Right Wing Nut House

Keith Olbermann took time out from making the world safe for Edward R. Murrow impersonators on his show Monday night to offer some interesting thoughts on the connection between bad news about the Bush Administration (and the proximity to elections) and the exposure of terror plots, the issuance of terror alerts, and government advice on how to prepare for a terrorist assault.

Showing how every time there was a terror plot uncovered or when the old Homeland Security Threat level was bumped up it seemed to coincide with what Olbermann saw as a bad news day for the Administration, the Anti-Murrow sought to prove that there is no such thing as a serious terror threat to the United States, that it is all a case of political smoke and mirrors by an evil and manipulative White House.

No, really. For instance, when the Phoenix FBI agent testified before Congress about her superiors ignoring her warnings about terrorists training in flight schools, Senator Graham remarked that her testimony had inspired other pre-9/11 “whistleblowers” to come forward.

“Just” 4 days later, Keith informs us ominously, then Attorney General Ashcroft announced the arrest of Jose Padilla for the dirty bomb plot - even though he had already been in custody for a month! (Cue Darth Vader theme.)

What Keith failed to mention is that if we had announced the arrest of Padilla before assuring ourselves that such information would not alert any of Padilla’s co-conspirators, he would have been all over the Administration for blowing an intelligence bonanza. And what is the significance of this happening “just” 4 days after the testimony of the Phoenix FBI agent? Why, none of course - unless you live in the topsy turvy, upside down world of Keith Olbermann and his drooling conspiracy minded netnuts. Why not make the announcement the day after the testimony? Or the next day? Why wait 4 days? Only a blithering idiot wouldn’t see the 4 day gap as totally disproving the idea that the Administration used the announcement to deflect attention from their pre-9/11 failures.

This idea of a political basis for announcing terror threats and raising the level of concern about an attack is a remix of an old recording that was last played all throughout the election of 2004. The netnuts went positively ballistic every time that Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge showed his face on TV.

The beauty of this critique is obvious; the left gets to have it both ways. If the Administration hadn’t said anything and an attack occurred, they would be all over the Bushies for not only failing to prevent the attack but for not warning the American people. And since the Administration did get out front in raising the threat level and warning of an attack, the left can claim that it was driven by partisan politics.

Simple. Elegant. And monumentally stupid.

Olbermann’s idea of “bad news” for the Administration is so obtuse as to be beyond belief. He cites Secretary Powell’s speech before the UN on February 5, 2003 where claims of WMD in Iraq were disproven “months later.” But just two days later, amidst the news of anti-war demonstrations around the world, Secretary Ridge raises the threat level to orange.

Excuse me but does anyone else see that particular example of the Administration playing politics with terror alerts to be out and out idiocy? What does Powell’s speech (not disproven for months) have to do with raising the threat level a few days later? And does anyone seriously believe that the Administration could have cared one whit about anti-war demonstrators in Amsterdam? Or the pitifully few 60’s holdovers who turned out in this country? So much so that they went to the trouble and huge expense of raising the threat level?

Keith Olbermann is a loon. And while he made mention of the logical fallacy argument - that just because event A and event B happen to occur at the same time, it doesn’t mean there is a connection between the two - he then descends into the outer darkness to make his point. He states the danger of logical fallacies and then goes ahead and engages in them. This kind of breathtaking stupidity is what Olbermann does best and it’s why the netnuts love him so. His thoughts mirror their paranoid worldview - that terrorism is vastly overblown as a threat to our security and that the Bushies have used the issue to convince Americans “to fear fear itself” according to Keith.

” …from the mind-bending idea that four guys dressed as Pizza Delivery men were going to out-gun all the soldiers at Fort Dix…to the not-too-thought-out plan to blow-up J-F-K Airport… here we go again…”

Yeah…and the idea that 19 guys with box cutters planning to hijack planes and fly them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center is just plain kooky. (Note: For the record, the soldiers at Fort Dix were unarmed. Their weapons were locked up.)

It isn’t just the idea that there is always a political angle to terrorism threats in this country that makes Olbermann’s fantasies so destructive. Anyone so naive as to believe that there isn’t any political calculation in some of the things done by the FBI or DHS doesn’t know government very well. High profile investigations and raids always seem to get wrapped up around budget request time. The same goes, I’m sure, for some terrorism related investigations as well. This is the nature of the beast and trying to change it would be like trying to stop the rain.

But the thought that the Administration systematically used terrorism as a political club to blunt bad news is so outrageous as to reveal Olbermann and those who agree with him to be blissfully ignorant of reality. There is little doubt that Secretary Ridge wanted to be less aggressive in raising the threat level than the White House - not because he didn’t think the threat was bogus but because he thought that the constant yo-yoing of the color coded threat board lessened its impact. But can you chalk that up to politics? Or is there perhaps a more mundane reason such as the Administration wanting to be safe rather than sorry? CYA is a much more realistic - dare I say “reality based” - reason for the threat level rising than any Master Plan by the Bush Administration to use fear as a political weapon.

I’ve written this before half in jest but it bears repeating: Perhaps the best thing that could happen to this country’s preparedness for a terrorist attack is if we elected a Democrat as President. Not because he would do a better job than a Republican. It’s just that Republicans are far less likely to deliberately undermine our battle here at home to stay safe by positing wild, unprovable, paranoid conspiracy theories about the seriousness of the terror threat than the Democrats and their loony netnuts. I doubt very much that the left will disbelieve a Democratic Administration that announces the foiling of a terrorist plot. Nor will there be a whisper about using fear of terrorism as a political weapon.

At the very least, a Democratic Administration will keep the paranoid loons spouting their conspiracy theories relatively quiet for four years. It might be worth it just to enjoy that particular blessing.

UPDATE

Speaking of pooh-poohing the terrorist threat, Michelle has a “Gathering of Ostriches” who prove that Keith Olbermann isn’t the only one who thinks denial is just a river in Egypt.

UPDATE II

If I’d read Allah first, I wouldn’t have bothered:

You’ll note, I hope, that even Olby recognizes how dishonest he’s being. That’s why he feels obliged to mention not once but twice that coincidences do happen and, in his words, “we could probably construct a similar timeline of terror events and their relationship to the haircuts of popular politicians.” Why do it, then? Because, as the Truthers are wont to say, he’s “just asking questions.” Just “airing it,” Sullivan style. Make up your own mind.

He also doesn’t seem to grasp that just because the pipeline plot wasn’t feasible doesn’t mean no attack would have occurred. You’ve got a group of men with homicidal intent willing to travel internationally to bring off their plan. If they’re game for that, they’re probably game for walking into a crowd of people and opening up with automatic weapons and grenades. It won’t take out an airport, but you might very well top the body count from the London bombings two years ago.

Read the whole thing.

In the early days of American politics, no man would dare openly run for President of the United States, zig zagging across the country trying to drum up support. It was considered unseemly and self-aggrandizing for a politician to be seen grasping for power in such a naked way.

So the putative candidate would run what was commonly known as a “Front Porch Campaign” where party leaders and supporters from across the country would show up at the candidate’s home and appear to plead with him to accept their support. The candidate, humble and diffident, would gratefully acknowledge their activities on his behalf and usually mouth some platitudes about some issue or give a stem winding, patriotic oration about America . Of course, the more important the party leader (or his representative), the bigger what passed for a 19th century feeding frenzy by the press. It was in this way that the American people became acquainted with the major candidates.

It was all a political Kabuki dance. Everyone knew that the candidate was dying to be President. The 1896 race between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan was a case in point.

While Bryan was on the hustings, making more than 600 speeches (If there was a man in American political history more in love with his own voice, I am unaware of him.), McKinley, after locking up the nomination appeared dormant, sitting at home entertaining Republican party luminaries looking for all the world as if he couldn’t really care if he became President. Meanwhile, a shady operator by the name of Mark Hanna was generously spreading money around he raised from his big business friends who were absolutely terrified of Bryan’s populist campaign and most especially his advocacy of basing the dollar on both a gold and silver standard (”You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”).

McKinley ended up winning the election by allowing Bryan an open field to scare the beejeebees out of just about everyone except his farm/labor base. And that points up one of the oddities in politics; a sitting target is harder to hit than a moving one.

Senator Fred Thompson has developed a strategy so at odds with that of his rivals in the Republican race for President that it may be studied very carefully by future campaigns for lessons in how to win a nomination. At the moment, Thompson is third in national polls trailing Mayor Rudy Guiliani and Senator McCain and leading former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. But the former Tennessee Senator isn’t even an official candidate yet. Just this past Friday, he formed a finance committee to raise money for his campaign. But he has yet to spend any money on advertising. He has precious few paid staff members. And his organization is light years behind those of his main rivals.

While the front runners and also-rans have been criss crossing the country and frantically working the phones trying to raise money, Thompson has set himself down on his ole’ front porch, relaxing on the settee writing a bit, blogging some, and occasionally venturing out to give a speech to the faithful. He has used the internet to generate a “buzz” about his campaign - much like sophisticated marketers today use the net to spread the word about a new product. He has no official website. But articles like this one, talking about the Senator and his campaign serve the purpose of circulating his name and getting people to think about him.

Of course, it helps that Thompson has been appearing on television for years as the no nonsense DA in NBC’s Law and Order. But in establishing a presence on the web and fleshing out his ideas through some very well placed op-eds designed to give him maximum exposure to conservative audiences, Thompson has emerged as bona fide conservative alternative to the front runners.

Thompson will not participate in this Tuesday’s Republican debate in New Hampshire. A pity, that. But no matter how you look at it, Thompson is now ready to take his campaign from his front porch into the living rooms of the American people. How he handles that transition will say much about his abilities as well as how far he might go in the race for the nomination.

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FINAL UPDATE: 6/8

There’s still time to contribute! If you haven’t done so, please consider it. Thank you.

Somehow, I missed my friend Bob Sikes over at the sports/politics/culture blog Getting Paid to Watch, who generously linked to this piece. Sorry ’bout that Bob. Barry Bonds made me do it.

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This is the third June in a row that I have forthrightly and without any qualms asked the readers of Right Wing Nuthouse to donate funds to this site. And it is the last time I will make such a request.

This is because by next June, I either won’t need the money or will have given up trying to write for a living.

Of course, you are not exactly donating to “this site.” You would be giving money to me, Rick Moran - someone who no doubt has made you laugh, angered you, made you think, or perhaps moved you with his writing. I make no pretense to having a corner on truth, being a superior writer, or even having any special insight. The one quality that I hope you agree I have is honesty. So here it is.

When Sue and I sat down in September of 2004 to decide whether or not I would try to make a living as a writer, we agreed that if I wasn’t contributing substantially to the household income by the end of 2007, I would give up the dream and return to the world of regular paychecks, health insurance, paid vacations, and in my case, 60 hour workweeks. To accomplish this, we recognized that we would have to live a spartan lifestyle, economize considerably, sacrifice many of the little pleasures in life we had come to take for granted, and pray that we both remained relatively healthy.

This we have done. I have made no attempt to exaggerate our financial situation in the past to elicit sympathy nor will I do so now. The money you, my gentle readers, have given us has helped enormously. It has kept our heads above water which, if nothing else, has allowed us to live with a certain peace of mind. There are many of you I’m sure who know what I’m talking about. Living paycheck to paycheck can take a toll on one’s well being as you are constantly worrying about what might happen.

The problem at this point is simple; events and circumstances have occurred over the last few months that have made it imperative that this particular request for donations succeed well beyond what we have been fortunate enough to receive in the past. Several unforeseen and unwelcome expenses have cropped up over the last few months that has us drowning in red ink.

Now we are in no danger of being evicted or filing for bankruptcy. Nor is the repo guy going to show up anytime soon. Creditors are always willing to work with you if you talk with them and let them know that you fully intend to pay what you owe. But the fact is, I made another promise to my Zsu Zsu when she so selflessly agreed to be the primary breadwinner in the house; that if we ever started to live the way we are living now, I would give it up and go back to what I had been doing previously.

So that’s where we are at the moment - totally and completely dependent on you, my friends, enemies, readers, lurkers, fellow bloggers and all the rest to help keep my hopes alive. I do love writing so. And I would hate to give it up without being able to tell myself I did everything I could - including asking for donations from strangers - to keep doing what I have discovered to be a boundless passion so late in life. Especially since in the last month, I have finally begun to sell some of my writing. It’s not much yet. But the promise of more is there.

If you have donated in the past, please consider doing so again.

If you haven’t, please give serious consideration to donating this time.

If you are a blogger, please consider linking to this post and sending some of your readers this way. I’ll be glad to give you a hat tip in an update with a link back.

For your convenience, I have included both an Amazon donation button and a Paypal button below.

No matter how this turns out, I want to thank you for your emails and comments. They have sometimes stopped and made me think. And for that, I am grateful.

UPDATE: 6/4

Sunday’s take exceeded my most optimistic expectations. We’ll see what happens today.

And a great big hat tip to a long, long time supporter of this site Tom over at Hamstermotor. If you’re hungry, he has the recipe for The One True Sandwich.

WELCOME INSTAPUNDIT READERS! Many thanks, Glenn.

AHOY CAPTAINS QUARTERS READERS! Thanks for the kind words, Ed.

HELLO TO ALL MY GOOD FRIENDS AT AMERICAN THINKER! Tom Lifson’s support is, as always, most appreciated.

GREETINGS WIZBANG READERS! I’m a huge fan of Kim Priestap’s writing over there. You should be too. Thanks, Kim.

My old friend Wonder Woman at her new blog The Lassoo of Truth has some kind words. Hooray for the Justice League! (Gentlemen, your attention please.)

Some of my Blog Talk Radio buds link here from American Pundit. Thanks guys!

The whimsically named blog This Ain’t Hell But You Can See It From Here links here. Didn’t know I was a blog faddah. Thanks a million, John.

Mike at Lamplighter throws us a link. He says he has a “little blog.” I can guarantee you Mike, with stories like this - about a scam affecting the wives of our soldiers overseas - you won’t remain little for long.

Hoody at Nothing blog - long time reader - shoots and scores us a link. Agree with your “archetype” theory about teams designed to beat the Pistons.

Gentle Anchoress links to this post. She’s the only one on the internet whose site I comb my hair and button my shirt before visiting.

I regularly submit something from Varifrank to the Watchers Council weekly competition because Frank is a great writer, clear thinker, and I usually agree with him. Case in point.

The Oxford Medievalist - who goes by the nom de blog Angevin - seems like the perfect blogger; “Conservative American Anglophile medieval historian and intelligence scholar.” Thanks for the link, your highness.

New to me blog J’s Cafe Nette does me the honor of linking here.

Wide Awakes bud and one of my dearest friends on the net Raven of And Rightly So gives us a boost! Thanks gorgeous!

UPDATE: 6/5

Yesterday’s response was simply overwhelming. On behalf of my live-in lover (not, as some of you think, my wife) Zsu Zsu, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. So many thoughtful people with nice things to say about me. And then there are the few…

Mr. Nosepicker is just jealous, of course. Friendless people usually are.

Meanwhile, today is another day and I hope to match the 48 donations from yesterday if not exceed it! And here are some bloggers who are going to help me do it:

Frequent linker Doug Ross - always with the first link of the day to this site - includes me in his Google Street Views.

Adam of Adam’s Blog misses the Carnival of the Clueless. So do I. Thanks for the kind words, Adam.

Coffee Spy attributes superhero qualities to this site. This post is what blogging is all about. Many thanks…and I’ll take mine strong and black, please.

Another good friend Karen of Pondering Penguin gives us a shout out.

UPDATE: 6/6

Donations fell off yesterday - but that was to be expected. Nevertheless, we are closing in on my goal. (Perhaps if I reach it, I will tell you what that goal is.) A good day today and we might be able to put the tin cup away early. So if you’ve thought about giving but haven’t, I would very much be in your debt if you could see your way clear to donating today.

Meanwhile, another new to me blogger has joined the Hallelujah Chorus. Skal of Skalduggery waxes poetic about truth. I’m honored, sir.

And that eclectic yet very neighborly bunch at Maggie’s Farm link to this post. Eclectic, perhaps. But loads of yankee common sense too. “First they came for my cigarettes…”

UPDATE: 6/7

Just two days to go and we’re closing in on our goal. One big push today will put me over the top. Please consider donating today.

Meanwhile, Slublog thinks he’s late to the party. Yes, but fashionably late. And you look mahvalus!

Physics Geek almost went unnoticed as a linker here until I checked my Technorati links. Many thanks sir.

What’s this? Is the Commissar going soft? What, no withering blast at my purely capitalist method of raising money? No threats to be sent to the Lubyanka for trying to poison the minds of the proletariat? Ah well, I guess that proves that even Commies have a heart. Many thanks, my friend.

You’d never know it but we’re in the middle of another Iranian hostage crisis.

You may have heard about the 3 Iranian Americans kidnapped by the gangsters currently in charge in Tehran. Then again, you may not have heard about it. Our media apparently now views hostage taking by the Persians so routine that it’s not even worth reporting on. After all, be they innocent American academics, British or American soldiers, or American diplomats, it simply doesn’t matter. The lawless crumbums who weep about American interference in their affairs who then turn around and violate international law with impunity know that they will escape serious consequences for their outrageous behavior thanks to concern over the safety of our citizens at the hands of the uncivilized fanatics who hold them:

Rarely have so many journalists, politicians and commentators so totally missed a headline. There are now five American hostages in Iran. Each case has been largely treated by itself, almost as if it were an oddity, something requiring a special explanation, instead of another piece in a luminously clear pattern whose meaning should be intuitively obvious to us all.

The Americans were taken hostage for the same reasons the regime has routinely taken foreign hostages from the first year of its existence: to resolve internal power struggles, to demonstrate to the Iranian people the hopelessness of their condition by directly challenging the infidels to do anything about the humiliation of their countrymen, and to impose their will on a Western world the mullahs view as feckless and paralyzed. When the American embassy was overrun in the fall of 1979, Khomeini famously proclaimed that the Americans “can’t do a thing,” and today the regime is trying to show that neither the Americans nor the Brits (five more of whom were taken hostage in the past couple of days) can do anything to challenge the mullahcracy.

There are five Americans being held in Iran against their will:

* Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington and the wife of the distinguished historian Shaul Bakash;

* Parnaz Azima, a journalist for radio Farda, the Farsi-language component of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty;

* Ali Shakeri, a founding board member at the University of California, Irvine’s Center for Citizen Peacebuilding;

* Kian Tajbakhsh, a consultant working for George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

* Robert A. Levinson, a former FBI officer reportedly investigating tobacco smuggling on behalf of a private client. He disappeared after he flew to Iran’s Kish Island in March.

It’s a shame that Sean Penn and his entourage couldn’t have dropped in on his buds in the Iranian government recently. He very well may have been able to experience first hand why Persian hospitality has become so justly famous.

One of the American hostages - Haleh Esfandiari - was also charged with the unforgivable crime of marrying a Jew. It speaks volumes about a nation’s rulers that they criminalize love based on someone’s heritage or religion. But don’t mention this to our domestic Iranian apologists. Their heads might explode. To them, this sort of thing - like “wiping Israel off the map” - is for domestic political consumption only and doesn’t really reflect the peace loving, freedom worshiping nature of the dirty necked galoots who are grinding the Iranian people under their jackboots as I write this.

Esfandiari and two others will also apparently go on trial for espionage. This is a curious charge to make against Americans who are in Iran trying to undermine the hard line policies of their government. But then, it’s not about espionage or America at all. The hostage taking serves other purposes.

The fact that this rogue regime now sees hostage taking as a way for one faction or another to gain an advantage in its own internal power struggles means that these kinds of outrages will continue for the foreseeable future:

The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suffers from inoperable cancer and has already outlived his doctors’ prognosis. The political war over his successor has been raging for several months between partisans of the country’s two most prominent political figures: Ahmadinejad and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. Two months ago Rafsanjani went to Qom, the city of the grand ayatollahs, in an attempt to gain the support of the leading clerics, at which time he tried to convince them to name a successor even before the Supreme Leader’s demise. Nothing came of it, nor did anything come of the much-ballyhooed efforts to “impeach” Ahmadinejad or shorten his term. The latest dustup came over the talks with the Americans in Baghdad, which were violently condemned by Ahmadinejad’s followers.

The wave of hostage-taking undoubtedly plays a role in this political war, for it demonstrates the great strength of the hardliners around Ahmadinejad and Khamenei, and weakens Rafsanjani’s standing with the clerical elite.

It would be tempting to root for Rafsanjani in this internal dust-up except for the fact that he’s no better than the crazies who are currently in power. Besides, it was he who made the first big investments in the Iranian nuclear program back in the early 90’s when he served as President. To believe that much would change with Rafsanjani in power is a chimerical hope. He’s just as anti-American as Ahmadinejad. He hates the west with equal passion as the so-called “hardliners” and is just as determined to see the destruction of Israel. The only difference is his rhetoric would lull the west to sleep. No mystical speeches before the UN for Rafsanjani. Known as one of the richest men in the world, his corrupt leadership is what eventually brought Ahmadinejad to power with a mandate to clean up the cesspool that is the Iranian bureaucracy.

But none of this matters to the five Americans currently in custody. At least Bush came out today and did his part; demanding their release “unconditionally:”

President Bush lashed out at Iran today for detaining American citizens and called for them to be freed “immediately and unconditionally.”

In a White House statement, Bush said the four detainees whose families have spoken out publicly had dedicated their lives to building bridges between Americans and Iranians, a goal that Tehran also claimed to share.

“Their presence in Iran — to visit their parents or to conduct humanitarian work — poses no threat,” the Bush statement said. “Indeed, their activities are typical of the abiding ties that Iranian-Americans have with their land of origin.”

Bush cited scholar Haleh Esfandiari of the Smithsonian’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, social scientist Kian Tajbakhsh, Radio Farda correspondent Parnaz Azima, and California businessman Ali Shakeri.

Bush also said he was “disturbed” by Tehran’s refusal to provide information on former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared after flying to Iran’s Kish Island on March 8. Tehran has failed to provide information or to respond to five messages channeled through the Swiss Embassy to the Iranian government about Levinson.

And, in what can only be considered typical State Department “closing the barn door after the horse has run away,” our brilliant Foggy Bottom bureaucrats issued a travel warning to Iran:

The State Department yesterday issued a formal travel warning to all U.S. citizens to consider the risks of travel to Iran. It cautioned dual Iranian-American citizens that they may face difficulties leaving Iran, noting the detention and imprisonment of dual nationals in recent weeks.

“Some elements of the Iranian regime and the population remain hostile to the United States. As a result, American citizens may be subject to harassment or arrest while traveling or residing in Iran,” the warning said. The government may even deny dual nationals access to the U.S. Interests Section in Tehran operated by the Swiss Embassy on ground that they are considered to be solely Iranian citizens, it said.

Duh.

The rest of the world remains sanguine about Iranian hostage taking. After all, most of them are safe from the wrath of the Persian thugs who take advantage of the fact that no one wants to do anything about their lawless behavior. They will continue to act with impunity, secure in the knowledge that any military move against them taken by the United States will bring the condemnation of the world down on top of our heads.

And that kind of irony is either too amusing for words or too painful to contemplate. You decide.

C: I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

Pardon the lengthy introduction, but The Dead Parrot Sketch is one of Monty Python’s most important contributions to the humor of western civilization. Or not. I suppose it depends on whether you like Monty Python.

Be that as it may, the sketch is also instructive regarding the imminent demise of what we used to call “The Grand Old Party” which became the nickname of Republicans back in the day when “The Grand Army of the Republic” - Union veterans of the Civil War - pretty much ran the party. Those 400,000 or so veterans elected every Republican president from Grant to McKinley. Their endorsement carried huge weight with a grateful electorate who recognized the veteran’s sacrifices and honored them even beyond the effective life of the GAR.

Now the party is run by cynical hacks and jackanapes who, despite all evidence to the contrary, insist that the parrot isn’t dead, it’s just resting. The plumage may still be pretty. But maggots have already begun to eat away at the insides.

What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker–”At this point the break became final.” That’s not what’s happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn’t need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don’t even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

Peggy Noonan is not some turncoat, traitorous, weak kneed Republican pantywaist. She helped put Ronald Reagan’s ideas and thoughts to some of the most beautiful rhetorical music of 20th century politics. But she, along with many of us, are tired and dispirited. We have seen the Republican party run into the ground and then stepped on by an Administration and a President who have gone beyond taking most of us for granted and instead have declared war upon those who have sustained his presidency in the face of the most vicious and determined opposition to his policies. We have been slapped in the face, kicked in the teeth, stabbed in the back. And the smug, self-righteous mountebanks who are taking the party with them to oblivion could care less.

In fact, given all that has transpired since the 2004 election (which coincided with the last time the Bushies even paid lip service to the base) one could say that this President has seemed most determined to destroy the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Reagan leaving behind only a charred husk for the rest of us to live with. They have decided that Götterdämmerung is in order; if they can’t prevail, then they will destroy what is left of the grand coalition that changed the face of America and the world in the 1980’s and in a fit of either pique or ignorance, leave it for the next crew to cobble together something else.

I will say that it didn’t take much to destroy what was left of that coalition. Since the end of the cold war - the single uniting expedient of the Republican party for more than 30 years - the GOP has been adrift. Uniting against Clinton was fairly easy although that unity was a mile wide and an inch deep. It was based on the absolute worst of political bargains; the cold, calculus of how to get power and keep it. So for ten years Republicans played the special interest game, feeding the lobbyists a steady diet of earmarks and favors, reaping huge amounts of campaign contributions in return, while selling out their basic principles of smaller, less intrusive government and fiscal discipline.

And now, there’s precious little left. No ideology. Little loyalty. Less desire to help this gang of cynical galoots maintain what power and position they have remaining. Witness the news from the Republican National Committee:

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors’ rebellion over President Bush’s immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.

Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee’s chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.

The national committee yesterday confirmed the firings that took place more than a week ago, but denied that the move was motivated by declining donor response to phone solicitations.

“The phone-bank employees were terminated,” RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt wrote by e-mail in response to questions sent by The Times. “This was not an easy decision. The first and primary motivating factor was the state of the phone bank technology, which was outdated and difficult to maintain. The RNC was advised that we would soon need an entire new system to remain viable.”

Fired employees acknowledged that the committee’s phone equipment was outdated, but said a sharp drop-off in donations “probably” hastened the end of the RNC’s in-house phone-bank operation.

“Last year, my solicitations totaled $164,000, and this year the way they were running for the first four months, they would total $100,000 by the end of 2007,” said one fired phone bank solicitor who asked not to be identified.

Not dead. Just resting.

The real danger, of course, is that come November next year GOP candidates simply won’t be able to compete in the 70 or so seats in the House that the Democrats are licking their chops to see change hands. With little available help from the national party and a base that will not only sit on their wallets but probably sit on their hands come election day, the chances are growing that a truly remarkable collapse will occur, an historic implosion that, like a tidal wave, will change the political contours of the country once it recedes. The stars are not quite aligned yet for such a disaster. But the tumblers are beginning to click into place and it remains to be seen whether anyone or any group in the GOP can alter history’s course.

Meanwhile, the Bushies continue to employ their scorched earth policy toward critics:

I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they’re defensive, and they’re defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill–one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions–this is, always and on every issue, the administration’s default position–but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate.

They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true!

Indeed. The President’s famous stubbornness - a quality that held him in good stead early in his Administration - has now morphed into a pathological, ego-centric belief that since he is always right, his critics are not only wrong but evil to boot. I guess six years of enduring the unhinged, BDS paranoia and conspiracy theories of the lickspittle left can do that to a man.

The fact that this self righteousness has permeated his entire Administration as well as most supporters of his Let’s-Not-Call-It-Amnesty-Even-Though-It-Is bill only makes many of his erstwhile supporters wonder is there anything left to expend the time and energy defending. Some would say the Administration’s policies in Iraq are worth going to bat for. But given recent news that the President is about to undercut even his Iraq War supporters by withdrawing a substantial number of troops for no more reason than the Democrats have given, it would appear the betrayal of even these, his most loyal and true acolytes, will eventually be complete.

Meanwhile, world events rush forward. Iran continues to thumb its nose at everyone. Pakistan becomes more unstable by the day - with its 60 nuclear weapons poised to possibly fall into the hands of Taliban lovers. Afghanistan still bleeds despite small successes. Lebanon is in danger from a desperate Syria who seeks to undermine its government to prevent an International Tribunal from declaring President Assad a common, murderous gangster. Chavez is taking Venezuela to hell. And the terrorists continue to plan murder on a cosmic scale.

A lame duck President without much of a base, a rabid dog opposition, and a party coming apart at the seams means a time of maximum danger for the United States. I wish it weren’t so. But the palpable feeling of impending disaster that I feel to the marrow of my bones requires me to cry out in anger and despair at those who have taken us down this road and who will now reap the whirlwind for what they have sown these past few years.

UPDATE

Allah channels the parrot:

The RNC spokesman denied that there has been a falloff at all. Yup, there’s nothing wrong in the GOP family these days. Nothing at all. Nothing to see here, move along.

UPDATE II: FROM THE “HOLY CHRIST!” FILES

Michelle links to a Mary Katherine Ham post on a verbatim transcript with an RNC solicitor:

Caller: “Well, that’s not Republicans. Just the President loves that immigration bill.”

Caller: “That’s ridiculous.”

Indeed. You lost me at “hello”…

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is “Israel Faces Its Choices In Gaza” by Joshuapundit. Finishing second was my contribution, “Musings on a Late Spring Afternoon.”

Tops in the non Council category was “On Dehumanizing the Enemy In War and the Nature of Victory” by TigerHawk.

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

When I survey the disaster that is the current Republican party - a leaderless, rudderless, dispirited mob without a clue of how to begin fixing what’s broke - the obvious question that leaps to mind is can anything be salvaged from the current situation? Or is the GOP condemned to walk the earth like Zombies for the foreseeable future with no direction, no heart, and little in the way of motivation to animate its followers?

You think I’m being too hard on Republicans, huh? Quick, name the leader of the Republican party. Time’s up. If you said Bush, I’ll give you points for loyalty but then take away your Haliburton Club card. The President of the United States is busy doing what every second term president has done since the beginning of the republic; fashioning a legacy for the history books. If you think he cares much for the Republican party - especially this president - I would just as soon you remain on the sidelines while those of us who have to deal with the reality of the situation take over.

Who else as leader of the GOP? Mr. Boehner? Mr. McConnell? Fine gentlemen, adequate legislators both. But as leaders of a national party, they both leave much to be desired as far as personality, temperament, and the ability to move large numbers of people toward a common goal. Herding lawmakers is a lot different than inspiring voters. And frankly, neither one of those gentleman has got “it” - that ineffable quality that draws the legions to your standard and inspires personal loyalty above and beyond attachment to party.

Leadership certainly can’t be found in the gaggle of presidential candidates fielded so far by the Republicans. While some of those qualities I mentioned are present in a few of the candidates, they have no standing to grab the reins of leadership and begin the process of bringing the party back from the dead. Perhaps when a clear winner emerges early next winter (and it will be early), the Chosen One can work on re-energizing and re-tooling the party. This will be in addition to trying to organize a national campaign in order to effectively challenge the eventual Democratic nominee. Somehow, I think that party building will take a back seat to the more important task of getting elected in the first place.

And that brings us to Fred Thompson and his slow, steady (some would say stodgy) progress toward entering the race for the Republican nomination. It used to be true back in the day that a candidate waited until after Labor Day the year before the election to formally announce his candidacy. This was because no one in their right mind would eschew FEC “matching funds” available to all candidates in favor of abandoning those limits in order to raise obscene amounts of cash (Hillary and Obama are expected to raise close to $120 million each). It was considered bad politics and bad strategy back then. But times change as does the way candidates run for president. An early announcement is almost a necessity now so that a candidate can compete in the upcoming heavily front loaded primary season.

But Fred Thompson has done things a little differently and as a result, has made an effective splash in the race. Running a “Front Porch” campaign from Tennessee, Thompson has cautiously ventured out to speak at a couple of friendly forums while using the internet to great effect. His presence on the web is not measured in hits at a website but rather the buzz created by his web activities. A You Tube video of a response to Michael Moore swept the net like wildfire. He has also blogged a bit as well as written some widely disseminated Op-Eds, garnering a much larger readership on the net for those pieces than in the publication they originally appeared.

Thompson has accomplished much in a short period of time. He has moved up the ladder into the first tier of serious candidates given a realistic shot at the nomination. And he has done it without much of an organization, virtually no paid staff, and no paid media. This is remarkable feat when one thinks of the way modern campaigns are conducted and speaks well of the Senator’s abilities.

In short, Thompson gets it. And when a Republican leader emerges from the current crop of presidential candidates, it should be someone who can use the net as a major means to rebuild the party. In one fell swoop, someone like Thompson could close the gap that most everyone agrees has opened up between the liberal netroots and the conservatives on the internet. By bringing the right “home” to the party (without venturing too far from the center) as well as being a focal point for organizational activities - fund raising, volunteers, and other party building efforts - a candidate could make huge strides in bringing the GOP back from the dead.

But much depends on Thompson himself and what kind of a candidate he might be. We’ve only gotten glimpses of Thompson the Campaigner; a rather disappointing appearance in California (Bob Novak writes that he threw away prepared remarks and winged it), and a more recent and more successful appearance in Stamford, Connecticut.

That Stamford appearance is much more instructive as to what we can expect from Thompson:

Thompson implied at Stamford that Republicans, along with Democrats, are responsible for making Americans cynical. While so far not spelling this out publicly, he deplores ethical abuses, profligate spending and incompetent management of the Iraq war. He becomes incandescent when considering abysmal CIA and Justice Department performance under the Bush administration. He is enraged by Justice’s actions in decisions leading to Scooter Libby’s prison sentence.

In his Senate voting record and his public utterances, Thompson is more conservative than Giuliani, McCain or Romney. He takes a hard line on the war against terror (referring in Connecticut to the danger of “suicidal maniacs” crossing open borders) and worries about immigration policy creating a permanent American underclass. His one deviation from the conservative line has been support for the McCain-Feingold campaign reform, much of which he now considers overtaken by current fundraising practices and perhaps irrelevant. Overall, his tone, in a soft Tennessee drawl, is less harsh than that of other Republican candidates — a real-life version of the avuncular fictional D.A. he plays on TV.

Beyond ideology, Thompson envisions a 21st-century campaign, utilizing the Internet more and spending less money than his opponents. When speaking to a friendly audience or ruminating off the record, the 6-foot-7 actor-politician does not look or sound like the GOP’s announced candidates for president. His challenge will be to convey that impression when he appears with opponents on the same stage in the immediate future.

If true, this makes Thompson an even more impressive candidate in my mind. The untapped potential - and not just for fundraising - in organizing a net based campaign means that Thompson has a real chance to blow the rest of the GOP field out of the water. The danger is that expectations will creep so high that when he finally emerges from his front porch, the Savior of the Party will instead be seen as something a little more ordinary.

The same thing happened to Wesley Clark in 2004:

Fred Thompson is to the Republicans in ‘08 as Wes Clark was to the Democrats in ‘04. In other words, the highpoint of his campaign will be the day he gets in the race, because once he’s a serious candidate–and not just the fevered daydream of a dissatisfied base–voters will realize he’s not all that. Remember, you heard it here first. And if Thompson doesn’t flame out and actually goes on to win the GOP nomination and (gulp) the White House, well, forget I ever wrote this.

Update: Ana Marie Cox writes in to point out that you only heard it here first if you don’t read Swampland. And, in comments, MrCookie1 lays claim to the same thought. That’s three people who think Thompson=Clark. It’s a bona fide trend!

Wishful thinking by the left or prescient analysis? Clark’s problem was that the left was looking for a war hero to blunt the GOP’s huge advantage on national security issues. The fact that Clark proved to be an empty suit on domestic policies as well as a stiff-as-a-board campaigner didn’t help. And the charges that he was a “Democrat of convenience” - fed by his stated admiration for Colin Powell and Condi Rice - hurt him badly right out of the box.

No, Fred Thompson is no Wesley Clark. But there is still a danger that expectations won’t be met immediately as the Senator goes through the inevitable shake down problems all campaigns have at the beginning. Overcoming those problems will be a test of his leadership and communication skills. And his debate appearances will also give voters the opportunity to see how well he thinks on his feet. All in all, a Thompson candidacy will certainly alter the dynamics of the race as the other frontrunners attempt to sharpen their differences with the Senator.

The GOP race for president is about to get very interesting.

I have an Op Ed up at the Washington Examiner about earmarks and the Duke Cunningham scandal.

A sample:

Indeed, there have been many supporters of earmarks in both parties who have basically told taxpayers with questions about specific spending requests to take a hike. Here’s what Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said of the Porkbusters citizens group that has exposed many of these spending outrages: “I’m getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble since Katrina.” Clearly, it is a sensitive subject for both parties on Capitol Hill.

Alas, it would seem likely our lawmakers will take such advice to heart rather than resisting the urge to feather their own nests at the expense of the people who elected them.

The United Nations Security Council voted this afternoon to give the Lebanese parliament until June 10 to approve the sitting of the International Tribunal to try the murderers of ex-Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and others. Failing that approval, the UNSC vote means that they will invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter and sit the Tribunal under the auspices of the United Nations:

The U.N. Security Council voted on Wednesday to establish a special court to prosecute the murder two years ago of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Ten council members voted for the Western-sponsored resolution and five — Russia, China, Qatar, Indonesia and South Africa — abstained, with no votes against. The resolution will go into effect on June 10.

The fact that Russia and China - two of Syrias friends and benefactors - failed to veto the motion is a huge victory for US diplomacy. Too bad it will never be reported that way.

The resolution became necessary when the opposition forces in Parliament led by Hezbullah ally Speaker Nabih Berri refused to call the legislative body into session to consider the law authorizing the Tribunal. Following a plea from Prime Minister Siniora to the UN, the Security Council has now issued what amounts to an ultimatum to the Lebanese parliament to vote on the Tribunal by June 10 or the Tribunal will be seated automatically.

The relief and joy of the majority March 14th forces is being seen all over the country:

Meanwhile, Hariri supporters celebrated the Security Council’s decision.

But the government appeared fearful that the celebrations would turn violent between pro-government and opposition factions. The Interior Ministry banned the public from firing guns in the air, releasing fireworks and using motorcycles from 8 p.m. (1700 GMT) Wednesday to 5 a.m (0200 GMT) Thursday. Some of the bomb attacks in Lebanon have been blamed on assailants riding motorcycles.

Security forces were instructed to implement the measures and violators would be prosecuted, according to the ministry.

Hariri’s son, Saad Hariri, also urged supporters to refrain from firing guns and called on them to exercise calm by staying home and lighting candles on balconies.

The slain leader’s supporters began celebrating in Hariri’s hometown in the southern city of Sidon more than six hours before the Security Council met in New York to vote on the tribunal resolution.

Carrying Lebanese flags and pictures of Hariri, supporters set up what they called “love checkpoints” in Sidon’s main roads and intersections handing out sweets and flowers to motorists.

And along with that joy comes the inevitable feeling of unease at what Syria might do now to block the road for the Tribunal. The recent clashes involving the Palestinian terrorist group Fatah al-Islam are widely seen by many in Lebanon and around the world as being inspired if not directed by Assad’s Syria. And as a sign that there may be more trouble on the way, Naharnet is reporting that a “ranking al-Qaeda terrorist” has been arrested acting as a Syrian double agent:

Lebanese security agents have arrested a ranking al-Qaida terrorist who was acting as “a double agent for Syrian intelligence,” a reliable source told Naharnet.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the suspect whose name and nationality could not be revealed pending completion of the ongoing investigation, was busted Tuesday at a hotel suite in Beirut’s district of Ashrafiyeh.

The “very dangerous terrorist,” according to the source, had crossed into Lebanon “illegally” overland from neighboring Syria over the weekend to follow up “coordination with Fatah al-Islam terrorists” besieged in the northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared.

[...]

The suspect, according to the source, had “sold out al-Qaida in favor of cooperation with Syrian intelligence after he was offered safe haven in Syria.”

Last week, according to the source, the suspect “turned in to the Syrian intelligence a ranking Saudi member of al-Qaida known as Abu Talha. He did the Syrians a major favor that could help them boost their tense relations with the Americans.”

Abu Talha, whose real name is not known, is on the U.S. list of most wanted terrorists, according to the source.

After turning in Abu Talha, the Syrian intelligence command “sent the suspect to Lebanon to re-organize Fatah al-Islam and other Syrian-sponsored terrorists and sponsor a spate of attacks on a variety of targets in Lebanon aimed at destabilizing the situation,” the source added.

“The Syrians want to destabilize Lebanon and tell the Americans: ‘We can control the situation like we arrested Abu Talha. Strike a deal with us and Lebanon would be under control’,” the source said.

He said Fatah al-Islam terrorists arrested in north Lebanon “told investigators of the suspect’s moves and revealed important information which led to his arrest.”

As with many things having to do with Lebanon, this particular report is interesting but until it can be at least partially confirmed, caution is advised.

But it rings true to many observers who have witnessed Syria’s aggressive use of terrorist groups in the past to sow chaos in Lebanon. And it fits in with Syrias maximum effort to bring down the government of Prime Minister Siniora before the Tribunal can start to present evidence of high level Syrian complicity in the Harriri murder as well as almost two dozen other political attacks on anti-Syrian Lebanese.

For the government of Lebanon as for the people, trying to anticipate Syria’s next move in this campaign of destabilization is almost impossible. For in the end, the question on everyone’s mind is “What will Hizbullah do?”

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nassrallah has made it plain that he opposes the move to invoke Chapter 7 to sit the Tribunal. He has rejected every compromise to end the stand-off over increased opposition representation in the cabinet as well as various formulas for parliament to approve the enabling legislation for the Tribunal. But it would be a mistake to simply say that Nasrallah is doing Syria’s bidding. The Hizbullah leader has his own agenda which, in this case, happens to mirror the wishes of President Assad in Syria. And the fact that Hizbullah’s paymaster Iran has expressed its support for the Tribunal makes Nasrallah’s position vis a vis Syria delicate indeed. His reaction to the UNSC vote will be closely examined for any give at all.

How far will Assad want to take this effort to de-legitimize the government and bring it down? How far will he go in preventing the Tribunal from doing its work? The two issues are interconnected for Assad. He believes the only way to stop the Tribunal is to unseat the majority. He has tried intimidation, murder, bombings, and now terrorist uprisings. Nothing has deflected the majority from seeking justice for Hariri and others who have been victimized by Assad’s brutality. Could the Syrian thug now try and foment another civil war in Lebanon as a last resort? Anything is possible with Assad who must see the Tribunal as a threat to his hold on power. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so desperate to destroy it.

For the moment, the people of Lebanon have been handed a victory by the world community. But Lebanon is on edge tonight as well, fearful of an unknowable future with many dangers yet to be overcome before justice for Hariri can be done.

UPDATE

Allah is on the story as well:

Wonderful news, even if Russia and China couldn’t quite bring themselves to endorse it. This has been Assad’s greatest fear since Rafiq Hariri, the anti-Syrian former prime minister of Lebanon, was assassinated two years ago: all signs point to the Syrian government’s involvement and he knows it and soon the rest of the world will know it too. That’s why people ended up dying every time the UN inched a little closer to approving the tribunal — it was Assad’s version of a shot across the bow, a warning of what could and would happen in Lebanon if the UN went ahead with the investigation. His puppet was already making threats in advance of the vote:

The “puppet” Allah refers to is Syrian toady Emile Lahoud who has threatened that a wave of violence will erupt in the wake of the UN vote.

Lahoud has also been busy trying to undermine Siniora. He proposed a “Salvation Cabinet” during a meeting with the Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir made up of 6 ministers “each representing one of the main religious communities.”

This is a non-starter since it would give Hizbullah control over one third of the cabinet thus giving it veto power over the majority. But give the toady high marks for doing his master’s bidding in Syria.

And Ace has his doubts - for good reason.

Noted internet thug and bully Larry Johnson - former Counter terrorism official for the Department of State, employee of the CIA, apologist for Valerie Plame, and defender of those who leak classified material (as long as it harms the Bush Administration) - is in a gloating mood today. A declassified CIA summary of Plame’s employment at the CIA reveals that the agency considered her status “covert” and that this fact should increase the jail time for Scooter Libby when the convicted Cheney aide is sentenced.

First, it should be noted that what Libby, Cheney, and that whole crew did in deliberately sabatoging Plame’s career at CIA was reprehensible. Whether she was covert or not, it was not necessary to debunk Joe Wilson’s lies by outing his wife as an employee of the CIA. I don’t care who you are in government, publicizing the name of an intelligence employee - covert or not - is wrong. It is always wrong. And to try and defend it by pointing out that Plame was not covert or that she worked at Langley and it was therefore no secret that she was a CIA employee just doesn’t cut it. We should have more respect for the employees of our intelligence agencies than that.

But I just had to post on Larry Johnson today because, in a very large sense, Johnson is what the Administration and most of us on the right have been fighting against since 2001; a mindset in the intelligence community that elevates unelected bureaucrats to positions where they can undermine or otherwise affect policies they disagree with - policies that are set by the freely elected representatives of the United States government. It is an abomination. And Larry Johnson has been an abominable figure in these dramas from start to finish.

I’ve had a run in with Mr. Johnson myself. Following a post I wrote on Admiral Inman decrying the partisan nature of the leaking of classified documents, Johnson left a comment that claimed the Admiral had been misquoted:

Hey boneheads,
I actually spoke with Admiral Inman. He said he was misquoted (Gee, what a surprise, the NRO can’t get its story straight). He’s disgusted by the attacks on Valerie Plame. You guys only got one thing right, Admiral Inman is a class act.

After a follow up post in which I basically called Johnson an idiot for a statement he made at TPM Cafe that the conservative movement was “partly born” as a result of of the efforts of Whittaker Chambers to expose Alger Hiss, Johnson shot back an email in which he overtly threatened me by bragging that he “knew the guys who killed Pablo Escobar” and that I didn’t know who I was dealing with.

If I had any doubts of who or what I was dealing with, they were laid to rest with this nauseating, over the top, severely unbalanced gloat against Plame’s critics who insisted she wasn’t covert:

Victoria Toensing, Cliff May, Byron York and the other rightwing apologists who have long insisted that Valerie Plame Wilson was not undercover have some “splaining” to do. Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s latest filing in the Scooter Libby case leaves no doubt about Valerie Wilson’s status–she was covert and undercover and served overseas. Thanks to a heads up from McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay, followed in short order by a note from John Amato at Crooks and Liars, I got my hands on the Fitzgerald filing. [Update: David Corn posted the first piece on this Friday night. He needs to do more self-promotion.] Man, the rightwing stooges are getting their collective asses handed to them on all fronts (e.g., a bird sh**s on Bush, Wolfowitz gets bounced from the World Bank, and rightwing bloggers, Flopping Aces and Charles Johnson in particular, were exposed making fraudulent claims). As Jackie Gleason used to say, “how sweet it is!”

Perhaps Mr. Johnson should go easy on the “getting it wrong” aspect of this case. After all, there are few more spectacular examples of being wrong than what Johnson wrote in July of 2001:

Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.

I hope for a world where facts, not fiction, determine our policy. While terrorism is not vanquished, in a world where thousands of nuclear warheads are still aimed across the continents, terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way.

In case Mr. Johnson and his friends on the left may have forgotten, (And why not? They act like they’ve forgotten about it on a daily basis.) 2 months later on September 11, 2001, the most horrific attack against American citizens ever to take place on American soil occurred in New York, Washington, D.C., and over the skies of Pennsylvania when one of those bedeviling “fantasies” about terrorism actually came true. If you want the details of that attack (just to jog your memory), go here.

Johnson has since tried to furiously backtrack from that position, saying that he said that Islamic terrorism was the #1 threat and that everything he said in the article was true.

Maybe. But it takes a special kind of idiot to note that the terrorism threat was “declining” two months before 9/11 and then not acknowledge that mistake.

And that’s not the only time “Wrong Way Johnson” has been utterly and unbelievably mistaken. In fact, in what has to be considered one of the funniest, most outrageous examples of stupidity in the history of the internet, Johnson (along with most of the left) fell for the Jason Leopold story predicting that Karl Rove would be indicted in connection with the Plame Affair “within 24 hours.” Here’s Mr. Johnson’s original take on the news:

Frog March at the White House?
by
Larry C Johnson

Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

That was on Friday, May 12, 2006. The very next day, Leopold expanded on his “scoop” by saying that Rove would be indicted within 24 hours. More gloating from Jaba the Hut:

Rove Indicted–Frog March the Bastard
by
Larry C Johnson

Will we see the following real world.
(photoshopped picture of Rove being dragged away in handcuffs)

This was only the beginning of one of the more sidesplitting episodes I can remember on the internet. Leopold’s piece appeared in Truthout on Saturday, May 13th. On Sunday with no Rove indictment apparent, Mr. Johnson was insisting that “All is well” with this post on the Democratic Underground:

Larry Johnson

They are called Truth Out for a reason. Getting the truth out.

Yes, I’m sure they did. A full week passed and still no Rove frog marching. The left, still hopeful, began to make excuses for Leopold; that he was the victim of some plot by Rove and his lawyers was a common musing by the dunces on the left. But our Larry was still hopeful:

Latest Re Rove on Truth Out

The following was posted today on Truth Out. They are sticking to their guns and justifiably so. Time will tell.

Time told alright. Nothing. Nada. Zipadeedodah. No Rove indictment. Leopold exposed as a serial exaggerator or worse. And Larry Johnson, member of the Reality Based Community in good standing? A month later, the hypocritical Mr. Johnson was still defending Jason Leopold as a brave truth teller because after Rove’s lawyer announced that Fitzgerald had sent him a letter saying he would not indict his client, Larry refused to believe it because no one had seen the letter!

Where’s the Letter Luskin?
by
Larry C Johnson

I’m with Christy Hardin Smith at FireDogLake.com. Until Patrick Fitzgerald calls off the dogs that Porcine Ass called Rove ought to worry about who he might be getting up close and personal with in jail.

AND LARRY JOHNSON IS TAKING CONSERVATIVE SPOKESMEN AND BLOGGERS TO TASK FOR BEING WRONG ABOUT ANYTHING?

This bullying guttersnipe should be eating crow, not crowing about anything at all. One wonders what this lickspittle’s track record at the CIA and State Department could have been if his powers of observation and prognostication leave so much to be desired. It’s frightening, actually, to think of this guy in a position of responsibility anywhere in government. And the “Sexion Caper” should make that clear to anyone who’s honest enough to see it.

Sexion was a blogger who lived in Norway who was deliberately and viciously targeted by Johnson, Leopold, and others in a coordinated attack that included phone calls to his home, his parents home, and not very well disguised threats against his person. The incident convinced Sexion to quit blogging so the story is best told by others since his blog has disappeared. Ace had his own problems with sock puppets posting personal information on his site about Sexion and relates them in the several posts he did on the matter. What is absolutely clear is this; Larry Johnson participated in a campaign of intimidation against a 24 year old blogger who never did him any harm.

This quote from a Sexion post about emails received from Bully Boy Johnson should chill your bones:

Perhaps most haunting was the email I received from Larry Johnson last night. He claimed I defamed him and called him a liar. I did not defame him and he did lie to me when he said that he had answered my questions when he had in fact not done so. This was not part of the story I wrote yesterday, calling him a liar for that, I simply stated the fact that he declined to answer a set of yes/no questions I posed to him, as he responded that he had already answered them, which was false.

Johnson laced the email, to a personal account of mine which I do not usually give out and which is not available through Google, with personal details about my family and me. Just like Leopold had done, Johnson repeated my mother’s name, my parents’ address, and even my birth month and year. Obviously Johnson thought this would freak me out and scare me into retracting everything. He concluded the email with:

I am willing to accept a written apology and move on. If you refuse to retract your statements about me I am prepared to ratchet this up several levels. I have not spent the last twenty years working with the U.S. military and the intelligence community to accept this kind of nonsense from a wet-nosed 24 year old coward, who is an armchair warrior but does not have the courage to enlist in the military when his country is at war.

Is that a threat, Mr. Johnson? After I responded, he fired back with this:

I know where you are living. You forget that I do work for the European Union and friends in Interpol. I’ve offered you a mature way to deal with this situation. You’re obviously too immature and inexperienced to recognize the offer for what it is. Too bad.

The reason this rings true to me is the little aside in Mr. Johnson’s email to me about “knowing” the men who killed Pablo Escobar. It’s the same kind of cowardly, veiled threat he makes to Sexion.

I don’t know if Johnson still appears as a TV analyst for terrorism anymore. If he does, producers and bookers should read this post carefully and decide for themselves whether they want this sort of fellow appearing on their network. Johnson is a despicable brat, a juvenile, a Walter Mitty who fancies himself some kind of terrorist fighting superhero and slayer of conservatives . But when the lights go down and darkness descends, he crawls out from under a rock and bullies those he thinks won’t or can’t fight back.

How very brave of you, Larry. Now, do your damnedest.