Right Wing Nut House

Full Disclosure: I am paid by Michelle Malkin.Com to moderate comments.

Some may question my motives in defending Michelle Malkin against her critics who are becoming more vulgar, more unreasoning, and yes, more dangerous as her public profile increases as a result of her continued success on the internet and TV. Believe what you will, I really don’t care. The fact that I work for her website is, to me, completely immaterial to the matter at hand. I don’t need to “suck up” or curry favor. And if you believe anyone connected to MM.Com encouraged or directed me to write this post, I’ve got some great news; I think I saw Elvis last night at the Piggly Wiggly buying some peanut butter and bananas.

If you haven’t been following the shocking story of Geraldo Rivera’s nauseating threat to assault Malkin the next time he saw her, allow me to fill you in. In an interview in the Boston Globe on September 1, Rivera made this jaw dropping statement:

“Michelle Malkin is the most vile, hateful commentator I’ve ever met in my life,” he says. “She actually believes that neighbors should start snitching out neighbors, and we should be deporting people.

“It’s good she’s in D.C. and I’m in New York,” Rivera sneers. “I’d spit on her if I saw her.”

Even the interviewer couldn’t resist the adjective “sneers” when talking about the way in which Rivera delivered his threat to physically assault Malkin. And while I won’t be dealing with the “substance” (more accurately, the vacuousness) of Rivera’s critique of Malkin, I would just like to point out the fact that the law requires deportation of those who are here illegally. As is typical of the open borders crowd, they advocate ignoring the law when it suits their argument. Let an illegal immigrant get into trouble and all they can do is spout chapter and verse of the US Code at you, throwing the law in your face as Rivera wants to spit into Malkin’s. But for anyone who advocates enforcement of the law that runs counter to their beliefs, such trivialities can safely be ignored.

Beyond what Rivera said, is the venue he chose to say it. This was not, as Malkin points out, an accidental aside made by Rivera in an unguarded moment:

Now, can you imagine the uproar if any other female journalist/commentator had been on the receiving end of Geraldo’s rhetorical spittle? This wasn’t an off-the-record comment at a cocktail party or a private remark in a green room. It was on-the-record smear to a Boston Globe reporter.

And the message over the past week has been: This smear/attack/threat is acceptable.

This is what has me worried. And not just for Malkin who, while perfectly capable of taking care of herself, nevertheless brings out the “brother” in me. For I must confess that Malkin’s success in what has overwhelmingly been a male dominated industry - political and social commentary - reminds my very much of the success realized by my older sister who broke through the glass ceiling years ago to become a partner in one of Washington’s most prestigious law firms.

Both Malkin and my sister share many similar traits that endear them to their supporters while sending their opponents over the edge. Both are whip smart, tough, ambitious, not shy about expressing an opinion (even if they know it’s unpopular) and challenge convention at the drop of a hat. Their exterior beauty, which cause many to underestimate them, masks a backbone made of tempered steel. “Feminists” in the real sense of the word, neither one bitches or moans about anything life has dealt them - least of all their gender. They simply go out and achieve, making no apologies and asking for no favors.

If that sounds like an unrealistic portrait think again. There are millions of women like them who share many of those traits to one degree or another. And I’m sure that many of these women have met someone like Geraldo Rivera at one time or another in their career. The “sneer” on Rivera’s lips when threatening Malkin is familiar to many women who meet men threatened by their brains, ambition, and yes, beauty. Rivera does not get as nasty when dealing with males who disagree with him. One could easily conclude that for all his bluster, he is little better than a bully who thinks he can push those weaker than him around when he senses a physical advantage.

If Rivera had said something like that about my sister, he would find seven aging but husky brothers lined up in opposition politely requesting he eat those words by chomping on the newspaper they were printed in. And since we were all of us brought up as gentlemen, we would be more than happy to supply Mr. Rivera with whatever condiments he would need to make his repast as palatable as possible under the circumstances.

But Malkin’s gender only answers part of the question as to why her commentaries draw the over the top, unhinged hate and loathing of so many on the left. Her opinions are no more inflammatory than many seen on the internet. And while she runs one of the largest blogs in the conservative sphere, size alone cannot explain why she regularly receives the nastiest, the most obscene, the most vulgar hate mail imaginable.

The mystery deepens when you consider the fact that there is no blogger - right or left, large or small - who does more to promote worthy causes than Michelle Malkin.

I can attest to this as fact since for the last 3 months, I have been engaged in re-categorizing all 7,400 posts ever written on Malkin’s blog. The breadth of charities, foundations, memorial funds, and special requests for assistance that she has highlighted over the years and asked her 150,000 daily readers to support is absolutely astonishing. Can you imagine Gawker or Kos or any of Malkin’s most vehement tormentors giving that much space over to charity? You can disagree with Malkin on the issues. But you cannot fault her public spiritedness. Wounded soldiers, disaster relief, even individual families who have a loved one with some rare, debilitating health problem have all been featured on her site and her readers pressed into service.

Does that count for anything with Malkin’s uncivil critics? Of course not. And Malkin herself has brought the ugly truth out in the open time and time again as to the true nature of her critics incivility. They don’t try to argue the merits of the issues. They rarely address the specific points of Malkin’s arguments in their critiques. Instead, they routinely use Malkin’s race as a way to personalize their reprehension.

Malkin does not fit into the little political and intellectual boxes the left reserves for each grouping of Americans they see fit to categorize. Their (un)reasoning goes something like this: Asians are minorities. Minorities are oppressed and need the tender ministrations of liberals to save them from white America’s depredations. All real Asians believe everything that liberals believe. If they don’t, they are not “authentic” minorities but rather “sell outs” to white America.

To try and patiently explain to liberals (as I have many times) that believing members of a minority should think a certain way simply because they are a member of that minority group is as racist a point of view as someone who burns a cross on that minority’s front yard does absolutely no good. Their linear thinking on matters of race is as set in stone as their belief in the efficacy of government to solve social problems. And this kind of miasmic thinking about race and politics comes through loud and clear when reading what others write about Malkin and her positions on the issues.

First and foremost is the charge that she is just a tool of others - her husband, the Bush Administration, a secret right wing cabal - and that she has prostituted herself, selling her race to the highest bidder in order to get ahead.

To answer that, I’ll simply direct you to this post of hers that I came across in my re-categorization project. Short version: “This is not a right-wing conspiracy. This is marriage.” I’ll let that stand as the definitive answer to those insulting, outrageously hateful charges.

The second major race-hating meme advanced by Malkin’s critics is the charge that she loathes herself and her race so much that she allows her self-hate to color her politics, advancing ideas like support for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and strict enforcement of laws against illegal immigration.

The left usually isn’t happy unless they get their opponents on the couch so that they can analyze them in their own special way. Witness Glen Greenwald’s “A Tragic Legacy” which has been dubbed “a character study” of George Bush. And John Dean’s “Conservatives Without a Conscience” that purports to show the psychological attraction authoritarianism has for conservatives. This penchant for amateur psychoanalysis manifests itself in Malkin’s case when the left tries to explain how it is possible a member of a minority can possibly disagree with them on any issue of consequence. Since Malkin breaks the mold by being a conservative, she is obviously mentally unbalanced.

I’ll leave it to real mental health professionals to diagnose whatever disorder afflicts people who believe such nonsense.

Finally, there are is the simple vulgarity of the unmasked racists who routinely refer to Malkin as a “wog whore” and much worse. If this kind of true hate speech (not the fake variety the left routinely accuses the right of making) were vigorously denounced by leading bloggers on the left, it would certainly help to mitigate some of the disapprobation I and most conservatives heap upon lefty bloggers on a regular basis. After all, Malkin herself has taken conservatives to task many times for out of bounds behavior. Is it too much to ask that the favor be returned when the ultra-personal slights, insults, and obscenities are tossed her way?

Evidently so. In fact, top liberal bloggers join in the racist name calling with a relish that would be shocking if we weren’t used to it by now. No one on the left calls them out for it. No one on the left calls for a halt to the vulgarities. Instead, they gleefully pile on in an orgy of the most nauseating racism, each trying to top the other in coming up with the most vile racist venom they can scribble.

Somebody, somewhere on the left has to stand up for simple decency. The response to that plea is usually pegged to Malkin’s not mincing words to expose the hypocrisy of liberals. Somehow, Malkin’s derogatory language aimed at the left gives her critics the freedom to riposte with whatever they feel is appropriate - or can get away with.

The idea that if Malkin calls someone a “moonbat” it is fair game to use a derogatory racial slur to describe her is perhaps the most unsettling aspect of this matter. Proportionality doesn’t seem to enter into the discussion. Malkin tosses a knife and the left goes nuclear. Something is wrong with that picture and unless people start to focus on the true nature of this grossly unfair and dangerously incendiary rhetoric, there will be nothing left of American politics except an unlivable wasteland where there is no hope that the two sides can ever unite when this country faces its next crisis.

Keith Olbermann made Malkin his “Worst Person in the World” last night. But it wasn’t for anything Malkin did. Rather, it was so that Olbermann could approvingly quote Geraldo Rivera’s spitting threat to a national audience. To realize that Olberman was, in effect, encouraging an assault on Malkin made me inexpressibly sad. The left is running toward a gasoline dump with a lit match. And nobody on their side seems willing to yell at them to stop.

I must confess to being something of a closet Fredhead. Long before Thompson was even thought of as a potential candidate for president, going back to the late 1990’s, I had been impressed with the Tennessee Senator’s thoughtful, measured approach to the issues and the fact that he seemed willing to buck the GOP establishment at times.

It’s not a surprise that he’s running for president. It is something of a puzzle as to how he’s gone about it. I realize that there were sound, tactical reasons for his delay in entering. But I think it only served to make his long shot candidacy even more difficult.

But that doesn’t lessen my admiration for a man who I consider one of the more interesting and thoughtful men to come along in public life in recent years.

Catching him on the cable news nets and the occasional appearance on the Sunday morning talkies, it was clear that there was an intelligence and depth behind the folksiness and the aw-shucks, good ‘ole boy demeanor he carefully cultivated. Besides, he was the political protege of a man I considered one of the great and honorable public servants in my lifetime. A former Minority and Majority Leader, candidate for President, and another thoughtful, serious conservative, Howard Baker saw something in Fred Thompson as far back as 1972 when he asked the young attorney to manage his re-election campaign. And it was Baker who finally convinced a reluctant Thompson to run for the Senate in 1994, overcoming his objections by appealing to his loyalty. It seems the Democratic candidate had defeated Baker’s daughter in a House race and Baker wanted a little payback.

More likely, the canny Baker simply knew what buttons to press in order to get Thompson out on to the hustings. But for me, if Fred Thompson can impress Howard Baker, then he’s already got a leg up on the rest of the field.

There has been great turmoil in the Thompson campaign of late. Part of that is no doubt the fact that he had to go from a standing start in May when the buzz around the candidate first became pronounced to a full blown, national organization less than 90 days later. Mistakes were made. Mistakes are still being made if you believe Jim Geraghty (and Jim is one of the sharpest observers of campaigns out there).

Time has telescoped and magnified Thompson’s staff problems compared to other campaign organizations. Other campaign shakedowns occur over several months, even a year. For Thompson, he’s had to work out the kinks on the fly over a matter of weeks. It remains to be seen whether this will doom his candidacy before it starts or whether his moves to hire on experienced campaign hands rather than go with the eager but relatively untested people they are replacing will help him regain some of the momentum he has lost over the last month.

Does he have a chance? Realistically, no. He’s too far behind in too many states. And he is woefully outgunned financially and organizationally by both Romney and Giuliani. I haven’t read much about what his strategy will be but I think we can make some educated guesses. For Fred, he must be able to emerge on the morning of February 6 still within spitting distance of the leader who will probably be Rudy Giuliani. For that to happen, he has to hope that neither Romney or Giuliani are able to dominate the early contests, either one never getting more than a third of the delegates in any one state, while Fred is hitting threshold numbers everywhere (most states have a minimum percentage of the vote requirement in order for a candidate to get any delegates). He must also hope he can win a few primaries in the south and border states on the 5th by hefty enough margins so that he can walk away with the lion’s share of delegates.

I think he will raise enough money to carry him through those Super Tuesday primaries on February 5. After that, if it is a 3 man race, people may start to look very carefully at what they are about to do by nominating a northeastern moderate Republican for president. It is still a long slog for either a Romney or Gillian to get the support of 50% of Republicans. So it is possible in this scenario that Fred will emerge as a consensus conservative candidate and begin to attract the money and endorsements necessary that would allow him to have a fighting chance at the nomination.

But the problem is that more than half the delegates will have been selected by February 6 and unless Fred is within a couple hundred delegates of the leader, he will have no chance of making up the lost ground, not with delegates being apportioned according to the percentage of vote in the primaries. Fred could win most of the remaining primaries and never catch up if his wins are narrow enough.

I think this is the most realistic scenario for a Thompson candidacy. Then again, Fred could surprise everyone by showing up Romney in Iowa, Giuliani in New Hampshire, and sweeping Super Tuesday. I just don’t think that is in the cards considering the deep pockets of both Giuliani and Romney. But stranger things have happened. Just ask Howard Dean.

For a look at the Thompson announcement video and some choice cuts from his appearance on Leno last night, Allah has it for you. And he adds this critique of the 15 minute announcement piece on YouTube:

Re: the web announcement video, that’s a lot of talking, son, and a lot of talking points, all of it synced up with head-bob choreography. I thought he’d start with a minute or so of addressing the camera and then segue into 10 minutes of video biography, a la McCain’s recent Vietnam ad, but on and on he goes. Clearly he’s trying to leverage the success he’s had with his radio commentaries: no frills, just a straight shooter calling it like he sees it, sans gimmicks — a neat trick for a Hollywood actor delivering a 15-minute oration with stagy head turns at key moments built in. The sheer volume of information and the pace at which he runs through it is daunting, though. God, family, peace with honor, secure borders, small government, a frisson of horror at the thought of another Clinton administration — it’s all in there, but it’s a lot to digest in one go and he seems to be rushing to shoehorn it all into the time available. How many people will sit through the whole thing?

Doesn’t much matter. He’s trying to make an impression and an extended Reaganesque soliloquy does that, at least. Thank god he’s in a den in a suit and tie, too. If he tried this in a denim shirt with the pick-up truck in the background, I’d be heading for the lifeboats.

Yeah, it was long. But it was just folksy enough to keep me interested. And it won’t be long before that head bobbing shows up in impressions of him on Saturday Night Live.

BTW, Allah - don’t give up on that denim shirt and pickup truck quite yet. The campaign may yet find a way to incorporate it into some of his appearances.

It’s no longer a question of “Who is Hsu” but rather “Where in the world did this guy escape to?”

California businessman Norman Hsu, a former New York apparel executive and major contributor to Democratic candidates and causes, failed to appear for a bail reduction hearing Wednesday, leading to speculation that he again is a fugitive from the law, FOX News has learned.

Hsu’s attorneys say they do not know his whereabouts, and that their client did not surrender his passport.

A little more from the LA Times:

Hsu’s attorney, James Brosnahan, explained that he had lost contact with Hsu and that the financier had failed to deliver his passport as promised.

“Mr. Hsu is not here and we don’t know where he is,” Brosnahan said outside court. “We expected him to be here.”

Brosnahan told Foiles that a legal assistant for his law firm went to Hsu’s New York City condominium last week and spent 90 minutes searching for Hsu’s passport.

Well, that’s just peachy. His defense team has known for a week that his passport is missing and didn’t bother to tell authorities? Especially given this guy’s past history of skedaddling when the heat is on?

That leaves the investigation with basically nothing. The Paw family - who acted as a blind for Hsu’s numerous contributions - probably don’t know much even if they were in a mood to talk. Investigators may track down other donors but it is equally unlikely they could be any more helpful than the Paws.

So the story will die and Hillary is safe. Funny how this kind of thing always happens to the Clinton’s just in the nick of time.

Malkin has updates and reaction.

I feel obligated to warn you not to read this post if you have just eaten. That’s because swimming in this pool of sickly sweet, syrupy slop written by Politico’s Roger Simon may give you cramps - or cause you to blow your lunch:

Looking into Bill Clinton’s eyes is like falling into a swimming pool.

His eyes are deep and blue and comforting and, as person after person will tell you, when his eyes lock onto yours, you feel like you are the only other person in the world.

Margarida Perreira, 48, of Manchester, N.H., can stand it no longer.

“Can I give you a kiss?” she asks him.

“Sure you can,” he says.

She hugs him fiercely.

Holy Christ! If the guy got any gushier, he’d have to register himself as an off shore oil well.

It gets worse:

Somewhere around here, his wife, the junior senator from New York, is campaigning for president. They started out at the fair together, but she has her pace and he has his.

They both have entourages: staff, Secret Service, local police, press. But Bill wanders freely, never letting anybody really get between him and the crowds. Most politicians like serving far more than they like campaigning, but Bill Clinton loved doing both.

“He wanted to win the voters one by one,” his former spokesman, Mike McCurry, once told me. “He would have gone to all 250 million of them if we could have figured out a way to do it.”

I think that Politico should put a warning label on this guy’s columns: “Reading this column may be hazardous to your gastro-intestinal tract.”

Or maybe they should simply supply free barf bags with each subscription:

Whenever there are groups of children, Clinton bends down so their parents can get a picture of them with the former president. Whenever he sees people in wheelchairs who cannot get through the crowd to him, Clinton moves through the crowd to them.

Many people are too nervous or excited to initiate a conversation, but they soon learn that is not necessary.

“Where are you from?” Clinton asks a woman.

“Cologne,” she replies.

It is like turning on a switch. “Beautiful town,” he says. “I have been there many times. The first time was December 1969. I crossed the Rhine at midnight and walked up the hill to the cathedral. It was breathtaking. You must be so proud of it.”

Is there a hackneyed political cliche this guy has missed? Clinton loves children. Clinton showing off his smarts. Clinton, the rock star. Clinton, the kindly.

What’s next? Clinton as - dare I say it - God?

He talks about pumpkins and watermelons — are you surprised that he knows about pumpkins and watermelons? — and how these competition fruits cannot have any holes or breaks in the skin.

“It’s seeds plus soil plus care,” he says. “Too much water and the skin breaks and you are eliminated. Use too little, and somebody beats you. It is about constant judgment. Like the presidency. Make it as big as you can without breaking the skin.”

I guess there wasn’t a lake nearby where he could walk on water but perhaps we can petition to have the above added to the bible.

“The Parable of the Mustard Seed.” Big things come in small packages.

“The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Lost sheep are best.

“The Parable of the Pumpkins and Watermelons!” And Clinton said: “Thou shalt not break the skin of thy watermelon lest thou presidential judgement be tainted like bad water .”

Inspiring, yes?

I can’t recall ever reading such drivel on a serious political website. If this is a parody then I admit to being taken in. But it’s not. The writer is dead serious.

I’m actually jealous. Simon is getting paid to write this stuff? Give me a shot and I’ll write the most glowing and adoring piece on Bush you ever saw. By the time I was finished with him, there’s be a movement to canonize him. I would write things that would make you think someone had sprayed cotton candy all over you, so lovable I could make him.

But then, if I did that I would lose all credibility as a serious writer - something Roger Simon should know after this piece of sybaritic claptrap that Politico should be ashamed of publishing.

You’ve probably seen that headline a half dozen other places. Everyone and their mother feels a compulsion to tell us what the addition of 30,000 US troops and a modest change in strategy (along with, perhaps, a more competent commanding general?) means for the immediate and long term future of Iraq.

Have you noticed that no one seems to be able to agree on anything? Are US troop fatalities down, up, or relatively unchanged? Take your pick. How about Iraqi civilian casualties? Ditto. “I hear you can walk through the streets of Ramadi without body armor.” Yeah, but don’t lose your military escort. The Brits bug out of Basra thus securing one third of the country for the militias and their patrones in Iran. “Yeah, but Basra isn’t part of the surge, ya know?” Perhaps. Praytell, how do we intend to recapture that rather large slice of Iraq from al-Sadr and the Badr Organization not to mention keep Iran’s grubby mitts out of Iraqi politics??

I don’t know if American casualties are down. I surely hope they are. I don’t know if civilian casualties have dropped significantly. Looking at the big picture, it hardly matters. Iraqis are still being found in the streets of Baghdad with holes drilled through their heads or worse, no heads at all. And Iraqi families are still hearing knocks on the door in the middle of the night telling them they have 15 minutes to pack up and leave as the de facto partition of the country into Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish enclaves continues apace - surge or no surge.

No one is denying al-Qaeda is on the run although they seem quite able to set off mass casualty car and truck bombs whenever they want to garner headlines and goose the left in this country into another round of “I told you the surge wasn’t working” Bush bashing. It is one thing to be duped into falling into the enemy’s propaganda trap. But it is quite another to use al-Qaeda’s PR strategy and knowingly incorporate it into your domestic political critiques of your opponent. That is just one of the amazingly ignorant and dangerously naive components of the left’s strategy to counter any and all good news coming out of Iraq.

And then we have the hilariously ironic spectacle of the left using body counts to justify withdrawal. It was an article of faith for the left during the Viet Nam War that body counts didn’t mean anything, that they were used by the military to justify continuing the war. My how times have changed, no? Today, it is an article of faith on the left that we should leave Iraq because of the body counts.

Of course, this kind of deliciously corrupt irony is totally lost on the left. In order to appreciate irony, one must be capable of introspection. And as we all know, the left don’t do introspection. Such things as self examination may lead to an emotional and intellectual crisis as the riot of conceits that make up modern American liberalism with all of its contradictions and hypocrisy could very well cause a short circuit somewhere between their brains and their mouths - if there hasn’t been such a breakdown already.

Fred Kagan believes that not only is the surge working but that Bush’s visit to Anbar yesterday was a “Gettysburg” moment - a hinge of history, so to speak, a turning point. While I will grant that the article makes some cogent and encouraging points about the Sunni “awakening,” as is Kagan’s wont, he glosses over some of the more troubling aspects of the strategy of arming Sunnis who just a few months ago were trying to kill us in order to fight al-Qaeda.

For instance, Kagan’s thesis is that this “bottom up” reconciliation will work because it is in the self interest of all parties involved that it happen. Ditto the reason Sunnis won’t suddenly turn on their new found American friends and blast them with the weapons with which we have recently armed them.

But that “self interest” argument can be a trap as well. Who’s to say that in the near future, the Sunnis wouldn’t believe it in their own interest to start killing Americans again? There could be an “incident” that sets them off or perhaps the realization that we are facilitating a permanent division of Iraq into 3 slices - something that may become a reality with or without our blessing. Or the Democrats could win the argument in Congress and yank the troops just as they are starting to do some good, something that might be seen as a betrayal by the Sheiks who have laid their lives on the line by almost certainly going against the wishes of many younger men in their tribes and making common cause with the Americans against al-Qaeda.

There are a half dozen reasons why the Sunnis would find it in their “self interest” to begin taking pot shots at Americans again. Kagan dismisses this with a wave of his magic wand and the bland assurance that this is a permanent change in Sunni behavior. I certainly hope he’s right. But I wouldn’t be surprised if, once again, Kagan is proven to be wrong.

So that part of the surge’s success may be ephemeral. And I think that the idea of a “bottom up” reconciliation is also a mirage. It doesn’t hurt, mind you. But only a strong central government can save Iraq from its own stupidities and hate. Kagan points eagerly to the 2009 parliamentary elections and believes that it will be at that point that the unreasonable Sunni and Shia politicians in Baghdad will go down to ignominious defeat to be replaced by level headed democrats. Don’t count on it.

The Shia religious parties have the power and will fight to keep it. There may be more Sunni representation after the next election but probably not enough to form a coalition with secularists and take control of the legislature. The Kurds have already cast their lot with the Shias, seeing in them the quickest way to independence - perhaps cynically believing that the Shias will so alienate the Sunnis that the partition of Iraq will become a foregone conclusion. At any rate, it is unlikely that the Kurds would ally themselves with their former oppressors.

None of this has anything much to do with answering the question of whether the surge is “working” or not. Petreaus has cleverly kept the goals of the surge limited. The Congress and White House have added all the bells and whistles having to do with political benchmarks and the like. This probably means that Petreaus can go before Congress and show that the surge is working but that the political questions involving reconciliation have a long way to go.

Petreaus deserves every day of funding that Congress can give him to continue what he is doing in the Sunni provinces. As for the rest - Baghdad and the south - there really isn’t much to be done. The entrenched nature of the sectarian conflict in Baghdad is probably beyond our military to deal with - even with the additional troops. This would seem to indicate that the Iraqis themselves will have to sort out the situation. And given the sectarian nature of the Iraqi government, I would not be very encouraged if I were a Sunni living in Baghdad.

The political argument over whether the surge is “working” or not has degenerated into a food fight of facts and figures, each side using whatever charts and graphs showing progress or lack thereof as if by inundating us with numbers and arrows and decimal points, some magic truth will emerge and one side or the other will “win” the argument. This is so much bullsh*t. My 5 year old nephew can make facts and figures say pretty much whatever he wants them to say. The ultimate question, as always, is do we stay or do we go?

Given the alternatives, it seems that the Iraq tar baby has us firmly in its grasp. And there isn’t a big enough briar patch in all the Middle East to save us.

Much of this blog post originally appeared in The American Thinker

Everyone knows that politics is a rough game and not for those with weak stomachs or too many skeletons in their closet.

But there used to be lines that just weren’t crossed regardless of the provocation. Letting it be known that a candidate’s wife was a drunk or a floozy was one such barrier although what earthly difference it would make to voters was never quite made clear. Regardless, the press was usually pretty good about refereeing the political playing field, coming down hard on any campaign that crossed the boundaries of taste and what passes for “fair play” in such a cutthroat world.

Where’s the line now?

Soon, a new name will pop up on Mike Rogers’s hit list.

Larry Craig wasn’t “the first on my list,” the gay blogger says. And the Idaho senator, who announced his resignation Saturday, “won’t be the last.”

Rogers, sitting on a club chair in his Northwest Washington apartment, is basking in the attention. For three years now, he’s been a feared one-man machine, “outing,” he says, nearly three dozen senior political and congressional staffers, White House aides and, most damagingly, Congress members on his blog. On Capitol Hill, a typical phone call from Rogers — “Are you gay?” he’d ask — is “a call from Satan himself,” says a former high-ranking congressional staffer whose name is on the list.

Rogers reasons that there’s justice behind his tactics — “odious,” “outrageous” and “over-the-line” as they might seem to his detractors.

In the twisted, gutter mind of Rogers, if you oppose “gay rights” (whatever that is) and you are a closet homosexual, “all bets are off.”

To say that this is perhaps the most nauseating example of how the left can justify using double standards to advance their political agenda is to state the obvious. But where Roger’s transgressions against decency and humanity really sink to levels unseen before in American politics is his towering conceit about what constitutes “hypocrisy” and how that self defined character flaw in someone else should lead to either ruining their political careers or their lives.

Someone like Larry Craig who is “outed” by his own behavior is something different entirely. The people who Rogers has deemed unworthy of being allowed to maintain their privacy regarding their sexual preference have not broken any law nor have they transgressed against any rules in Congress that would make their homosexuality an issue in any way, shape or form. Instead, Rogers applies an extraordinary narrow, close minded, indeed ignorant yardstick to determine whether someone “deserves” to be “outed.

In short, if you oppose his own definition of “gay rights” and refuse to “out” yourself, Rogers will do it for you.

Patterico mixes exactly the right amount of outrage with unmitigated contempt:

Mike Rogers is an extortionist. He is a blackmailer. He is a thug. And today, he is lionized on the pages of the Washington Post.

It should be utterly uncontroversial that Rogers is nothing more than a political shakedown artist. He makes this quite clear in the Post article, eschewing the usual indirectness of the professional blackmailer for the shockingly direct threat:

Of course, to Rogers, any vote against gay rights is cast “to gain political points” — because he can’t conceive of such a vote being cast on principle.

And so, Rogers’s message to politicians is simple and straightforward: if he doesn’t like the way you vote, he will expose embarrassing information about you. If you toe the line, however, he will protect you.

That is the classic position of the extortionist.

Indeed, Patterico (who is a prosecutor when not blogging) convicts Rogers from statements out of his own mouth several times over. How any decent Democrat can stomach this worthless specimen of humanity is one reason I will never switch parties. I may be very angry with the Republican party at the moment, despise parts of its agenda, and have nothing but contempt for a broad swath of its leaders. But the GOP has nothing comparable to the Rogers operation.

Oh, they have their oppo researchers and underhanded tactics. But that’s politics boys and girls, get used to it or get out. What Rogers does has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with personal aggrandizement and the accumulation of power. And the fact that the Democratic left latches on to this lickspittle of a man and gives him encouragement puts them beyond the pale in my book.

There are many gay Republicans who oppose much of what Rogers considers “gay rights” including gay marriage. Conservative gays have wide ranging opinions on what constitutes gay rights. For Rogers to set himself up as an arbiter of opinion among conservatives - gay or not - about what people should believe is an astonishing demonstration of arrogance.

Quite simply, it’s none of his business. This is especially true of Congressional staffers who are not responsible to the voters but rather to the Member of Congress they work for. To “out” a staffer just because Rogers hears rumors about him is beyond belief. What possible difference can it make to Rogers except by outing the aide, he can put another notch on his gun. One more victim of his one man pogrom against gay Republicans who won’t slavishly think as he does.

This man is a blight on American politics and should be banished from public life forever. Instead, like his partner in “exposing Republican hypocrisy” porn magnate Larry Flynt, they receive the plaudits and adoration of the left for their efforts.

Times have changed…

There is something mildly depressing about the day after Labor Day. Summer is officially over even though the calendar tells us we’ve still got a few weeks left - a trick that science and nature have combined to play upon our Midwestern sense of time’s passing. Here in the heartland, the clock likes to take the long way around the dial, or seems to anyway. It is an illusion born of a belief that the pace of life should mirror the miracle of nature’s timetable for the growth of living things; slow, stately, and with due regard for the sacred trust vouchsafed those who tend, till, or simply love the land.

The lines of demarcation between summer and fall are sharp and noticeable. Evenings are already generally cooler than they were just a few short weeks ago. Dawn brings a slight nip to the air, a reminder and portent of what is soon to come. The leaves shake nervously on the trees with every breath of wind, mindful that soon it will be time to clothe themselves in Autumn’s spectacular raiment.

Speaking of clothes, Sue has already gathered much of her fall wardrobe and is preparing her annual couture auditions, evaluating and making her selections as if she were casting a blockbuster motion picture. Which outfits still fit? Which ones are still in style? Which ones go in the box marked “Salvation Army?” Not a clothes horse but born with the fashion sense of a classy American lady, my Zsu Zsu’s good taste (and mastery of the clothing budget) allows her to appear in public always looking like a million dollars.

This year, new lightweight jackets for the both of us. A couple of pullovers for me. A sweater or two for Sue. Throw in a suit for her and a sports jacket for me and we’re done. I pity those men who fail to plan adequately for the annual fall excursion to the mall and end up helpless appendages as their wives or girlfriends race from store to store unable or unwilling to decide exactly what they want. What Sue and I accomplish in 2 hours takes most couples half the day or more.

I experienced a great sense of self satisfaction being able to sit in front of the TV on Saturday afternoon watching the start of the college football season knowing that many of the hundreds of men I saw at the mall with their wives that morning were still there, the feeling of panic rising in their throats as they watched the time, knowing they had already missed most of the first quarter of the game and praying they’d be granted a stay of execution (or prevented from committing hari-kiri) so that they could be home by halftime.

Another tradition that reminds me that summer is over is the annual wrestling match with our window air conditioning units. We have two monsters - old Gargantuas that spit out 17,000 btu’s each. Last year, we put off taking them out in favor of storm windows until November and paid for it with a heating bill in December that brought out the smelling salts. Not this year, not with the cost of energy what it is. Hence, rather than waiting until the last gasp of Summer has run its course, we have arbitrarily set next weekend for the removal of the behemoths.

It isn’t the weight of these Paul Bunyans of the air conditioning world that makes them such a pain in the ass to move. It is their bulk. Their span rivals that of the wings on a 727. One can barely grasp each end at the same time. Of course, you need someone inside and another outside the window in order to first detach and then lift the Colossus, placing the entire burden on the poor unfortunate who happens to be outside while the inside person runs like hell through the house and out the door, hoping to reach the hapless victim before the elephantine machine falls on his foot and breaks a toe.

Then it’s off to the garage where the two of us must lift these mountains of ancient technology over our heads and on to a shelf where they will be wrapped in blankets like some gigantic steel infants and forgotten about until the following summer.

I suppose we could get new, lightweight, energy saving units but then, what fun would I have writing about that?

Yes, the days are noticeably shorter now, the birds not greeting me in the morning with their cheerful lyrics when I arise. I hear them today when I’m already well into my second cup of coffee. The dawn now struggles to appear before the early news and will soon lose that battle as well. Soon - too soon - the endless and inexorable will overtake our memories of anticipation and restless impatience for the days’ quickening beat as summer gives way to fall. Not a happy time. Nor does it quite impart the sighing sadness that we feel when the leaves begin to change, then fall, and then receive their first covering of frost, causing them to appear as whitened sculptures dotting the landscape, ever so delicate and oh so lovely.

Summer may not be gone but it is certainly being handed its hat and ushered toward the door. It is this time between the light and warmth and the darkness and cold that the ancients chose to observe their most sacred ceremonies. Perhaps they too felt the cold hand of winter closing around them and fought to remain in the light as long as possible. Perhaps they just wanted an excuse for a good party. Whatever the reason, we too observe and mark this time as the changing of the seasons once again connects us to the cycle of life and reminds us of our own mortality in the face of the immutable forces of nature.

Change, neither good nor bad, simply is. Get used to it. Spring is a long, long winter’s way off.

John Edwards is a very serious man.

He is very serious about his hair.

He is very serious about doing his part on global warming - adding to it by generating a carbon footprint the size of Rhode Island.

He is very serious about helping the poor - believing that by getting rich using junk science and New Age mumbo jumbo when suing doctors and then plowing his winnings into hedge funds, he can impoverish others thus adding to the poor’s numbers.

He is very serious about running for President. Just exactly who or what he wants to be President of might be a little hazy:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care.

“It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care,” he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK.”

He noted, for example, that women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to find and treat “the first trace of problem.” Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced earlier this year that her breast cancer had returned and spread.

Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans.

“The whole idea is a continuum of care, basically from birth to death,” he said.

One can immediately see the problem with this birth to death, “Health Care at the Point of a Bayonet” program the former Senator and Breck Girl has come up with. It’s not the cost of the program itself that would bust the treasury. It’s creating the National Health Care Police Force to make sure his diktats about going to doctors and having your head examined on a regular basis are enforced. Perhaps this is how Silky Pony intends to fight terrorism? Send the Doctor Police overseas and force al-Qaeda recruits to see their local shrink. I’ll bet half of the jihadis are committed on the spot.

I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop in Edwards’ “Gun to Your Head” preventive health care proposal; what will be the penalties for not going to the doctor when Nanny Sam says you must? Perhaps Edwards can come up with something unique and politically viable at the same time. Instead of using animals to test new drugs and new surgical techniques, why not punish American citizens who fail to follow orders about going to the doctor by making them the guinea pigs? Better that scofflaw doctor avoiders suffer the side effects of bad drugs than poor helpless rats. This would please his PETA supporters to no end while being a big help to Big-Pharm who no doubt will embrace any program that puts so many potential customers within spitting distance of a doctor, most of whom received their medical degrees with free drug samples attached.

Althouse has this pegged correctly:

And I predict Edwards will, within a day, chide us for misunderstanding what he meant by “require” and that “require” doesn’t mean you’ll be forced, only that the big bad medical establishment will be required to provide.

Just like “misunderstanding” Jane Hamsher putting Joe Lieberman in black face. We rubes are just too unsophisticated to get all this “nuance” don’t you know?

And where there is utter depraved stupidity, there is the Mexican President:

President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying “Mexico does not end at its borders.”

The criticism earned Calderon a standing ovation during his first state-of-the nation address.

“We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the U.S. Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers,” he said. “The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle … for their rights.”

He also reached out to the millions of Mexicans living in the United States, many illegally, saying: “Where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.”

Interesting, isn’t it? Calderon can’t even make that boast good in his own country! Millions of Mexican citizens live in areas not controlled by the Mexican government but by vicious, murdering drug gangs. His control over his own capitol is also in question since the speech where he uttered those inflammatory words was not delivered at the Mexican Capitol building, the San Lazaro, where tradition dictates it be given, but rather at the National Palace (Palacio Nacional). This is due to the opposition’s blocking him from making the speech at the capitol, claiming Calderon rigged the election that brought him to power.

Of course, he’s counting on the fact that his fighting words will create a backlash from illegal immigrant opponents which will gain sympathy and support for the lawbreakers from legal Mexicans and naturalized citizens here in America. This will only serve to put more pressure on the Democrats and President Bush to pass an amnesty bill sooner rather than later.

No doubt, many will overreact to Calderon’s carefully calculated insult to American sovereignty and thus play into his hands. But actually, this is truly pathetic from the Mexican President. He is reduced to political tricks in order to get the American government to acquiesce to immigration reform.

Recent data on remittances from immigrants in the US to Mexico shows a significant drop thanks to measures designed to make it harder for illegals to send money home. This may have Calderon worried because those remittances dump around $18 billion into the Mexican economy in much needed dollars. And those transfer payments are the second largest source of foreign income following oil exports. Is it any wonder that Calderon sees putting pressure on the US government to pass Bush’s immigration reform as vital to Mexican national interests?

Let the popinjay spout, I say. He can brag as much as he wishes about Mexico claiming sovereignty over anywhere in the US that an illegal immigrant is breaking the law. But in the end, his rhetoric is as empty as his head if he thinks that anyone actually believes such nonsense.

It took 106 days and nearly 160 fatalities for the Lebanese Army to clear out the nest of terrorists who had infested the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp but they finally finished the job yesterday, killing Fatah al-Islam’s leader Shakir al-Abssi in the process:

The Lebanese Army has finished off the Fatah al-Islam legend, killed its leader Shaker al-Abssi and 31 other terrorists and rounded up 20 in the 106th day of the confrontation at the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared.
Security agencies have launched a nationwide manhunt for 10 terrorists who escaped the battle Sunday by infiltrating through the al-Bared River stream.

Judicial sources told Naharnet a Palestinian cleric, who had mediated with Fatah al-Islam terrorists, identified al-Abssi’s body.

However, the judiciary issued a warrant to bring in al-Abssi’s wife and daughter to the public hospital in Tripoli to identify the body and, to conduct DNA tests that would provide the definite answer to questions related to identity of the alleged Abssi corpse, the sources explained.

Later reports from the hospital confirm that al-Abssi’s wife has in fact identified the body of her husband in the morgue.

Abssi created Fatah al-Islam last November following a break with the ultra radical Palestinian faction based in Syria Fatah al-Intifada. Sentenced to death in absentia for his role in the assassination of US Jordanian diplomat Laurence Foley, Abssi had previously fought with Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq and claims to have been inspired by al-Qaeda’s radical ideology, pledging his loyalty to Osama Bin Laden.

All that is known is that Abssi moved into Nahr al-Bared in November and in a matter of months, he had assembled 300 fighters (many of them Salifists from other Arab countries) and was training them at a makeshift camp. Many Lebanese believe that Abssi is a present from Syrian gangster President Bashar Assad. While Assad’s relations with the parent terror group Fatah al-Intifada are not the best, it is not beyond imagining that the Syrian president would have facilitated the creation and growth of Fatah al-Islam as a means to destabilize the Lebanese government.

Last spring, several members of Fatah al-Islam were implicated in a bank robbery and were traced to a building in Tripoli that housed a Fatah al-Islam office (the Lebanese government has also accused members of the group of carrying out a terrorist attack on commuter buses in February). The resulting gunfight turned into a siege with the terrorists finally blowing themselves up after a 3 day standoff. Other members of the group took refuge in the nearby Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, attacking the Lebanese army and vowing a fight to the death. The Lebanese army responded by firing artillery and heavy machine guns into the camp that housed 30,000 refugees at that time and the fight was on.

The Palestinian authorities in Lebanon at first tried to negotiate an end to the crisis but eventually, gave permission for the Lebanese army to enter the camp and take out the terrorists. And for the last 100 days, that is what the Lebanese Army has tried to do.

At first, the army tried frontal assaults on the terrorist positions which were repulsed with great loss of life. The Lebanese army had not fought a major engagement since the end of the civil war and its lack of training and experience showed. Gradually, and with what appeared to be rather indiscriminate use of heavy weapons, the Lebanese army began to shrink the pocket of terrorists until all that was left of their fortress like positions was a small group of destroyed buildings.

Some of the militants tried to sneak out through a tunnel, while another group tried to escape through a different path. Outside fighters arrived to help them, said security officials.

Army quickly deployed reinforcements to the camp, just outside the port city of Tripoli, blocked surrounding roads and set fires to nearby fields to deny fleeing militants a hiding place. Helicopters provided aerial reconnaissance for the military inside the camp, and checkpoints were erected as far as Beirut and southern Lebanon.

Villagers of nearby settlements, armed with guns and sticks, also came out to help the army and protect their houses, the state TV reported.

By the end of the day, the camp was in Lebanese army control and authorities declared victory over Fatah Islam. Officials said the army killed 39 militants and captured 20. It was not immediately known how many militants managed to escape.

The final civilian death toll is almost certainly higher than the official number of 20. Early days of the fighting saw the Lebanese army bombarding the camp with tank and artillery rounds while spraying heavy machine gun fire down the narrow streets. An early cease fire allowed most of the residents in the camp to escape. But there are still thousands of refugees in Nahr al-Bared who have been without water or food for months.

The Lebanese people are celebrating this victory by the army with Prime Minister Siniora going on television to praise their performance and pledging to rebuild the camp - under Lebanese control:

“It is a great success that the Lebanese army has achieved over the terrorists, those who sought chaos, destruction and tragedies for Lebanon,” he said in a televised speech to the country.

He pledged that the Lebanese government would rebuild Nahr al-Bared, but said that the camp would be placed under the authority of the state and “only the Lebanese state.”

“As we said at the beginning of the battle, the Lebanese state is committed to rebuilding the camp and today we are restating this pledge,” Saniora said, adding that he had called for a meeting of donor countries on September 10 to help in rebuilding efforts.

“As the state stood by you when you were forced to flee Nahr al-Bared, we stand by you again in rebuilding the camp so that you can return there with your heads held high,” Saniora said, addressing the estimated 30,000 Palestinian refugees who were forced to flee at the start of the standoff between the army and Fatah al-Islam militants on May 20.

The significance of this declaration of Lebanese control of Nahr al-Bared should not be lost on the Palestinian authorities. There are 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon with internal security in them controlled by the PLO. The Lebanese army by tradition maintained security around the camps and was actually forbidden by a 1969 accord to enter. That agreement was voided by the Lebanese parliament in 1987 but had been maintained ever since because the potential for unrest in the camps if the Lebanese army violated the pact was great. Then, UN Resolution 1559 called upon Lebanon to establish sovereignty over all its land and disband the militias including Hizbullah and the Palestinian groups patrolling the refugee camps. So far, the Lebanese government has failed to implement 1559 but this declaration by Siniora would seem to be the first time that the Lebanese government has sought to establish its sovereignty where it had not been previously.

The practical benefits of the army’s victory should not be overlooked. While their initial efforts were less than successful and indeed, quite amateurish, the soldiers seemed to gain in confidence and ability as the siege wore on. Woefully underequipped, the army nevertheless ended up making the entire country proud by facing down and defeating a well armed, entrenched enemy.

Indeed, all of Lebanon is celebrating today - even the Hizbullah led opposition which had the good sense to support the efforts of the government to eradicate the terrorists despite the 9 month cabinet crisis that continues to threaten the stability of the country. There is little doubt that the army is the only major institution in Lebanon that is seen to be above politics (even though that may be less true than most Lebanese realize). Their well earned victory today gives a much needed boost to the besieged Siniora government while uniting the Lebanese, if briefly, in celebration.

What tomorrow will bring is a different story.

UPDATE: “VICTORY BABE”

I couldn’t resist. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a smile on the face of a beautiful Lebanese woman - without a doubt the best looking demonstrators in the world: