Right Wing Nut House

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

A photograph, partially torn at the corner and suffering from being stuffed into a drawer full of screwdrivers, wrenches, and assorted knick knacks and gewgaws reflected the fluorescent light in the kitchen off its scratched surface making it difficult to identify. Why we call it the “utility drawer” is beyond me. I suppose it’s because anything and everything that doesn’t have its own place eventually ends up being carelessly thrown in there - parts of one’s life that defy categorization or stuff that we can afford to forget about.

The picture is unremarkable. It is a photo of me from 6 years ago standing on a dock, the river over my shoulder. I’m wearing a Chicago White Sox hat pulled low over my eyes, protecting them from the bright sun. It is a picture taken by my friend Patty before a few of us went out for a late afternoon river ride.

The date timestamped on the back was September 9, 2001.

Interesting how photographs pull memories out of your head as a magician pulls rabbits out of a hat. You don’t think about a particular day or experience until something else acts as a catalyst and the memories all come back in a rush. For instance, sometimes when I smell strawberries I think of the lip gloss worn by one of my first girlfriends back in high school. The memories are so powerful, I can almost taste her lips on mine and smell the perfume she used to wear.

That’s one of those memories that cause you to pause and smile, a warm feeling washing over you as the intensity of the recollection brings about an actual physical reaction. And then it’s gone and try as you might, you can’t conjure up that same memory with the same intensity until the next time you are caught unawares and whatever it is that triggers remembrance is set in motion.

So it was with this scratchy, damaged photograph I accidentally pulled out of a kitchen drawer yesterday, September 9, 2007. But the memory of the event that it elicited was fleeting. More to the point, the photograph acted as one part of a memory bracket with my own mind’s eye in the here and now acting as its counterpart. I was looking at my pre-9/11 self and contemplating what I had become in 2007.

The radical coincidence of finding a photograph on the exact same date that it was taken years earlier was serendipitous. Would that everyone could be so lucky. In that late summer of 2001, there was no shadow moving across the land, no premonition of danger, not a clue that less than two days later the America we had gotten so familiar with - omnipotent, invincible, striding confidently toward a fat, happy future - would be brought so low. And all our silly pretensions about being immune to the evils that plague the rest of the planet would come crashing down in a series of searing, unforgettable images, dust and smoke blotting out the sun that just hours before shone so benevolently on a land seemingly oblivious to what evil was capable.

The photograph doesn’t show that we were sleepwalking toward disaster for the previous decade. But the memory of what occupied the attention of the man in picture at that time is as clear as day to me. I was on vacation for the week and was going on a trip on Thursday. My biggest concern about flying at the time was that the cross country flight didn’t allow smoking and I dreaded the thought of having to endure a perpetual nicotine fit for the entire 5 hour flight.

If the man standing in the kitchen contemplating the past could have sent a message to the man standing on the dock in the photograph telling him about 9/11, you can well imagine what the reaction would have been. Disbelief, anger at such thoughts invading the complacency we all felt about our safety, and perhaps confusion - a profound befuddlement that surpassed his capacity to grasp that such things could happen in America or anywhere else for that matter. He would have had no frame of reference that could illuminate the terrible consequences of raw, unreasoning hatred directed against strangers whose only transgressions were in the fevered imaginings of a radical ideology that gave its adherents permission to commit murder in the name of God.

Time is not absolute. Our memories prove that. Reminiscing can bring the past back to us, telescoping time and space so that the smells, the tastes, and the emotions we felt at any given moment can exist in both the present tense and the yesteryear of our thoughts. It is a blessing and a trap that the human mind works in this way, gifting us with faces, events, and feelings from the long ago that bring joy to our hearts but at the same time, entangling us in unwanted skeins of retrospection, recalling all too clearly those times that are best left unremembered - orphan memories that no one wants but can’t escape.

And if those memories can play tricks on us so as to cause us to recall events incorrectly, we rarely recollect false emotions or senses. I know that the man in the photograph and the man in the kitchen are the same person. But the emotional world of 2001 in which the man in the photograph lived did not include the 9/11 attacks or the realization that the slow, inexorable march of time would cover that open wound with a healing scab, lessening the horror but leaving behind an inexpressible sadness at what was lost that day.

We are the same, that man in the photograph and me. But the emotional wall between us that makes any real connection impossible is a direct result of the man in the kitchen having lived through 9/11 and its momentous aftermath. Try as I might, I can’t quite recapture the absolute certainty I felt at that time that nothing in America would ever really change. It’s not so much that I believed we would never be attacked. It’s just that I and most Americans never had the thought enter our heads. It wasn’t unbelievable or unimaginable. It simply didn’t exist in this universe.

That, I suppose is the biggest difference between the man in the photograph and me. And to this day, that difference is coloring our politics, our culture, and refashioning America below the surface into a different place than the country inhabited by the man on the dock. No one knows what that America will look like a decade, two decades from now. The forces of denial and appeasement are strong. But I hope if I pull that photo out years from now, I will still recognize the world in which the man on the dock lived and recall the things he considered important and vital about America.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin has a terrific round up of 9/11 recollections.

Attacking the President over his Iraq policies and for the sunny side up way in which the Administration has been reporting progress on the war over the last 4 years is fair game. This is politics in America today, albeit much of the criticism is vicious and personal, and therefore appropriate in the context of what constitutes a debate over our policies.

But leave it to the left to lower the bar so that even rattlesnakes can’t get under it.

This is an ad that appeared in the New York Times today from that bastion of restraint and decorum, Moveon.Org:

At least give them credit for originality. I can’t remember the last time a general officer in the United States Army was all but called a traitor.

The body of the ad is unimportant if only because it links to reports from the GAO and others that show the surge isn’t “working.” If there is anything about Iraq that we can say with certainty, it is that in the relatively short amount of time (about 3 months since our force buildup was complete) that the surge has been in full motion, good progress has been made in some areas, no progress in others, and some places have gotten worse.

Duh.

The fact that al-Qaeda and the sectarian murderers (many of whom are not free agents but are being paid by outside actors) can read the newspapers and watch al-Jazeera, knowing full well the political situation in this country and are further aware that a supreme effort on their part to kill as many innocents as possible will likely bolster calls for an immediate withdrawal of our troops places people like Moveon.Org and the netroots who have also been sliming General Petreaus over the last few days in a de-facto alliance with the killers. Both want exactly the same thing; America totally out of Iraq. To not acknowledge that using the enemy’s deliberate attempt to escalate casualties in hopes that war opponents will gain the upper hand in this country is self-deluding. It doesn’t mean that the left are traitors or unpatriotic or anything else except pure, unadulterated dupes, easily manipulated and trained like dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. Only in this case, they are trained to say “I told you so” about the surge after every mass casualty attack.

As long as the situation is even marginally better, we should continue to do all in our power to help the Iraqi government somehow come to grips with its numerous problems. I have little confidence the crew currently in charge - Maliki and his sectarian mob - are anxious to get anything done in this regard. But the “bottom up” reconciliation being effected in Anbar and elsewhere may work to force the national government to deal with the Sunnis sooner rather than later. When 50 Sunni tribes representing the great majority of Sunnis in Anbar form a secular political party to participate in the political life of the country, Maliki and his henchmen will have political difficulty in not working with them and others, although I imagine we will have to exploit the Shia fears of a well armed Sunni population in order to do get them off the mark.

Unfortunately, Baghdad and its environs are a different story. Here, the national polity has been so fractured, the factions so numerous and violent that it would be best if we allowed the Iraqi army alone to handle security there. Given that the army and police are riven with Shia militia sympathizers, this probably means a virtually “Sunni free” Baghdad in the future. This, along with the power of the Shia militias in the south are beyond our military’s capability to deal with. The militias ultimately are a political problem for the government.

Is the situation likely to turn around in 6 months? A year? No one, including Moveon and their smear machine can say. But given the stakes and given what has occurred so far, we should at least give General Petreaus the benefit of the doubt and allow him to continue his work, revisiting the issue again next March and on a regular basis after that.

Sliming General Petreaus, calling him a liar, a stooge, an Administration lackey is a sign that the left can’t win the debate on the merits of their arguments. All they have left is to attempt to kill the messenger by destroying his credibility. General Petreaus has more integrity in his little finger than all those who have sought to damage his well deserved reputation have collectively. And judging by what I’ve been hearing at the Congressional hearing this morning, their tactic has backfired badly.

For the first time since I began blogging 3 years ago, I found it necessary to pull an entire post from the site.

Entitled “The Most Shockingly Dishonest Poll in the History of the Media,” it linked to this poll at ABC News that shows the Iraqis don’t feel any safer today as a result of the surge.

The methodology at the end of the article stated the poll had been taken 6 months ago. It did not mention that they had additionally polled Iraqis in August. I found out that little tidbit thanks to Allah at Hot Air.

Obviously, I erred in my original post that ABC and the BBC tried to put a fast one over on us. I apologize to those who may have been misled by my erroneous information.

It’s the Administration says the left. It’s probably al-Qaeda themselves, say those more reality based.

Whoever made it, may very well have faked it:

Osama Bin Laden’s widely publicized video address to the American people has a peculiarity that casts serious doubt on its authenticity: the video freezes at about 1 minute and 36 58 seconds, and motion only resumes again at 12:30. The video then freezes again at 14:02 remains frozen until the end. All references to current events, such as the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, and Sarkozy and Brown being the leaders of France and the UK, respectively, occur when the video is frozen! The words spoken when the video is in motion contain no references to contemporary events and could have been (and likely were) made before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The audio track does appear to be in the voice of a single speaker. What I suspect was done is that an older, unreleased video was dubbed over for this release, with the video frozen

Just to be sure, I downloaded the MPEG file and played it on my Windows Media Player (I sometimes have issues with the Flash Player). Sure enough, the video freezes right where Mr. Maschke says it does - in both instances.

In effect, what we have is about a 3 1/2 minute video that has been stretched out to more than 26 minutes by simply freezing a frame of OBL over first about ten minutes then more than 12 minutes of the tape.

The Telegraph gives us a possible explanation:

The al-Qaeda leader’s first video message for three years featured a bizarre rant against America, with references to global warming, “insane taxes”, the US mortgage market meltdown and rising interest rates.

American spy chiefs were quick to name Adam Gadahn, the head of al-Qaeda’s English language media operations, as the author of large sections of bin Laden’s broadcast.

Last October, the 28-year-old “loner” became the first American charged with treason since 1952, for appearing in a succession of al-Qaeda videos under the guise of “Azzam The American”, in which he condemned globalisation and made American cultural references.

[snip]

What surprised analysts was his use of the language of Left-wing protesters, which showed detailed knowledge of the economic travails of middle America.

Bin Laden referred to “the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgage” and blamed “global warming and its woes” on “emissions of the factories the major corporations”.

A former senior US intelligence official said: “It has Adam Gadahn written all over it.” Mike Baker, a former CIA covert operations officer, said the tape left bin Laden with “the title of biggest gas bag in the terrorist world”.

CIA officials said voice analysis of the tape proved it was definitely bin Laden.

Funny that the CIA concludes that it’s Bin Laden on the tape but never mentions - or perhaps didn’t catch - the freeze framed video. It is hugely significant because as Maschke points out, all of the topical references that “prove” the tape is recent are uttered when the “video” is in freeze frame.

If our government is going to release a tape showing that Osama is alive, one would think that this kind of little detail would be hugely important to point out to the press and the American public. If anything, this video chicanery buttresses the case that Osama has been worm food for a while.

Wheels within wheels: The CIA knows Osama is dead but doesn’t want al-Qaeda to know that we know. Why? Perhaps they have someone close to al-Qaeda’s inner circle. Not close enough to know where they are, but close enough that our intelligence people are kept abreast of a few things. Letting on that we know Osama is dead might expose that source to al-Qaeda.

And how about the idea that this is a speech that may have been written by some poor deluded leftist twit pretending to be a jihadist read by the world’s number one terrorist? Adam Gadahn may be a useful idiot to al-Qaeda but I hardly think they have grown so unsophisticated that they would be using him as Osama’s ghost writer - literally. Besides, CNN International is seen all over the world. If they want to copy leftist propaganda spouted here in the United States, they can do no better than use Ted Turner’s creation for that.

Michael Ledeen is not convinced either:

Third, is it really Osama? As you know, I was reliably told something like two years ago that Osama had died. Nothing in this speech sounds at all like the “old” OBL. That man knew how to give a stemwinder, he used elegant language, his threats were blood-curdling, his calls to the faithful inspiring. This man talks like, well, a high school dropout. In fact it reads like an “Onion” spoof. And the sound is bizarre, at least on my IBM desktop. It sounds almost as if there was enough garble in it to make it difficult to match with voice prints of the “real” guy. I’m not convinced.

Is it possible that this “tape” was manufactured by the Bush Administration and released just days before the Petreaus Report to Congress on Iraq in order to sway nervous Republicans into standing firm while reminding the American people that Iraq is part of the War on Terror?

The question has to be asked because it will probably be the number one topic of conversation on lefty blogs today. And the answer is a qualified no, it is not possible. One can accuse the Bush Administration of incompetence in many areas but you would think if they were going to run a fake video, they might have done a better job of manufacturing it so that some guy in pajamas sitting in his mother’s basement couldn’t expose them.

And al-Qaeda shutting down it’s various websites immediately after the tape’s release is an interesting tell as well. They wouldn’t want their sympathizers telling the world that the video is an obvious fake.

Yes, I suppose it is possible that the Administration ordered up the video for the Iraq debate. Anything is possible. But there is not one scintilla of evidence that points the finger at the Administration while logic and inference finger this as an attempt by al-Qaeda to stick their nose into the debate themselves - just as they tried to do with the 2004 election when they released the last Osama video.

I’m sure this is not the end of this story. By the end of the day, I suspect a Blogswarm as well as further interesting speculation. Perhaps even more revelations will be forthcoming once bloggers with professional audio and video equipment start putting the tape to the test.

One of those days when it’s great to be a blogger…

Before Norman Hsu became a household name and right around the time his Ponzi scheme that would eventually lead to his being sentenced to 3 years in prison began to fall apart, he found himself in fear for his life in the back seat of a car with Raymond Kwok Chow, alias “Shrimp Boy,” and a known lieutenant of perhaps the most powerful gang leader in Chinatown; Peter Chong.

Chong came to American in 1989 from Hong Kong with the sole purpose of establishing an American off shoot of the powerful Wo Hop To Triad in which he was one of the major figures. Upon his arrival, he sought out Chow who headed up the Hop Sing gang and was eager to attach himself to one of the major criminal organizations in China. Chow’s gang had been chased out of Chinatown a decade earlier when the Wah Sing gang, run by Danny “Ah Pai” Wong, claimed the streets for themselves.

On the day that Norman Hsu was either being kidnapped or, if you believe Chow, was in the car as the result of a call from Hsu for help because extortionists were after him, the Foster City police stopped the vehicle for running a red light. The story Hsu told the police is interesting:

Hsu told police he had been kidnapped.

“There was a 12 hour ordeal where there was discussions, arguments. Mr. Hsu claims he was assaulted several times and threatened,” said Capt. Matt Martell, Foster City Police Department.

Hsu told police he had business dealings with Chow and there was a dispute over money.

“And what that dollar amount was, different dollar amounts ranged between $300,000 and a $1 million worth of claims,” said Capt. Martell

Chow says Hsu lied, and claims it was Hsu who called him for help that night because he owed people money.

“I met him because he was in trouble, and at that time, I helping him out a lot,” said Chow. “The way he told me, I mean, he being extortion, he being a lot of people tried to hurt him.

Chow and the others were arrested, but charges were later dropped when Hsu became uncooperative with prosecutors.

What was Hsu doing borrowing money from Chow? What was a seemingly respectable businessman doing business with Wo Hop To?

Wo Hop To, according to the US government, is one of several dozen loose knit Asian criminal enterprises investigated by the FBI in the United States. In Hong Kong, where the Triads are illegal but nevertheless retain a high public profile and are very powerful, Wo Hop To is known for its ties to gambling, prostitution, and most notably, protection rackets. If Hsu was being pursued by investors into the very Ponzi scheme that landed him in trouble, he could do no better than seek out the protection of a powerful Triad gang.

Just what kind of “service” would Chow provide? Hsu evidently approached Chow himself:

This was when Chow says he met Norman Hsu. He says Hsu dabbled in clothing, import and export and real estate. He adds Hsu was also in trouble.

“I guess he into a lot of financial problem back then and I loaned him some money,” said Chow. “And I help him with my knowledge and with my strength. That’s all there is.”

Helping Hsu with his “strength” could very well mean that Hsu asked Chow to intimidate investors into not going to the police about his Ponzi scheme. We saw above what a little intimidation could do when Hsu refused to cooperate into the investigation in his own kidnapping.

And if the Triad loaned $1 million to Hsu (reading this long profile of Chow makes it clear he personally did not have that kind of money), what were they expecting in return? If Hsu needed it to pay off investors in order to keep the Ponzi scheme running a little longer, surely the Triad would want a piece of any future action Hsu was able to drum up as far as new investors. In short, it appears that Hsu had gone into business with the most powerful Triad in the United States and a gang that the FBI said rivaled the mafia in sophistication.

So the “kidnapping” could be as Raymond Chow described it; they were protecting Hsu from angry investors, some of whom may have been trying to extort money from him in exchange for their not going to police about Hsu’s con games.

What relevance does all this have to Hsu’s fundraising activities for Democrats?

Either coincidentally or by design, following the fund raising scandals of the 1990’s, the Chinese Communist party forbade the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) from engaging in any business activities. Previously, the army seemed to have a piece of every commercial pie and extracted profits in which they enriched themselves and Chinese officials who were paid to turn the other way with regard to some of the shadier dealings.

As part of those dealings, the Chinese military evidently tried to influence the Clinton Administration to go lax on export licensing agreements that didn’t allow certain sophisticated technology to be transferred to a potential enemy like China by funneling money to the Democratic party through several conduits. There also appeared to be an effort by the Chinese government to influence legislative and state elections as well.

Now that the PLA is prevented from owning businesses that could lobby for relaxed restrictions on high tech items they might like to buy, how would the military go about replacing that influence?

But previously, the Chinese army, like the queen of England, did not need the triads’ crooks to conduct its dirty business, it could do it itself. Any state conducts covert operations through its secret services, performing a vital role for national security, but these activities, conducted by agents and sanctioned by the top political leaders, are for the good of the state, not for that of a small gang.

For practical purposes it is important to distinguish between “dirty activities” conducted directly by a political institution and “dirty activities” conducted indirectly by a political institution through professional independent crooks. Without this difference everything is crime (or vice versa nothing is crime) and we get nowhere: crime overwhelms us. We need clear-cut, reachable objectives, which must be limited in scope and thus in time, otherwise the Mafia stops being a law-and-order issue and becomes a metaphysical force spanning thousands of years of history, as the Mafiosi and triad members like to describe their organizations.

Several authors and investigators have linked the PLA with the Triads for so-called “dirty activities” including the funneling of money to American campaigns.

Thus, Hsu’s flight to Hong Kong makes sense. In that city, and with his connections to Chow and Peter Chong, it would have been easier to set himself up in business by tapping sources like Wo Hop To. Otherwise, how would one explain a bankrupt, nearly penniless businessman landing on his feet in the most expensive city in the world? And how would Hsu repay the Triads their generosity? By moving funds into American campaign for one of the Triad’s major customers, the PLA perhaps?

Interesting speculation - which is all it is. But I don’t think the Triad connection to Mr. Hsu can be dismissed at this point. He probably did business with them in the past. And given the fact the sources of his money remain a mystery, it could very well be that he is doing favors for them today.

Good Rex or bad Rex?

It was midway through the second quarter of the preseason match-up with the 49′ers and it appeared all doubts regarding Rex Grossman could be laid to rest. He had marched the Bears up and down the field, throwing for nearly 200 yards and was pinpoint in his accuracy.

Then, in a matter of minutes all that changed. A fumbled snap in one series and an interception returned for a touchdown by the Niners in the next brought back a flood of memories from the previous season where Wonder Dog’s troubling inconsistency and bonehead plays at the wrong moments made him the target of the media and fans alike who believed he could never take the team to the Super Bowl. Grossman proved them wrong - to a degree. But his sub-par performance in The Big Game brought all the questions and criticisms back in a rush.

Rex “The Wonder Dog” Grossman will be playing his last year in a Bears uniform. The standard of performance has been set so high for him by fans and the media that he will inevitably fail and be booed out of town. Nothing less than a near perfect season and Super Bowl victory is what the fans are demanding of Grossman - something he cannot possibly deliver; certainly not with the Bears having to play a first place schedule and the prospect that every team in the league will now be gunning for them. If the team manages 9 wins this year, they will be fortunate indeed. That still may be enough to get them into the playoffs considering the weakness of the NFC North Division. But it won’t be enough to save Grossman’s job or his career here in Chicago.

It is a shame. Grossman is the most talented Bears quarterback in a generation, perhaps longer. With all the injuries he suffered early in his career, last year was his first full season as a pro. It seems a little unreasonable to expect such perfection from a player with that kind of limited experience but there it is. This is the reality Grossman must deal with this year.

Coach Lovie will not be as patient with Grossman either. A couple of bad games for Wonder Dog and we will probably see Brian Griese. The former Michigan standout who spent 5 productive years early in his career in Denver only to see his fortunes plummet in Tampa Bay and Miami is a solid, serviceable pro. And that’s the best you can say about him. He will set no one’s hair on fire nor has he shown the kind of talent and leadership in his career that would give people the idea that he is anything except what he is now; an excellent back-up quarterback.

But in the end, Lovie may believe that Griese gives the team the best chance to win because the 10 year pro will be able to take care of the ball and not make game-altering mistakes. Griese, in other words, won’t win any games for you. But he won’t lose many either. That may be the determining factor by season’s end as to whether the Bears stick with Grossman or not.

As for the rest of the team, the defense should be better, the offense has been, on paper, marginally improved. And Special Teams may be down a notch or two.

OFFENSE

Gone is durable and dependable RB Thomas Jones, replaced by the sometimes injured but hugely talented Cedric Benson. While the Bears thrived with the two backs under contract, the guys didn’t get along very well and it was proving to be more and more difficult not to make a guy they drafted higher than any Bear since 1975 (#4 overall) and who they are paying $35 million over 5 years the number one back. Benson didn’t win the job based on his performance but rather on the economics of football. Now he must deliver. He must carry 25-30 times a game, punish defenses with his size (225 lbs), catch the ball out of the backfield, and block like a tight end. In the pre-season, he looked improved as far as the latter two requirements. But his durability will be key. There simply isn’t any other NFL quality running back on the team.

The offensive line is back intact. A veteran unit anchored by perennial pro bowler Olin Kreutz at center, they must give Grossman (or Griese) time to set and throw. And a big part of that passing game will now be placed on the shoulders of the tight ends.

In the modified West Coast Offense the Bears are running, the tight end is key. He is the first option on many passing plays and an outlet receiver on many others. Desmond Clark is an adequate blocker but was never a huge part of the offense. The Bears believe they have solved that problem by drafting Greg Olsen out of Miami in the first round. The kid can play. He gives Rex a nice, big target between the hash marks and has proven to possess a good pair of hands. He also has some speed which means that Lovie will be able to slot him on occasion, putting him up against a DB rather than a LB.

Unfortunately, Olsen has a sprained knee at the moment and they will probably hold him out of the opener today against San Diego. But word is that offensive coordinator Ron Turner has a slew of special packages where they will utilize Olsen’s talents to the fullest. This is just the kind of thing that will take pressure off of Grossman and improve his performance. Wonder Dog has proven in the past that when he looks for the TE, the offense thrives. Having a huge talent at that position can only help.

The other addition to the offense is moving return phenom and reserve nickle back Devin Hester to the offense as a receiver. This is a dubious move for the simple reason that the kid is liable to get dinged up at WR which will slow him down when he goes back on punts (Lovie will evidently not use him on kickoffs). And there is always the chance for serious injury as well. Hester won’t duplicate his 6 return touchdowns from last year. But if he can get a handful of TD’s catching the ball, then the experiment will prove to have been worth it.

DEFENSE

Gone is problem child Tank Johnson (cut for bad behavior) as well as DT Alfonso Boone and Ian Scott lost to free agency. But the Bears replaced that trio with three other excellent defensive linemen in Anthony Adams, Dusty Dvoracek, and veteran Darwin Walker. Adams is a load at NT and should be an excellent run stuffer at 300 lbs. Walker was a fixture for 7 years on the Eagles D-line and is one of the best in the business. And Dvoracek, last year’s 3rd rounder for the Bears who was forced to sit out the entire year with a knee injury, is being whispered as a potential Steve McMichael clone. Mongo was a fan favorite and there are some at Bear’s camp who are saying the kid reminds them of him.

Back from injury are DT Tommie Harris and FS Mike Brown. When Brown went down early in the season, the Bears defense was ranked number one in football. By year’s end, they had dropped to fifth. This was no accident. As good as Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs are at LB, it was Brown who was quarterbacking the defense. It was he who called the coverages and would audible so effectively at the line of scrimmage. Clearly, if Brown stays healthy, the defense will be improved.

Harris will give Lovie the flexibility on the D-Line to keep running 8 or even 9 linemen out there during the course of the game. This has a telling effect on the opposing O-Line and by crunch time, the Bears can dominate the line of scrimmage late in the game. Rookie sensation Mark Anderson (12 sacks) has been moved up to a starting position at the end which may help Adewale Ogunleye. Teams can’t double team both ends at the same time which will leave one or the other with single coverage.

LB Lance Briggs is a wildcard. Will he let the bitter feelings of being slapped with the “Franchise Player” tag affect his play? After swearing he would never play another game in a Bears uniform, Briggs signed late in July and was doing fine - until he wrecked his $150,000 car and left the scene. Hopefully, that is not a harbinger of things to come as the Bears need the talented OLB - especially in pass coverage.

The defensive backfield was bolstered with the addition of SS Adam Archuleta who played well for Lovie in St. Louis but was a bust when he signed a huge free agent contract with the Redskins last year. A hard hitting run stopping and blitz specialist, Archuleta will be shuttled between SS and nickel back. The guy had a nose for the quarterback in St. Louis and he may be one of the big, pleasant surprises of the season.

The Bears are deep and talented on defense. They will probably be called upon to win games by themselves as they did last year.

PREDICTIONS

Who knows?

Which Rex will show up on any given Sunday will determine the success or failure of the team this year. But more than anything, Wonder Dog must take care of the football. I think Lovie will put up with sub par performances as long as he doesn’t turn the ball over - and the team is winning.

Can Benson stay healthy and beyond that, fulfill his enormous promise? Much depends on that too.

Can Mike Brown and Tommie Harris come back from injury and lead the defense back to dominance?

Can Lance Briggs grow up and play ball?

Will Archuleta continue to be a bust? Or will he regain the form that made him one of the best defensive players in the league 3 years ago?

Questions that can only be answered on the field. What we are sure of is that My Beloveds have a killer schedule, playing the Chargers, Eagles, and Redskins on the road while hosting the Cowboys, Broncos, and Saints at home. And with divisional opponents Green Bay and Detroit much improved, the division will be no cakewalk either.

I’d love to see the Bears back in the Super Bowl but recent history shows that teams who were runners up in The Big Game rarely even make the playoffs the following year much less return. But if the Bears remain reasonably healthy, they have a good chance of beating the odds and winning the division.

And in the playoffs, anything is possible.

TODAY’S GAME

The Chargers had 11 pro bowlers last year and feature the best offensive player in football, RB LaDanlian Thomlinson as well as perhaps the best defensive player in football in LB Shaun Merriman. They may be the best team in football as well.

The Chargers are playing at home and are hungry. Expect a close game for at least a half or perhaps two and a half quarters before the Bears defense wears down and San Diego runs away with it.

Final: San Diego 31 Bears 13.

I had some fun with this post yesterday, postulating that Osama Bin Laden would feel right at home blogging at Daily Kos. It’s silly, of course. The confluence of interests between radical jihadist kooks like OBL and the Democratic left has more to do with talking points than ideology. Once a Democrat is in the White House in 2008 and the left controls Congress, the leaders of the party (and, presumably, the netroots) will be confronted with the exact same situation that a Republican would be faced with if he should, despite all the signs, win through to victory and grab the presidency.

That situation boils down to one, overarching reality: We are at war. We have been at war for 30 years. If the netroots want to parse the definition of war or even try and pretend that this is not so, it hardly matters. Radical Islamists believe they are at war with us. They believed it before there were netroots, before there was an internet. And they will continue to believe it no matter who is president, no matter what foreign policy we espouse, and no matter what their apologists and appeasers here and abroad would have you believe.

This then, is The Long War - a struggle against an ideology that threatens more than our complacency, more than our sense of security, and more than the illusions we have of our invincibility. It is a war against the secular, nebulous, undefinable freedoms we enjoy in the west versus the dogmatic holy writ of the Koran and those who warp and twist its teachings for their own murderous ends.

How big a threat is the global jihad being waged against the United States and the west? I agree with the left that the threat should be kept in perspective. I do not agree with the left when they attempt to minimize it.

Fred Thompson’s take on OBL and The Long War is just about right:

“Bin Laden being in the mountains of Pakistan or Afghanistan is not as important as there are probably al-Qaida operatives inside the United States of America,” Thompson said.

Bin Laden is considered the man behind the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The former Tennessee senator and actor argued that “bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else. I think it demonstrates to people once again that we’re in a global war.”

Thompson said the al-Qaida leader and the Iraq war must be seen as part of the larger war on terrorism.

“It’s one that bin Laden and people like him are heading up and we need to catch him and we surely need to deal with him, but if he disappeared tomorrow we still have this problem. If Iraq disappeared tomorrow, we’d still have this problem,” Thompson said.

GOP presidential candidates jumped on Fred’s “symbolism” statement like starving dogs who are tossed a slab of prime rib:

“He’s more than a symbol,” McCain told ABC News when asked about Thompson’s comments. “He’s motivating and recruiting using the internet as we speak. He’s a threat. He’s a threat.”

McCain said bin Laden poses an enormous threat to Americans because of his ability to communicate, motivate and recruit people who are dedicated to the destruction of the U.S.

“It’s very important that we get him. I’ll get him,” McCain said.

Another Thompson rival, former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., suggested the al-Qaeda leader is a real threat.

“Osama Bin Laden is the face of evil,” Romney said in a statement reacting to the bin Laden tape. “His stated goal is conversion by compulsion, the surrender of liberty to terror and the abandonment of the foundations of a free society.”

The last two National Intelligence Estimates have made it clear that al-Qaeda - the parent organization that planned and executed the 9/11 attacks as well as other operations against our citizens and interests - is a shadow of its former self. Their financial networks are shattered. Their cells have been smashed in city after city, country after country. Their leadership caught or killed - except Osama himself who even Romney admits is a symbol, being “the face of evil.” What McCain, Romney, and other candidates are doing is what the Bush Administration was accused of doing for the last 6 years; ratcheting up fear of al-Qaeda and terrorism in order to score political points with the public.

Al-Qaeda may be smashed but, as the NIE’s made very clear, they have spawned dozens of smaller, less capable, but very deadly offshoots such as al-Qaeda in Iraq and Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon. Their connections to the “old” al-Qaeda may be more spiritual and ideological in nature. But that doesn’t lessen the threat they pose to the US and the west, given that they are plugged in to a loose but very real network of jihadists worldwide who share conduits for funding, arms, and even expertise in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks (the 7/7 London bombings are an example).

It is impossible to look into the mind and hearts of men and glean important truths. Inevitably, our perceptions regarding the actions of others are colored by our own biases, our own prejudices. I have no doubt that on occasion, the Bush Administration has stooped to using the tactic of deliberately overstating the threat of terrorism in order to scare people into voting Republican. Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has said as much. But to extrapolate from the political use of the terrorism issue to the idea that The Long War is some plot to establish a permanent Republican majority is just plain daft.

The Long War is as much a part of politics in America as social security, welfare, health care, or any other issue. This can’t be helped anymore than the Democrats can help their time honored tactic of scaring old people into believing that if they elect Republicans, their social security benefits will be cut, or even disappear. In a free society, all public matters become political matters. We created a political world so that there would be a framework where decisions on national issues like war and peace could be discussed by the representatives of the people. It should not surprise us or disappoint us, or anger us that The Long War would be affected by the political tug of war between those who jockey for power in Washington.

The threat is real, it is serious, and has the potential (given the fact that someday it is a dead certainty that terrorists and WMD will marry up in a nightmare few liberals seem willing to confront) to destroy our society. Jihadists may not invade and take over the White House. But a couple of nukes detonated in American cities will accomplish most of OBL’s goals. Far beyond the damage to the cities themselves would be the resulting chaos, refugees, economic catastrophe, and the probability that our response would be to nuke a target of choice - even if that target had little or nothing to do with the strike itself. Choose your nightmare scenario to follow that action.

Fred Thompson’s response to OBL’s statement shows that there is at least one Republican who gets it. Romney, on the other hand, wishes to fall back on playing the fear card in order to score political points. It’s time we moved a little closer to the moderate left on the issue of The Long War and begin to place the struggle in a realistic, historical context that will beget policies that give us the opportunity to confront the threat without allowing politics to either diminish or exaggerate it.

It may not be possible given the current state of the political culture in Washington. But it would certainly start us on the road to defeating the terrorists, thwarting their designs, and perhaps even allow for the recognition that we fight the ideas of jihad with other, more powerful ideas; that freedom is better than slavery, liberty is better than tyranny, and knowledge is better than ignorance.

I just got this from my super secret source over at Daily Kos; Osama Bin Laden has agreed to post a daily diary over at the founding netroots web site.

Why, you might ask? The master terrorist made clear in the transcript of the soon to be released tape that he agrees 100% with the netroots about the cowardly performance of the Democratic party when it comes to Iraq:

“People of America: the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq, for people have recently come to know that, after several years of tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven’t made a move worth mentioning. On the contrary, they continue to agree to the spending of tens of billions to continue the killing and war there.”

Visit just about any netroots blog and peruse any post since the beginning of the year and you’ll find almost the exact same criticism using pretty much the same words.

Then there’s the “Haliburton angle” brought out by some (not all) lefty bloggers - certainly many other Kos diarists:

According to the transcript, bin Laden says there are two ways to end the war:

“The first is from our side, and it is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you.”

The second is to do away with the American democratic system of government. “It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interests of the peoples and their blood by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations.”

Sounds like Osama is the perfect lefty revolutionary to me. I’m sure he’d have some insightful things to say about changing our system of government in order to blunt the interests of major corporations.

Maybe Osama and Al Gore can team up to write a climate change entry:

He also speaks to recent issues grabbing headlines in the United States, referring to “the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages; global warming and its woes…”

Sounds like he could do a duet with John Edwards as well.

And here, Osama gives full rein to Bush Derangement Syndrome:

He says to the American people, “you made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war, not even the most violent of its murderers, [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld…”

“You permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a clear mandate from you — with your full knowledge and consent — to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then you claim to be innocent! The innocence of yours is like my innocence of the blood of your sons on the 11th — were I to claim such a thing.”

Bin Laden says President Bush’s words echo “neoconservatives like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Richard Perle.”

At least he kidney punched the 9/11 truthers by taking responsibility for the attack - not that those loons believe him anyway.

But everyone else will recognize the words and phrases - exact phrases - used by lefties from the start of the war. The desire to charge Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld with war crimes. The criticism of the American people for re-electing Bush. And like most of the left, Bin Laden wouldn’t know a “Neo-con” if one came up and bit him in the ass.

Yes, Osama would fit right in with the folks over at Kos. Of course, they’d have to ignore the “religion thing” but I’m sure they’ll make some allowances just so they can grab a leading political personality like Bin Laden.

I can’t wait to see some of the comment threads on those posts…

Norman Hsu is a fugitive no longer.

Taken ill on a train outside of Grand Junction, Colorado, Hsu was whisked away to a hospital with an undisclosed ailment. Somehow, authorities found out about it and Hsu was taken into custody:

Authorities received a request for medical assistance at the train station at about 11:15 a.m., but the exact nature of Hsu’s condition was unclear, Chavez said. Staff at St. Mary’s Hospital declined to comment.

FBI spokesman Joseph Schadler said Hsu will be returned to California on the 1992 conviction once released from the hospital.

Hsu’s attorney told state prosecutors that Hsu had been on a charter flight that arrived at Oakland International Airport at about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday and then dropped out of sight, said Gareth Lacy, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office.

Amtrak’s California Zephyr train offers service from nearby Emeryville to Grand Junction before heading to Denver and Chicago. The Zephyr left Emeryville at about 7:10 a.m. Wednesday and was scheduled to arrive in Grand Junction before noon Thursday.

Hsu’s disappearing act seemed to be a reprise of a move he pulled 15 years ago, when he failed to show up for sentencing in the same grand theft case. Hsu was facing up to three years in state prison, a $10,000 fine and restitution payments after pleading no contest to a single count of grand theft in what prosecutors described as a $1 million fraud scheme.

But while free on bail after his plea, Hsu dropped from sight for 15 years, apparently spending time in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Taiwan, only to emerge in recent years as a seemingly wealthy New York resident who donated generously to Democratic political campaigns, regularly attended fundraisers and was photographed with party leaders.

What are the chances that our little Hsu bird will sing?

The feds are going to drop the charge of fleeing prosecution immediately upon his return to California. I’m no expert but isn’t that kind of dumb? Wouldn’t you want to hold that over his head in exchange for some answers on his federal fundraising activities? Of course, there are the state charges, but that depends on the California authorities agreeing to cooperate - not a foregone conclusion by any means. One would think there would be a lot of pressure from Democratic politicians not to look very closely at Mr. Hsu’s work on behalf of the Democratic party. If so, then the California prosecutors would be less than enthusiastic to cooperate with the feds in some kind of plea arrangement where Hsu gets a reduced sentence in return for telling the feds all he knows.

Highly speculative at this point but what this guy has in his head may not only affect the race for President but may also have foreign policy implications. If, as many suspect, Hsu was acting as a bagman for a third party - perhaps the Chinese or even the Taiwanese - the major question we would want to know the answer to is what this third party was going to want in exchange for these contributions.

Then there’s the possibility that Hsu is pretty much what he says he is - a guy with lots of money who likes to make contributions to Democratic politicians. Where did he get the money? He could be, as his record indicates, a professional con man, a grifter who worked his way across Asia for 15 years taking down one mark after another. The article in the Chronicle reports he was known to have been in not only Hong Kong, but also the Philippines and Taiwan. Were overseas authorities aware of his ponzi schemes and perhaps other con games?

You can bet before Hsu opens up about the source of his wealth as well as any possible quid pro quos he may have had with politicians, he will have an ironclad deal signed, sealed, and delivered by the US attorney. That aspect of the case will probably take a while so I would expect it will be a few weeks before the inevitable leaks and off the record reports of what Hsu has to say will be forthcoming.

In the meantime, the Democrats will probably be on pins and needles as much as the Republicans were in the Abramoff scandal.

UPDATE: SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED

The Washington Post has some interesting background on Hsu and has dug up some possible sources for the money he gave to Democrats:

Facts about Hsu are hard to come by. Twenty-year-old clippings from apparel industry publications say he was born and raised in Hong Kong and arrived in the United States in 1969 to attend the University of California at Berkeley. The computer science major went to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School for an MBA. In 1982, with a group of Hong Kong-based partners, he formed Lavano Sportswear.

The business went bankrupt. Describing that time to a Bay Area newspaper, Hsu said he was young and “made a lot of stupid mistakes.” But Hsu moved on to form a series of new clothing ventures before going back to Hong Kong, from 1992 to 1996, for unknown reasons. Returning to the United States, Hsu invested in several new wholesale apparel and import ventures that collectively generate about $2 million a year, according to Dun & Bradstreet estimates.

Nice business pedigree. And that raises the question of why a Wharton MBA would be pulling ponzi schemes to defraud investors?

Also, the Post story only takes Hsu’s foreign travels into 1996. He evidently returned home just in time to become tangentially involved in the Johnny Trie fundraising scandal whereupon he once again disappears only to emerge in 2003 hosting an event for John Kerry.

What the Post article does is show that it is possible Hsu is, if not a legitimate businessman, someone who was donating his own money to campaigns and not acting as an agent for anyone else.

But it is also possible that the opposite is true as no evidence has been found that he could have amassed the kind of cash necessary to invest in businesses here in the US that would be bringing him $2 million a year in income.

The votes are in from this week’s Watcher’s Council and the winner in the Council category is “NYT: Analogies Are Meaningless (Unless They Favor the Left)” by Big Lizards. Finishing second was “Separate But Unequal” by Soccer Dad.

Coming in first in the Non Council category was “Like a Suppository, Only a Bit Stronger” by The Dissident Frogman.

If you would like to participate in the weekly Watchers Council vote, go here and follow instructions.