Right Wing Nut House

There are a couple of things in this interview with a mid-level Fatah al-Islam spokesman that you should keep in mind while digesting what he has to say.

First, there are two parts to his story; those things he has seen and those he has been told. Some of the things he says were related to him do not ring true - not because he is lying but because it sounds like others may be exaggerating or lying to him. Other parts of his story told to him by others does sound reasonable. And what he says he witnessed personally we should probably take him at his word.

The interview appears in Asharq Al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic language publication:

A mid-rank leader of the militant group Fatah al-Islam currently based in Naher al-Bared camp has stated that leading Lebanese public officials will be assassinated if his group is subjected to any attacks by the government. He specified that the top political figures being targeted are Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora and Member of Parliament Walid Junblatt.

The 30 year old Palestinian national who goes by the alias Abu-Musab, told Asharq Al-Awsat in a telephone interview that he personally witnessed the recruitment of approximately 25 Saudis through Jihadist forums, and that these new recruits have been called to join the Jihad in Iraq after receiving the necessary training and military preparation in various locations inside and outside the camp. He added that it is difficult to determine the precise number of the Saudis because of the “compulsory” residence imposed for a number of months on those who wish to fight in Iraq lest they are found out before the completion of the necessary arrangements for that.

Apparently, a lot more was going on at Nahr al-Bared, the Palestinian refugee camp harboring Fatah al-Islam, than we thought:

Abu-Musab, who joined the movement after abandoning Fatah Al-Intifada [Fatah Uprising], revealed that the mobilization of internet users used to be done through the exploitation of religious slogans encouraging people to fight the Jews and the USA and to go for Jihad in Iraq.

These are the same slogans which had won him and his colleagues to Fatah al-Islam movement. This was done through contacts and meetings inside the mosques of the camp. The discourse of the movement shifted from fighting the Jews and the USA and supporting Mujahidin in Iraq to opening a different front by fighting the Lebanese army and [causing] internal confrontations among Muslims. This was the main reason behind the surrender of a group of Fatah al-Islam members in the camp to the Fatah movement, including himself [Abu-Musab] about a year after he joined the movement [Fatah al-Islam].

Abu-Musab also commented on the double standards within the movement, where on one hand it adopts a religious and Jihadi discourse, and on the other, its members do not perform their prayers, drink alcohol and indulge in drugs. This made him wonder about the reality of the objectives of Fatah al-Islam.

The young man seems dedicated but a little disillusioned - a perfect combination to elicit good information on his organization.

According to Abu-Musab, the leadership of Fatah al-Islam went from Al-Absi and his deputy Abu Huraira after they went into hiding to Saudi Shahin Shahin, aka “Abu-Salmah”.

He considered Shahin as the official spokesperson and military commander for the time being. Abu-Musab assumed that Shahin, who hails Morocco, and who is assisted by four (Saudi and Yemeni) veiled aides, is the person in charge of linking the movement [Fatah al-Islam] with the Al-Qaeda organization. He is also the person who ratifies with his own signature Al-Absi’s communiqués before they are handed over to the media to be read out, and he is the first person in charge of fund-raising.

How’s that for an eye opener. Everything I’ve read previously about Fatah al-Islam and any connections they had to al-Qaeda always highlighted the fact that there were no operational ties. Mr. Musab seems to be saying that there is an active effort underway to link the two groups.

And read these next paragraphs closely. Do you see the hand of Syria in helping to bolster this group?

According to talks between Abu-Musab and Al-Absi and reassurances from primary leaders in the movement, the finances and military funding of the movement were already in place prior to Fatah al-Islam decision to declare disobedience against the Lebanese army and the government.

Abu-Musab said that as soon as the confrontation started with the Lebanese army, a big number of fighters who already had their military training began to emerge in the camp. He saw about 350 fighters whom he had never seen before. He also talked about military supplies, which he described as huge, and the provision of tens of millions of dollars to the movement according to what Al-Abasi told him during a meeting he had with him.

Funding for groups like Fatah al-Islam come from a variety of sources. There has even been some disinformation spread by American journalist Seymour Hersh that Fatah al-Islam was actually being funded by the Hariri family with the help and encouragement of the the United States (Anton Efendi destroys Hersh’s argument here). But given all that we know about the group - its origins as well as al-Abssi’s movements immediately following his release from a Syrian prison directly to the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp where he began to recruit followers from all over the Middle East - the hand of Syrian intelligence is all over it. Where did the additional “fighters” come from? And the massive amounts of military equipment?

It is an open question whether Mr. Musab’s contention that Fatah al-Islam will begin targeting the Lebanese leadership is true. It would definitely “cause internal confrontations” with Muslim factions which is why it makes sense. And it sounds like one more escalating step President Assad may be willing to take in order to halt the International Tribunal from doing its job.

We have not heard the last of this group, no matter what happens at Nahr al-Bared.

It’s days like this that make blogging so much fun…

We on the right have had precious little to laugh about lately. The Republican party seems intent on going ahead with the suicidal Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill that is guaranteed to comprehensively alienate the base while comprehensively leading to a Democratic sweep at the polls in November of 2008.

We were promised a comprehensive reform of the Republican party. What we didn’t realize is that it would involve shrinking its numbers and losing elections - comprehensively, of course.

And of course, the din from the netnuts over the continued non-scandal at DOJ, the Scooter Libby sentencing, and a variety of other “ethics witch hunts” as Goldstein refers to them, has contributed to the overall feeling of ennui felt by most conservative bloggers. Especially since it is clear the GOP brought much of this upon themselves due to their unmitigated arrogance. Not breaking the law and acting ethically are not mutually exclusive, although making each mini-breach of ethics into a threat to republican government is as silly as it gets.

So here we are, our “black dog” getting the better of us as Winston Churchill liked to say, when all of a sudden, a gift from heaven. Harry Reid tells liberal bloggers that retiring General Peter Pace is “incompetent” and makes similar observations about General Petreaus. This according to Politico - a publication already derided by the netnuts as part of the right wing noise machine. That may be true. I have yet to see any acknowledgement that the dozens of conspiracy theories spouted by the left have any validity on that publication. So obviously, they are right wing Rethuglican theocrats.

But did Harry Reid really say that about our generals?

Not so fast says Greg Sargent of Election Central at TPM Cafe:

The story has already sparked an uproar, and the conservatives have jumped all over it. It was linked on Drudge, and John McCain sent out a press release attacking Reid over it. And White House press secretary Tony Snow use it to hammer Reid as anti-military in today’s White House briefing. Snow brought up the Politico story himself, saying that it was “outrageous” for Reid to be “issuing slanders” toward commanders “in a time of war.”

But we’ve just spoken with three of the prominent liberal bloggers who say they were on the call, and they all say they don’t remember Reid saying anything like this. One flatly denies that he said it.

And just to set this delicious story up a little more, here’s what those “prominent liberal bloggers” told Mr. Sargent about their teleconference with Harry Reid:

We asked Joan McCarter, who blogs at DailyKos under the name McJoan and wrote about being on the call here, if she recalled Reid calling Pace “incompetent.”

“I don’t remember him saying anything like that,” she answered. “I can’t swear he didn’t say it. But I have no memory that he actually did. It’s not in my notes.”

Asked if Reid had disparaged Petraeus at all, McCarter said: “No. He said something about [Petraeus] coming back in September to deliver a report.” But on the question of whether he’d said something disparaging, McCarter said: “Not that I recall, no.”

“I don’t even recall Pace’s name specifically being mentioned,” adds Barbara Morrill, who blogs at Kos under the name BarbinMD and says she was on the call. “If it was, he did not say that he was incompetent.”

Asked if he’d criticized Petraeus, Morrill said: “Not that I recall. I checked my notes,” and there was nothing like this. “He mentioned the report that Petraeus is supposed to be coming out in September. I only recall him saying something along the lines that the Bush administration had run the war poorly. Any criticisms were against the Bush administration.”

Finally, here’s what MyDD’s Jonathan Singer, who wrote about the call here, told us: “I don’t remember him calling Pace incompetent.” He added that while he couldn’t promise that he hadn’t done it, “I just don’t recall those statements.”

There are more “I don’t recalls” above than there were at the Scooter Libby trial. And that guy was trying to remember stuff that he said 4 years ago not a couple of days like these tireless champions of truth and justice.

Case closed. After all, if you can’t trust a liberal blogger to tell you the truth, who can you trust?

And based on those denials, the netnuts went absolutely ballistic on conservative bloggers who dared quote the Politico story as if it were - well, a story. They skewered Politico reporter John Bresnahan, basically accusing him of being a liar.

Except it turns out, the story was true:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed Thursday that he told liberal bloggers last week that he thinks outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace is “incompetent.”

Reid also disparaged Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of Multinational Forces in Iraq.

The netnuts, forgetting that their original triumphalism about catching conservative bloggers goosing a false story, were quick to respond that even if Harry did say it, the fact is, it’s true isn’t it?

Everyone is now going to be talking about the “context” of Reid’s remarks, which is important. He has supposedly told Pace to his face what he thinks of him. Good for Reid, that’s what any person of character should do. Senator Reid has many supporters in the military. He’s earned them and I’m sure those who support him will continue to do so.

However, it doesn’t make this event any less newsworthy. “Context” doesn’t matter to most people when you hear the quote. Reid said it. It’s confirmed. Cable news and talk radio will now be using it forever against Reid and the Democrats. In addition, when you weigh the Congress, which has a 23% approval rating, against what the American people think of the U.S. military, let’s just say Congress loses. You don’t get anywhere by calling a chairman of the Joint Chiefs “incompetent.” If you’re going to level a charge make it specific and cite the situation in which the soldier failed. Letting bin Laden go at Tora Bora comes to mind. But blanket charges just won’t get the job done.

Even my level headed lefty friend Taylor Marsh fails to mention what Reid said about General Petreaus. Evidently, our Harry has more information about what is going on in Baghdad sitting on his ass in his Washington D.C. office than General Petreaus has by virtue of him actually being in Iraq:

The Senate majority leader took aim yesterday at the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who until now has received little criticism from Capitol Hill over his statements or performance.

Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) charged that Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who took command in Iraq four months ago, “isn’t in touch with what’s going on in Baghdad.” He also indicated that he thinks Petraeus has not been sufficiently open in his testimony to Congress. Noting that Petraeus, who is now on his third tour of duty in Iraq, oversaw the training of Iraqi troops during his second stint there, Reid said: “He told us it was going great; as we’ve looked back, it didn’t go so well.”

Reid seemed most provoked by an article in yesterday’s edition of USA Today, which quoted the general as saying that he sees “astonishing signs of normalcy” in the Iraqi capital. “I’m talking about professional soccer leagues with real grass field stadiums, several amusement parks — big ones, markets that are very vibrant,” Petraeus told the newspaper.

Did Reid make similar criticisms of Petreaus to the netnut bloggers?

The Politico story would seem to indicate the affirmative. There is silence on the matter from those who actually were involved in the call in addition to the “non-denial” denials of Reid calling Pace incompetent.

I share some of Reid’s concern about Petreaus glossing over the violence in Iraq but at the same time, the General has a point. Baghdad is a very large city and it is more than probable that big parts of it are returning to “normalcy” as a result of the increased troop presence. So far, that increase hasn’t stopped the terrorists although it has apparently slowed down the death squads. What the surge hasn’t done, of course, is get Prime Minister Maliki to give up his imitation of a bronze statue and move his government toward meeting the political goals he agreed to with President Bush last year in Jordan.

But the real kicker in this story is what Reid told the press after admitting he referred to Pace as incompetent. “”I think we should just drop it,” the leader of the Majority Party in the United States Senate said.

Good advice. I recommend that the following should be “dropped” from discussion on the internet:

“Bush lied people died.”
“No blood for oil.”
The Administration “twisted” pre war intel on Iraq.
Dick Cheney actually runs the government, not Bush.
Diebold helped the Republicans steal the election of 2004.
Gore actually won Florida in 2000.
9/11 was an inside job.
Bush is trying to set himself up as a dictator.
America is now a theocracy - or almost there.
Conservatives are racists.
Glenn Greenwald never used sockpuppets.

I could think of a couple of dozen more, but you get the picture. Why not leave your “Harry Reid Sanctioned Dropped Memes” in the comments? It just may make you feel better today.

UPDATE

I’ll give Bryan at Hot Air the final word:

Sen. Harry Reid is a dishonest shill for the nutroots whose approval rating stands at 19%. He is the incompetent leader of a pathetic Democrat-led Senate, the approval rating of which stands at a whopping 23%. For Reid to disparage either Gen. Peter Pace or Gen. David Petraeus, both of whom have given their entire adult lives in service to their country, is a disgrace.

If Reid had any sense of honor or decency, he’d resign. Which means he’ll be in the Senate until the voters of Nevada finally tire of him, or he retires at a ripe old age.

My latest column is up at PJ Media. It’s about Barry Bonds and the controversy surrounding his assault on Hank Aaron’s career home run record.

One aspect of the controversy I cover is why Major League ballplayers overwhelmingly believe that Bonds is the greatest of all time. One reason they believe that certainly has a lot to do with how difficult it is to hit a baseball:

As it leaves the pitcher’s hand, the batter has about 2/10 of a second to read the pitch and decide whether to swing the bat or not. In those fractions of a second, the player must decide what kind of pitch is being thrown, how fast it is going to be arriving at home plate, and whether or not the ball will cross home plate for a strike. Being off a couple thousandths of a second means the difference between hitting the ball or not. And the pitcher, God bless him, has other tricks up his sleeve as well. He can change speeds from pitch to pitch to keep the hitter off balance. He can change the angle of his arm when he delivers the ball – coming “over the top” or “dropping down” and slinging the ball almost sidearm. This will change the rotation of the seams against the air between the mound and home plate causing the ball to shoot across the plate while diving downward.

Thus be it ever the eternal battle between pitcher and hitter.

Here are the last two results for our weekly Watchers Council vote:

W/E 6/1

Council

1. “A Cure for “Anti-Zionism” by Joshuapundit

2. “No Friend Left Behind (Update)” by Done With Mirrors

3. “Mitt the Mormon” by Bookworm Room

Non Council

1. “Sticking To What I Know Best” by Dr. Sanity

2. “From the Mouths of Babes: Climate Analysis That Actually Works” by Kobayashi Maru

3. “Brave Men and Demons” by Michael Yon

W/E 6/8

Council

1. “3 Spies and Six Days” by Soccer Dad

2. “The Six Day War In Real Time” by Bookworm Room

3. “Smelt Stink” by Cheat Seeking Missiles

4. “It’s Not Dead. It’s Resting.” by Right Wing Nut House

Non Council

1. “Four Modest Proposals for Getting Out of Iraq” by Dan Simmons

2. “Six Day War — Israeli Perspective” by History News Network

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

Not having any children, I really am in the dark as to whether or not classic American patriotic songs are taught to kids in school or whether it is up to parents to expose their children to the music of Sousa, Cohan, Irving Berlin, and others. It would not surprise me in the slightest if schools had stopped the practice long ago. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that schools no longer teach music to classes of primary grade kids at all. Or if they do, I’d bet that American music is the absolute last thing they would be willing to teach.

I reflect on these questions today, June 14, 2007 because it is Flag Day - a day to proudly fly the flag to honor both the symbol of our country and what it stands for. And one way to honor the flag is to enjoy listening to patriotic songs.

I think my mother used to play a record with about 15 different songs on patriotic holidays like the 4th of July and Flag Day. “Songs of Americana” I think was the name of the album (one of my lurking family members, help me out here). It featured Sousa marches like The Washington Post March, The Stars and Stripes Forever, as well as God Bless America by Irving Berlin. There were also Civil War songs like Tenting Tonight , and Battle Cry of Freedom.

And then there was “You’re a Grand Old Flag” by George M. Cohan. Anyone who has seen James Cagney in the film Yankee Doodle Dandy perform this tune knows the raw power and emotion the song can inspire. Cagney, who consciously imitated Cohan’s half singing/half talking song presentation, along with director Michael Curtiz, faithfully recreated the stage version first seen in Cohan’s George Washington, Jr. for the screen.

Indeed, reports were that the performance of the song brought down the house. The song also became the first tune to sell a million copies of sheet music. Clearly, the lyrics in the chorus touch something deep down in all of us:

You’re a grand old flag,
You’re a high flying flag
And forever in peace may you wave.
You’re the emblem of
The land I love.
The home of the free and the brave.
Ev’ry heart beats true
‘neath the Red, White and Blue,3
Where there’s never a boast or brag.
But should auld acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the grand old flag.

The story behind the song is interesting:

The original lyric for this perennial George M. Cohan favorite came, as Cohan later explained, from an encounter he had with a Civil War veteran who fought at Gettysburg. The two men found themselves next to each other and Cohan noticed the vet held a carefully folded but ragged old flag. The man reportedly then turned to Cohan and said, “She’s a grand old rag.” Cohan thought it was a great line and originally named his tune “You’re a Grand Old Rag.” So many groups and individuals objected to calling the flag a “rag,” however, that he “gave ‘em what they wanted” and switched words, renaming the song “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”

It was in George Washington, Jr. that Cohan worked out a routine with this song that he would repeat in many subsequent shows. He took an American flag, started singing the patriotic song, and marched back and forth across the stage. Music such as Cohan’s “You’re a Grand Old Flag” helped create a shared popular cultural identity as such songs spread beyond the stage, through sheet music and records, to the homes and street corners of America.

You’re a Grand Old Flag and all the other Patriotic ditties are a large part of the American Songbook. They used to be the primary means by which each generation was connected to another in patriotic devotion. For patriotism cannot be taught. It must be instilled by culturalizing children and exposing them to the sentiments and ideas that we all share about the United States; what it should stand for, how fortunate we are to have been born here, and the glorious ideas of liberty and freedom that so many have given their lives to defend.

Yes, she’s a “Grand Old Flag.” A little tattered perhaps. A little careworn as a result of neglecting some of the principles on which our nation was founded; self reliance, tolerance, and that fighting for freedom is a good and sometimes necessary thing. But despite her appearance, she still flies proudly, snapping in the breeze as a reminder to all that choose to see it, that this is still the greatest country ever created filled with the most remarkable people ever born. And despite all of our problems, disagreements, mistakes, and failures, there is still no place on earth I’d rather live.

There is a very good reason I don’t write about the war as much as I used to. Well, there are actually a couple of reasons.

First, I don’t have much of anything to say. Those of you who have stuck with me on this site know my ambivalence about the current mission; that I have absolutely no faith in the Iraqi government to validate the sacrifices our troops are making by doing the things vitally necessary to create a viable, multi-sectarian Iraqi state. The last time I looked, this is still the goal of the mission in Iraq and the government of Nouri al-Maliki is doing everything it can to help that mission fail. The Shias are in control and have no desire to share power. Thus, every single political benchmark that the Administration has laid out for the Iraqi government to achieve in order to measure success is not being met.

It remains to be seen whether Bush will make good on his promise to the American people that if the Iraqi government failed to achieve the political goals he and Maliki agreed upon in Jordan last year, he would start withdrawing the troops, leaving the Iraqi Prime Minister hanging, hoisted on his own sectarian petard.

Another reason I don’t write about the war is that the commenters on this site are broken records. They say the same things in support or opposition of our efforts time and time again regardless of what I write about. That is why comments have been disabled on this post. I’m sick of hearing for the gazillionth time that Bush is an idiot or I’m an idiot for not supporting everything our President does. Not one iota of originality seeps into the discussion. Not one.

Perhaps this is what the American people are sick of regarding the war. The same arguments made by the same people over and over again about who’s to blame, who supports to the troops, who’s a traitor, who’s an unthinking Bushbot.

Reminds me of the movie Airplane! where people start getting sick then committing suicide listening to Stryker’s hard luck story about “Macho Grande” over and over again.

I’m an enabler, of course. No matter what the news from Baghdad, my analysis remains basically the same. The surge is working in some places, not so well in others. The entire Iraqi government - the cabinet, the legislature, religious leadership - is failing to budge on oil revenue sharing, constitutional changes that have been promised, National Reconciliation, and the rest. The troops continue to perform well. There are signs of hope, signs of despair, and signs that when we leave, all hell will break loose. Iran and Syria are still meddling despite our efforts at “dialogue.” Al-Qaeda still sets off car bombs in Baghdad whenever they wish in order to maximize new coverage. And our western press continues to assist them in that endeavor.

At least this time, there is news to report. The Shia holy shrine at Samarra was bombed. On second thought, that’s not really news. It’s happened before. The same appeals for calm are coming from the same people. And the same kind of retaliation can be expected in the coming days that occurred in February of 2006.

Then there are the Democrats who, in a brazen attempt to practice a little self-fulfilling prophecy, have declared the surge a failure. This on the eve of what apparently will be a massive offensive by American troops against death squads, insurgents and al-Qaeda:

Across the main war zones, American formations bolstered by the troop increase are reaching full operational readiness for what the commanders have described as a summer offensive against Qaeda-linked insurgents and Shiite death squads. But the commanders have spoken of intelligence reports pointing to plans by Al Qaeda for a “catastrophic” attack similar to the one at Samarra last year, setting off a new round of mass sectarian killings, driving a deeper wedge between Sunnis and Shiites and thwarting American hopes for greater stability.

At least the Democrats have been consistent. They’ve done everything possible to undermine the war effort to this point. Why stop now?

The real news is contained in a 46 page report compiled by the Pentagon every quarter about violence in Iraq and political progress by the Iraqi government. It is not the slanted coverage offered by the media. It is not a report written by left wing loons or Democratic defeatists. It is written by the military itself. And it does not paint a pretty picture:

Iraqi leaders have made “little progress” on the overarching political goals that the stepped-up security operations are intended to help advance, the report said, calling reconciliation between Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni factions “a serious unfulfilled objective.” Indeed, “some analysts see a growing fragmentation of Iraq,” it said, noting that 36 percent of Iraqis believe “the Iraqi people would be better off if the country were divided into three or more separate countries.”

The 46-page report, mandated quarterly by Congress, tempers the early optimism about the new strategy voiced by senior U.S. officials. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, for instance, in March described progress in Iraq as “so far, so good.” Instead, it depicts limited gains and setbacks and states that it is too soon to judge whether the new approach is working.

Sectarian killings and attacks — which were spiraling late last year — dropped sharply from February to April, but civilian casualties rose slightly, to more than 100 a day. Despite the early drop in sectarian killings, data from the Baghdad morgue gathered by The Washington Post in May show them returning to pre-”surge” levels last month.

Suicide attacks more than doubled across Iraq — from 26 in January to 58 in April — said the report, which covers the three months from mid-February to mid-May.

Violence fell in Baghdad and Anbar province, where the bulk of the 28,700 more U.S. troops are located, but escalated elsewhere as insurgents and militias regroup in eastern and northern Iraq. In Anbar, attacks dropped by about a third, compared with the previous three months, as Sunni tribes have organized against entrenched fighters from al-Qaeda in Iraq, the report said.

Overall, however, violence “has increased in most provinces, particularly in the outlying areas of Baghdad province and Diyala and Ninewa provinces,” the report said. In Diyala’s restive capital of Baqubah, U.S. and Iraq forces “have been unable to diminish rising sectarian violence contributing to the volatile security situation,” it said.

Not very cheery news. And then there is this about our brave allies, the Iraqi military:

While most Iraqi units are performing “up to expectations,” it said, some Iraqi leaders “bypass the standard chain of command” to issue orders on sectarian grounds. It cited “significant evidence” of attacks on Sunni Arabs by the predominantly Shiite government security forces, which have contributed to the displacement of an estimated 2 million Iraqis from their homes.

Shiite militias, which have engaged in the widespread killing and sectarian removal of Sunni residents in Baghdad, now enjoy wide support in the capital, the report said. “In Baghdad, a majority of residents report that militias act in the best interests of the Iraqi people,” it said, while only 20 percent of respondents polled nationwide shared that view. Maliki’s promises to disarm militias have not produced a concrete plan, the report said.

Mass-casualty attacks on Shiite targets by Sunni insurgents, including the group al-Qaeda in Iraq, have increased Shiite wariness of reconciliation, the report said. “The Shi’a dominated government is vulnerable to pressure from large numbers of economically disadvantaged, marginalized Shi’a” who offer “street-level support” for Shiite militias.

Peachy. Our own military is basically saying that rooting out the death squads and disarming the militias, will involve going in without the support of the street level population of Baghdad. I leave it to your imagination what kind of problems that little bit of information can cause.

Al-Maliki is still frozen like a department store manikin, unwilling or unable to move forward with reforms. The Sunnis see the endgame approaching and are desperate for the Americans to stay or at least give them modern arms in order to stave off an even bigger tragedy than the one occurring now. The Kurds continue to tweak the Turks with PPK attacks across the border, making Ankara do a slow burn over both the attacks and our inability to stop them. And Shias in the south are rapidly starting to choose sides in what promises to be a fight for dominance between Iranian backed militias and equally fanatic SIIC cadres.

And we’re worried if the surge is “working?”

But this is not news. It’s been going on for at least a year and nothing we have done or are doing currently is slowing down the momentum of this bloody country careening toward disaster. Yes, things are that bad in Iraq. Our own military says it. Maybe it’s time for the President of the United States to start saying it and at the same time, tell us what he intends to do to stave off disaster.

I would say to my one note lefty friends that removing the troops is not - repeat, is not - the complete answer to this problem. Of course, if your only goal is to see the United States humiliated in order to validate your worldview and make political hay out of the ensuing tragedy then I can see why you’d support such a position.

And I would also say to my equally boring righty friends that the surge may not be a failure but it is irrelevant when placed alongside everything else that is wrong in Iraq. The time has passed for any efforts of our military to make the difference between success and failure in Iraq. The Iraqis themselves have seen to that.

I am rapidly approaching the point of supporting efforts to somehow contain the conflagration so that it doesn’t spill over and start a general Middle East war. This obviously would require a substantial redeployment of our troops. I would like to see them placed somewhere they could prevent a humanitarian catastrophe involving the Sunnis but that might not be possible. Any way you splice it - with the political will for carrying on as we have virtually gone on the Hill in both parties as well as out in the hinterlands among the American people - we better be prepared for a bloody aftermath in Iraq. And we also better get used to the idea that there’s not too much we can do to stop it.

The Republican race for the presidential nomination continues to surprise most inside the beltway observers who still have no idea how exactly to describe “The Fred Phenomena.” Recent polls only highlight the difficulty in analyzing what has now gone from a Thompson boomlet to a full blown prairie fire sweeping across the broad spectrum of Republican voting blocs and scrambling the race at the top

The Times-Bloomberg poll has Rudy in the lead with 27% and Thompson closing fast at 21%. McCain is sinking, down to 12% (amidst rumors that is having trouble raising money) with Mitt Romney treading water at 10%. If conservatives had any notion that McCain was a better choice than the more moderate Guiliani or Romney, the forthcoming entrance of Fred Thompson into the race has probably destroyed what little conservative support the Arizona Senator had left. Clearly, Fred is rising at the expense of McCain - at the moment.

The Rasmussen poll released yesterday is even more shocking. It shows the undeclared, barely started campaign of the former Tennessee Senator locked in a dead heat with Rudy Guiliani who has been running for President since last November. Each candidate receives 24% in the latest survey with McCain, losing half his support since January, at just 11% and tied with Romney.

Some of the internals of that Rasmussen poll are interesting. Thompson’s favorable/unfavorable rating is a stellar 59-14. Contrasted with McCain’s own tumbling approval ratings in his own state (just 47% view him favorably), this spells real trouble for not only McCain but the rest of the field as well.

The real question is will those numbers hold up once Thompson gets it in gear and begins to campaign in earnest. Right now, the Tennessean is something of a cipher. He has promised a different kind of campaign, one that uses the Internet more with less emphasis on personal appearances and other traditional campaign tactics. Judging by how it has worked so far, one could only call his strategy a success.

But not so fast. Limiting his speeches out on the hustings may leave Fred wide open to charges that he is ducking the voters in favor of an electronic campaign where he can carefully script his “appearances” on websites and op-ed pages. By limiting his exposure, he continues to be all things to all Republicans. While he has not done or said anything really controversial yet, once he is forced to come out with specifics on Iraq, the budget, taxes, immigration, and the War on Terror, people are going to start disagreeing with him.

And this is where getting up close and personal with primary voters is vitally necessary. Very few people are going to agree with everything you say and stand for. The test of Thompson’s strength as a candidate will come when we can determine how many people will still vote for him despite their disagreements with him on individual issues. And while there are many ways voters make that determination, it is very important that they see the candidate in the flesh so that they can judge for themselves how trustworthy he is or how he handles adversity.

It’s clear voters won’t find that information out via the internet. But Fred is smart in not rushing out on to the campaign trail just yet. There’s plenty of time for him to flesh out his on-line personae and fill in some of the blanks by writing and occasionally venturing out to address friendly audiences. It has worked so far. Why change it?

Will there be a drop off in support once he begins to campaign in earnest and people get to know him better? I would guess that his negatives will no doubt rise slightly. There isn’t an American politician alive today with negative ratings that are so low. But Fred’s challenge will be to move beyond the 24% support he currently enjoys and start building a majority coalition that can bring him the nomination.

For that, he will have to reach out to Guiliani and Romney supporters and give them a reason to support him beyond the fact that he is a conservative. He must broaden his appeal beyond the south and west and begin to compete in the Midwest and northeast. Romney is still far ahead in Iowa and New Hampshire. Victories in those two early contests will give the former Massachusetts governor some real momentum going into the pivotal contest in South Carolina and the National Primary Day a week later.

In fact, Fred may be eschewing competing in some of those early primaries and caucuses in order to concentrate on the January 29th contest in Florida. He already has begun a fundraising operation in the Sunshine State and there has been speculation that Jeb Bush may give him a hand - perhaps not publicly but urging some of his moneymen and supporters to help Thompson out. Winning Florida would give Fred some momentum going into South Carolina 4 days later (where he hopes to finish off McCain if he’s still in the race) and would set him up beautifully for some serious delegate harvesting on National Primary Day on February 5 where 20 states with half the US population will go to the polls.

With such a front loaded primary schedule, Thompson still has some ground to make up despite his unorthodox campaign. I suspect the money issue will begin to surface in the fall as the candidates get serious about paid media in the early primary states. Viral internet ads will help Thompson, I’m sure. But he will still need to try and compete over the airwaves if he hopes to do well.

If nothing else, Thompson’s “Front Porch” campaign and his subsequent meteoric rise in the polls may change the way candidates run for President in the future.

But only if he wins.

UPDATE

Ken Vogel in Politico has news of a whispering campaign against Thompson by other candidates seeking to undermine his claim to being a conservative lion.

It sounds to me like they’re reaching when trying to tar Fred with the “trial lawyer” moniker as well as digging into his client list when he was a lobbyist. Thompson’s experience in government as a staff lawyer on the Watergate Committee and in the Department of Justice more than outweighs any attempts to portray him as some kind of shady Washington insider.

Where his opponents may have more success is in pointing to Thompson’s support for McCain-Feingold, a position he regrets now but at the time, he was one of the bill’s biggest boosters. I don’t know how much traction that charge will have but it bears watching.

Phew! What a relief.

All these years since 9/11, I was under the mistaken impression that we were engaged in a war with al-Qaeda and its many offshoots, imitators, wannabes, and pretenders. But we have all now been happily disabused of such a stupid notion.

First, it was the Democrats who declared there is no “War on Terror” by banishing the very term from official documents and correspondence. Fine with me. Out of sight, out of mind, I say. There’s plenty of room here in this whole in the sand I’ve dug to stick my head. More the merrier.

And now the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has made it official. Those legal residents of the United States who plan mass murder against innocent American civilians cannot be held by the military as “enemy combatants.” Instead, they are entitled to receive all the help to beat the rap the anti-American left can give them in the form of glory seeking attorneys, a ready made PR machine in the mass media who will make sure he is seen as just some dope who got duped by Osama, and legions of civil liberties absolutists who believe the Constitution of the United States is actually a suicide pact in disguise:

The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled yesterday that the president may not declare civilians in this country to be “enemy combatants” and have the military hold them indefinitely. The ruling was a stinging rejection of one of the Bush administration’s central assertions about the scope of executive authority to combat terrorism.

The ruling came in the case of Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar now in military custody in Charleston, S.C., who is the only person on the American mainland known to be held as an enemy combatant. The court said the administration may charge Mr. Marri with a crime, deport him or hold him as a material witness in connection with a grand jury investigation.

“But military detention of al-Marri must cease,” Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote for the majority of a divided three-judge panel.

The court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, said a fundamental principle is at stake: military detention of someone who had lawfully entered the United States and established connections here, it said, violates the Constitution.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians,” Judge Motz wrote, “even if the president calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country.”

Alright already. I’m an authoritarian-loving, goose stepping, anti-constitutional Bushbot. But that still won’t answer the question the court refused to deal with: Are we at war or not?

If we are not at war, impeach the President, I say. He has grossly overstepped his authority and should be hauled before the Senate and put on trial. Same goes for Cheney and the whole gang at DOJ who have concocted this “War on Terror” thing for purposes of wielding enormous power over the rest of us and putting liberals, homosexuals, atheists, and anti-war demonstrators in concentration camps, declaring them “enemy combatants,” and confiscating their copies of The Noam Chomsky Reader.

Or, if we are at war, we better get deadly serious about making sure that terrorists - whether they be legal residents or not - can’t use the Constitution as a shield to help them escape justice. The very nature of their crimes means that most of the evidence against them has come via highly sensitive intelligence and other “national technical means” like eavesdropping or other forms of communications intercepts. And don’t you know that al-Qaeda and their allies (not to mention our own left wingers) would just love to have those secrets revealed in open court? The military and the government, on the other hand, would probably take a much dimmer view of telling al-Qaeda exactly how we keep an eye on them.

It doesn’t matter now. The Fourt Circuit has ruled we are not at war and that we can all get back to the business of ignoring the threats against us. Until we get hit again, of course. Then we get to go through the same baloney we’ve been experiencing for the last 6 years.

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho,
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho
and the walls came tumbling down.

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho,
Joshua fit the battle of Jericho
and the walls came tumbling down.

(”Joshua Fit The Battle of Jericho.” Traditional Spiritual)

Note: This video of Nat King Cole introducing Mahalia Jackson singing the above song is a keeper.

Theodore H. White believed there were several elements that went into making a great speech. First, there must be “the occasion” - a suitable reason to give the speech in the first place. Secondly, the words themselves must reach out and not just stimulate the mind of the audience but touch the heart as well. And finally, the venue in which the speech is given must act as an amplifier to give the speech an importance beyond the occasion or the actual words spoken.

Reagan had it all 20 years ago today as he stood before the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The man, the moment, the venue - all came together so that his thundering challenge to the mighty Soviet state to “Tear down this wall” hit the occupied countries of Europe like a bolt of lightening. It discomfited Gorbachev (and not coincidentally, the western left), gave heart to our allies, and electrified conservatives at home. It is one of the three great political speeches of my lifetime, easily the equal of Kennedy’s speech inaugurating the 1960’s and coming close to Dr. King’s challenge to America at the Lincoln Memorial to turn his dream of a peaceful, multi-racial society into reality.

As bracing as President Reagan’s speech at Brandenburg was, perhaps only the Gipper himself could have foreseen how prescient his words would be when a scant 2 years and 5 months later, joyful East Berliners took matters into their own hands and hammered the wall into dust. If there has been a more shocking, surprising, uplifting example of the power of the spoken word to affect the course of world events, I cannot think of one.

Of course, Gorbachev got the credit. But stop and think what the Communist leader actually was credited with doing - or more accurately, not doing. Mikhail Gorbachev was lionized for not sending in the tanks, for not slaughtering people as most of his predecessors certainly would have done. It speaks volumes of the desperation of the western left at that time that no credit whatsoever should fall to President Reagan and his open challenge to the moral authority of the Soviet Union that they would praise Gorbachev for simply acting like a human being and not a Communist thug.

But that was a symptom of the times and I’m sure Reagan could have cared less. He was not a vain man. His purpose at Brandenburg was to tweak the Soviet State by allowing them to hear the footsteps of freedom as the March of History approached the crumbling, rotten core of Communist tyranny all over Eastern Europe. New technologies had revealed the truth about the west to the captive peoples behind the Iron Curtain; the simple truth that they could see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears on pirated TV signals, cassette tapes, and newspapers smuggled across ever more porous borders - that the people of the west lived happier, freer, more enriching lives than they did. Rather than tamp down the restlessness as Gorbachev hoped, his mild, hesitant reforms opened the floodgates and a full blown revolution was underway.

I like the idea of Reagan as Joshua, sounding the ram’s horn of freedom which spurred a mighty shout from the host of oppressed peoples, bringing the whole rotten edifice of Communist tyranny crashing down. Of course, it was much more complicated than that. More than a 40 years of spadework had been done under both Democratic and Republican Presidents that gradually ate away at Soviet authority and the myths that kept the tyrants in power.

And let’s not forget the contributions of that smiling, brilliant, hard as nails holy man from Rome whose political savvy was matched by an iron will and an absolute total belief in his own moral authority. There was also an equally savvy, tough as boot leather Brit whose special relationship with the American President helped forge the most successful transatlantic partnership since World War II.

Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and Maggie Thatcher - Freedom’s Triumvirate - never formally coordinated strategy to challenge the idea of the permanence of the Soviet State. But if there is a guiding hand of God, surely they were touched by it. The idea that those three came to power at basically the same time is either one of the happiest accidents of history or proof that there is an Almighty God, depending on your personal beliefs.

But it was Reagan at the Gate who put the finishing touches to the beginning of the end of Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe. The groundwork had already been laid in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary. All that remained was for Reagan to utter the words:

We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate!

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

The story of the ruckus those last 4 words caused in our own government is one of high drama and low comedy. Everyone in the permanent bureaucracy was aghast at the thought of an American president directly challenging a Soviet leader. Even some of Reagan’s closest aides were against the idea of including the words. Peter Robinson, who is credited with authoring the speech, tells the story here:

With three weeks to go before it was delivered, the speech was circulated to the State Department and the National Security Council. Both attempted to suppress it. The draft was naïve. It would raise false hopes. It was clumsy. It was needlessly provocative. State and the NSC submitted their own alternate drafts—my journal records that there were no fewer than seven. In each, the call to tear down the wall was missing.

When in early June the President and his party reached Italy (I remained in Washington), Ken Duberstein, the deputy chief of staff, sat the President down in the garden of the palazzo in which he was staying, then briefed him on the objections to my draft. Reagan asked Duberstein’s advice. Duberstein replied that he thought the line about tearing down the wall sounded good. “But I told him, ‘You’re President, so you get to decide.’ And then,” Duberstein recalls, “he got that wonderful, knowing smile on his face, and he said, ‘Let’s leave it in.’”

The day the President arrived in Berlin, State and NSC submitted yet another alternate draft. Yet in the limousine on the way to the Berlin Wall, the President told Duberstein he was determined to deliver the controversial line. Reagan smiled. “The boys at State are going to kill me,” he said, “but it’s the right thing to do.”

(Via Powerline)

I find it amusing that up to the day of the speech, the bureaucrats were scrambling to get Reagan to change his mind and drop those 4 little words. But in the end, Reagan’s unerring sense of the moment and flair for the dramatic won out in his own mind. He guessed the impact those words would have. And he was proved right in the end.

Has it really been 20 years? Reagan himself is fading into myth and legend, an iconic part of our national story. The Soviet state is a rising authoritarian power, gradually moving away from the west and edging closer to outright opposition to American interests in Europe and especially elsewhere. But the countries Reagan helped free in Eastern Europe are doing very nicely, thank you. And the only way Russian hegemony could be re-established over their old dominion at this point would be through a ruinous war. The former captive nations are now full blown members of the democracy club. And there’s is nothing Putin and his former KGB friends can do about it.

Let that be the story, then. Reagan spoke. The wall fell. And tens of millions of souls live and breathe free because an American President stood alone in front of what was thought to be a permanent symbol of division only to blow his horn and have it come crashing down, uniting people in the ageless quest for human liberty.

I’m glad I was alive to see it.

UPDATE:

Some others marking this day as well:

Hugh Hewitt:

Reagan had to lose the presidential race in order to win it, and had to leave office after eight often difficult years before the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet empire collapsed. Reagan never stopped believing in freedom or in the rightness of his cause, leaving a record of persistence that ought to inspire his successors in government as well as those captive and oppressed peoples around the globe who would, like the men and women of Eastern Europe in the long years of Soviet cruelty, prefer freedom to tyranny.

Sister Toldjah remembers with pictures and video.

Jim Hoft points out that today is the day they dedicate a memorial to the victims of communism - all 100 million of them:

The Goddess of Democracy” was carved by students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in China and erected in Tiananmen Square during the democracy protest in 1989.

Today the Victims of Communism Organization is dedicating a memorial to the millions and millions of vicitms of communism by unveiling the “Goddess of Democracy” statue in Washington, DC. The monument to victims of communism stands at the intersection of Massachusetts and New Jersey avenues, two blocks from Union Station.

In trying to answer that question, the Chicago Tribune has revealed the truth; that some hate crimes are more hateful than others.

The Trib becomes the first major league newspaper to do a front page, above the fold story on the brutal murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, the young Knoxville, Tennessee couple who were kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a group of young African Americans. Beyond that, the paper tackles the controversial question of whether or not that brutal crime was, in fact, a hate crime as well as addressing the double standard at play in the media and society when black on white crime occurs:

Yet as brutal as the crime was, Knoxville authorities have strongly denied that it was racially motivated. And they have sought to correct rumors, eagerly spread by white supremacist Web sites, that the couple had been sexually mutilated before they were killed and their bodies dismembered afterward.

“There is absolutely no proof of a hate crime,” said John Gill, special counsel to Knox County District Atty. Randy Nichols. “It was a terrible crime, a horrendous crime, but race was not a motive. We know from our investigation that the people charged in this case were friends with white people, socialized with white people, dated white people. So not only is there no evidence of any racial animus, there’s evidence to the contrary.”

Newsom’s parents do not accept that logic.

“If this wasn’t a hate crime, then I don’t know how you would define a hate crime,” said Mary Newsom, Christopher’s mother. “It may have started out as a carjacking, but what it developed into was blacks hating whites. To do the things they did, they would have to hate them to do that.”

The District Attorney’s remarks are quite revealing. Let’s reverse the races and see if his comments would hold up.

A group of white kids beats up and murders a black man. Their defense against invoking the federal hate crime statute? They have friends who are black. They socialize with black kids. They date black girls.

Now you tell me how far that defense will get them with the Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the rest of the mainstream press, not to mention that clueless district attorney. We’d be hearing how they only dated the young black women to use them for sex. Or they only “socialized” with black kids to get drugs. Or they were only pretending to be friends to black kids.

You and I both know the answer to that question without even thinking. The fact that these “extenuating circumstances” are evidently going to save the murderers of the young Knoxville couple from being charged with a hate crime only tends to highlight the discrepancy.

And that’s not all. When it comes to cross racial crimes that are not considered hate crimes, there is a huge difference in the numbers of white on black crimes as opposed to black on white crimes:

But on the other hand, when overall cross-racial violent crimes are tabulated—including incidents not formally classified as racially motivated hate crimes—Justice Department statistics show that blacks attack whites far more often than whites attack blacks.

In 2005, there were more than 645,000 victims of cross-racial violent crimes between blacks and whites in the U.S. In 90 percent of those crimes, black offenders attacked white victims.

“In the old days,” said Hutchinson, contemplating that statistic, “when you said ‘hate crimes,’ it was automatic—whites victimizing blacks. Today you have to pause for a minute and not make automatic assumptions.”

And yet, despite the fact that blacks are 9 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white person than the other way around, who gets charged with more hate crimes?

On one hand, African-Americans bear the brunt of violent crime in the U.S.: In 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available, blacks were more than twice as likely as whites to fall victim to serious violent crime, most often at the hands of other blacks.

Blacks are also the overwhelming majority of victims of attacks recorded by the FBI as hate crimes. In 2005, blacks were the victims in 68 percent of nearly 5,000 hate-crime incidents nationwide, while whites were the victims in 20 percent of the cases. Whites accounted for 60 percent of known hate-crime offenders, while blacks accounted for 20 percent.

So despite the fact that whites are 9 times more likely to be the victim of a violent crime, they are 3 times more likely to be charged with a hate crime? Something is wrong with this picture.

What’s wrong is that racism is still not recognized as a sin that afflicts African Americans. If it were only a question of recognizing that some African Americans hate whites simply because they are white, then there wouldn’t be an argument. But “racism” has become synonymous in the black community with “power” or “the power to oppress.” Since blacks don’t have the power to oppress whites, they are immune from charges of being racists.

It’s convenient, clever, and a crock. This sort of thinking has been enabled by left wing sociologists and other academics for the last 40 years:

Sociologists have defined racism as a system of group privilege. In Portraits of White Racism David Wellman (1993) has defined racism as “culturally sanctioned beliefs, which, regardless of intentions involved, defend the advantages whites have because of the subordinated position of racial minorities,” (Wellman 1993: x). Sociologists Noel Cazenave and Darlene Alvarez Maddern define racism as “…a highly organized system of ‘race’-based group privilege that operates at every level of society and is held together by a sophisticated ideology of color/’race’ supremacy. Racist systems include, but cannot be reduced to, racial bigotry,” (Cazenave and Maddern 1999: 42). These definitions are important advances because the dominant definition of racism presumes that racism is an irrational form of bigotry that is not connected to the organization of social structure.

Scholars such as anthropologist Audrey Smedley (2007) point out that the very idea of ‘race’ implies inequality and hierarchy. Biologically there are no scientific classifications that delineate human groups into ‘races’ (Graves 2004). Historians such as Theodore Allen (1994; 1997) have analyzed colonial records from Virginia and concluded that the idea of a “white race” was originally invented in the early 18th century to splice together various European ethnic groups who never before thought they had anything in common. Noel Ignatiev (1995) has written an historical analysis of how the Irish became members of the “white race” in the 19th century.

The Seattle Public Schools summarized this line of thinking by defining racism thusly:

Racism:

The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). The subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.

Can this be so? If it is true, there is very little chance an African-American - or other minority for that matter - could ever be charged with a hate crime.

Using sociological constructs to redefine a word or concept for political or even legal advantage damages language and communication. What Goldstein points to as “intentionalism” - that is, the classical realist view of the meaning of text and language where the actual intent of the author or speaker is what matters most when analyzing meaning. Clearly there is a political and legal motive to redefine racism to exclude blacks and other minorities. The shocking statistics above make it an open question as to whether this kind of nonsense actually enables violence against whites by blacks, although that may be stretching the point too far.

The article also highlights the disturbing reluctance of African-American leaders to face up to the problem of black on white hate crimes:

But it’s not just conservative whites and extremists who have criticized the national silence over the Knoxville case.

“Black leaders are not eager to take this on because it’s one more thing that would cast a negative light on African-Americans,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, an author and nationally syndicated black columnist who has written frequently about the reluctance of black leaders to denounce crimes committed by blacks against whites. “There’s already an ancient stereotype that blacks are more violent and crime-prone, anyway.”

Rev. Ezra Maize, the president of the Knoxville chapter of the NAACP, has been one of the few black leaders to address the case.

“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable speaking out against this crime because it was African-Americans [allegedly] committing a crime against Caucasians,” Maize said. “It’s not a black-and-white issue. It’s a right-and-wrong issue. Those who committed this crime were unjust in doing so and they should pay the penalty.”

“Equal justice under the law” should be just that. And this has been the problem with hate crime legislation from the beginning. By establishing a double standard if not in law then certainly in the enforcement of the law with regard to the prosecution of hate crimes, equality before the law takes a body blow and breeds contempt for the law. Stuart Taylor:

The interracial Knoxville rape-murders would probably not qualify as hate crimes. The reason is that although the murderers were obviously full of hate, it cannot be proven that they hated their victims because of race. (Or so say police.)

Both the Duke lacrosse case and the (fictional) barroom scuffle [where one patron called another a "queer" for spilling a drink on him and then hitting him. Ed.], on the other hand, would probably be federally prosecutable under the bill that the House passed on May 3 by 237-180. This is because the angry words attributed to the accused could prove racist and homophobic motivations, respectively.

Do such distinctions make any sense? Not much, in my view.

(Via Instpundit)

Indeed, it may prove that prosecution of hate crimes has as much to do with politics as enforcing the law. And it raises the question is it necessary to have hate crimes statutes in the first place?

Most would agree that some crimes can be particularly heinious where the motivation is racial or ethnic hatred and that hate crime laws - if enforced fairly and equitably - serve both as a deterrent and an additional component of justice. It somehow seems fair that someone should get a longer sentence if his motivation to hurt someone is the result of something beyond the victim’s ability to control - his race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. But unless the laws can be drawn fairly, I see little point in carrying on the charade that mostly whites are capable of hating another race. That smacks of politics - perhaps an inevitable result of making law to cater to interest groups.