Right Wing Nut House

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Yours truly will be handling comment moderating duties. I would also encourage some of the saner lefties who comment here (and you know who you are) to register at Michelle’s. She would especially welcome thoughtful liberals in her comments section.

My latest article for PJ Media is up and it should generate a little controversy.

Rudy Giuliani has made his actions on 9/11 the centerpiece of his campaign for the presidency - if not outwardly then certainly by implication. And there is no doubt that his performance that day was magnificent - for the most part.

But what he did prior to 9/11 and after may prove a little more problematic for Rudy:

“Questions that were arguably glossed over by the 9/11 Commission, about the communications snafus that led to so many firefighters losing their lives, as well as a perceived lack of compassion for workers cleaning up Ground Zero will dog his campaign and actually be used against him by his opponents… Instead of a positive, 9/11 could end up as a millstone around his neck, dragging him down to defeat.”

There has been no greater boon to historians and others seeking the truth of government actions than the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI and Intel agencies hate it. Bureaucrats despise it - mostly because it piles on lots of extra paperwork duties. And Administrations from LBJ’s White House to the present have been embarrassed by what researchers - professional and amateur - have been able to bring to light.

The latest FOIA bombshell comes to us via Judicial Watch. You may recall these folks from the Clinton scandals, specifically their assistance to Paula Jones. At that time, the left accused them of being a right wing smear machine funded by Richard Mellon Scaife.

I wonder what the left is saying about them today?

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released new documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) related to the “expeditious departure” of Saudi nationals, including members of the bin Laden family, from the United States following the 9/11 attacks. According to one of the formerly confidential documents, dated 9/21/2001, terrorist Osama bin Laden may have chartered one of the Saudi flights.

The document states: “ON 9/19/01, A 727 PLANE LEFT LAX, RYAN FLT #441 TO ORLANDO, FL W/ETA (estimated time of arrival) OF 4-5PM. THE PLANE WAS CHARTERED EITHER BY THE SAUDI ARABIAN ROYAL FAMILY OR OSAMA BIN LADEN…THE LA FBI SEARCHED THE PLANE [REDACTED] LUGGAGE, OF WHICH NOTHING UNUSUAL WAS FOUND.” The plane was allowed to depart the United States after making four stops to pick up passengers, ultimately landing in Paris where all passengers disembarked on 9/20/01, according to the document.

Overall, the FBI’s most recent document production includes details of the six flights between 9/14 and 9/24 that evacuated Saudi royals and bin Laden family members. The documents also contain brief interview summaries and occasional notes from intelligence analysts concerning the cursory screening performed prior to the departures. According to the FBI documents, incredibly not a single Saudi national nor any of the bin Laden family members possessed any information of investigative value.

This is more than curious. It is suspicious. At a National Security Council meeting at 3:30 PM on 9/11, CIA Chief George Tenet said that it was “virtually certain” that Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were behind the attacks. FBI Director Mueller was also at this meeting and heard Tenet’s analysis, including the NSA’s interception of al-Qaeda communications revealing the terrorists congratulating one another on the success of the operation. (Even the more cautious 9/11 Commission said of this meeting “At about 3:15, President Bush met with his principal advisers through a secure video teleconference. Rice said President Bush began the meeting with the words, “We’re at war,” and that Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said the agency was still assessing who was responsible, but the early signs all pointed to al Qaeda.”)

So if the US government had even an inkling that al-Qaeda was behind the attacks, why did they allow a flight out of the country carrying Osama bin Laden? Already a wanted man for the embassy bombings in Africa, what possible excuse involving stupidity, incompetence, or any other human failing could account for this monumental blunder?

Let’s ask Richard Clark:

First, we found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13, 2001.24 To the contrary, every flight we have identified occurred after national airspace reopened.25

Second, we found no evidence of political intervention. We found no evidence that anyone at the White House above the level of Richard Clarke participated in a decision on the departure of Saudi nationals. The issue came up in one of the many video teleconferences of the interagency group Clarke chaired, and Clarke said he approved of how the FBI was dealing with the matter when it came up for interagency discussion at his level. Clarke told us, “I asked the FBI, Dale Watson . . . to handle that, to check to see if that was all right with them, to see if they wanted access to any of these people, and to get back to me. And if they had no objections, it would be fine with me.” Clarke added, “I have no recollection of clearing it with anybody at the White House.”26

Although White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card remembered someone telling him about the Saudi request shortly after 9/11, he said he had not talked to the Saudis and did not ask anyone to do anything about it. The President and Vice President told us they were not aware of the issue at all until it surfaced much later in the media. None of the officials we interviewed recalled any intervention or direction on this matter from any political appointee.27

To make matters worse, the FBI apparently did not do a thorough job of searching and interrogating the Saudis on those flights - even if Osama was not among them:

Overall, the FBI’s most recent document production includes details of the six flights between 9/14 and 9/24 that evacuated Saudi royals and bin Laden family members. The documents also contain brief interview summaries and occasional notes from intelligence analysts concerning the cursory screening performed prior to the departures. According to the FBI documents, incredibly not a single Saudi national nor any of the bin Laden family members possessed any information of investigative value.

Moreover, the documents contain numerous errors and inconsistencies which call to question the thoroughness of the FBI’s investigation of the Saudi flights. For example, on one document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 20 of 23 passengers on the Ryan International Airlines flight (commonly referred to as the “Bin Laden Family Flight”). On another document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 15 of 22 passengers on the same flight.

It bears repeating that 9/11 Cassandra Richard Clark appears to be responsible for allowing these flights to begin with. Sort of puts a dent in Mr. Clark’s self-proclaimed anti-terrorism bona fides, no? Maybe the next time he shows up on one of the Sunday morning talkies, some intrepid journalist will ask him about this?

Not likely.

Perhaps most shocking to me is that the FBI failed at the most basic level of investigative competence possible; they seemed not to be curious about who was on those flights and what they might know about 9/11. I realize this will bring the 9/11 kooks and loons out of the closet with explanations of the Bush family’s close ties to the Saudis and how they wanted Osama to escape anyway. Unfortunately for them, Richard Clark (no friend of Bush, my tin-foil hat wearing friends) appears to be the highest level government official who knew of these flights in advance and authorized them. There is zero evidence that Bush or Cheney knew of these charters or authorized them in any way.

Another nagging question is what the 9/11 Commission staffers made of these memos when they read them? One would think that a mention of Osama Bin Laden in an FBI report on the Saudi flights would have raised every red flag possible and led to hauling Mueller, Clark, and the investigating agents before the Commission to explain themselves. The fact that Commission staffers either missed these reports or never acted upon them is just more evidence that the Commission itself had flawed investigative procedures.

Or they never saw the reports at all. This raises other, more troubling questions, about what else the FBI failed to give the Commission.

I will say that the idea that Osama was in the United States in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 seems implausible. But given the incompetence of our intelligence, counter intelligence, administrative, and political national security infrastructure that was exposed by 9/11, it is not out of the realm of the impossible.

UPDATE AND AN APOLOGY - SORT OF

This report has been denied outright by the FBI who assures us that they investigated the Saudis thoroughly before allowing them to leave.

While I have no doubt that the Osama angle has been overblown - and I apologize to my readers for being dumb enough to forget what Neo was kind enough to point out in the comments; that Osama was in Afghanistan just hours after the towers fell answering questions about the attack, I still think the Judicial Watch reports raise difficult questions for the FBI and, by extension, the 9/11 Commission.

But my reaction to the idea that Osama may have been on one of the planes or even that he may have chartered one of the flights was so wrong as to be laughable. For that, I apologize.

Why do the fabulously rich think they have insight into the problems of the world that the rest of us mere mortals lack?

Ross Perot, Donald Trump, Steve Forbes, the Rockefellers, the DuPonts - all have either run for President or have been mentioned prominently as a possible candidate for the office. The fact that none of them have come close isn’t the point (Nelson Rockefeller perhaps had the best chance but was destroyed by Barry Goldwater in ‘64). The problem is we have to sit and listen to their hectoring lectures about how if only we put a real business executive in charge of the government, our problems would be solved in a jiffy. After all, these are people who’ve made a gazillion dollars (or their fathers, grandfathers, or great grandfathers made the family fortune) and think that their no-nonsense, unflappable executive style leadership personae is just the thing to whip this country into shape.

The latest entry into this most exclusive club of American aristocrats to believe he has what it takes to govern well and wisely is former Democrat, now former Republican, declared “independent” (whatever that means), and still Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg. Back in 2001, Bloomberg didn’t think he had a shot at the Democratic party’s nomination for Mayor so he did what all rich people do when confronted with a roadblock; he altered the playing field by shamelessly switching parties and running as a Republican. Spreading $73 million around of his own money, Bloomberg was barely able to beat liberal gadfly Mark Green in the general election.

Re-elected in 2005, Bloomberg set his sights on the Presidency. His name has floated around as a possible candidate in Republican circles for years, although he was significantly overshadowed by two other Republicans in the state - Rudy Giuliani and Governor George Pataki.

What’s a poor little rich boy to do? Since the party was not going to come to him, Bloomberg decided the only way he could experience the thrill of having pundits and political insiders take him seriously as a national candidate would be to leave the party system behind and strike out as an independent:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced Tuesday that he was dropping his Republican affiliation, a step that could clear the way for him to make an independent bid for the presidency.

The announcement was released during a campaign-style swing through California, during which Mr. Bloomberg, 65, a billionaire businessman, used increasingly sharp language to criticize both parties in Washington as too timid to take on big problems and too locked into petty squabbling to work together.

“I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead my city,” Mr. Bloomberg’s statement read. “Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles, and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology.”

One assumes that if elected, Mr. Bloomberg would not be “too timid to take on big problems.” That very well might be the case. But he can be as bold as brass and still not get anything done. That’s because there’s a very good reason politicians are too timid to take on the “big problems.”

Trying to solve the nation’s problems always means getting some of the voters mad at you. Not everyone will be convinced that your brilliant solutions to Iraq, the deficit, entitlement programs, social security, Medicare, homeland security, and terrorism are the way to proceed. Many citizens (and perhaps even some lawmakers), in fact, may well wish to hang you in effigy and call you nasty names. And without some kind of party apparatus to whip House and Senate members into line, you have about as much chance of passing any of your heartfelt, carefully thought out solutions to our problems as Paris Hilton has of emerging from jail with her hair shorn, wearing sack cloth and ashes, and chanting the Confiteor - in Latin.

Politicians are not going to stick their neck out for a President Bloomberg just because he’s sincere and has solutions that make sense. He could be the greatest communicator since Reagan (he’s a bore as a speaker) and still fail miserably. Bloomberg can’t be unaware of this which makes his desire to run sheer vanity. As a mutli billionaire (he’s ranked 44th wealthiest man in the world), a hundred million of his own money spent on a Presidential run would give him instant credibility - at least in the eyes of the media. But if he got more than 5% in the general election, I would be shocked.

Having the golden touch at making money and governing the United States of America represent two different skill sets. Why we would think that someone successful in business would be able to translate that skill into being able to deal with al-Qaeda? Or reform entitlements? It won’t wash with the voters. It never has.

If Bloomberg were to give in to the temptation and run for President, who would he potentially hurt more? Conventional wisdom has him taking votes away from the Democratic presidential candidate due to his more liberal views on social issues like abortion and gay marriage. But what happens if Rudy Giuliani receives the Republican nomination? Then all bets are off and both parties would scramble like hell to keep Bloomberg off the ballot in as many states as possible. Why take the chance that Bloomberg will siphon votes away from your candidate?

Just how much would Bloomberg be willing to spend of his own fortune in this vanity run? His legal bills are going to be astronomical as he fights to get his name on as many state ballots as possible. Couple that with spending on paid media, staff, campaign travel, and the number he may be looking at will be approaching $150 million or more. If he goes ahead and takes the plunge, it could end up being the most expensive indulgence ever embraced by a vainglorious aristocrat yet.

J.P. Morgan or Andrew Carnegie would never have spent that much. They considered the Presidency a step down. What does that say about today’s robber barons?

We’ll go live today with The Rick Moran Show starting at 3:00 PM central time. You can access the stream here or by clicking the “Listen live” icon below.

Today’s show will feature Richard Baehr, Chief Political correspondent for The American Thinker. We’ll talk about - what else? Politics! Richard is a great guest so I hope you join me.

You can give your opinion during the hour long show by calling in at (718) 664-9764.

UPDATE:

You can download the podcast of the show here. Or click the player below to hear it.

It used to be that the conspiracy bug was almost exclusively confined to right wing extremists - Birchers, Klansmen, McCarthyites, and a mish mash of anti-government, anti-communist (where many believed the commies had already taken over the US government), and anti-UN psychopaths. According to the eminent historian Richard Hofstadter’s brilliant essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics , these pathetic people felt that they had no control over their lives, that “an invisible hand” was directing their destiny and the destiny of the nation.

Scholar Daniel Pipes expounded on this theme more recently with his book Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From. Pipes traces the history of conspiracy mongering from the Middle East, to Western Europe (where regular pogroms against the Jews were the result) and it’s arrival here in America with its roots in the anti-Masonic, anti-Illuminati groups of the 19th century.

Now James Piereson, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, president of the William E. Simon Foundation, and former executive director and trustee of the John M. Olin Foundation, has written a book that posits the theory that the JFK assassination “compromised the central assumptions of American liberalism” thereby devastating the left as no other event did before or has since. This led American liberals to several wrong historical conclusions which gave flight to a conspiracy culture of their own.

The book, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism, is not the first effort to use the Kennedy Assassination as a starting point to show where liberalism lost its way. Theodore H. White’s brilliant autobiographical In Search of History made basically the same point; that the unfulfilled promise of the JFK presidency haunted liberals down to this day. From tragedy, there emerged a culture of paranoia that saw the “invisible hand” at work - not of Masons or Communists, but of right wing extremists both in and out of government. White also commented on the takeover of the liberal ideology - his ideology - by hard left Stalinists as New Deal Democrats like Humphrey were marginalized as a result of their support for the Viet Nam war.

John Miller interviewed Piereson for the National Review. It should be noted that Piereson is a well respected academic whose main interest over the years has been to promote an ideologically neutral atmosphere in our educational system - in other words, a “classically liberal” education. While he is generally identified as being a moderate conservative, Mr. Piereson has not been shy about taking on the right over issues such as teaching evolution in classrooms and prayer in schools.

Miller begins the interview by asking how the JFK assassination changed American politics:

JAMES PIERESON: Kennedy’s assassination, happening the way it did, compromised the central assumptions of American liberalism that had been the governing philosophy of the nation since the time of the New Deal. It did this in two decisive ways: first, by compromising the faith of liberals in the future; second, by undermining their confidence in the nation. Kennedy’s assassination suggested that history is not in fact a benign process of progress and advancement, but perhaps something quite different. The thought that the nation itself was responsible for Kennedy’s death suggested that the United States, far from being a “city on a hill” and an example for mankind, as Kennedy had described it (quoting John Winthrop), was in fact something darker and more sinister in its deepest nature.

The conspiracy theories that developed afterwards reflected this thought. The Camelot legend further suggested that that the Kennedy years represented something unique that was now forever lost. Liberalism was thereafter overtaken by a sense of pessimism about the future, cynicism about the United States, and nostalgia for the Kennedy years. This was something entirely new in the United States. It was evident in the culture during the 1960s. George Wallace tried to confront it in the electoral arena in 1968, as did Richard Nixon — though it was somewhat difficult to do so because neither Lyndon Johnson nor Hubert Humphrey represented this new orientation. It was not until this mood of pessimism was brought into the government during the Carter administration that it could be directly confronted in the political arena, which is what Ronald Reagan in fact did.

Miller challenges Piereson on the notion that 11/22/63 meant more than 9/11:

We know from looking back over the decades that Kennedy’s sudden death cast a long shadow over American life, which I have tried to describe. Many of us thought that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 would also have great consequences for the way Americans looked at politics, the parties, and national security. In particular, some felt that the attacks might drive out of our politics the tone of anti-Americanism that had been a key feature of the American Left from the 1960s forward. That did not really happen. The liberal movement today remains far more the product of the 1960s than of the terrorist attacks and their aftermath. Indeed, the terrorist attacks now seem to have had very little effect on the thinking of American liberals who view the war on terror and the war in Iraq through the lenses of the Vietnam War. That is not true of conservatives. In that sense, the terrorist attacks have simply deepened the divide between liberals and conservatives. What is surprising, then, is what little enduring effect the terrorist attacks have had, particularly for liberals.

I have written many times on this site with all the earnestness that I can muster that it is absolutely imperative that if we are going to survive as a nation and win this war against the terrorists and the states that continue to enable them, the left simply must join this fight. Until liberals embrace the notion that the War on Terror or whatever you choose to call it is real and not some political ploy designed by President Bush to win elections, or set up a dictatorship, or destroy the left itself, we have no hope of either confronting the menace or winning through to victory. The intellectual framework for the survival of the west has always been best outlined by classically liberal writers and thinkers. Today, they are missing in action and it hurts the cause terribly.

Piereson believes a large part of the problem is that the left has their eyes focused on the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza:

Liberals who were rational and realistic accepted the fact that Oswald killed JFK but at the same time they were unable to ascribe a motive for his actions. They tended to look for sociological explanations for the event and found one in the idea that JFK was brought down by a “climate of hate” that had overtaken the nation. Thus they placed Kennedy’s assassination within a context of violence against civil rights activists. They had great difficulty accepting the fact that Kennedy’s death was linked to the Cold War, not to civil rights. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., in his 1,000-page history of the Kennedy administration, published in 1965, could not bring himself to mention Oswald’s name in connection with Kennedy’s death, though he spent several paragraphs describing the hate-filled atmosphere of Dallas at the time — suggesting thereby that Kennedy was a victim of the far right. The inability to come to grips with the facts of Kennedy’s death pointed to a deeper fault in American liberalism which was connected to its decline.

Gerald Posner points out in his conspiracy debunking book on the assassination Case Closed that theorists have gone to extraordinary lengths to absolve Oswald of any connection to the crime at all. He traces the theories on Oswald’s involvement from the notion that he was an assassin hired by the CIA or FBI through the “patsy” phase to where now, Oswald is thought of by many conspiracists as an innocent bystander. Anything but the truth about Oswald’s political leanings.

To be fair, it is doubtful that Oswald really understood Communism or any other ideology for that matter. He embraced it because it set him apart, made him different. And for someone as brutally neglected as Oswald was when he was young, basking in the glow of attention as a result of his contrarian political stands - especially in the Marine Corps - it must have given him an enormous amount of satisfaction.

As historian William Manchester points out in his seminal work on the assassination Death of a President, “Lee Harvey Oswald shot the President of the United States in the back to get attention.” Rather than looking for complex, multi-level reasons for why Kennedy and Oswald’s paths crossed that tragic day in Dealey Plaza, sometimes the simplest explanations are the most plausible.

Piereson weighs in on Oliver Stone’s fantasy film JFK:

The Oliver Stone movie was foolish to the extent it was held up as an account of the Kennedy assassination. Using Jim Garrison as a credible authority on the Kennedy assassination is akin to citing Rosie O’Donnell as an authority on the collapse of the Twin Towers. It is not possible to claim that Kennedy was shot from the grassy knoll without at the same time claiming that the autopsy (which said he was shot from the rear) was wrong or fabricated. The conspiracy theories do not arise from any evidence but from a need to believe that Kennedy was shot by someone other than Oswald.

Garrison, the ambitious, homophobic New Orleans DA who prosecuted Clay Shaw for the murder of JFK made Mike Nifong look like a pillar of legal rectitude. The fact that the jury returned a verdict in 45 minutes of not guilty should tell you everything you need to know about Garrison’s out of control prosecution. (One juror said after the verdict that the reason they took so long was that several jurors had to use the washroom.) Making Garrison out to be a hero in the film was perhaps the most outrageous calumny in the history of Hollywood. The damage done to the historical record by Stone should never, ever be forgotten.

Finally, Miller asks Piereson about Jack Ruby:

MILLER: Would liberals have had an easier time of it if Jack Ruby hadn’t killed Oswald?

PIERESON: If Ruby had not intervened, Oswald probably would have tried to stage some kind of “show” trial in which Kennedy’s policies in Cuba would have been raised as a central issue. Oswald proudly acknowledged that he was a Communist. If the case had been brought to trial, Oswald would have certainly been convicted. In that case, it would have been far more difficult for liberals and the Kennedy family to maintain that JFK was killed because of his support for civil rights. There would have been less talk of conspiracies; less anti-Americanism from the left; perhaps it would have further reinforced the anti-communism of post-war liberalism. There is no question that Ruby changed the equation a great deal.

Recent theories about the Mafia’s involvement in the assassination include not only Ruby as silencer but Oswald as trigger man thanks to a distant uncle of Oswald’s who worked for New Orleans crime boss Carlos Marcello. The thought of any one of those gabby losers working for the Mafia on a hit the magnitude of the Kennedy assassination is outrageous on its face. Besides, federal agents had Marcello, Sam Trafficante, and Sam Giancana - all three implicated by conspiracists in the assassination - under close surveillance for years prior to the death of Kennedy and not a word was uttered by any of them that would prove they had anything to do with the murder.

I think Piereson is right. I believe that the assassination so unbalanced the left that they have yet to find their way back. Spinning ever more fantastic conspiracy theories to explain electoral losses, describe their political enemies, and generally view the world with a suspicion and paranoia once reserved for the mouth breathers on the right, the left has truly lost their way. Perhaps it will take someone like Senator Obama - a sunnyside up sort of liberal - to reinvigorate the movement and bring it back down to earth.

And then perhaps, we can all go to war together rather than the left hanging back while seeing monsters under the bed.

As the race for the Republican presidential nomination heats up, it becomes more and more apparent that the GOP hopefuls are convinced that President George Bush suffers from some kind of highly contagious, debilitating disease. The way they seek to distance themselves from he and his policies would generally point to one of two things; either Bush has contracted some exotic malady or his poll numbers are so low that he has become the “Typhoid Larry” of electoral politics:

Recent polls have shown Bush’s popularity — which has long been in the tank with independents — suffering significant erosion even among GOP base voters, largely due to a backlash over the president’s stance on immigration.

The decline, according to some Republican strategists, has flashed a green light for lawmakers on Capitol Hill and presidential candidates to put distance between themselves and an unpopular president — a politically essential maneuver for the 2008 general election that remained risky as long as Bush retained the sympathies of Republican stalwarts.

Now that those sympathies have somewhat cooled, the effects are visible: Republican House members upset about immigration policy have spoken of Bush in disparaging terms. And presidential contenders like Rudy Giuliani are striking change-the-course themes in their rhetoric, even while continuing to back Bush over the Iraq war.

Much has changed since that first debate at the Reagan Library in California when each GOP candidate in his turn gave lip service to supporting the President. But lately, the Republican front runners especially have made it a point to make their differences with the President known to the voters. Even on Iraq, Senator Sam Brownback has broken with the Administration, calling for a partition of that bloody country into three separate federal entities; Shia, Sunni, and Kurd. And all the GOP frontrunners except John McCain have excoriated the President over his immigration proposal.

In fact, the debate over Bush’s “amnesty-that-really-isn’t-amnesty-because-I-say-so” bill is being blamed for this erosion of support. But I believe that to be much too simple an explanation. There are a large group of Republicans and GOP leaning voters who have had it up to here with Bush and have been waiting for a chance to stick it to this President for a variety of perceived failings including his out of control fiscal policies, his advocacy of big government programs like the Prescription Drug Bill, and even Iraq where some of the GOP faithful believe that Bush has been negligent in both defending our efforts there as well as prosecuting the war with sufficient competence and vigor.

Whatever the reason for this sudden movement away from Bush by the GOP field, all must take great care not to cut the cord completely. Bush still commands the support of more than 60% of the party and abandoning the President entirely carries the risk of sounding too much like a Democrat, much less giving offense to millions of conservatives who still view the President with affection and admiration. It remains to be seen whether or not Bush can even maintain that level of support given his nearly suicidal attacks on opponents of his pet amnesty project. No one likes to be called a bigot in so many words. And if he keeps that up, about the only supporters he’ll have will be the bedrock Republican faithful who would support anyone with an “R” after his name on the ballot.

But all of this slipping and sliding away from Bush by the GOP field will probably go for naught anyway. That’s because whoever emerges to claim the nomination will have to face the fact that just about every time a Democratic campaign commercial comes on TV next year, it will show the GOP nominee on one side of the screen and some unflattering picture of the President on the other. The Democrats are going to connect the Republican Presidential hopeful to Bush like superglue. And by the time they’re done, voters will think that Bush running for a third term.

So what’s the point of breaking with the President if the other party isn’t going to let voters forget George Bush? If the other candidate’s name is Clinton, the Democrats are going to have their own problems in breaking with the past. Looked upon with great affection by Democrats and left leaning independents, Bill Clinton is a lot less beloved in many parts of the electorate vital to the Democrat’s prospects for success. The idea of “The Bill and Hill Show” coming back to the White House does not sit well with about half of all independents. And Hillary’s negative rating - an astronomical 49% in the last Rassmussen poll - would seem to indicate that a GOP counter strategy of tying Hillary to her husband’s scandal plagued administration could end up making the entire issue of running away from Bush a wash.

The most marked retreat from support for the President among the frontrunners has been by Rudy Guiliani, who invoked the name of Reagan in an unflattering comparison to the current President:

But the willingness of leading Republicans to draw distinctions with Bush goes beyond immigration. “The thing that concerns me the most is that 74 percent that thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction,” Giuliani said last week at a Flag Day ceremony in Wilmington, Del., in a reference to recent polling. “What we’re lacking is strong, aggressive, bold leadership like we had with Ronald Reagan.” Later, he sought to downplay the apparent shot at the incumbent, underlining the awkward balance GOP candidates must strike in establishing independence from Bush without expressly repudiating him.

You can’t come much closer to a “repudiation” than that. Calling the ostensible leader of your party a weak and failed leader with 74% of the country believing we’re headed in the wrong direction cannot be construed in any fashion as a love note. By appealing to the memory of Saint Ronald, Guiliani softened the blow to those bedrock Republicans who like Bush but worship Reagan. And his backtracking later was hardly an apology for misspeaking. By referencing his statements to campaign strategy, Guiliani reinforces the belief that while he recognizes the balancing act he must perform, there is little doubt that he feels the need to get as far away from Bush as is practicable.

The closer we get to the primaries, the more we will probably see the GOP field edging away from the President. But there are going to be moments when the eventual nominee will be forced to stand with Bush, such as the Republican convention next summer. You can’t keep a sitting President from speaking no matter how unpopular he might be. But whoever ends up in the Republican’s winner’s circle, they may be wishing for a sudden power outage at the Xcel Center in St. Paul when it comes time for the President’s address if his poll numbers keep dropping the way they have these last few months.

Ezra Klein, one of my favorite lefty bloggers, is challenging liberal hawks to be more specific on whether or not they support military action against Iran. He thinks that their previous support for Iraq has made them gun shy and they are therefore carrying on an intellectually dishonest game of refusing to dialogue with liberal doves over any possible causus belli regarding Iranian nukes.

Today’s liberal hawks are engaged in a slightly subtler game. The Iraq war is an acknowledged catastrophe. The same group-think and bandwagon effects that once pushed them so irresistibly towards embracing the invasion is now similarly forceful in pulling them to abandon it. The question, for many, is how to finesse that flip without losing one’s reputation for unparalleled foreign policy seriousness. The answer is Iran.

The new approach is not to refight the battle over the Iraq war, but to argue that those who got it right, or who got it wrong but eventually came to the right answer, are now in danger of overlearning the lessons of the war — and missing the danger posed by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An elegant entry into this burgeoning genre comes from Ken Baer in the latest issue of Democracy. “[A] president’s past mistakes,” writes Baer, “can so preoccupy political leaders that they lose sight of the dangers ahead or the principles they hold dear.” In the conclusion of his piece, he warns that progressives must “not use anger at one war as an excuse to blink when confronting a future threat head on.”

The liberal hawks’ exculpatory proof for their support of the Iraq war is based on what Sam Rosenfeld and Matthew Yglesias termed “The Incompetence Dodge”: a focus on the war’s mismanagement and poor administration rather than on the question of whether it could have ever succeeded in the first place. The dodge enables opposition to the war’s continuation without a conceptual reevaluation of the war’s worth, which means there’s no conceptual reevaluation of preventative wars in the Middle East more generally. Now, in order to avoid turning the Iran question into just such a first-order conversation but instead use it for another round of more-serious-than-thou point-scoring, many liberal hawks are relying on a different tactic altogether: sheer vagueness.

First of all, any rational discussion of the case for going to war in Iraq must include the initial balance sheet of pluses and minuses. This, after all, is what serious people base serious decisions upon; evaluating the cost/benefit ratio of any potential actions in order to reach a reasonable conclusion about the chances for success or failure.

Put aside the knee jerk dove position that no war (save fighting off invasion of the United States) is worth fighting and indeed, is an immoral exercise in enforcing the will of the stronger over that of the weaker. May as well also closet the knee jerk neo-con argument that war is a necessary adjunct to the pursuit of American interests and that where there is any chance - Cheney’s “One Percent policy - that a nation state is a threat to the United States, that threat must be neutralized.

Both arguments are relatively simple minded and don’t really describe hawks and doves anyway. The question I am asking is prior to the invasion, was there a legitimate, defensible argument for going to war and overthrowing Saddam Hussein?

The answer is obviously yes. Doves might counter that they warned us of this dire consequence or that but the fact is, that’s Monday morning quarterbacking. The weight given to those specific probabilities prior to the invasion could have legitimately been much less for a hawk than it was for a dove. After all, there were many predictions about the war made by doves that turned out to be laughably - even incompetently - wrong. There were not 10,000 dead Americans coming home in body bags as a result of the predicted street fighting in the “Battle for Baghdad.” There were not thousands of dead Americans because Saddam used his chemical weapons. There were not millions of Iraqi refugees as a result of the fighting (what has transpired since is an entirely different matter with 750,000 internally displaced people, driven from their homes for sectarian reasons).

And there were as many as 5 different times that doves asserted as fact that Iraq was in a civil war beginning as soon as a month after Saddam’s statue fell in Baghdad. Even today, while the bloodletting on both sides of the sectarian divide is grim, Sunnis and Shias are serving in the army together as well as sitting side by side in a freely elected parliament - another dire prediction of failure by doves that never came true. There is certainly a civil war between some Sunnis and some Shias. But others are fighting to control that violence and begin the process of national reconciliation (would that they would get some help from the Iraqi government).

But does Klein have a point when he talks about “the incompetence dodge?” Is laying the blame for the current situation in Iraq on Bush or on any one of a variety of critiques that point up the perceived incompetence of the Administration or the Pentagon a legitimate reason to change one’s position and come out against the war? Again, we return to the continually evolving cost/benefit analysis for an answer. And there is now a legitimate, logical case that can be made that because of many mistakes and blunders made in the last 4 years by Bush and the military, the downside of staying in Iraq with our current force structure and mission has tipped the scales in favor of some kind of redeployment. Klein thinks that this kind of thinking doesn’t lead to “conceptualizing” the error of the hawk’s ways. I beg to differ. By constantly evaluating and re-evaluating the case for war, such analysis deepens understanding of both the original factors that animated the hawk’s initial position as well as fleshing out any change in thinking caused by changing circumstances in Iraq. The rigid kind of thinking espoused by Klein leaves no room for such flexibility.

But Klein isn’t necessarily arguing the illegitimacy of this change of heart among liberal hawks. Rather he connects “the incompetence dodge” with the lefty hawk’s vagueness on the issue of going to war with Iran as another sign of dishonesty:

The remarkable thing about the growing liberal hawk literature on Iran is its evasiveness — the unwillingness to speak in concrete terms of both the threat and proposed remedies. The liberal hawks realize they were too eager in counseling war last time, and their explicit statements in support of invasion have caused them no end of trouble since. This time, they will advocate no such thing. But nor will they eschew it. They will simply criticize those who do take a position.

Iran raises several complicated questions, but also a simple one: Do you think military force is called for in preventing Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons? Some, like me, say no. Some also, like me, do not believe the evidence supports the contention that Iran is a fully totalitarian society under the rule of a crazed and suicidal Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, and in fact think that such portrayals should be resisted and identified as part of a larger, pro-war narrative. This is how I ended up in Baer’s article as a convenient straw liberal who “excuse[s] the Iran regime, all the better to deny the very existence of a threat.”

Is Klein mistaking caution for “evasiveness?” In something of a surprise to me, Senator Obama has come out and said that the military option against Iran is not off the table. Clearly, some liberals - even those who could be called doves on the War in Iraq - can see that Iran is threatening enough that totally abandoning the military option would not be wise. And as far as I know, there are few serious advocates for military action against Iran who has made the case that Iran is “a fully totalitarian society under the rule of a crazed and suicidal Mahmoud Ahmadenijad…”

Ahmadinejad is a mystic - and a cipher. He is also, for lack of a better word, a fanatic who is using proxies throughout the Middle East to sow discord and kill innocents. And Iran’s Supreme Leader’s only check is the Assembly of Experts who can overrule him only if they can agree that his decrees run counter to the Koran. The fact that candidates for that body are chosen by The Guardian Council - half of whose membership is appointed by the Supreme Leader - means that you don’t get to run for the Experts Assembly unless you are pretty much in the Leader’s pocket.

While not a “totalitarian” government in the traditional sense, the power in the Iranian state is concentrated in very few hands. And the power of the Supreme Leader is enormous. Rival factions vie for his support and blessing, jockeying for position by trying to be more Catholic than the Pope, so to speak. And while Ahmadinejad has displeased Supreme Leader Khamenei with his over the top rhetoric at times, his anti-corruption campaign and now his cultural revolution has the Leader’s 100% backing.

None of this reveals intent. Just what does the Iranian regime intend to do with nukes if they get them. Israel doesn’t want to find out and will almost certainly attack - even if the prospects for success are slight. The Jewish state simply cannot afford to dismiss the Iranian President’s eliminationist rhetoric directed against Israel. And any Israeli attack will be seen as an attack by America by the Iranians. If that is to be the case, there would be tremendous pressure on Washington to either carry out the attack itself or assist the Israelis in their war effort. “In for a penny, in for a pound” rings true in this case. If the Iranian reaction to an attack by Israel would be the same whether we join in or not, we may as well assist the Israelis or carry out the attack ourselves to give it a better chance to succeed.

Whether Klein believes Iran is building nukes or not or whether he thinks they are a potential threat doesn’t matter in this case. There is no more important American ally in the Middle East than Israel. To abandon her at what she clearly feels is a moment of supreme danger would be a betrayal of monstrous proportions.

However, it should be pointed out that we have time to try other measures short of war. The latest news on the Iranian nuclear program is that simply put, they are stuck. They have been unable to grow their program and make the leap from the experimental enrichment of uranium to the industrial production necessary to construct a bomb. They could still be three years away from being capable of enriching enough uranium to high enough levels to build a nuclear device.

And sanctions are really beginning to bite. Beyond that, the threat of further sanctions has the Iranian economy in a tailspin that is causing great unease among the people. The recent crackdown on dissent as well as the announced return to 1979 revolutionary values is most likely a means to distract the people from what may be a faltering economy and a failure of leadership.

So liberal hawks, rather than being vague or evasive, sound to me as if they are simply exercising good judgement and remaining cautious. But Klein complains that this precludes engaging in argument and dialogue:

It is possible that some self-described progressives agree with them. If so, they should speak up, and we can have an argument. The mantra of “seriousness,” however, is disingenuous. Progressive intellectuals are not diplomats or politicians, actively in search of better positioning or a negotiating posture . Insofar as Iran is a serious foreign policy issue — and it is! — those who pride themselves on their seriousness in such matters should be honest in offering their answers. The “dovish” view is that a military campaign against Iran would be a seriously bad idea. It is a view shared by many generals, most foreign policy experts, and, according to some reports, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Liberal hawks seem to dispute that conclusion, but won’t quite say why. The danger of Iraq, it turns out, is not that too many liberals overlearned its lessons, but that too many liberals didn’t learn them at all — and instead have merely become more circumspect in their saber-rattling.

For those who object to that characterization, and whose public hawkishness is more of an affectation than a real substantive agenda, this is not a time for self-righteous posturing or rhetorical toughness; it is a time for those who do want to prevent war with Iran to, well, oppose war with Iran. That doesn’t mean supporting their nuclear ambitions, or developing a misplaced affection for an ugly regime. But it does mean speaking forthrightly about what a catastrophe a military attack would prove to be. Liberals, after all, do not control the government. George W. Bush is still the Commander in Chief. The best liberals can hope for, then, is to influence the discourse and shift the spectrum of opinion deemed “acceptable.” But they will be unable to do even that if they refuse to speak clearly.

I would say that it is not only a dovish view that military action against Iran would be a bad idea. As Klein points out, there are active duty military people who oppose an Iran strike. Unless West Point has gone soft on us, I hardly think you could make the claim that doves are the only ones resisting the call to battle the Iranians.

But Klein errs when he blames liberal hawks for proceeding more cautiously in their advocacy of military action against Iran than they did - in his mind anyway - with their support to take down Saddam. Is it really a case of sensitivity to the public perception that their “sabre rattling” got us in trouble with Iraq? Or is the case for war against Iran such a close call that it is difficult to formulate a position and stick with it?

I myself have been back and forth, hot and cold on war with Iran. The threat is real but by no means imminent - at least to the United States. But the idea that the only thing worse than attacking Iran would be Iran with nuclear weapons is still something serious people should think about carefully. I’m not sure that statement is true. Nor am I sure it isn’t. And my hesitancy is reflected, I think, by liberal hawks who are having a similarly hard time trying to evaluate the pluses and minuses. There are so many troubling elements to both the Iranian regime and the thought of attacking it that what Klein sees as a kind of disingenuousness on the part of liberal hawks is nothing more than a realization that the consequences of both action and inaction against the Iranian regime could be enormous.

Rafiq Hariri - Former Prime Minister and Lebanese nationalist. Assassinated by car bomb, February 14, 2005.

Walid Eido - Anti-Syrian MP. Killed by car bomb, June 13, 2007.

You’ve got to hand it to Bashar Assad, Syria’s gangster President. Even though he has more blood on his hands than Al Capone, the James Bakers and Nancy Pelosis of the world still want to treat this street thug as if he were head of a sovereign nation and carry on some kind of “dialogue” with the brute. Judging by the above blood soaked list, it would appear that Mr. Assad’s idea of dialogue is somewhat different than ours. At the very least, it makes answering bombs and assassin’s bullets with rational conversation problematic in the extreme.

What appears on the surface to be random acts of violence meant to fulfill some kind of manic bloodlust in the heart of the Syrian dictator actually has a frightening strategic element embedded in the madness. Assad wants nothing less than to murder enough members of the democratic majority government in Lebanon so that the Iranian backed Hezbullah can then seize power. Walid Phares:

After the withdrawal of regular Syrian forces from Lebanon in April 2005, Bashar Assad and his allies in Tehran designed a counter offensive (which we described then and later) aiming at crumbling the Cedars Revolution. One of the main components of this strategy was (and remain) to use all intelligence and security assets of Syria and Iran in Lebanon in order to “reduce” the number of deputies who form the anti-Syrian majority in the Parliament. As simple as that: assassinate as many members as needed to flip the quantitative majority in the Legislative Assembly. And when that is done, the Seniora Government collapses and a Hezbollah-led cabinet forms. In addition, if the Terror war kills about 8 legislators, the remnant of the Parliament can elect a new President of the Republic who will move the country under the tutelage of the Assad regime.

As incredibly barbaric as it seems in the West, the genocide of the legislators in Lebanon at the hands of the Syrian regime and its allies is very “normal” by Baathist (and certainly by Jihadist) political culture. During the 1980s, Saddam Hussein executed a large segment of his own Party’s national assembly to maintain his regime intact. In the same decade, Hafez Assad eliminated systematically his political adversaries both inside Syria and across Syrian occupied Lebanon to secure his control over the two “sister” countries. So for Bashar to order the assassination of his opponents in Lebanon as of the fall of 2004 to perpetuate his domination of the little Baathist “empire” is not a stunning development: it is the standing procedure in Damascus since 1970.

And to “achieve” these goals, the junta in Syria has a plethora of tools and assets left in Lebanon. First, the vast Syrian intelligence networks still deeply rooted in the small country; second, the powerful Iranian-financed Hezbollah with its lethal security apparatus; third, the Syrian-controlled groups within the Palestinian camps from various ideological backgrounds including Baathists, Marxists, or even Islamist such as Fatah al Islam; fourth the pro-Syrian and Hezbollah sympathizers “inside” the Lebanese Army as well as the units and security services still under the control of General Emile Lahoud; fifth, the client militias and organizations remote-controlled by Syrian intelligence such as the Syrian National-Social Party; and sixth, operatives inserted within political groups gravitating around Damascus such as those of Sleiman Frangieh, Michel Aoun and Talal Arslan. In short, the Syro-Iranian axis has a wide array of security and intelligence assets from which it can select the most appropriate perpetrators for each “take down.” The Assad regime has its “own” Sunni operatives to kill Sunnis, Christians to murder Christians and Druze to eliminate Druze and has the full resources of Hezbollah terror to obstruct the Government of Lebanon and ultimately crumble it.

At the moment, due to death, retirement, and assassination, it’s four down and four to go for the Syrian President. Four more Lebanese MP’s unfortunate enough to fall victim to Assad’s terror plans and the Iranians will have a toehold in the Eastern Mediterranian with Hizbullah coming to power by virtue of having a majority of opposition members in Parliament.

The grim reality is that there are 128 members of the Lebanese Parliament. The elections of 2005 gave the democratic forces 72 seats - a clear majority. But thanks to the death of one prominent MP and retirement of another - both replaced by politicians loyal to Hezbullah ally Michel Aoun - and the assassination of Gemayel and now Edio, Assad finds himself within spitting distance of his goal; the reconquest of Lebanon using his proxy Hizbullah to bring Syria’s influence to bear in Lebanese domestic affairs.

Meanwhile, Hizbullah still holds the country hostage by refusing all efforts to end the cabinet crisis now in its 6th grueling month. The most recent overtures to end the standoff between Hassan Nasrallah’s Hezbullah, who seeks additional cabinet representation that would give him veto power over major decisions, and the government of Prime Minister Siniora, comes from France. The French have offered their good offices to bring the two sides together in Paris for talks aimed at ending the stalemate.

If Assad’s plan is to work however, it is not in the interest of Hezbullah to agree to anything at this point. Better to let his sponsor in Damascus try to hoist the black flag of Hezbullah over the government building in Beirut through terror, intimidation, and assassination. It’s worked so far so why change it?

And the “civilized” world stands by and allows all of this to happen. How can this be? How can we do “business as usual” with a country so far beyond the pale of human decency? Lebanon may be a small country, an insignificant blob on a map. They have little in the way of natural resources. They have no great army or navy. What Lebanon does have is a people with very strong ideas on freedom and independence. Perhaps the most westernized of all Arab countries, Lebanon’s historic ties to the west as a gateway to doing business in the Middle East goes back more than a century. Her people - both Christian and Muslim - are among the most literate and best educated in the region with a decidedly secular outlook on life.

And most importantly, they have recently thrown off the yoke of dependence and domination by Syria and embraced democracy. But the fragile government, coping with the “state within a state” that is Hezbullah, is beset on all sides by enemies both foreign and domestic. It remains to be seen whether Assad’s terror plan can succeed before the government can solve some of its problems and find a way to resist the tyrant on their border.

The UN sponsored International Tribunal to try the murderers of Rafiq Hariri and the others listed above will not get underway for several months. This is the time of maximum danger for Lebanon’s democrats. Assad will do everything in his power to try and prevent Lebanon from cooperating with the Tribunal thus keeping that body from bringing the Syrian and Lebanese perpetrators to justice, If that happens, Lebanese democracy will be doomed.

It’s Fathers Day again. Another timely reminder that you’ve been in the ground 25 years and I’m still here. Not only that, I get to sit and listen to everyone talking about their fathers - what they’re going to be doing with them, what present they got them. Not that I’m resentful, mind you. It’s just sometimes very hard to take when I see the rest of the world getting to enjoy the company of their fathers and here I am stuck with this imaginary conversation. I guess in 53 years if you haven’t learned that life isn’t fair (something you said many times) then you are destined to be unhappy and discontented. So I suppose I’ll have to make do with this little literary phantasm.

Would that it weren’t so.

So anyway…here I am. What do you think? Yeah, put on a few pounds. Come to think of it, I’m starting to look a lot like you when you were this age. I suppose that’s the destiny of all sons. I see fathers and their older sons together today and the resemblance is there for sure. Is it nature’s way of reminding us where we came from? If you could see your seven sons lined up in a row, most of us would remind you of yourself in some way. I hope that would give you some satisfaction.

As for the rest… Well? I’m waiting. Cat got your tongue? Okay, let me start.

I’ll admit I’ve been a bit of a disappointment. Whatever it is you wanted for me in life (outside of the ubiquitous “be happy”) never quite materialized. I had my chances. But things got kind of…complicated along the way. Moreso than the others, the skein of my life has run pretty much against the grain. Wherever success or happiness lurked, I always seemed to find a way to pass them by. A career lost, a bad marriage, and the “Irish sickness” - 25 years can pass pretty quickly when there are large parts you don’t remember.

But things are better now as you can see. Amazing what a good woman can do for you, eh? And you should know. You had the best. We like to deny it but women are right when they say we’re all like little boys. There’s a part of us that wants to be cared for, that needs the nurturing love that only a woman can give. Oh, we make a big deal of resisting it - especially these days when we worry such thoughts are considered “incorrect.” But then you reach a certain age and you just don’t give a damn what others say. You know what you can give her and what she can give you and you base your relationship on the beauty of the symbiotic nature of love; a mystical beholdeness to each other that goes beyond the physical and enters the realm of the poets - a spiritual linking of minds and hearts that is truly the only valuable you own.

You know all of this, of course. I’m not telling you anything you didn’t experience yourself. But you were lucky enough to find it early in your life. I guess better late than never for me.

I wonder what you would think of my new career - if you can call writing a career. You always thought that writing was a calling, almost like the priesthood. It’s as fulfilling as anything I’ve ever done and too much fun to be called work. Sometimes, I get a chuckle imagining you reading some of the stuff I write. As an FDR liberal, I can just see your head shaking at some of my more conservative diatribes. No matter. You would have critiqued my stuff not for the political content but rather the stylistic aspects of a particular piece and cogency of my arguments. I bet you would have kept me on my toes.

But of course, despite your classically liberal politics, I have you to thank for my conservative ideological bent. All those children and I was the only one who ended up on the right side of the fence. And you had me pegged as a righty almost before I myself realized it when you suggested I read Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind shortly after I graduated from college. You knew exactly what would happen, didn’t you? Kirk’s references to Edmund Burke and other classical thinkers sent me off on an intellectual quest to find myself. I discovered that I agreed with the ideas espoused by conservative giants like Hayek, Eliot, Strauss, and Kristol. But you knew that. And you also knew that the love of learning and books that you instilled in all of us would carry me to my own “undiscovered country” of new ideas and different politics.

I bet that gave you a secret thrill, though. The idea that one of your brood would break with your politics validated your ideas on how to raise children; give them the freedom to discover the world on their own, guiding them where necessary but never dictating what they should think. Your library had books from every conceivable ideological point of view. From Karl Marx to Nietzsche, to Bishop Sheen. Each of us arrived at our politics in our own way, taking our own journeys of self exploration. And we were never lacking for encouragement or advice from you.

It’s amazing how much I think of you even though you’ve been gone these many years. I have Sir George Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony in Mahler’s 1st on one of my Rhapsody playlists and every time it comes on, it brings back a flood of memories of attending the Symphony with you and mother - after spending the afternoon in South Bend watching a Notre Dame football game. I can smell the leaves burning, the memory of those fall days are so powerful.

There are other reminders too - much too private and personal to put in this article. But ultimately, it comes down to this; you’ve never left me. If there is one thing I could say to comfort you wherever you are it is that despite the fact you have been gone almost half my life, your presence still fills my mind. The memories are important. But beyond memory, beyond the fading images on crumpled photographs, beyond the bleary, misty visage I see when I close my eyes, there is you. In my heart and soul. Until I draw my last breath on this earth.

And that, my dear daddy, is a comfort to me.