Right Wing Nut House

It appears that a last minute plea by Speaker Pelosi to the Out of Iraq Caucus, made up of the most deranged of the deranged left, has carried the day - clearing the way for a war funding bill that will do for al-Qaeda what they could never do for themselves in a million years; get American combat forces out of Iraq:

Liberal opposition to a $124 billion war spending bill broke last night, when leaders of the antiwar Out of Iraq Caucus pledged to Democratic leaders that they will not block the measure, which sets timelines for bringing U.S. troops home.

The acquiescence of the liberals probably means that the House will pass a binding measure today that, for the first time, would establish tough readiness standards for the deployment of combat forces and an Aug. 31, 2008, deadline for their removal from Iraq.

A Senate committee also passed a spending bill yesterday setting a goal of bringing troops home within a year. The developments mark congressional Democrats’ first real progress in putting legislative pressure on President Bush to withdraw U.S. forces.

Even more than the conservative Democrats leery of appearing to micromanage the war, House liberals have been the main obstacle to leadership efforts to put a timeline on the withdrawal of U.S. forces. They have complained that the proposal would not bring troops home fast enough. Their opposition has riven the antiwar movement, split the Democratic base and been the main stumbling block to the legislation, which had originally been scheduled for a vote yesterday.

How on earth did Pelosi pull it off? Did she appeal to their party loyalty? Their sense of honor? Their greed?

As debate began on the bill yesterday, members of the antiwar caucus and party leaders held a backroom meeting in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a final plea to the group, asking it to deliver at least four votes when the roll is called. The members promised 10.

“I find myself in the excruciating position of being asked to choose between voting for funding for the war or establishing timelines to end it,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). “I have struggled with this decision, but I finally decided that, while I cannot betray my conscience, I cannot stand in the way of passing a measure that puts a concrete end date on this unnecessary war.”

That was the message of Democratic leaders: This is the best deal they could make, and it is better than no deal at all.

Indeed. The consequences of “no deal at all” were unthinkable:

“You really have two options here: One is that you can vote for a change of course here and say we’re going to find a way out of Iraq, or, two, you can vote against it and hand George Bush a victory,” said Jon Soltz, a veteran of the Iraq war and co-founder of VoteVets.org, a group that opposes the war. “It doesn’t make sense to me. George Bush got us into the war. They have challenged him on everything. Why would they give him this victory now?” he asked, referring to the liberals.

It is clear that the left hates George Bush more than they hate the war.

They hate him so much they are willing to sacrifice their anti-war principles in order to deal the President of the United States an embarrassing defeat. And given the absolute dead certainty that the President will veto the measure, a delay in funding the war could lead to dire consequences for our troops in the field:

In his assessment — delivered during a morning meeting with lawmakers and then repeated to reporters — Gates said that failure to pass the Defense Department funding request within the next three weeks might force the Army to slow the training of units deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

He also cautioned that further delay into mid-May could force the Army to extend the deployments of troops in war zones beyond their usual one-year tours, because replacement forces would not have enough money to complete their pre-combat training.

Gates declined to tell the Democrats what they should do, saying only, “I think it’s my responsibility to let everybody involved in the debate know the impact of the timing of the decisions.”

But the political brinksmanship of his remarks was clear.

It is hugely ironic that the LA Times talks of “political brinksmanship” when referencing Secretary Gates remarks - especially since it is the Democrats in Congress who are holding a gun to the head of the President by passing a bill he cannot sign if he wishes to remain Commander in Chief:

A Pelosi spokesman said President Bush would be to blame for any effect that delays in passing a bill would have on the military, saying the president had failed to adequately fund the war.

But the warning from Gates, who has largely stayed out of the political fray in his first three months at the Pentagon, threatened to upset the carefully crafted coalition of moderate and liberal Democrats that party leaders have been laboring to assemble behind the $124-billion measure.

And that’s what it’s all about. It’s not about stopping the war. It’s not about bringing our troops home. The whole purpose of this bill is to score political points against the President, to weaken him, to embarrass him - all the while handing the enemies of the United States a victory on the field of battle they’ve neither earned nor deserve.

At the expense of principle and common sense, the Democratic left has allowed their hatred of the President to trump all. And the problem for the Democrats with this entire process is that they are now committed to a course of action (and setting a disturbing precedent that may very well come back to haunt them some day) that ignores military reality in favor of political expediency.

Does anyone actually believe that these arbitrary and capricious “benchmarks” laid out by the Democrats to put pressure on the Iraqi government are designed to do anything except further embarrass and weaken the President? It is a transparent political ploy, nothing else. And anyone who votes for this measure should be ashamed of themselves for abandoning principle in order to make Bush look bad while giving themselves permission to feel good about sticking it to the President of the United States.

For once, I agree with many of the netroots on this issue; give us an up or down vote on funding the Iraq War, not this sneaking around and playing political games with the lives of our troops. If, as Democrats have been saying for months, the American people elected them to end this war, let’s end it already. What in God’s name are they scared of? If, as they claim, the people are behind them, what is there to worry about politically? George Bush is beyond lame duck status. He’s a gone goose. The President is an irrelevancy, a non-factor. Republicans are sick of defending him. The base has abandoned him. Bush could claim from here to the next election that Democrats “lost” the war if they cut off funding but no one would listen or believe him. So why the hesitation?

The fact is, the left in Congress are cowards - unprincipled, abject cowards. They talk a good game but when push comes to shove - when history calls and asks them to stand up for their principles - they run and hide under their beds like five year olds scared of the thunder.

And the hell of it is, they are going to point to passage of this bill as a “victory.” It’s a triumph of hate over principle - hardly a victory unless you consider it more important to stick a shiv into the President’s gut to satisfy your own personal animus.

Being something of an agnostic on the global warming debate, I was amused to watch Al Gore testify before Congress yesterday. Not only was the former Vice President entertaining - as most dogmatic, close minded advocates on both sides of the global warming debate usually are - but watching him wiggle and squirm as he sought to avoid charges of hypocrisy for not taking a pledge to live a life of carbon neutrality turned into either low comedy or high drama, depending on your point of view.

Environmental activist (and former vice president) Al Gore descended on Capitol Hill yesterday, telling two congressional panels that global climate change represents the most dangerous crisis in American history and that the measures needed to fix the problem — such as an immediate freeze on new emissions from cars and power plants — are far more drastic than anything currently on the table.

Gore, whose documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Academy Award last month, testified before both House and Senate committees in an appearance that drew international media attention and lines of would-be spectators trailing through congressional hallways.

In both hearings, he had testy exchanges with lawmakers who doubted his scientific evidence or the feasibility of his solutions. Much of his day, though, was spent basking in an odd spotlight: Gore and his cause have Washington’s full attention. But his message, of a feverish planet and dwindling time in which to cure it, made for a grim homecoming.

“This is not a normal time. We are facing a planetary emergency,” Gore said in the afternoon Senate hearing. “I’m fully aware that that phrase sounds shrill to many people’s ears. But it is accurate.”

First, I wonder what Gore thinks of being referred to primarily as an “environmental activist” with his main claim to fame as Clinton’s Vice President given in parentheses. Considering the fact that Gore would probably like to ride his global warming crusade into the White House, my guess is that such distinctions don’t sit very well with him.

As far as his appearances, he was in his element - lecturing the assembled lawmakers and the rest of us that unless drastic action is taken, we’ll be under water before you know it. Or as dry as my Zsu-Zsu’s meatloaf depending on where you live. And we’ll either be hotter than hades or colder than an environmentalist’s heart unless we listen to he and other climate scare mongers.

You see, Gore and I are not scientists but we both share a passion for the subject. The difference between us is that I gather information from both skeptics (the serious kind, not including Senator Inhofe) and advocates who, surprisingly, are in close agreement on a few facts about climate change:

1. The climate is changing.

2. It is getting warmer.

3. Humans have had an as yet undetermined impact on these facts. (Still a matter of some dispute although the evidence has become pretty compelling over the last 2 or three years.)

4. No one knows what the hell to do about it.

For Al Gore to recommend the absolutely most catastrophic “solutions” - measures that would finish the United States as an economic power in the world - is not only irresponsible but silly. An “immediate freeze” on emissions from power plants would mean a helluva lot less electricity. Although I’m sure there would be enough to light up and heat Mr. Gore’s estate, as for the rest of us, I’m not so sure.

And a freeze in car emissions? How do we do that without shutting down the assembly lines and throwing tens of thousands out of work? Well, at least Al will still have a job. He could always latch on to a carnival somewhere as a barker.

Of course, this would be only the beginning. Huge increases in fuel taxes, a rush to shut down coal fired power plants, and other draconian measures that have little to do with saving the planet and everything to do with politics. The fact is, there is no scientific consensus on what to do about global warming and, in fact, there is a large body of scientific opinion that says even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gasses today, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.

Gore is not pushing science as much as he is touting a political agenda - an anti-capitalist, anti-industrial, pro-socialist agenda that would set up a super governing body to act as a carbon nanny, doling out punishments to nations that don’t measure up. The Luddites, the one worlders, the pastoral radicals, and anarchists who are his allies in this cause would basically be in charge of industrial production in the west.

By all means let us work diligently toward a society where greenhouse emissions are limited as much as possible. Let’s get the nuclear power industry up and running full bore. Let’s fully fund research into hydrogen alternatives to the internal combustion engine. Where possible, let’s encourage solar, wind, geo-thermal, and other alternative forms of energy (fat lot of good it will do since the savings in emissions would be minimal in the United States). And let’s start a massive educational campaign to inform the public of what each American can be doing to limit their “carbon signature” on the planet.

But at the same time, let’s tell Al Gore and his hysterical friends to put a sock in it. Their moralizing and politicizing the issue not to mention their filthy smears of not only skeptics but anyone who doesn’t buy in to their end of the world scenarios (some of them contradictory) is making the rest of us sick to our stomachs. Dismissing skeptics as shills for the oil and gas industry is outrageous demagoguery and indicates that, like religious zealots, it is impossible to challenge their beliefs in a rational, reasonable manner.

Perhaps the more outrageous Gore and his friends get in their dire pronouncements and calumnious denunciations, the less people will listen to them. I sincerely hope so. This has been the fate of other zealots in American history. And for Al Gore, such an outcome can’t come too soon.

UPDATE II

Check out the video at Michelle Malkin that has a jaw dropping example of Senator Boxer’s arrogance. And there’s a separate video of a CNN newsreader’s reaction (”Good for her.”)

What biased media?

And Dean Barnett has his own “Eco-Purity Pledge.” (Guffaw!)

With less than a day to go before a scheduled vote on funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan takes place, the House Democratic leadership is scrambling to avoid an embarrassing defeat - largely as a result of a revolt by their far left wing:

One of the Democrats’ chief designated vote counters, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), is actively working against the Iraq war spending bill. The leadership’s senior chief deputy whip, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), spoke passionately against it on the House floor. And one of the whip organization’s regional representatives, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), is implacably opposed.

The disarray in the House whipping operation ahead of tomorrow’s expected vote on the bill is putting a harsh spotlight on House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who has the task of rounding up the 218 votes needed to pass the $124 billion measure, but who has not even kept his organization in line.

“There’s only one test, and that will be whether we get 218 on the board on Thursday,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who predicted that Clyburn will come through with the votes.

The problem for the far left Democrats is that by their lights, we’re not surrendering fast enough. While the measure calls for all American combat troops out of Iraq by the end of August next year regardless of the situation on the ground, the far left is feeling the pressure from the netnuts who are agitating for an end to the war now, right now, right this minute:

But Lewis has not been silent. In a speech Monday night on the House floor, he made his case as convincingly as he could.

“As a nation, can we hear the words of Gandhi, so simple, so true — that it’s either nonviolence or nonexistence? Can we hear the words of Martin Luther King Jr., saying that we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish as fools?” Lewis asked. “Tonight, I must make it plain and clear, that as a human being, as a citizen of the world, as a citizen of America, as a member of Congress, and as an individual committed to a world at peace with itself, I will not and cannot vote for another dollar or another dime to support this war.”

That’s the spirit, Representative Lewis! Immediate and unconditional surrender. Perhaps we should start calling you “U.S. Lewis?”

The whips not only have problems with their comrades on the left, there are also quite a few Blue Dog Democrats who are uneasy about starting down the road of defunding the war while our troops are in the field:

Tanner, the Blue Dog representative on the chief deputy whip’s team, had been undecided until yesterday morning. Now that he is on board, he hastened to add that he is not about to start leaning on his Blue Dog colleagues. “I don’t ask people to vote on the leadership’s behalf, particularly on a vote like this,” he said.

Kristie Greco, a spokeswoman for Clyburn, said the Democrats’ whip organization is broad and diverse, precisely so that a few defections over policy would not affect the vote-counting operation. The days of lock-step discipline under the threat of retribution went out with the Republican majority, she said.

Spoken like a true loser, Kristie. It appears that the Democrats might try to turn their legislative defeat into a public relations triumph, highlighting their incompetence by comparing their failed efforts to whip the members into line with the Republican’s success on numerous issues. After all, does it really matter how the job gets done just as long as the desired result is achieved? The threats of retribution against recalcitrant Republicans didn’t lead to any of them defecting to the Democrats and until 2006, kept them in the majority. Of course, some of the underhanded parliamentary tricks used by the GOP House leadership helped in that regard. But the fact is, when push came to shove, the GOP whip operation almost always delivered.

Ultimately, competence in leadership is judged by how well the majority functions when confronted with the biggest issues of the day. It’s easy to get a majority for a non-binding resolution expressing opposition to the war. But when the leadership gets down to brass tacks on actually what terms of surrender they wish to offer the insurgents and al-Qaeda in Iraq, their left wing balks because we don’t drop our weapons and flee while the conservatives are wary that voting for any measure that contains a timetable may associate them with the crazies in their party.

If the Republicans were smart (a big “if”), they would allow the Democrats the honor of voting for a date certain to celebrate al-Qaeda’s victory. Otherwise, they may find themselves tarred with the same broad brush used to paint the Democrats as the defeatists they truly are.

UPDATE

According to The Victory Caucus, the Dems are buying the votes they need by spreading around some pork:

Dems’ seem to have decided that their Slow Bleed strategy (v.018) won’t actually have a chance of passing on its own merits, and so they need to play Let’s Make A Deal. In other words: find a bunch of morally confused Congresscritters who think their districts absolutely must have some nice juicy pork projects, and bring ‘em the bacon, baby!

It’s a great plan, really, except for the fact that it assumes that we’re still stuck somewhere in the 1970’s and such deals can be made in secret between chummy confederates wearing disturbingly wide-collared suits made entirely of synthetic fabrics while boogying down to Disco Inferno on the old 8-track. Turns out that here in Two-Thousand-And-Seven, such an approach works: not so much.

Why? Because of you, silly! The empowered citizen, given the ability by these wonderful Internets to actually read the actual words of the actual bills that your elected Representatives are actually planning on actually passing in your name. You can help us point the spotlight on the deals that are being made with this “emergency” spending bill. You can highlight the shady bargains being made by the Democratic leadership to help put lipstick on the pork-laden pig that this vitally important bill to fund our troops in harm’s way has become.

The guys over at VC need your help in identifying every piece of pork going into this supplemental spending bill. Go to the link above and follow their instructions.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

I’ve followed along these last few years as case after case of the White House politicizing global warming data has come to light. And I’ve also written of other cases where religion and religious beliefs have colored the science that the government disseminates to the public.

But to say only one side is guilty of allowing a particular political agenda to intrude into scientific inquiry is demonstrably false and ignores the fact that both sides now are engaged in an ideological struggle that is doing enormous damage to the credibility of public science.

The taxpaying public must be reasonably certain that science being done by the government or funded with our tax dollars is above the political fray, that the conclusions reached by experts are free of partisan political taint and instead reflect empirical data discovered using the tried and true scientific method of inquiry. It should also be a given that this data should be open to full examination and criticism by other scientists, recognizing that vetting the work done in the laboratory in this manner is an important part of the scientific process.

Instead, both sides have been guilty of bending and twisting scientific observations to fit a preconcieved political construct. i.e. global warming is a crock or, from the other side, global warming will kill us all. This occurs even when new discoveries and new data either buttresses or calls into question certain conclusions.

For example, we see this phenomena when models predicting the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere are shown to be consistently off target - sometimes wildly so. For global warming skeptics, this is “proof” that climate change is a figament of the imagination. Global warming advocates simply ignore these models and point to other evidence.

Lost in the political debate is the fact that modelling is part of the scientific process and that we learn something every time scientists are wrong. Of course, this doesn’t stop global warming advocates from using other models as their own “proof” that global warming is happening and that we must radically alter our societies to combat it.

One of the most respected climate modelers, Roger A. Pielke, Sr. who is currently a Senior Research Associate at the University of Colorado-Boulder in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (PAOS) and whose work has been cited by both skeptics and advocates lays out the difficulties that climate modellers and ultimately, global warming advocates face in predicting future climate change:

Humans are significantly altering the global climate, but in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of carbon dioxide. The IPCC assessments have been too conservative in recognizing the importance of these human climate forcings as they alter regional and global climate. These assessments have also not communicated the inability of the models to accurately forecast the spread of possibilities of future climate. The forecasts, therefore, do not provide any skill in quantifying the impact of different mitigation strategies on the actual climate response that would occur.

And just recently, University of Copenhagen Professor Bjarne Andresen, an expert in thermaldynamics, made a similar point about the difficulty in assessing the rise in global temperatures:

“It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth,” said Andresen, an expert on thermodynamics. “A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate”.

He says the currently used method of determining the global temperature — and any conclusion drawn from it — is more political than scientific.

Indeed, the entire global warming debate has become so politicized that the actual science being done - good and bad - takes a back seat to how either side can use scientific conclusions to win an argument.

If this kind of politicization were going on over an issue like answering the question of whether we’ve been visited by space aliens it wouldn’t matter very much. But the ramifications of the global warming debate affect every living thing on this planet not to mention the economic well being of America and the west. And the damage being done to the cause of free scientific inquiry cannot be underestimated. In short, the credibility of science is called into question when advocates and skeptics cherry pick facts and analyses to make their case.

Beyond using science as a political weapon, advocates of global warming regularly smear those on the other side by calling into question their motives. Dismissing skeptics as tools of the oil and gas industry is also damaging to scientific inquiry - especially since it isn’t true. Criticizing their conclusions by positing alternative theories based on sound logic and scientific principles is one thing. But character assassination has become the major weapon of climate change advocates. Calling skeptics “Nazis” and worse does nothing to advance scientific debate.

And censoring the facts about global warming is just as bad. There have been many examples over the past six years where the Bush Administration has excised references to climate change from official government reports. This is unconscionable. The perpetrator of this scientific fraud was Phil Cooney, a former lobbyist for the petroleum industry who was put in charge of the Council on Environmental Quality. Mr Cooney now works for Exxon Mobil. In one instance, Mr Cooney personally edited out a key section of an Environmental Protection Agency report to Congress on the dangers of climate change. “He called it speculative musing.”

At the same time, some global warming advocates in government are crying wolf. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, claimed the Administration was muzzling him by preventing him from being interviewed about global warming by various media outlets.

The problem for Mr. Hansen is that his charges are demonstrably false:

“We have over 1,400 opportunities that you’ve availed yourself to, and yet you call it, you know, being stifled,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican.

Mr. Hansen responded: “For the sake of the taxpayers, they should be availed of my expertise. I shouldn’t be required to parrot some company line…”

Mr. Deutsch, who was 23 at the time (sic), said Mr. Hansen was prohibited from doing the interview because of his prior refusal to notify NASA officials when he was granting interviews, not for political reasons.

Citing what he called his “constitutional right” to give interviews, Mr. Hansen admitted violating NASA’s press policy but defended his actions.

Someone who gives 1400 interviews and makes the charge that he’s being muzzled with a straight face should not be taken seriously - especially since he saw fit not to denounce earlier comments he made referring to the White House as a “propaganda office,” and saying, “It seems more like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union than the United States.”

And Mr. Hansen’s political connections should raise a few eyebrows:

Mr. Hansen received a $250,000 grant from the Heinz foundation, which is controlled by Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat. Mr. Hansen was a vocal supporter of Mr. Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

“As far as I know, there’s no political connection to this award,” said Mr. Hansen, who has donated several thousand dollars to past presidential campaigns for Mr. Kerry and Mr. Gore. “It’s an environmental award.”

Uh-huh.

I doubt very much whether the collision of science and politics can be avoided when it comes to global warming - not when the solutions called for by advocates involve hundreds of billions of dollars in tax money and threaten the existence of some industries. But surely efforts can be made by both sides to lessen the impact of politics in formulating policy based on science. If not, I fear we face a future where the credibility of all science is called into question by the people footing the bill much to the detriment of both science and society at large.

History ended yesterday. Or at least one version of it. Or perhaps it didn’t end as much as it was overthrown, trampled by the feet of 30,000 ordinary Americans who gathered on the mall and along the broad avenues in Washington to confront those who have, either wittingly or witlessly, given aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States for more than 40 years.

The rancid ideology that has swaggered across the American landscape since Viet Nam (posturing a moral superiority they never proved nor deserved) as ordinary Americans looked on with a growing sense of outrage was quite simply, shown up - bested by an amalgam of military veterans, conservative activists, and just plain folks whose numbers shocked the media, not to mention the anti-everything protestors from the other side.

I can’t come up with anything similar that has occurred in recent American history. During World Wars I and II there were massive rallies for war bonds but that was something else entirely. This was a protest to counter defeatism and the ideology of self-loathing that has had the national stage pretty much to itself for a generation or more. And it showed that while many Americans have no doubt been disheartened and discouraged by what has been happening in Iraq these last 4 years, there is still a considerable number of us who believe it worthwhile to continue the mission in that bloody country until the Iraqis are able to secure their future free from the threat of terrorists and rogue militias.

God, how I wish I could have been there:

As war protesters marched toward Arlington Memorial Bridge en route to the Pentagon yesterday, they were flanked by long lines of military veterans and others who stood in solidarity with U.S. troops and the Bush administration’s cause in Iraq. Many booed loudly as the protesters passed, turned their backs to them or yelled, “If you don’t like America, get out!”

Several thousand vets, some of whom came by bus from New Jersey, car caravans from California or flights from Seattle or Michigan, lined the route from the bridge and down 23rd Street, waving signs such as “War There Or War Here.” Their lines snaked around the corner and down several blocks of Constitution Avenue in what organizers called the largest gathering of pro-administration counter-demonstrators since the war began four years ago.

The vets turned both sides of Constitution into a bitter, charged gantlet for the war protesters. “Jihadists!” some vets screamed. “You’re brain-dead!” Others chanted, “Workers World traitors must hang!” — a reference to the Communist newspaper. Some broke into “The Star-Spangled Banner” as war protesters sought to hand out pamphlets.

Not very elevating dialogue but the point was made. And taking into consideration what was coming from the other side, the pro troops gathering sounded positively rational:

40 years ago there was a march on the Pentagon and here we are 40 years later with a march on the Pentagon and another illegal and immoral war.

I don’t want to be marching when I’m 90 years old in 2047 in another illegal and immoral war.

Let’s stop this Bullsh*t, now!

Do you know why our countires get into these bullsh*t wars all of the time?
It’s for the corporations!

It’s for the corporations like Halliburton and Exxon and Blackwater and to make them rich.

It’s to line the pockets of George Bush and Dick Cheney and all the war criminals…

That was from Mother Sheehan, Goddess of Peace, Catalyst for the Anti-War Movement, and certifiable loon.

And speaking of the anti-war “movement,” the last couple of gatherings they’ve had have gotten progressively smaller. Is this the best they can do?

Organizers, who had predicted tens of thousands of marchers would demonstrate, gave estimates ranging from 15,000 to 30,000. Police no longer provide official estimates of crowd size but informally put it at 10,000 to 20,000, with a smaller but sizable contingent of counter-protesters.

War protest leaders said a large winter storm that hit the Northeast hurt turnout. More than 60 bus loads of protesters who had been scheduled to come from the region canceled their trips Friday night, according to Brian Becker, national coordinator for the Answer Coalition, the event’s main sponsor.

Oh yeah? I guess the weather only stops you if you’re not committed enough:

It was quickly apparent that the weather had not prevented counter-demonstrators, many in black leather motorcycle jackets, from showing up in force and surrounding all sides of the Wall.

But demonstrating in favor of war? I think that much too simplistic and I believe those who stood in the cold would agree. Showing support for the troops, their mission (which includes reconstruction and training the Iraqi army and police among other non combat elements), and yes, the war policies of the Administration were the main reasons given for the outpouring.

But even more basic than that was a desire to challenge the moral primacy of the “Blame America First” lobby whose unfettered access to and sympathy from the media these many years has made it seem as if passion and commitment were the sole province of the left and those that believe that America is usually on the side of the angels were condemned to silently endure the lies, the distortions, the outright calumnies emanating from the dirty necked galoots who fill up the streets in protest on a regular basis.

As much as it can be said that anti-war protests give aid and comfort to the enemy, the reverse should be true; that by coming out in such huge numbers, the pro troops demonstration should give heart to the Iraqi people and cause the insurgents a bit of discomfort. At the very least, it should prove to the American people that not everyone has lost hope that a positive outcome can be achieved in Iraq. Perhaps giving heart to the American people will be the lasting benefit of this “Gathering of Eagles.”

It’s certainly given me some heart. And made me proud to be an American.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin is all over this story, of course. She was there snapping pictures and getting reaction from the participants.

But this morning, she points to the way the demonstration was portrayed in the New York Times. In short, there’s no way around it but to say that the Times lied - and not very well at that:

As they gathered before the march, the protesters met what several veterans of the antiwar movement described as an unusually large contingent of several hundred counterdemonstrators. Many were veterans in biker jackets who said they had come to protect the nearby Vietnam Memorial, citing rumors that had circulated among veterans groups that the demonstrators planned to deface it.

Crossing the bridge toward the Pentagon, the marchers met another group of about 50 counterdemonstrators by the Arlington Cemetery, one holding a sign that said: “Go to hell traitors. You dishonor our dead on hallowed ground.”

I linked above to the WaPo article that also undercounts the demonstration but at least acknowledges “several thousand” not several hundred as the Times reports.

And what about the protestors lining the route of the march to the Pentagon? Thousands of people that the New York Times decided not to count.

Non people at a non event if you’re a reader of the New York Times.

And this from John Lilyea, proprietor of the whimsically named This Ain’t Hell:

In my opinion, this Gathering of Eagles rally has done more for the healing of the wounds these veterans have been burdened with for forty years than any wall or memorial could ever. It was if they’d finally been given the opportunity to face their oppressors. There were no sorrowful stares, no sympathetic words. It was all smiles and laughter.

Welcome home, brothers.

Like a consummate actress, Valerie Plame knows that it’s always best to leave your audience wanting just a little bit more as you take your bows. In that respect, the former covert operative for the CIA didn’t disappoint in yesterday’s hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Indeed, in some ways, her testimony on that grand Congressional stage raised more questions about both her and her globe trotting husband than were answered during her appearance.

Plame certainly made a compelling and sympathetic witness. No matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, everyone must surely recognize that it was a personal tragedy for her to lose her covert status. And while some may wish to parse the meaning of “covert,” the fact is the CIA recognized her as such and plastering her name all over the newspapers of the world destroyed her career.

But missing from all the hoopla surrounding her appearance on Capitol Hill yesterday was the context in which this episode played out. There are two sides to this story. And while it is clear from the Libby trial that there was a concerted effort by the Administration to inform selected members of the press that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, it is much less clear that Libby, Rove, Armitage, and others knew of her covert status and deliberately tried to ruin her career.

Of course, The Narrative of the Plame Affair will not brook any deviation from the “facts” as disseminated by our leftist friends. Therefore, context is out, I’m afraid. It does no good to point out that two Congressional Committees have all but called Joe Wilson a liar. Nor does it matter that the Wilson assault on the President’s credibility was not an isolated gambit; that there was a serious and concerted effort by some in the intelligence community to at first, simply try to undermine a policy they disagreed with and ended up attempting to influence the Presidential election of 2004.

The selective leaking by these unelected bureaucrats should also be seen by all sides of the political spectrum as just plain wrong. It was a violation of their oaths as well as harmful to national security. But since The Narrative of the Plame Affair ignores this aspect of the scandal, the fiction that Evil Karl and his minions carried out the outing of Plame as some kind of covert operation unrelated to anything except their lust for power and desire to destroy their enemies endures.

And I must admit that I would be much more sanguine about the left’s outrage over the outing of Valerie Plame and any potential damage done to our intelligence capabilities if I felt there was genuine concern for these issues at work. But the fact is many of these same people crying crocodile tears for poor Valerie Plame and wringing their hands over damage done to our intelligence abilities have spent most of the last 40 years trying to either destroy the CIA outright or emasculate it.

I remember being shocked when the left cheered the turncoat Phillip Agee on in his campaign to out CIA operatives and operations in Europe and Latin America (while being assisted by the KGB and Cuban intelligence). They didn’t seem to mind “outing” people and destroying their careers back then. Ironically, Agee’s assault on the agency led to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act - the same act that no one was charged with violating in Valerie Plame’s case. That bill was opposed by two of the more brazen posturers in the Plame Affair: Senator Charles Schumer and Representative John Conyers.

So this sudden interest by the left in protecting our intelligence operatives and supporting the agency’s efforts at intelligence gathering is gratifying but suspect. One wonders as the Plame Affair recedes into memory if their new found respect and admiration for our intelligence community will be maintained or whether they will resume their previous opposition to our efforts in the intelligence field.

We’ve certainly not heard the last of Valerie Plame. There will be other Committee hearings, other venues to promote her version of history. There is a book in the works that the CIA is reviewing. And we can all look forward to a TV movie of the entire affair in the not too distant future.

I fully expect that film to portray Dick Cheney with horns and a tail and Karl Rove as a Gorgon. But who gets to play Valerie? Gwyneth Paltrow? Uma Thurman?

My dollar is on Angelina Jolie with Brad Pitt playing Joe Wilson. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Joe and Valerie didn’t insist on that casting decision. It would be perfectly in keeping with the low profile they’ve maintained since this imbroglio started as well as the modest way that they picture themselves.

The wild eyed, drooling left has become infected. So has the button down National media. The wonks, the pundits, the mavericks, the sycophants, the toadies, the entire panoply of players, movers and shakers in Washington, D.C. have all been bitten by the scandal bug. And their reaction is shaking the foundations of the Bush presidency.

“Purgegate” - or whatever inane nomenclature with the suffix “gate” is being used these days - has, in the last 24 hours, gone from a scandal focusing on the botched firing of 8 US Attorneys, incoherently defended by the Attorney General and poorly explained by the White House to the juiciest and most dangerous dust up that the Bush Administration has yet faced.

Already it appears that Attorney General Gonzalez is, if not on his way out the door, then certainly is being handed his hat. His extraordinarily incompetent press conference - 9 minutes of stumbling, bumbling, confused and contradictory statements about who did what and when - should have been immediately followed by someone in the White House coming out and clarifying what the incoherent Gonzalez couldn’t make clear; that removing appointees who serve at the pleasure of the President for a variety of reasons is nothing for official Washington to get its panties in a twist about.

But this White House has been in denial since the election about the changed atmosphere in the capitol. Every single statement uttered by an Administration official is going under the microscope whether they like it or not. And those statements will be twisted, pulled, stretched, spindled and mutilated until the absolute worst possible light can be cast upon them. This is what Republicans did for 6 years during the Clinton Administration and it should have come as no surprise to the witless wonders in the White House that the Democrats would employ similar tactics.

Too late. It has now become impossible to inject any sanity into the rush to manufacture this crisis into something it clearly isn’t; a purge of US Attorneys to prevent the investigation of Republicans. What Democrats believed was the clearest case of such malfeasance - the removal of San Diego USA Carol Lam who was investigating Duke Cunningham and the whole rotten CIA-DoD bribery scandal - has now been shown to be much ado about nothing.

It seems that Ms. Lam was targeted for removal (according to the emails released in the last 48 hours) long before she went after Duke Cunningham!

Patterico has a timeline that shows how truly paranoid the scandal mongers are in this case:

Here is the timeline of events:

March 2, 2005: Kyle Sampson informs White House Counsel Harriet Miers that Lam is being targeted for possible dismissal. Sampson attaches a list of U.S. Attorneys, dated February 24, 2005. The names of those targeted for dismissal are stricken out. Lam’s name was stricken out, meaning she had been targeted for possible dismissal as of March 2, 2005. You can view Sampson’s March 2, 2005 e-mail at this link.

June 12, 2005 (three months later): Marcus Stern of the San Diego Union-Tribune breaks the news of the Randy Cunningham scandal: “A defense contractor with ties to Rep. Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of the congressman’s Del Mar house while the congressman, a member of the influential defense appropriations subcommittee, was supporting the contractor’s efforts to get tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon.” View the story at this link.

Carol Lam was on a list of targeted prosecutors three months before the Randy “Duke” Cunningham scandal ever broke.

And make no mistake: Lam did not investigate Cunningham before Marcus Stern’s article was published. To the contrary, Stern’s article was the only reason Cunningham was prosecuted. One of the lead prosecutors confirmed this in a 2006 interview with the American Journalism Review:

As I said, it’s too late - too late for the facts to catch up with the hysteria. The New York Times is pooh-poohing the idea that some of the USA’s were fired for not aggressively going after voting fraud cases. To the Times, voter fraud is just not important enough an issue to remove a US Attorney:

In its fumbling attempts to explain the purge of United States attorneys, the Bush administration has argued that the fired prosecutors were not aggressive enough about addressing voter fraud. It is a phony argument; there is no evidence that any of them ignored real instances of voter fraud. But more than that, it is a window on what may be a major reason for some of the firings.

In partisan Republican circles, the pursuit of voter fraud is code for suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people. By resisting pressure to crack down on “fraud,” the fired United States attorneys actually appear to have been standing up for the integrity of the election system.

I guess thousands of fake voter registration forms submitted by the highly partisan ACORN as well as other frauds perpetrated by the usual suspects at the AFL-CIO, Moveon, and other liberal advocacy groups should be allowed into the system - at least according to the Times. We wouldn’t want to disturb the moronic notion that partisan Republicans use “code” to differentiate between real people and sock puppets who would be capable of voting 5, 10, or 20 times at different polling stations. Democrats never perpetrate these kinds of frauds - just ask the dead people in any Chicago cemetery and they’ll swear on their graves that such shenanigans never take place.

It is this kind of rank paranoia that is driving this scandal. There is not one scintilla of evidence that these firings were carried out for any other reason than those stated in the emails. Carol Lam was extremely lax in prosecuting immigration scofflaws - this in one of the largest entry points for illegals coming into the United States! Why is this not a legitimate reason for kicking her incompetent ass out of office - especially since the Duke Cunningham case wasn’t even on the horizon yet?

A case can be made that the firings done under the auspices of the Patriot Act is a stupid and careless use of that power. But it is not illegal. And perhaps the Democrats (and Republicans) can look at not only that amendment, but others as well where the potential for abuse by the Executive branch is outweighed by any gain we might achieve in countering terrorism. This can be done legislatively and doesn’t need to be tossed about as an example of some deep, dark, conspiracy by the Bushies to destroy the Constitution. That also, is rank paranoia - something we’ve grown tired of over the years coming as it does from the same sources time and time again.

And this latest “revelation” regarding Karl Rove’s role in the scandal is perhaps the most hysterical of all. The netnuts all but have Rove once again frog marched out of the White House and into the pen. But for what?

A sample of what Rove is accused of:

Rove “inquired” about firing US Attorneys…

Rove “raised the idea” of firing Attorneys…

Rove “asked” the Justice Department about firing all 93 prosecutors…

Rove didn’t “approve” or “direct” or “order” anyone to fire anybody. To say otherwise (or intimate it) is a lie.

And when did The Dark Lord make these inquiries? A month ago? Two months?

Why no! It was in January, 2005 which, on most earth calendars, is about 2 months after the 2004 election. Jeralyn Merritt of Talk Left explains why this is perfectly legitimate:

The travesty of the current U.S. Attorney firing scandal is not that U.S. Attorneys are being replaced. That is expected after an election, such as the one in 2004. It’s that it’s happening in 2007.

The Administration should have decided in 2004, following Bush’s re-election, which U.S. Attorneys it wanted to replace. In 2005, all U.S. Attorneys were subject to replacement. In fact, all of them are expected to submit their letters of resignation and either be retained or have their resignation letters accepted.

Paul Mirengoff sums up succinctly:

ABC News reports that about-to-be-released emails show that the “idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House adviser Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than the White House previously acknowledged.” Notice how, within a single sentence, an “idea” that apparently never got off the ground becomes a “plan.”

Whatever its source, we know that the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was rejected, and that only eight were let go. Thus, assuming that Rove did raise the idea of a mass firing, it’s not clear why this would (in ABC’s breathless phrase) “put Rove at the epicenter of the imbroglio.” Presumably, “the imbroglio” pertains to what the administration did, not to a course of action it rejected.

UPDATE: You can read the Rove-related emails (none of which was written by Rove) by following a link from the ABC News story. To summarize briefly, they show that Rove asked an aide how the Justice Department planned to proceed with the U.S. attorneys. He mentioned various possibilities, including replacing them all, without making a recommendation or commenting on their merits. The aide raised the matter with Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzales’ aide. Sampson said that he would like to replace 15 to 20 percent of them — “the underperforming ones.” In the end, they replaced fewer than 10 percent.

If its a scandal you want to make of this issue, concentrate on the political pressure placed on the New Mexico USA Yglesias by Senator Domenici and others. And the aforementioned use of the Patriot Act to circumvent the advise and consent role of the Senate (pro-forma though it is in the case of approving USA’s). These actions are bad enough and should be investigated with the appropriate Congressional committees using the power of subpoena to find out exactly what happened and then recommend steps to make sure it doesn’t occur again.

But the rest of this hysterical posturing and hyperbolic feeding frenzy is all for show. And yes, I blame the White House and the Justice Department for going about their business as if Republicans still were in the majority and no one would question any action they took or any confused and muddled explanation they make to justify it.

The netnuts will flog this story for all it’s worth, driving the mainstream press to cover every revelation - trivial or important - as if the fate of the Republic were at stake. Too bad they can’t get as exercised about the jihadis and terrorists out there. Now that would be newsworthy.

Senate Republicans stood united against an attempt by Democrats to undercut General Petraeus in Iraq and set a deadline for withdrawal of American troops by March of 2008 by defeating an amendment to the war appropriations bill sponsored by Majority Leader Harry Reid:

It took weeks for the Senate to agree to hold a formal debate on Democratic calls for a change in war policy, and by the time it occurred, the result was utterly predictable. So much so that Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is running for the White House in 2008, skipped the vote to campaign in Iowa.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky led the opposition to the measure.

“This is a dangerous piece of legislation. It is constitutionally dubious and it would authorize a scattered band of United States senators to tie the hand” of the commander in chief, he said.

McConnell said it would be “absolutely fatal” to the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada disputed that. “Five years of war, the president’s current approach in Iraq is not working. The country is closer to chaos than stability. U.S. troops are policing a civil war, not hunting and killing the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11.”

Someone should tell Harry to read the papers. He may discover that yes indeed, we are fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq (along with Sunni insurgents and Shia radicals) and that we are killing them wholesale. And while I don’t buy into the idea that “fighting them there means we don’t have to fight them here,” I think it is safe to say that killing radical jihadis hell bent on killing Americans is a damn fine thing to do while we’re in Iraq trying to bring order out of chaos and well worth our money, time, and effort.

Hell, Harry! Even Andrew Sullivan is saying good things about Iraq:

This isn’t normality; the carnage is still awful. But it’s less awful than recently. If Petraeus continues to keep this momentum going, the debate about staying in Iraq may change one more time. (Memo to self: I wonder what would have happened if a sane counter-insurgency strategy had been implemented with sufficient troops in 2003?)

Well. . . mostly good things. And Andrew mentions the 800 pound gorilla in the room for Democrats:

What happens if by some miracle (and the brilliant performance of our troops) that the political and the military situation changes dramatically for the better over the next 6-9 months?

The whole point of the surge, of course, is that the two are inexorably linked; that political progress on oil revenue sharing, reconciliation, constitutional changes, and the like is tied directly to restoring hope to the people that the government is competent enough to reasonably protect them and that the shattered body politic can start the rebuilding process only when people feel secure enough to resume some kind of normal living.

With word that the Mahdis may be willing to lay down their arms (most of them anyway) and the continued encouraging news that tribal leaders in Anbar province are fighting against Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda terrorists, at least some of the political benchmarks so beloved of the Democrats in Congress are already being met. In fact, the Democrats are in danger of codifying benchmarks that will be irrelevant by the time any Iraq legislation is passed.

It would make the Democrats look pretty silly if they demand the Iraqi government pass a law that would share the oil revenue as a the price of continued American involvement only to have that law already passed by the time the Democrats get their act together and decide exactly how they want to surrender to the jihadis.

Of course, the House is another story. The Appropriations Committee passed their timetable amendment - even though few are exactly sure how it works or can coherently explain it to the American people. And given their solid majority in the House, Democrats should be able to pass the measure. This is after giving their far left wing the opportunity to weep and wail about how the measure doesn’t go far enough and that if it were up to them, we’d be out of Iraq in 90 days. This is all the loons needed - just a little attention and the opportunity to strike a dramatic pose for their netnut fans.

The fact that any such measure is doomed in the Senate won’t matter. The House Democrats will be on record telling the insurgents and militia members who are currently in hiding to hold on for just a little while longer. Democrats are eventually coming to their rescue.

With their devoted (and loony) internet public clamoring to get the show started, the Democratic party finally unveiled their fall, 2008 clothing line amidst some confusion but tinged with the earnestness and empty headed idealistic mush we’ve all come to know and love.

Early reviews are largely negative although much better than the disastrous write ups that greeted their spring and summer lines.

You might recall that Chief Designer Murtha attempted to revive the “slow bleeding” madras fabric craze of the 1960’s for the spring by featuring sweeping silk peau de soie, silk satin crepe, and other touchy-feely fabrics in shades of verdi, teal, chocolate, topaz, rouge and amethyst . Unfortunately, the designs leaked (bled) out prior to the show and received such negative hype that CEO Pelosi decided to cancel Murtha’s showing in favor of the “non-binding” couture so beloved of her fellow designers. That too, fell flat with their legions of wild-eyed fans who were disappointed that their idols weren’t showing more backbone and trying to push the fashion envelope to its fullest.

Other lines were met with an equal lack of enthusiasm. One collection was actually taken in toto from 2002 (the “AUMF Collection” that has since become wildly unpopular) and modified it by stripping large segments from each design and replacing it with lots of incoherent patterns. Jorge Biden called it “Redefining” the collection. But this idea also was rejected by a majority of the critics.

But for fall, 2008, the Democrats may have recovered their equilibrium somewhat. Their collections are a little bolder, a little splashier, but still suffer from a timidity that has their fans begging for more:

House Democrats today unveiled a plan for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of August 2008, introducing legislation that attaches a complex series of conditions to military spending requested by President Bush.

The plan, described in a Capitol Hill news conference by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, would require Bush to certify that the Iraqi government is meeting military, political and economic benchmarks this year. If he cannot, it would move up the U.S. withdrawal to as early as the end of this year.

Regardless of Iraqi progress in meeting the benchmarks, the plan calls for the gradual redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq starting March 1, 2008, and ending within six months.

The most important fashion critic on the planet was not impressed:

Senior White House adviser Dan Bartlett, accompanying Bush on a flight to Latin America, told reporters, ”It’s safe to say it’s a nonstarter fot the president.”

Within an hour of Pelosi’s news conference, House Republican Leader John Boehner attacked the measure. He said Democrats were proposing legislation that amounted to ”establishing and telegraphing to our enemy a timetable” that would result in failure of the U.S. military mission in Iraq.

”Gen. (David) Petraeus should be the one making the decisions on what happens on the ground in Iraq, not Nancy Pelosi or John Murtha,” the Ohio Republican added. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, has been heavily involved in crafting legislation designed to end U.S., participation in the war.

Needless to say, with that kind of review the Democrats fall line may be in deep trouble.

It may turn out as it has in the past that the Democrats, having thrashed about for a winning design that will satisfy the general public as well as their rabid internet fan base, will once again choose the option they have muddled through with before.

And that is wearing no clothes at all but trying to convince the rest of us they are decked out in resplendent fashion.

Scooter Libby a fall guy? Vice President Cheney the puppeteer who pulled strings in order to discredit heroic, anti-war critics? Karl Rove, evil mastermind, burrowing into the dark recesses of government and spreading lies about Joe Wilson to the press? Award winning journalists rising to the bait offered by Libby, Cheney, and Rove - printing their lies while failing to do their duty and question the justification for war?

This is The Plame Narrative - or at least a large part of it. There’s more of it to be found on lefty websites who have flogged this story and defined its parameters so that any deviation from The Plame Narrative is dismissed as Administration propaganda or just more of the same from “the right wing noise machine.” The problem with other parts of The Narrative - such as the entire Joe Wilson smear job was hatched in the Oval Office and President Bush ran it like a covert operation - is that much of it is so wildly fanciful that leaving the loonier parts on the cutting room floor becomes a necessity so that the entire script isn’t discredited by rational people laughing at some of the more outrageous claims made by the netnuts in their “investigation” of what happened.

But the part of The Plame Narrative that has been set in stone from day one had to do with Joe Wilson and his trip to Niger.Tasked by the CIA to get to the bottom of Iraq’s involvement in uranium buying, Heroic Joe sipped mint tea while a parade of Niger officials paid him a visit poolside at his hotel to assure him that all was on the up and up with regards to obeying the sanctions against Iraq. Upon returning to the US, Heroic Joe wrote up a report and gave it to the CIA proving that we had no worries about Saddam getting his hands on anymore yellowcake uranium (no one has yet answered the question; “What were 500 tons of yellow cake uranium still doing at the nuclear research center of Al-Tuwaitha in Iraq when American tanks rolled into Baghdad?”) And the Genesis chapter in this narrative Bible is Mr. Wilson’s New York Times editorial on what he did and what he found out during his excellent adventure in Niger.

It is important to note that Scooter Libby was convicted of lying about conversations he had with reporters, some of which took place before the Wilson editorial appeared in the Times. So did the White House know that Wilson was going to write that editorial and were they determined to stop him?

Not exactly. You see, our Heroic Joe had been shopping his story for 6 months to various reporters. In an interview with the LA Weekly, Wilson let slip that he had been trying to leak news of his top secret trip all over Washington since the President’s 2003 State of the Union Speech:

I spoke to a number of reporters over the ensuing months. Each time they asked the White House or the State Department about it, they would feign ignorance. I became even more convinced that I was going to have to tell the story myself.

It would be natural for a source to claim ignorance if that source actually knew nothing about the subject. And what Wilson fails to mention in every speech he gives on the affair is that the CIA never forwarded anything about his Niger junket to the Vice President or anyone else in the Executive Branch. This fact raises interesting questions about the CIA and their role in this entire matter (see my good friend Clarice Feldman’s piece in today’s American Thinker for that story).

Not that it matters anymore but for the background and details of that trip, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report on Pre-War Intelligence Assessments of Iraqi WMD (Pages 49-57) makes Mr. Wilson out to be exactly what the White House was desperately trying to tell journalists; a bald faced liar.

You see, by the time the editorial appeared on July 6, 2003, Joe Wilson knew full well that no one in the Administration had been briefed on his Niger trip. He also knew that some of the information he returned with actually confirmed (according to CIA analysts) that Saddam had made some attempts to acquire yellowcake uranium from that country in 1999. He knew that the impetus for the trip did not originate with the Vice President’s office (although Cheney did ask the CIA about the reports of uranium sales that appeared in another intelligence report) but rather with the Counterproliferation Division at the CIA. How did he know this? He was married to a woman who worked in that division.

Then there were the faked memos about Saddam’s efforts to buy uranium from Niger that Wilson bragged he had spotted as forgeries before the government did - except he didn’t see them until after the government had already dismissed them as phonies.

These are facts you’ll never see in The Narrative. Instead, The Narrative tells the story of a White House who buried Heroic Joe’s report and denied it even existed to the “lapdog” press all so that they could continue their mad dash to war. The Narrative also tells the story of Heroic Joe the whistleblower, making a nuisance of himself in official Washington, going from department to department begging people to listen to him about the Administration’s twisting his intelligence on Niger to justify going to war.

What The Narrative leaves out is the fact that Joe Wilson is a self-promoting, self aggrandizing heel whose lies have done enormous damage. What else he may be is pure speculation but there is some reason to believe that he may have been the front man for a faction at the CIA who opposed the President’s policies in Iraq and, in fact, may have interfered in the 2004 election by leaking embarrassing and damaging analyses at key points in the campaign. This is the part of The Narrative you won’t see played out on lefty blogs today as Scooter Libby gets raked over the coals and sinister intimations of a wider “plot” to discredit a proven liar are aired.

Prosecutor Fitzgerald says there will be no more indictments. It took him more than 3 years, thousands of hours of grand jury testimony, thousands of more hours of FBI interviews as well as an unknown number of hours involving interviews of the principals with his staff to come up with Libby’s 3 lies to the Feds and the grand jury. No Karl Rove being frog marched to the jailhouse. No Dick Cheney being led away from the White House in handcuffs. No President Bush being impeached (for this incident anyway). All the fantasies of the netnuts regarding the Administration and what Fitzgerald was going to uncover shown to be the illusions of obsessive paranoids whose hatred of this President and his policies has led them into a deranged mental state.

Scooter Libby was wrong to lie to the FBI. He was wrong to lie to the grand jury. His lies constituted obstruction of justice. These are serious charges and should not, under any circumstances be minimized. Despite what you may think of Patrick Fitzgerald, he was a duly appointed representative of the justice system and was justified in prosecuting Mr. Libby for his crimes (even though some prosecutors may have chosen not to). But the reality is Scooter Libby would not have been placed in a position where out of loyalty to his boss or fear for his own legal situation he felt it necessary to obscure the facts if Joe Wilson had told the truth.

Ideally, someone should hold Mr. Wilson accountable for what his lies have wrought. Instead, he is feted and celebrated as a hero. A movie is in the works about the entire affair - all the better to reinforce The Narrative in the public’s mind. And the left will continue to flog the story, positing ever more fantastic conspiracy theories while the truth - contained in two bi-partisan Congressional reports struggles to be see the light of day.

“A lie will make it halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes,” said Winston Churchill. For Joe Wilson and his allies on the left, not only have their lies circumnavigated the globe several times but they stole the truth’s footwear long ago.

UPDATE

I have also posted this article at Tom DeLay.Com. Many thanks to Aaron for inviting me to be a guest blogger.