had jumped the shark, screwed the pooch, and fallen off a cliff with that stupid, thoughtless answer.

Then there was Tom Tancredo and his problems with communication. He seemed to be speaking a foreign language at times so incoherent he sounded - an irony of great proportions given his opposition to foreigners entering America even legally.

Duncan Hunter will make a fine Secretary of Defense. President? Not so much.

Ron Paul took a wrong turn in 1952 and ended up transported to modern times. How many Republicans today know who Robert Taft was? How many Republicans care?

Mark my words: We will never, ever elect a President named “Huckabee.”

Sam Brownback is at least Vice Presidential material. His appeal to that part of the base who believe social issues are most important is undeniable and he would make a fine addition to a Romney or Guiliani ticket.

Jim Gilmore intrigues me. He comes off as something of a cold fish - a competent, passionless technocrat. But he is smooth, smart, and quick on his feet. I have a feeling that the GOP is going to look very closely at adding a southern face to the ticket if current adverse trends continue in that part of the country.

The so-called “Big Three” of McCain, Romney, and Guiliani pretty much played it safe. McCain started out poorly but came on strong in the second half of the debate. And I think the format harmed Guiliani who never seemed to get enough time to answer the questions directed at him fully.

Romney was probably the “winner” for the night. His response to questions about religion showed he had put a lot of thought (and practice) into how to answer critics who say a Mormon can’t be President. I have no doubt that he will be able to put that issue behind him eventually. He was less competent in answering questions about his flip flop on abortion. This problem will be more difficult to put behind him and will be exploited by his primary opponents as well as the Democratic nominee. It just doesn’t ring true because it isn’t. Romney has not had a consistent position on abortion and every one knows it. It might be nice if he acknowledged that fact and moved on.

Not an entirely depressing night but it’s no secret that the addition of Fred Thompson would have livened up the festivities. Most of my Heading Right colleagues believe that Fred ended up the big winner last night by not showing up. It’s hard to argue with that logic.

(To listen to the Heading Right Debate Roundtable wrap up from last night, go here.)

My overall impression was is this the best the Republicans can offer the country? Not only was the stage bereft of personality and warmth but there was a noticeable dearth of ideas. Part of the problem there was the format and those who hosted the debate; MSNBC and Politico. Compared to the Democratic debates, I thought the questions were hostile and inane (”Would Bill Clinton being back in the White House be a good thing?”). Interesting that we didn’t get a question at the Democratic debates like “Would it be a good thing to have a Mormon in the White House?” or some other equally stupid question. Chris Matthews gave us his best impression of a Democratic party hack while the post debate coverage featured that well known, fair minded, unbiased, journalist/speaker of truth to power/Diogenes wannabe, the Murrowesque Keith Olbermann.

And they say Fox News is too biased?

The country is changing before our eyes. As American is wont to do from time to time, we are re-inventing ourselves to answer the challenges of a new age. And while those men from 1980 who made this bunch look like little old ladies at a coffee klatch advanced a solid agenda of strength at home and abroad and freedom for all, this grouping of average Republicans seemed unable to string more than two coherent thoughts together in succession. And if history has taught us one thing, America waits for no man, no party in its rush to change. Those who don’t adapt are simply left behind while the country goes about the business of re-alignment.

At a time when the nation needs his clarity of purpose, Ronald Reagan was reduced to a ghost on that stage last night; his name invoked constantly, homage paid to his ideas, but the essence of the man and his sense of mission sorely lacking among the pretenders who would inherit his mantle. And with Bush a non-factor, the party at the moment is leaderless, rudderless, and without purpose - except to win elections. And as the Democrats proved in the 25 years prior to 2006, this is a recipe for disaster.

UPDATE

Some quickie reactions:

Michelle has a gigantic round up. Something for everyone.

Ed Morrissey (who did a fantastic job moderating our roundtable last night on BTR) says “It’s Romney.”

Erik at RedState says “It’s McCain…and Fred Thompson.”

Dean Barnett: Romney (natch!)

Powerline: McCain!

Sully: McCain.

Sister Toldjah: No winners. Format sucked. Ditto moderators. Re-ditto questions. She’s got the best liveblogging of the debate I’ve seen.

More later…