Right Wing Nut House

It appears that the “slow bleed the troops” plan of Representative John Murtha (D-Okinawa) has been withdrawn thanks to the Pennsylvania Congressman’s big mouth. If only Murtha had kept quiet about his cowardly plans to make it impossible for the Pentagon to deploy the troops General Petraeus feels are necessary to the mission’s success by throwing a monkey wrench into readiness and rotation requirements, the Democrats would probably have been able to sneak the amendment through in the middle of the night while no one was watching. Once exposed to the light of publicity, many of his fellow Democrats evidently got cold feet, however.

House Democrats have pulled back from efforts to link additional funding for the war to strict troop-readiness standards after the proposal came under withering fire from Republicans and from their party’s own moderates. That strategy was championed by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and endorsed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“If you strictly limit a commander’s ability to rotate troops in and out of Iraq, that kind of inflexibility could put some missions and some troops at risk,” said Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.), who personally lodged his concerns with Murtha.

So what’s a cheese eating surrender monkey to do? Too chicken to vote on defunding the war directly and up front. Too stupid to finesse a comatose President by trying to backdoor a withdrawal through fiddling with deployments and readiness. And actually waiting to see what happens in Iraq as a result of the new strategy is just plain unacceptable.

How about jumping in Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine and pretending that the vote you cast for military action actually said no such thing?

“I’ve had enough of ‘nonbinding,’ ” said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who is helping to draft the new Democratic proposal. The 2002 war resolution, he said, is an obvious target.

“The authorization that we gave the president back in 2002 is completely, completely outdated, inappropriate to what we’re engaged in today,” he said.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) began calling for a reauthorization of the war early last month and raised it again last week, during a gathering in the office of Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). Participants included Kerry, Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (Mich.), Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), Jack Reed (R.I.) and Russell Feingold (Wis.). Those Democratic senators have emerged as an unofficial war council representing the caucus’s wide range of views.

An “unofficial war council…?” ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Try “The Official Surrender to the Terrorists Caucus.” That would be more accurate.

As far as the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), just what, pray tell, would you replace this “completely, completely” legal resolution with?

While these officials said the precise wording of the measure remains unsettled, one draft would restrict American troops in Iraq to combating al-Qaida, training Iraqi army and police forces, maintaining Iraq’s territorial integrity and otherwise proceeding with the withdrawal of combat forces.

The decision to try to limit the military mission marks the next move in what Reid and other Senate war critics have said will be a multistep effort to force a change in Bush’s strategy and eventually force an end to U.S. participation in the nearly four-year-old war.

Hinderaker:

That sounds like a really great idea. If someone plants an IED or shoots at our troops, they can’t fire back until they determine whether the attackers are al Qaeda or garden-variety insurgents.

I have a feeling this trial balloon is not going to get airborne. One good thing, though: the Dems’ Senate leadership is floating this concept in part because they are unhappy with Mad Jack Murtha’s “slow bleed” strategy. Not, of course, because they object to his objective of bringing about defeat; rather, because they think Murtha’s plan could create political liabilities.

In other words, rather than cut our troops off at the knees by defunding the war why not aim the knife slightly higher and castrate the military by saying who they should be fighting and who they should allow to kill them. If a non-authorized enemy fires upon our guys, maybe one of them can call their Representative and get an amendment passed to grant an exception to the new policy.

Yes, yes it’s an exaggeration and wouldn’t really work that way. But can you see our boys landing on Omaha Beach in 1944 and having to get permission to fight Poles, North Koreans, Hungarians, and the other foreign troops the Nazis put into the front lines just because the Declaration of War didn’t mention any of those nationalities?

I agree with John that this is a trial balloon and not a serious proposal. Unless the Dems want to spark a full scale Constitutional crisis, they won’t do it. Ed Morrissey has them pretty well pegged:

Nor are they opting for an honest method of floating this unconstitutional nonsense. The Democrats plan to attach the reworked AUMF as an amendment to a Homeland Security funding bill rather than allow an up-or-down vote on it in the Senate. They want to dare the Republicans to filibuster the spending bill or Bush to veto it if it passes with the new AUMF intact. They’re playing games with the funds necessary to secure the nation during a time of war — and they expect to be taken seriously on how to conduct one?

In the House, the Democrats plan to offer a different plan after the collapse of the Murtha strategy, but it will be just as transparently partisan. They will propose a more straightforward funding bill for the war, but will include a waiver on any deployment readiness restrictions by allowing the Secretary of Defense or the President to certify that unprepared troops will be deployed into battle. It’s a silly and blatantly partisan mechanism, but that matches the Democratic Congress perfectly.

Their entire strategy consists of sneaking around like criminals instead of standing up forcefully and proudly for what they believe. It truly is nauseating.

Fear not, however. Eventually, through the process of elimination, the Democrats will hit upon a strategy that will stop the war, make Bush and the Republicans look even worse than they do now (if that is even possible), while celebrating their “speaking truth to power” by dancing a jig on the Chamber floor…

At the same time that al-Qaeda is dancing a jig in the streets of Baghdad.

Goodbye, Chuck. Hello, Joe.

The Senate is about to become a revolving door as both Chuck Hagel (R-Ambitious Cuss) and Joe Lieberman (D-Persecuted One) threaten to bolt their respective parties over the war issue.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut told the Politico on Thursday that he has no immediate plans to switch parties but suggested that Democratic opposition to funding the war in Iraq might change his mind.

Lieberman, a self-styled independent who caucuses with the Democrats, has been among the strongest supporters of the war and President Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 combat troops into Iraq to help quell the violence there.

“I have no desire to change parties,” Lieberman said in a telephone interview. “If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don’t feel comfortable with.”

Asked whether that hasn’t already happened with Iraq, Lieberman said: “We will see how that plays out in the coming months,” specifically how the party approaches the issue of continued funding for the war.

Time says the possibility of Lieberman pulling a switcheroo is remote:

Lieberman says leaving the Democratic Party is a “very remote possibility.” But even that slight ambiguity — and all his cross-aisle flirtation — has proved more than enough to position Lieberman as the Senate’s one-man tipping point. If he were to jump ship, the ensuing shift of power to Republicans would scramble the politics of the war in Iraq, undercut the Democrats’ national agenda and potentially weaken their hopes for the White House in 2008. Those stakes are high enough to give Lieberman leverage with both parties no matter how slim the chance of his crossing the aisle. Which means Senate leaders aren’t worrying only about whether Joe Lieberman will switch parties. They’re wondering what, if anything, he plans to do with the power that comes from keeping that possibility alive.

I actually think it’s not very likely that Lieberman will cross the aisle. The Republicans don’t have much to offer him in the way of Committee Chairs - unless one of the senior Republicans were to give up the Chairmanship of Foreign Affairs (Dick Lugar) or Homeland Security (John Sununu). Would Lieberman jump the Democratic ship for anything less?

And I don’t think Lieberman is all that comfortable with the GOP’s economic or trade policies either, although that would be a minor factor in any decision he might make to leave the Democrats. He would go from being too conservative for his own party to being too liberal for the GOP. Either way, he would be in a distinct and uncomfortable minority.

No, Joe is a classic liberal - perhaps the last of what used to be called the internationalist wing of the Democratic party. Strong on national defense, friendly to unions, generous to the welfare state, but an overall belief in the goodness of America and a supporter of an activist foreign policy.

They’re mostly gone now. The Humphreys, the Nunns, the Bentsens. Like Lieberman, they shared an abiding faith that America should stand against the bullies, the thugs, and even a nuclear armed superpower to promote freedom around the world. Also like Lieberman, they were courtly in manner, generous to their foes, reasonable in debate, and when push came to shove, supported Republican Presidents when they sent our military into harms way.

If Lieberman does bolt the Democratic party, would Chuck Hagel cross over and keep the Dems in the majority? Hagel is the most likely of the moderate Republicans to turn. And the Democrats probably have more to offer him in Committee assignments than the GOP could offer Lieberman.

But Hagel should take note of what the netnuts have done to Lieberman before he thinks of crossing over to the other side. The first vote he would cast reflecting his conservative Nebraska roots would set the screaming meanies of the internet off on him and make his life miserable. Besides, Chuck wants to be President and it doesn’t look like there’s much of a chance for that if he would run as a Democrat. A third party run is more in the cards for Hagel.

In the end, unless the Democratic slow bleed the troops plan succeeds in the House, I expect Lieberman will stay right where he is. Chances of that happening are probably not quite as good today as they were last week before Murtha told the world exactly how he was going to undermine the Pentagon and the President of the United States. Such things are best done in the dark of night when no one is looking and the knife can be applied to just the right place in the small of the back so that the victim never knew what hit him. Now that Democrats have to stand up in the light of day and actually face the American people with their cowardly and immoral plan, I would guess that some Democrats who may have been inclined to vote for Murtha’s betrayal as long as it was being done below the radar of public perception are now having second thoughts.

Anything is possible in Washington. And the emotions that are roiling the capitol as a result of our involvement in Iraq are only going to get more intense the closer we get to the 2008 election.

By any stretch of the imagination, we are in for a very rough, very interesting campaign.

I hear Energizer Corporation is in discussions with Sandy Berger’s attorneys regarding his replacing the bunny as the mascot in its ad campaigns. It makes sense considering that the Sandy Berger Documents Odyssey just keeps going, and going, and going. . .

Today’s drip from the scandal’s faucet comes to us courtesy of the Washington Post and more evidence that the FBI was clueless about the true nature of Berger’s crimes as well as the startling admission by a couple of staff members of the 9/11 Commission that not only weren’t they told of the extent of Berger’s whitewashing expeditions to the National Archives but that they would have been more than eager to ask him under oath exactly what documents he destroyed.

It turns out, that despite what we were told initially about Berger’s crimes not involving the destruction of original, classified documents that in fact, the Archives have no idea how many documents Berger made off with.:

Brachfeld said he was worried that during four visits in 2002 and 2003, Berger had the opportunity to remove more than the five documents he admitted taking. Brachfeld wanted the Justice Department to notify officials of the 9/11 Commission that Berger’s actions — in combination with a bungled Archives response — might have obstructed the commission’s review of Clinton’s terrorism policies.

The Justice Department spurned the advice, and some of Brachfeld’s colleagues at the Archives greeted his warnings with accusations of disloyalty. But more than three years later, as Brachfeld and House lawmakers have pushed new details about Berger’s actions onto the public record — such as Berger’s use of a construction site near the Archives to temporarily hide some of the classified documents — Brachfeld’s contentions have attracted fresh support…

Zelikow (Staff attorney for the 9/11 Commission. ed.) said in an interview last week that “I think all of my colleagues would have wanted to have all the information at the time that we learned from the congressional report, because that would have triggered some additional questions, including questions we could have posed to Berger under oath.”

The commission’s former general counsel, Dan Marcus, now an American University law professor, separately expressed surprise at how little the Justice Department told the commission about Berger and said it was “a little unnerving” to learn from the congressional report exactly what Berger reviewed at the Archives and what he admitted to the FBI — including that he removed and cut up three copies of a classified memo.

“If he took papers out, these were unique records, and highly, highly classified. Had a document not been produced, who would have known?” Brachfeld said in an interview. “I thought [the 9/11 Commission] should know, in current time — in judging Sandy Berger as a witness . . . that there was a risk they did not get the full production of records.”

And to give you an idea of the outright stupidity of the Justice Department in this matter, it appears that rather than, you know, like, investigate Berger’s theft, they relied on what Berger was telling them when they told the Commission that Berger only took 5 documents:

In a letter to House lawmakers last week, Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard A. Hertling did not address the issue of why the department told the commission so little. But Hertling wrote that in numerous interviews, “neither Mr. Berger nor any other witness provided the Department with evidence that Mr. Berger had taken any documents beyond the five.”

Hertling said the department “stands by its investigation” and believes the guilty plea it negotiated with Berger on April 1, 2005, “was the best one possible in light of the available evidence.” He also criticized the Archives staff for failing at the time to confront Berger, search him or contact security officials, saying this failure “had to be weighed against the evidence.”

The “available evidence” was evidently supplied by the perp’s statements about how many documents he stole not on any evidence gleaned from a thorough investigation. But we can’t simply blame the Justice Department in this matter. Clearly, the custodians of our treasured national records must bear a large share of the blame:

In the Hertling letter, the department noted obstacles in its investigation. The FBI was not advised of the case until Oct. 15, 2003, almost two weeks after Smith concluded that Berger had stolen documents. By then, Archives General Counsel Gary Stern had called Berger and former Clinton lawyer Bruce Lindsey about it and obtained two documents from Berger, who surrendered them at home after first denying they were in his possession.

The letter also said that six months after beginning the probe and well after Berger testified to the commission, “the Department had not yet asked Mr. Berger any questions, as he had not yet agreed to an interview.” Berger’s lawyer, Lanny Breuer, said Berger first spoke to the FBI in March 2005 and was interviewed a second time in July of that year, after his April 1, 2005, guilty plea to unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.

Gary Stern, Archives General Counsel, was a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy during the Clinton Administration. In case you might miss the connection, about 70% of the Department of Energy’s budget has to do with the care and feeding of nuclear weapons. I will bet you a dollar to Navy Beans that Berger and Stern were good chums and that Stern wanted to make sure Berger had all his legal ducks in a row before siccing the Feds on him.

Of course, they didn’t talk to Berger for 5 whole months. And when they did, they swallowed his story about not stealing any originals and only taking 5 documents hook, line, and sinker. Not because they’re stupid. But because they didn’t want to know. These kinds of cases are huge embarrassments after all and the less anyone knew about it, the better.

This didn’t sit well with Archives IG Paul Brachfeld who agitated for a deeper investigation as well as informing the 9/11 Commission that Berger should be questioned about what he actually did:

Brachfeld pressed Justice Department officials on six occasions in 2004 to make a fuller statement to the commission about Berger’s actions, to no avail. He also contacted Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, who organized an April 2004 meeting between Brachfeld and Justice officials that convinced him that “these issues had to go before the 9/11 Commission,” according to two people present.

But in a notification to the commission the following month, the department did not mention that Berger had cut up documents, that he reviewed uncatalogued originals or that Brachfeld worried that Berger’s theft was greater.

Incredible.

Even more jaw dropping is that the staff at the Archives is evidently miffed that Brachfeld won’t drop the matter like a good little bureaucrat:

Some of Brachfeld’s colleagues have not been cheered by his new congressional support. An Archives lawyer, who Brachfeld said was one of those involved in the Berger case, this month sent Brachfeld an e-mail accusing him of poor judgment and stating that “I don’t think it comes as a great surprise if I were to venture the opinion that senior management at this agency have serious problems with the manner in which your office conducted itself . . . during the Berger investigation.”

On Friday, Archivist Allen Weinstein assured Brachfeld in writing, however, that this criticism did “not reflect either my views or the views of the overwhelming majority of NARA employees.”

In short, after failing to give adequate security to the documents themselves, violating procedure by allowing Berger to access the documents beyond a secure area, allowing him to take the documents back and forth to the bathroom, not bringing the FBI in on the case immediately, lying to the 9/11 Commission about the extent of Berger’s whitewashing of history, contacting Berger’s lawyer and Berger himself before reporting the incident to authorities, and being unable to say just what documents Berger might have made off with, the lower echelon of employees at the Archives who bear responsibility for all of the above are mad at management because they want to get to the bottom of what happened?

Unbelievable.

This case gets weirder all the time. And you know what? I’ll bet that there wasn’t much in those documents that reflected badly on Clinton at all. But the former President, so obsessed with his place in history and how historians will view his presidency and so vainglorious about his own personal standing, that anything that would reflect badly on his leadership needed to be expunged - especially since historians would be paying close attention to the 9/11 Commission’s final report.

They better find a way to get around double jeopardy as it relates to this crime or what happened at the National Archives when Sandy Berger destroyed a part of American history will never be known.

And in a very large way, that is a much bigger crime than Berger committed by stealing the documents in the first place.

UPDATE

Allah weighs in:

Exit question: What’s the deal? Moran thinks the DOJ is embarrassed by the incident and just wants it to go away, but why? No one would fault them for trusting an ex-cabinet member to behave ethically, even one with the taint of Clinton upon him. I think they’re more worried about sensitive national security information coming to light, either in the form of documents that Berger has or stuff he knows from his time in office. You don’t bring down the hammer on a former NSA, especially one with no compunctions about shenanigans involving state secrets.

Actually, I think they’re embarrassed because they botched the “investigation” from the get go. When two weeks pass between the crime and the reporting of said crime and then months go by before getting the perp to agree to talk, it might be well that no one ask too many questions about what actually transpired. If the IG for the Archives hadn’t been pushing this story over the last few months, we would never have been any the wiser. Those Republican House members who were asking for some explanations were doing so because Brachfeld was frustrated about what he saw as a cop out by Justice in not informing the 9/11 Commission about the extent of Berger’s potential crimes. It was his report that started the House GOP members asking questions back in October (the report was released in December).

Tom Bevan has the jawdropper of the day from Berger’s attorney quoted in the WaPo article:

You have to read all the way to the end of this Washington Post article on the Justice Department’s willful neglect in handling the Sandy Berger case before being confronted with this astonishing quote by Berger’s attorney, Lanny Breuer:

“It never ceases to amaze me how the most trivial things can be politicized. It is the height of unfairness . . . for this poor guy, who clearly made a mistake,” Breuer said.
Stealing highly classified documents from the National Archives is “trivial?” You’ve got to be kidding.

Indeed. And more:

Poor Sandy Berger. He had to pay a $50,000 fine and pick up some garbage on the side of the road in Virginia. Meanwhile, Scooter Libby had to face trial and might go to jail for, at worst, telling “a dumb lie” (to use the words of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald) about a non-crime.

Just as long as we’ve got our priorities right…

For the last three years, poll after poll has shown an American public who overwhelming believed that the war was mismanaged, that Bush was doing a horrible job in prosecuting it, that it wasn’t worth the effort, that we never should have invaded in the first place, and that we are losing the war.

Of course, the only poll that matters - on election day - saw the Democrats sweep into power promising to “change course” in Iraq. Not defund the troops. Not redeploy to Okinawa. Not carry out a domestic insurgency against the military by setting impossibly high benchmarks for the Pentagon to meet in order to send troops to the war zone. Not even set arbitrary timetables for withdrawal, although a majority of Americans would support a timetable to withdraw some troops over the next one or two years.

In fact, I commented here after the election on the curious disconnect between what Democrats were actually telling the American people before the election and the anti-war “mandate” they were claiming after the vote. With precious few exceptions, the Democrats did not talk about pulling our troops out of Iraq in 6 months or a year. They didn’t advocate timetables for withdrawal. They didn’t run commercials about supporting the defunding of the war or redeploying troops elsewhere.

Their unmistakable message to the voters prior to election day was that they would “change course” in Iraq - an interesting theme that appealed to a broad section of the American electorate. Since even many conservatives and moderate hawks advocated “changing course” in Iraq, this big tent approach obviously worked. At least it “worked” in the sense that the Democrats got their majority.

Two recent polls however, indicate one of two things; either the American people, when faced with the reality of a Democratic majority, are having second thoughts about leaving Iraq before some semblance of order is achieved or, more likely, a couple of pollsters have finally asked the “right” questions about Iraq to reveal what the American people have believed all along.

In fact, this poll reveals what has been one of the best kept secrets of American opinion over the past three years. A fairly consistent majority of between 55% and 65% oppose pulling our troops out immediately (59%). And another consistent sign of support is that a majority (57%) support “finishing the job in Iraq” - keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can handle security on its own. (HT: James Joyner)

The simple minded sloganeering from the left about polls on Iraq and how the American people support their anti-war agenda down the line fails to take into a account that citizens have a fairly sophisticated, nuanced outlook on the war. They think Bush is doing a poor job (60% “strongly” or “somewhat strongly” agree” ), that 52% believe Congress isn’t doing much better, that only 17% want our troops to leave immediately, that a bare majority (50%) believe we should stay until the job is done, that a surprising 56% agree with the idea of supporting the President even if they disagree with him (another 17% “somewhat agree”), and in another surprise, 53% believe that victory is still possible.

Also, a whopping 66% believe that losing the war would cause America to lose its super power status. And 53% believe strongly that the Democrats have gone too far, too fast, in pressing the President to remove troops from Iraq.

The American people are also realists about the outcome. More than 80% believe Iraq will not become a stable democracy after the US leaves.

The other poll taken by IBD shows similar attitudes toward the war, the President, and the Democrats.

What gives? You can believe we are losing the war (as I do) and still support the President and the mission. You can think that the President is doing a piss poor job of prosecuting the war but also believe the Democrats are dead wrong in moving to defund it or throw a monkey wrench into troop rotations. You can be convinced that Iraq will not be a stable democracy after we leave but still think that the country is “a key part” in the War on Terror (57%).

In short, when pollsters start treating the American people as if they had a brain and ask a series of questions designed to elicit responses that, when taken together, give a much more nuanced snapshot of how the people actually look at Iraq, the “anti-war mandate” claimed by Democrats in the aftermath of the election dissolves into mush.

Not pro-war by any stretch and certainly indicating that they have zero patience with both an endless continuation of past strategies as well as political gamesmanship by the Democrats, the American people - practical, realistic, and desirous of getting on with the task of meeting our goals and getting the hell out - have proved once again that they actually understand the stakes in Iraq as well as realizing that things are going poorly and that changes are needed if success is to be ours.

Perhaps if we all stopped treating the public as little children who need to be told what to think, what to believe about Iraq, we could get beyond the one dimensional critiques of the war on both sides and work together on a plan consistent with their wishes to get out of Iraq with the goal of leaving an Iraqi government in place that can handle its own security and not be a threat to us or her neighbors. If those goals are achieved, I think it’s pretty clear that the majority of Americans would see our efforts in Iraq as a success. Perhaps not a “victory” in any realistic sense - but far from a defeat and definitely something to build on in the years ahead as Iraq will continue to struggle with instituting democracy.

Support for our war aims in Iraq will endure only as long as the people believe we have a chance of succeeding. The next 6 months will be critical to that perception as the surge currently underway will seek to create conditions for the Iraqi government to work toward political goals that should broaden its base of support and negotiate with the factions to end the cycle of violence that has Baghdad and its environs in its grip. The patience of the American people has worn thin. It’s time for the Iraqi government to do what is necessary so that our troops can start coming home.

The sooner - the better.

UPDATE

In addition to linking to the raw data, James Joyner also has an interesting summary of the poll results:

“The survey shows Americans want to win in Iraq, and that they understand Iraq is the central point in the war against terrorism and they can support a U.S. strategy aimed at achieving victory,” said Neil Newhouse, a partner in POS. “The idea of pulling back from Iraq is not where the majority of Americans are.”

“The key group driving public opinion here are what we call the “nose-holders”, said Newhouse. “They don’t believe we should have gone to war or should still be there, but they believe we should stay and do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and provide security for their own country.”

Both pro and anti war advocates have ignored “nose holders” for far too long. These are the practical and nuanced Americans I wrote about above. They are smarter than most of us and probably have a lot less patience than pro-war supporters believe. They probably voted Democratic in the elections last November. But they will almost certainly punish the Democrats if they go through with their slow bleed the troops strategy - especially if Republicans get off their duff and make the case that this cynical strategy is nothing short of “cut and run” on the sly.

And I will say to my fellow conservatives that we shouldn’t be doing too much crowing about these numbers. While some of these responses give the lie to any “anti-war mandate” claimed by the left in the aftermath of the election, neither do they represent much good news. Clearly, the American people want out of Iraq quickly. As long as progress is made toward that goal, the President will be able to maintain this support. But if things go south with the surge or Maliki proves himself to be even more of an empty suit than he already has, that support will disappear in a heartbeat.

I can understand the reaction of many conservatives and GOP activists to the decision by 17 House members and 7 Senators to oppose the surge in Iraq. When the leader of your party and your President is in trouble, your first instinct should be to swallow your disagreements and support him. Loyalty to party and its leader should outweigh many concerns.

Indeed, there were many GOP House and Senate members who have grave misgivings about the President’s plan but supported it anyway. Why couldn’t that handful of lawmakers have seen their way clear to standing with the President when he needed them the most?

Mark Tapscott writes about the remarkable growth of The Victory Caucus, a week old internet phenomena that has as its mission:

* Deliver the perspectives and news on the war effort which the mainstream media neglects to help the American public understand the nature of our conflict and its true progress.

* Provide tools and infrastructure to help citizens who are committed to victory organize into a recognized and influential caucus.

* Identify opportunities for the caucus to act and exert influence on America’s leaders and to directly aid and support the men and women of our military.

Tapscott thinks that VC may eventually have the power to impact elections:

Victory Caucus represents something new - an Internet-based campaign wild card with the power to shape the outcome of an election. These campaign wild cards give voice to a decisive segment of the electorate whose concerns are being ignored and/or attacked in and by the major party candidates and the mainstream media.

Unlike the pre-Internet era that saw the Perot movement slip away, I believe it is now becoming increasingly possible with the Internet to not merely conserve the energy and focus of an independent electoral movement but to grow it over time, maintain its focus and even expand its internal structure and coherence.

That may be, but much hard, slogging work lies ahead for VC to have that kind of an impact. And events themselves might overtake the VC’s strong support for the war and the troops engaged in combat. The Democrat’s bleed the troops strategy resonates within their caucus because it gives the party an opportunity to stop the war while not being blamed for abandoning the troops. As cynical a ploy that Murtha’s strategy represents, it nevertheless has a real chance of succeeding - with or without a united Republican party.

And what would happen in 6 months if the surge fails and, more importantly, the Maliki government fails to make the political changes necessary to begin to unite all the factions in Iraq in order to begin the process of national reconciliation? Even the President has indicated that unless there is progress by the Iraqi government in this area, he would re-evaluate our commitment in Iraq. At that point, I would guess VC would lose some momentum if not some cohesion.

But what makes VC’s agenda so problematic is their stated goal of enforcing party discipline when it comes to votes on the war. Hugh Hewitt:

The growth of the Victory Caucus represents the combination of the internet skills of NZ Bear and the lassitude of Beltway Republicans. If the GOP is awake it will quickly begin recruiting and publicizing the candidates with appeal to the sort of voter represented by the Victory Caucus. They will also announce to the White Flag Republicans that they have made their choice, and they cannot expect the party to order shields up.

The voters involved in the VC want the Republican Party to act as though it believes in the mission in Iraq by identifying new faces and new voices with military experience to challenge the 2006 Democrats in red districts. The opportunity exists to channel the tremendous energy unleashed by the “slow bleed” Democrats, as Mark Steyn calls them. But the GOP’s Comngressional leadership needs to wake up to the fact that the activists are amazed at their inaction and defensiveness.

I fully support the pledge I signed that would deny party funds to those who vote against the surge (and support other measures by the Democrats to undercut our efforts in Iraq). But recruiting primary candidates to run against those who for reasons of conscience (or personal political calculation) choose not to support the President?

With the nonsensical dance of nonbinding resolutions in the House and Senate over (for now), it is time to focus on more productive activities. Namely: looking forward to 2008, and beginning the task of idenitfying opportunities for victory-oriented candidates to unseat White Flag incumbents.

There is work to be done. First, we need to research the White Flag incumbents we beileve might be beatable. Our starting list should be as follows:

Any White Flag Republican, defined as one of the 17 Representatives who voted for the House resolution, or one of the seven Senators who voted for cloture on the Senate resolution

Any Democrat in a district (or state) that was won by President Bush in both 2000 and 2004. This indicates that the seat may be vulnerable to a (victory-oriented) Republican challenger.

Perhaps it should follow logically that if you deny party funds to an incumbent for his apostasy, it stands to reason that a search for a primary opponent would be the next step. But I think this goes too far and I think it bad politics.

I wholeheartedly agree that the GOP should make a determined effort to recruit candidates to run against Democrats - especially from the class of ‘06 - with Iraq War experience. In fact, I would say that the dismal performance of the party leadership in recruiting quality candidates for open and contested seats was the number one reason for the GOP’s loss in the last election. The fact that the Republicans failed to defeat a single Democratic incumbent proves my point.

But why waste resources on recruiting candidates to run against Republican incumbents? I notice several House members from the “Gang of 17″ who are in vulnerable districts where they received 55% of the vote or less in ‘06. Defeating an incumbent in a bruising primary in these districts would make the prospects for a general election victory less than certain and may even guarantee a Democratic pick up.

The Senate, of course, is another story. But incumbents like Coleman and Smith face uphill re-election fights as a result of their past support for the war already. The prospects for success by a primary challenger in the general election would not be good under those circumstances.

Aside from all of the political calculations, there is the question of conscience and how much a representative should be penalized for following the dictates of his inner voice. We constantly complain about spineless politicians. And then when a couple of them stand up for what they truly believe, our first move is to rev up a primary opponent for him? Either we trust the judgement and heartfelt beliefs of our politicians or we encourage them to be as calculating in their votes as we hypocritically criticize them for.

I understand the need for party discipline in this matter. But a representative of the people who either votes to reflect the position of his constituents or out of a duty to his own moral precepts and conscience shouldn’t receive a death sentence. It is not wise politically nor is it right.

UPDATE

VC is highlighted in Politico today along with the story about going after GOP reps who opposed the surge.

By the way, if you haven’t bookmarked Politico you really should. Great “inside politics” articles and some first class writing too.

I got an earful from some of my friends on the left for taking Representative John Murtha and the Democrats to task for their moral cowardice in not directly trying to defund the war but rather slink in the shadows and attempt to sabotage deployments and readiness. Some of the emails I got tried to explain that Murtha’s strategy of strangling the Defense Department by mandating shorter tours and longer periods at home between deployments as well as going so far as to require troops to train with all their equipment (despite the fact that the troop’s equipment is either already in theater or is shipped to Iraq ahead of time) represents a “realistic” approach to the problem of defunding the war.

They point out that an up or down vote wouldn’t pass because Democrats don’t want to be saddled with the inevitable Republican charge of undermining the troops in a time of war. One commenter went so far as to explain that the American people wouldn’t understand the “nuances” of defunding the war so Murtha’s “brilliant” plan not only accomplished the task of ending the war but also left Democrats blameless!

Well, I’m glad we cleared up those points about moral cowardice, aren’t you?

Today, I was gratified to see that the Washington Post mirrors my thoughts on Murtha and his “slow bleed the troops” plan:

REP. JOHN MURTHA (D-Pa.) has a message for anyone who spent the week following the House of Representatives’ marathon debate on Iraq: You’ve been distracted by a sideshow. “We have to be careful that people don’t think this is the vote,” the 74-year-old congressman said of the House’s 246-182 decision in favor of a resolution disapproving of President Bush’s troop surge. “The real vote will come on the legislation we’re putting together.” That would be Mr. Murtha’s plan to “stop the surge” and “force a redeployment” of U.S. forces from Iraq while ducking the responsibility that should come with such a radical step…

Mr. Murtha has a different idea. He would stop the surge by crudely hamstringing the ability of military commanders to deploy troops. In an interview carried Thursday by the Web site MoveCongress.org, Mr. Murtha said he would attach language to a war funding bill that would prohibit the redeployment of units that have been at home for less than a year, stop the extension of tours beyond 12 months, and prohibit units from shipping out if they do not train with all of their equipment. His aim, he made clear, is not to improve readiness but to “stop the surge.” So why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations bill — an action Congress is clearly empowered to take — rather than try to micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional? Because, Mr. Murtha said, it will deflect accusations that he is trying to do what he is trying to do. “What we are saying will be very hard to find fault with,” he said.

Is Murtha in complete control of his faculties? This brazen admission of political and moral turpitude points up how truly cynical the Pennsylvania Congressman and his partners in this calumnious plan have become. Not only that, Murtha is also apparently woefully ignorant of what is going on in Iraq and some of his statements call into question whether the 74 year old is mentally sharp enough to occupy a position of leadership in the Democratic party:

Mr. Murtha’s cynicism is matched by an alarming ignorance about conditions in Iraq. He continues to insist that Iraq “would be more stable with us out of there,” in spite of the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies that early withdrawal would produce “massive civilian casualties.” He says he wants to force the administration to “bulldoze” the Abu Ghraib prison, even though it was emptied of prisoners and turned over to the Iraqi government last year. He wants to “get our troops out of the Green Zone” because “they are living in Saddam Hussein’s palace”; could he be unaware that the zone’s primary occupants are the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy?

It would be nice to believe that Mr. Murtha does not represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party or the thinking of its leadership. Yet when asked about Mr. Murtha’s remarks Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered her support. Does Ms. Pelosi really believe that the debate she orchestrated this week was not “the real vote”? If the answer is yes, she is maneuvering her party in a way that can only do it harm.

Couple these bizarre statements with Murtha’s weird contention that we should redeploy the troops in Iraq to Okinawa and a troubling picture is emerging of a man who may not be as sharp as he was a decade ago when he was known rightly as a strong proponent of military preparedness and a champion of veterans benefits.

But the Democrats need Murtha for those very reasons - even if his mental acuity is not as it once was. That’s because there’s no one else in their caucus with the national security credentials to lead the retreat from Iraq. As the public face for surrender to the terrorists, the Democrats need Murtha as a front man to reassure the public that running away and leaving the people in Iraq - especially the Sunnis - to the tender mercies of the death squads, criminals, thugs, kidnappers, beheaders, and al-Qaeda terrorists who would be unencumbered in carrying out their massacres isn’t solely the product of left wing loons. In effect, Murtha mainstreams defeat and is therefore necessary to the Democrat’s plan to leave Iraq before the Iraqi government is ready to stand on its own.

Yes, it’s a low blow to call into question Murtha’s mental state. But considering the stakes and considering the statements he’s made above as well as his appearances on Meet the Press and other talk shows which have shown a sometimes confused and incoherent man, I believe it’s a painful but legitimate question to ask. I say painful because I always liked and admired Mr. Murtha. At a time when precious few Democrats were standing up for Ronald Reagan’s defense build up, he was a tireless proponent of strengthening our national defense while the rest of his caucus stood four square against increasing defense spending.

That was then. This is now. And Murtha, for whatever reason, has started down a road that I believe is a gigantic mistake. And the means by which he seeks to achieve his goal is so underhanded, so morally reprehensible that it does a huge disservice to his past standing as a passionate advocate for American security.

I sincerely hope the Republicans can torpedo this plan before it can be implemented. And I hope that Murtha and the Democrats can be convinced to schedule an up or down vote to defund the war. Win or lose, at least that would be a principled way to achieve their aims rather than sneaking around in the dead of night, stabbing the military in the back.

UPDATE:

Ed Morrissey:

Has John Murtha ever been anything more than incoherent on Iraq? He talks loudly but says next to nothing other than reiterate the need to declare defeat and bug out of Iraq. He can’t even get his facts straight despite having spent the better part of two years making himself the leading Democratic voice on the war. Even the Washington Post can’t help but notice that this Emperor has no clothes.

It’s going to be a long two years.

Got that right, dog.

Dan Riehl:

If the Washington Post is willing to call BS on the Democrats in the House, it should be heeded as a strong warning. This will be worse than the way they McGovern-ed themselves in ‘68. At least then they took a principled stand. What they are about today is far from that. Ultimately, they could easily be exposed for the shallow, power happy mob that they are.

Agreed - if the Republicans have the balls to call them out on their cowardice.

A. Jacksonian (Founder and sole member of the Jacksonian party) has some thoughts on Murtha circa 1994.

UPDATE: 2/18

Britt Hume of Fox News notices the same thing I did about Murtha’s diminished capacity:

HUME: That sound bite from John Murtha suggests that it’s time a few things be said about him. Even the “Washington Post” noted he didn’t seem particularly well informed about what’s going on over there, to say the least. Look, this man has tremendous cachet among House Democrats, but he is not — this guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.

Allah has the video.

David Broder is:

It may seem perverse to suggest that, at the very moment the House of Representatives is repudiating his policy in Iraq, President Bush is poised for a political comeback. But don’t be astonished if that is the case.

Like President Bill Clinton after the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, Bush has gone through a period of wrenching adjustment to his reduced status. But just as Clinton did in the winter of 1995, Bush now shows signs of renewed energy and is regaining the initiative on several fronts.

More important, he is demonstrating political smarts that even his critics have to acknowledge.

His critics will never acknowledge anything positive about this President so we can safely throw that last sentence in the wastebasket - along with most of this piece.

Broder is an old Washington hand who knows all the right people, attends all the right parties, and is an expert at the Washington rumor and gossip mills. He’s made a good living telling us what the high and mighty really think about each other as well as offering some excellent “inside politics” insights into how personalities and issues interact in our capitol city and how this affects the way things get done.

But he’s reaching here:

When Bush faced reporters on Wednesday morning, he knew that virtually all those in the Democratic majority would be joined by a significant minority of Republicans in voting today to decry the “surge” strategy.

He did three things to diminish the impact of that impending defeat.

First, he argued that the House was at odds with the Senate, which had within the past month unanimously confirmed Gen. David H. Petraeus as the new commander in Iraq — the man Bush said was the author of the surge strategy and the man who could make it work. Bush has made Petraeus his blocking back in this debate — replacing Vice President Cheney, whose credibility is much lower.

Second, he minimized the stakes in the House debate by endorsing the good motives of his critics, rejecting the notion that their actions would damage U.S. troops’ morale or embolden the enemy — all by way of saying that the House vote was no big deal.

And third, by contrasting today’s vote on a nonbinding resolution with the pending vote on funding the war in Iraq, he shifted the battleground to a fight he is likely to win — and put the Democrats on the defensive. Much of their own core constituency wants them to go beyond nonbinding resolutions and use the power of the purse to force Bush to reduce the American commitment in Iraq.

Where the non-binding resolution will have no teeth, Bush himself will have little influence over the “slow bleed the troops” strategy that leaked on Politico yesterday. House Democrats are in dead earnest to undermine the President’s surge plan. Just because they don’t have the moral character or political guts to call for an up and down vote on funding the war doesn’t mean Bush has trapped them in the slightest. They will get both their resolution going on record against the surge and an end to the war on their terms regardless of what Bush says or does.

Jeralyn Merritt recognizes this:

Sure the Dems support with the base is going to suffer if that happens. But more than that, Dems will join Bush in being blamed on Iraq if that happens. The Dems must see that a position on Iraq can not be avoided. And the choices are binary - in or out. Vote funding for the war and the Iraq Debacle becomes your Debacle too. Vote against it and it does not. It is that simple.

It is “cut and run” all over again. In 2006, the Dems were smart enough not to bite on Rove’s gambit. I smell them biting this time, and taking the Iraq Debacle on their shoulders. Incredibly stupid politically as well as being bad policy.

And when that happens, Bush will look better relatively in comparison. Call it an Einstein Bounce.

I disagree with Ms. Merritt in that I don’t think the Democrats will “bite” this time. Murtha and his “slow bleed the troops” strategy will give a nice cover to even those Democrats who might be wary of voting to cut off funding directly for the war. That’s the genius of Murtha’s cowardly proposals. While his party believes the war is lost and our men and women should be “redeployed,” Murtha and the Democrats are perfectly content to allow our soldiers to bleed in the field while they stay politically safe by gradually undermining the ability of the Pentagon to carry out the orders of the Commander in Chief rather than advocate an up or down vote to defund the war immediately.

Republicans will gripe about it but in the end, Democrats will probably get a sizable number of them to vote for at least some elements of the Murtha plan. So much for a Bush “comeback.”

And that makes the rest of Broder’s musings ironic in the extreme:

In other respects, too, Bush has been impressive in recent days.

He has been far more accessible — and responsive — to the media and public, holding any number of one-on-one interviews, both on and off the record, leading up to Wednesday’s televised news conference. And he has been more candid in his responses than in the past.

While forcefully making his points, he has depersonalized the differences with his critics and opponents. He has not only vouched for the good intentions of congressional Democrats, he has visited them on their home ground, given them opportunities to question him face to face, and repeatedly outlined areas — aside from Iraq — where he says they could work together on legislation: immigration, energy, education, health care, the budget.

With the public eager for some bipartisan progress on all these fronts, Bush is signaling that he, at least, is ready to try.

The question that echoes through everyone’s mind is what the hell took so long? Why did it take a massive defeat at the polls for Bush to reach out and attempt a little bi-partisanship?

If he had tried from the beginning of the War in Iraq to make the Democrats partners rather than playing political games with the AUMF vote (Authorization to Use Military Force) and then rejecting the advice of wise Democrats on war policy for three years, I daresay we wouldn’t find ourselves in this mess today. I know I’m going somewhat against the grain here when it comes to how my conservative friends view the history of the last few years but for every slight, every insult, every bric-a-brac thrown at the President, there has been one returned. It takes two parties to poison the political atmosphere - just like it takes two parties to fashion bi-partisan consensus. And now, in this country’s hour of need in Iraq, when we desperately need a bi-partisan consensus in order to avoid catastrophe, it is impossible to find.

Instead, we have one side trying to undermine the other - Democrats seeking to undermine the President’s plan while Republicans seeking to make Democrats partners in defeat; an Alfonse and Gaston dance that if the stakes weren’t so unbelievably high, it would be fodder worthy of a Shakespearean comedy - or perhaps tragedy. For in the end, there are 150,000 men and women in Iraq who will be doing Murtha’s “slow bleed” while surging in futility unless the Iraqi government can find a way to bring all the factions together to live in peace.

I frankly don’t care if Bush gets a “bounce” for being clever about placing the onus of defunding the troops on the Democrats. He shouldn’t care either. What they should all care about is salvaging something from this debacle short of a humanitarian and strategic disaster.

And that, gentle readers, would give a bounce to everyone.

Last June as the Senate was debating various proposals for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, I wrote the following:

Any timetable for withdrawal necessarily obviates any thought of victory. And if you don’t believe that victory is achievable then clearly you believe we have lost already. Trying to split the difference between victory and defeat in war is not possible. One side wins and one side loses. Hence, by offering this “timetable,” the Democrats are saying that we have lost the war and should leave in order to cut our losses.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this position, by the way. It is defeatist. It is cowardly. But there is nothing necessarily incorrect in admitting defeat and pulling out.

But what makes the Democrats position immoral is that they are not advocating this timetable to get our troops out of harms way as fast as possible. In fact, they are terrified of the political consequences of doing so. Instead, they opt for the Viet Nam approach. According to them, the war was a mistake to begin with, it was fought incompetently, it was illegal, and we’ve already lost since there’s no way we’re ever going to say that George Bush won the war. But instead of advocating an immediate withdrawal of all American forces, we are going to advocate that more young men die in a losing cause just so that we don’t appear to be “cutting and running” and thus, lose badly at the polls in November.

If there has been a more cynical, immoral ploy in the last half century of American politics, I can’t think of it.

As House Democrats prepare to open debate on the Iraq war resolution, we have further evidence that when it comes to having the courage of their convictions, the House Democratic leadership has feet of clay:

Top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration’s options.

Led by Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., and supported by several well-funded anti-war groups, the coalition’s goal is to limit or sharply reduce the number of U.S. troops available for the Iraq conflict, rather than to openly cut off funding for the war itself.

The legislative strategy will be supplemented by a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents into breaking with President Bush and forcing the administration to admit that the war is politically unsustainable.

As described by participants, the goal is crafted to circumvent the biggest political vulnerability of the anti-war movement — the accusation that it is willing to abandon troops in the field. That fear is why many Democrats have remained timid in challenging Bush, even as public support for the president and his Iraq policies have plunged.

A “slow bleed strategy?” Whose blood? I daresay it won’t be any of the Democratic leadership.

There is nothing noble about war. There is nothing uplifting or heroic about fighting one. Individual acts of heroism notwithstanding, war ultimately represents a failure of some kind. For the United States, sleepwalking during the 1990’s while al-Qaeda gathered strength and states like Iraq trained terrorists with utter impunity, it was a failure of intelligence, of diplomacy, of will, and finally a failure of imagination that led to the catastrophe of 9/11.

There is nothing moral about war except its quick and decisive ending. And whether or not you believe Iraq was a war of choice or whether you think it was thrust upon us by the exigencies of the times, the fact of the matter is we either fight to win - and win as quickly as circumstances allow - or we admit defeat and leave, accepting the consequences of our folly while holding harmless the young men and women who sacrificed much in service to the government and the people.

I say to you that whether you believe this war to be moral or immoral, the actions of the Democratic leadership in deliberately drawing out our withdrawal because they lack the political courage to take a stand on what they believe and cut off all funding for the Iraq War to bring the troops home now constitutes a towering act of moral cowardice rarely seen in Congress. Perhaps the debates over the Dyers Anti-Lynching Bill of 1918 would find an echo in today’s craven attempts by Democrats at avoiding responsibility for the moral consequences of their loudly proclaimed position on the war.

Instead of leadership, we get glitz and smoke and mirrors. Instead of a sober, serious approach to this issue of life and death, war and peace, we get the circus of a meaningless, degrading resolution that states opposition to sending more troops. And instead of bold, clear cut, up or down votes on whether we should stay or go, it appears we are going to get the tactics of the saboteur and assassin; cowardly end runs that seek to undermine the military in ways that even an enemy of this country could only dream:

Murtha, the powerful chairman of the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, will seek to attach a provision to an upcoming $93 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. It would restrict the deployment of troops to Iraq unless they meet certain levels adequate manpower, equipment and training to succeed in combat. That’s a standard Murtha believes few of the units Bush intends to use for the surge would be able to meet.

In addition, Murtha, acting with the backing of the House Democratic leadership, will seek to limit the time and number of deployments by soldiers, Marines and National Guard units to Iraq, making it tougher for Pentagon officials to find the troops to replace units that are scheduled to rotate out of the country. Additional funding restrictions are also being considered by Murtha, such as prohibiting the creation of U.S. military bases inside Iraq, dismantling the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and closing the American detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President Bush, the lamest of lame ducks, whose approval ratings are in the low 30’s, apparently still frightens cats, little children, and the House Democratic leadership:

Pelosi and other top Democrats are not yet prepared for an open battle with the White House over ending funding for the war, and they are wary of Republican claims that Democratic leaders would endanger the welfare of U.S. troops. The new approach of first reducing the number of troops available for the conflict, while maintaining funding levels for units already in the field, gives political cover to conservative House Democrats who are nervous about appearing “anti-military” while also mollifying the anti-war left, which has long been agitating for Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to be more aggressive.

“What we have staked out is a campaign to stop the war without cutting off funding” for the troops, said Tom Mazzie of Americans Against Escalation of the War in Iraq. “We call it the ‘readiness strategy.’”

Perhaps if Mr. Bush were flat on his back and tied down, the House Democrats would feel up to challenging him over war funding. As it is, they must slink along in the shadows, applying the “slow bleed strategy” while making up clever nomenclature to describe their perfidious behavior.

I hope the Republicans expose this strategy for the immoral cowardice it represents. Because there is very little nuance when it comes to war. This is why I say support the war and fully fund the troops and the surge or oppose the war and seek to defund the conflict. The Democratic strategy in this case gives us the worst of both worlds; no commitment to victory while refusing to acknowledge that their monkey wrench strategy - their “slow bleed the troops” strategy - does nothing except prolong the agony of the war just so that they can avoid the political pain and risk a stand up strategy would entail.

The Democrats say they ran on a platform of bringing new leadership and new ideas on the war. All right then. Lead. Give us new ideas - even if those ideas involve forcing the President to remove the troops from Iraq. Cowering in the face of tough political choices only reinforces the notion that you don’t have the guts to lead this country in its hour of greatest need.

Simply put, this “strategy” is unworthy of a majority party. Perhaps if you start acting like you run the place, you’ll grow a pair and wake up one day national leaders who can stand on two feet rather than sneak your agenda for the war through using legislative tricks and sleight of hand.

For shame, I say. Shame on you.

UPDATE

Bryan at Hot Air:

If they do what they’re apparently planning to do, “slow bleed” will be a very apt description. Those doing the bleeding, slowly, will be US troops.

Got that right.

Hinderaker:

So the Democrats will do their best to make the United States’ effort in Iraq fail, but without taking responsibility for that action, and then try to benefit politically from the country’s defeat. Nice.

Don’t know if I’d go quite so far. After all, there is very little chance anyone will see the loss of the war as anything but the President’s fault. But the political strategy sounds about right.

UPDATE II

Even the netnuts are getting antsy. Matt Stoller:

Is it time to work to run primary campaigns against Democrats who won’t argue for ending the war? There are immense incentives in DC that play into the status quo. Democrats think that Bush is going to be blamed for Iraq, and he will be. But Democrats have power, and that means that Democrats have some responsibility. It’s obvious that no Democrats in DC, with a few exceptions, feel any pull towards withdrawal. So they are screwing over us, who voted them into office to end the war, and we’re enabling them with cheerleading.

We must put incentives in place to stop this madness. And believe me, it’s madness. I live here. This is full of crazy people in suits who think that spending $1 trillion on defense a year is a good thing. And those are the progressives!

I realize the incendiary nature of this post but frankly, the candidacy of Barak Obama puts us in unchartered waters with regards to several issues. And one of those issues has to be the realization that black leaders in America have been targets of assassins in the past.

Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King are only the most prominent names on a long list of shameful murders - usually at the hands of extremist whites - that have stained this country’s honor and darkened the pages of our history. From those who sought to teach the recently freed slaves how to read who were hunted down and killed like animals, to martyred pioneers in the struggle for voting rights in the south at the turn of the century, to the devastating murders of civil rights workers in the 1950’s and 60’s, blacks who have stepped forward and offered to serve the cause of freedom in America have been at risk of being slain. And while few deny the steady and resolute progress toward achieving the goal of a truly color blind society, the fact is that there are dozens of groups like the Klan, Skinheads, Nazis, and Aryan Nation whose hate could erupt in a spasm of violence that would have tragic consequences.

Even though there have been serious African American candidates for President before, neither Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton appealed to many Americans outside of the far left of the Democratic party and black Americans in general. In effect, both men were what used to be called “Favorite Son” candidates with limited appeal beyond their relatively small constituencies.

By any measure, Senator Obama’s candidacy is different. He is attracting big time money and picking up big time endorsements while a growing, enthusiastic grass roots movement is propelling him forward. His appeal spans race, region, and party. He has as good a shot of winning the Presidency as any of the front runners in either party.

Does it matter that his race makes him more of a target for assassination? I believe it does indeed but perhaps not in any way that would cost him votes. I think what the increased likelihood of danger for Obama does is change the external dynamic of the campaign for both the Senator’s Democratic challengers and, if it comes to it, the man he will face in the general election.

Not that the extremists need an excuse to murder anybody. But experts who study political assassinations have noted that most of these murders take place in an enabling atmosphere where the assassin actually believes he will be considered a hero for carrying out his deed. The Warren Commission, driven by politics to go easy on Dallas, nevertheless made it clear that the atmosphere of hate in the city found a receptive vessel in Oswald.

Oswald’s Marxism was a mile wide and an inch deep. It is doubtful he understood anything about Communism except that it set him apart from the crowd and gave his attention starved ego a boost. Oswald’s pretense of murdering Kennedy for the world communist revolution masked his real reason. As William Manchester so brutally pointed out in his masterful Death of a President, Oswald “shot the President of the United States in the back to get attention.”

Indeed, the FBI’s profiles of assassins include this singular fact; the assassin seeks a public venue for his murder to validate his need for recognition. It is not hard to imagine the kind of hate directed toward Kennedy in the south as a result of his civil rights proposals. One need only look at the hate directed toward President Bush to get an inkling of the kind of unbalanced, inarticulate rage that was felt toward Kennedy. And driving that rage in Dallas was the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, Ted Dealy.

Dealy printed a poster of Kennedy on the day before the assassination, with the caption “Wanted for Treason.” His vitriolic editorials practically invited someone to take a shot at the President. And for some reason, Dallas seemed to be the capitol city of the unhinged in America at that time. Birchers, Kluxers, radical anti-communists, race baiters, all made Dallas a place that worried many of Kennedy’s close supporters, many of whom strongly urged him not to make the trip at all.

How much of that atmosphere rubbed off on Oswald? According to Ruth Paine, who put up Oswald’s wife Marina following several brutal beatings by her husband, Lee read the News everyday. And Oswald could hardly have been unaware of the Birchers since he took at shot at General Edwin Walker, a notorious extremist just months prior to his killing the President.

But it wasn’t just the Kennedy assassination where we see this hatred explode into violence. Many have pointed to the atmosphere of hate in Memphis when Martin Luther King came to support the garbage workers in their strike for a decent wage and better working conditions. And in 1968, the recent Arab-Israeli conflict and the outrage in the Palestinian community that was felt as a consequence of American support for Israel apparently contributed to the rage of Sirhan Sirhan and his desire to strike back at America by killing Robert Kennedy.

Even John Hinckley, Ronald Reagan’s would be assassin, may have been affected by the unhinged nature of much of the criticism being directed against the President for his budget and tax proposals and most especially for his stated desire to confront the Soviet Union. I distinctly remember commenting to friends at the time that at this rate, Reagan wouldn’t survive; that some nut with a gun would get the idea they were doing the world a favor and kill the President.

And the hate and spite directed at President Clinton resulted in two serious assassination attempts. Francisco Duran fired nearly 30 rounds through the White House gate in 1994. And while he tried to mount an insanity defense, he also claimed that he was inspired by conservative radio talk show hosts who had talked about “cleansing” the government and “armed revolution.” Even if Duran is lying about what actually motivated him, no serious observer could fail to note that for much of Clinton’s presidency, there was an undercurrent of hysteria that animated his extremist critics.

So how does this affect the Presidential campaign? First and foremost, it places a responsibility on candidates, their staffs, and their supporters to be circumspect in their criticisms of Obama. You can lay into a candidate without inviting the public to hate them. One can even personalize their criticism without it degenerating into the kind of mindless hate that is so often directed at Bush. And this challenge will be monitored by a more sensitive press who will probably come down harder and quicker on transgressors.

It also behooves those of us who write for political blogs to be cognizant of the danger. Obama is one of the most liberal candidates ever to seek the Presidency. I doubt whether many conservatives agree with much of anything he espouses. But will it really kill us if we keep our criticisms focused on the issues of the campaign - including personal issues like his lack of experience and an emerging portrait of a mushy headed idealist? I think not.

I’m not telling anyone what to write or to limit themselves in any way except to understand the historic nature of Obama’s candidacy and the very real danger that the same kind of treatment the right gave Clinton could prove tragic. As I said, it isn’t just the odd, angst ridden social deviant armed with an automatic weapon that would feel enabled by such an atmosphere. There are very serious men fully capable of making serious plans who might not need an enabling atmosphere to kill but who might actually be encouraged by it.

In his book In God’s Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest, writer-blogger Dave Neiwert paints a startling and disturbing portrait of some of these extremists. Anyone who believes that these people are just a bunch of red necks hiding in the woods needs to be disabused of that notion entirely. And the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project has detailed files on dozens of hate groups, some of them heavily armed and made up of former members of the United States military.

They have the means and the motive (by their lights) to bring unspeakable tragedy once again to this country. It will be up to the dedicated and motivated professionals at the Secret Service to deny them the opportunity.

And it will be up to us to deny them any semblance of an idea that their violent action would be greeted by anything except outraged contempt.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

I have called Jack Bauer a thug, someone who would be in jail if he weren’t out saving the country every week. And yet the fact that Jack seems to be remarkably untroubled by the methods he uses to battle the terrorists has always been one of his more attractive attributes. We want the kind of certitude exhibited by Jack. We long for it. We crave it. A black and white world where we don’t have to wrestle with our consciences about what to do with real terrorists and where the choices made by our government to protect us would meet with universal approval is something most Americans would give their right arm for. This, more than anything else, helps explain the popularity of the show.

The moral choices made by characters on 24 do not necessarily shed light on contemporary America so much as they illustrate time-honored thematic constructs from great literature and drama of the past. By definition, these themes are “conservative” in that they reflect a traditional approach to drama while offering a point of view regarding the threat of terrorism that more conservatives seem to be comfortable with than liberals. But at the same time, the show seeks to redefine the moral universe inhabited by the characters who are asked to sacrifice traditional values for the greater good of saving the country.

But we don’t live in Jack’s world. The world we live in is a many layered, textured nightmare of progressively darker shades of grey. What is torture? Is it right to make someone stand for 12 hours straight? Can you “waterboard” someone? Beyond the moral choices regarding torture, does it work? Is it necessary? The rest of the world is appalled at some of our answers. Shouldn’t we be?

And so, 24 remains what it is; a television show with a devoted following among the political class in America with the consequence that its impact on our culture and politics travels far beyond the 15 million people who watch the show every week.

In this serious and thoughtful piece in The New Yorker, Jane Mayer explores the personal politics of 24 creator and producer Joel Surnow. In the process of dissecting Surnow’s beliefs, we discover that some of our country’s most authoritative sources on matters of interrogation and torture feel that the character of Jack Bauer is a bad influence on the troops and that the show may even be responsible for the mistreatment of some prisoners.

Mayer gives details of a visit to the set last November by U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, along with several senior FBI and CIA agents who have conducted thousands of interrogations in their careers. Their verdict was simple and straightforward; the torture scenes in the show were affecting the way that cadets at West Point as well as troops in the field were approaching the interrogation of prisoners:

Finnegan told the producers that “24,” by suggesting that the U.S. government perpetrates myriad forms of torture, hurts the country’s image internationally. Finnegan, who is a lawyer, has for a number of years taught a course on the laws of war to West Point seniors-cadets who would soon be commanders in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. He always tries, he said, to get his students to sort out not just what is legal but what is right. However, it had become increasingly hard to convince some cadets that America had to respect the rule of law and human rights, even when terrorists did not. One reason for the growing resistance, he suggested, was misperceptions spread by “24,” which was exceptionally popular with his students. As he told me, “The kids see it, and say, ‘If torture is wrong, what about “24″?’ ” He continued, “The disturbing thing is that although torture may cause Jack Bauer some angst, it is always the patriotic thing to do…”

The third expert at the meeting was Tony Lagouranis, a former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq. He told the show’s staff that DVDs of shows such as “24″ circulate widely among soldiers stationed in Iraq. Lagouranis said to me, “People watch the shows, and then walk into the interrogation booths and do the same things they’ve just seen.” He recalled that some men he had worked with in Iraq watched a television program in which a suspect was forced to hear tortured screams from a neighboring cell; the men later tried to persuade their Iraqi translator to act the part of a torture “victim,” in a similar intimidation ploy. Lagouranis intervened: such scenarios constitute psychological torture.

Finnegan said that he’d like to see a show “where torture backfired.” All the experts agreed that torture, even when used in the show’s “ticking bomb” context, would never work. They pointed out that the fanatics, knowing that the bomb would go off soon, would simply hold out, secure in the knowledge that their suffering couldn’t last much longer.

They also pointed out that terrorist prisoners actually looked forward to torture as the first step towards martyrdom. An interrogation professional would never use it and would, instead, take the opposite tack of trying to build a relationship with the prisoner, drawing him out gradually by gaining his trust. Besides, the “ticking bomb” scenario itself was totally unrealistic and would never happen in the real world.

Of course, changing the parameters of the show by taking away the clock and interrogating prisoners the right way would make for lousy television which is why the producers would never agree to pursue such a storyline. More interesting is the idea that our troops actually think that this is the best way to get information from a suspect. Is what Finnegan and the others say true? Can our young men and women be so stupid as to reject their training and simply copy what a character on a fictional television show does, thinking that it is both legal and will get the job done?

I have no doubt that General Finnegan and the agents are genuinely concerned about the show’s impact on the troops. But the idea that some of the abuse of prisoners meted out by American soldiers is the result of watching a television show is absurd on its face. Blame it on our not giving the prisoners Geneva Convention protections or on poor discipline or leadership. But the intelligence professionals who carry out the overwhelming number of interrogations on prisoners can’t all be that stupid.

In fact, in an article in City Journal, Heather McDonald described how truly professional these dedicated men and women are and what they were up against when it came to interrogating al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners:

Army doctrine gives interrogators 16 “approaches” to induce prisoners of war to divulge critical information. Sporting names like “Pride and Ego Down” and “Fear Up Harsh,” these approaches aim to exploit a detainee’s self-love, allegiance to or resentment of comrades, or sense of futility. Applied in the right combination, they will work on nearly everyone, the intelligence soldiers had learned in their training.

But the Kandahar prisoners were not playing by the army rule book. They divulged nothing. “Prisoners overcame the [traditional] model almost effortlessly,” writes Chris Mackey in The Interrogators, his gripping account of his interrogation service in Afghanistan. The prisoners confounded their captors “not with clever cover stories but with simple refusal to cooperate. They offered lame stories, pretended not to remember even the most basic of details, and then waited for consequences that never really came.”

Some of the al-Qaida fighters had received resistance training, which taught that Americans were strictly limited in how they could question prisoners. Failure to cooperate, the al-Qaida manuals revealed, carried no penalties and certainly no risk of torture-a sign, gloated the manuals, of American weakness.

The solution was to initiate a series of extraordinary mild “stress techniques” that didn’t harm the prisoner but did put doubt in his mind that perhaps what he had heard about the Americans and their restraint wasn’t true:

Many of the interrogators argued for a calibrated use of “stress techniques”-long interrogations that would cut into the detainees’ sleep schedules, for example, or making a prisoner kneel or stand, or aggressive questioning that would put a detainee on edge.

Joe Martin-a crack interrogator who discovered that a top al-Qaida leader, whom Pakistan claimed to have in custody, was still at large and directing the Afghani resistance-explains the psychological effect of stress: “Let’s say a detainee comes into the interrogation booth and he’s had resistance training. He knows that I’m completely handcuffed and that I can’t do anything to him. If I throw a temper tantrum, lift him onto his knees, and walk out, you can feel his uncertainty level rise dramatically. He’s been told: ‘They won’t physically touch you,’ and now you have. The point is not to beat him up but to introduce the reality into his mind that he doesn’t know where your limit is.” Grabbing someone by the top of the collar has had a more profound effect on the outcome of questioning than any actual torture could have, Martin maintains. “The guy knows: You just broke your own rules, and that’s scary. He might demand to talk to my supervisor. I’ll respond: ‘There are no supervisors here,’ and give him a maniacal smile.

This is not to say that there hasn’t been torture committed by Americans. There have been more than 700 investigations carried out by the Army involving prisoner abuse and 25 detainees have died in American custody that have been ruled homicides. But to posit the notion, even tangentially, that the actions of Jack Bauer on a fictional TV show somehow contributed to this state of affairs strains credulity.

In Mayer’s New Yorker piece, she points out that while the show is fantasy, it sometimes crowds reality by depicting torture that actually occurred in real life, citing an incident last year where a terrorist was denied pain medication mirroring a similar event that occurred in Afghanistan. But the show’s senior writer Howard Gordon says that he makes up the torture scenes himself:

Howard Gordon, who is the series’ “show runner,” or lead writer, told me that he concocts many of the torture scenes himself. “Honest to God, I’d call them improvisations in sadism,” he said. Several copies of the C.I.A.’s 1963 KUBARK interrogation manual can be found at the “24″ offices, but Gordon said that, “for the most part, our imaginations are the source. Sometimes these ideas are inspired by a scene’s location or come from props-what’s on the set.” He explained that much of the horror is conjured by the viewer. “To see a scalpel and see it move below the frame of the screen is a lot scarier than watching the whole thing. When you get a camera moving fast, and someone screaming, it really works.

So does the show “enable” torture by sanitizing it while showing that it is necessary? Clearly, the audience is asked to accept the illegal methods used by Jack Bauer as the price that must be paid to save the country. But are we asked to approve of it? Mayer makes the case that in fact, by making the audience complicit in Jack’s law breaking and by showing Bauer to be basically untroubled by his use of torture, the show removes any moral complications the audience might feel:

The “24″ producers told the military and law-enforcement experts that they were careful not to glamorize torture; they noted that Bauer never enjoys inflicting pain, and that it had clearly exacted a psychological toll on the character. (As Gordon put it to me, “Jack is basically damned.”) Finnegan and the others disagreed, pointing out that Bauer remains coolly rational after committing barbarous acts, including the decapitation of a state’s witness with a hacksaw…

Although reports of abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have angered much of the world, the response of Americans has been more tepid. Finnegan attributes the fact that “we are generally more comfortable and more accepting of this,” in part, to the popularity of “24,” which has a weekly audience of fifteen million viewers, and has reached millions more through DVD sales.

Frankly, I think that because the show is so popular with the politically active segment of the population that we tend to overestimate its impact on the rest of America. I doubt whether the majority of Americans who may be aware of who Jack Bauer is actually take his methods to heart. And as far as being more accepting of torture, 63% of Americans oppose physical abuse according to an ABC Poll conducted in 2004 with 35% supporting torture. And even higher majorities (75% in a USA Today poll) opposed the kind of treatment meted out to prisoners at Abu Ghraib. This hardly seems “tepid.”

In the end, it’s just a television show. A rollicking good show to be sure. It is well written, well acted, with production values that are the envy of series television. But basically the show functions as a safe outlet for our fears about terrorism and security. And Jack Bauer may be a goon but his dedication to duty and his patriotism are so attractive that the audience is more than willing to forgive him his shortcomings.

Most of us like to think that there is someone out there in real life with that kind of tough, no nonsense approach to protecting America but without the moral baggage that Jack carries. In that sense, the show succeeds in what it sets out to do; entertain us for an hour every week with thrilling, edge-of-your-seat action while making us wish that next week’s episode would hurry up and get here.