Right Wing Nut House

I’ve commented many times about how difficult it is at times to suspend belief this year and accept some of the premises the show presents us. But when there is an absolutely spot on take regarding the reality of what happens in the cesspool that is Washington, D.C., it should be highlighted and given the attention it deserves.

The Jihad being carried out against Bill Buchanan for signing off on the release of Fayed two years previously, before he was a wanted man and when the terrorist was picked up in an immigration sweep, painfully calls to mind the aftermath of 9/11 and how the “gotchya” culture that is endemic inside the beltway helped disunite the country and sowed the seeds of suspicion against the Bush Administration.

You may recall that the Bushies resisted the formation of the 9/11 Commission. As it turned out, they had good reasons to do so. After promising a “bi-partisan” investigation of the event that would leave politics aside and not “assign blame” for the tragedy, what happened? The Democrats, the press, and most of official Washington scrambled to present evidence that the Bush Administration was solely to blame for the tragedy. Lost down the memory hole were the preceding 8 years of inaction and miscalculation regarding the nature of the threat from al-Qaeda not to mention a philosophy of fighting terrorism that treated the entire issue as a law enforcement matter. And as far as domestic security, the Clinton Justice Department set up road block after road block that would have allowed the FBI to compare notes with the CIA and other foreign intelligence sources not to mention allowing airline security to become a bad joke.

In fact, it really makes one wonder about former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and his escapades at the National Archives where he stole documents and destroyed evidence by his own admission. To this day, it is unclear exactly what Mr. Berger did and what kind of damage he did to the historical record. We don’t know how many or which documents he absconded with nor do we have a clue if he altered any reports or the extent of his whitewashing the Clinton record on terrorism.

The fact is, Mr. Berger carried out his black bag operation at the Archives in preparation for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission. He knew full well that the Commission’s true purpose was scalp hunting - that regardless of what the Commission was saying to themselves or the public, the press and Democrats took every bit of negative information about the Bush Administration’s failures on 9/11 (and there were plenty) and turned them into a club to beat the President over the head. Meanwhile, the real failures of the Clinton Administration (and previous Presidents Bush and Reagan as well) were given short shrift in the media. Any attempt by the Bushies to defend themselves were seen as a “cover-up” or white washing their actions leading up to that day.

This is America at the start of the 21st century. The facts don’t matter. All that is important is to “blame” someone. Reading the 9/11 Commission Report, in its entirety, one is struck by the way our country went through the 1990’s sleepwalking toward disaster. There were a few public servants - Richard Clark at the White House and John O’Neil at the FBI who knew what al-Qaeda was and the threat they posed to our country. But by and large, Presidents, the intelligence agencies, the State Department, and all the organs of government who should have known better, didn’t. And that’s why responsibility for the attack on 9/11 should be seen as a failure shared by all of us - what the Commission called “a failure in imagination” regarding what al-Qaeda could do.

But don’t try and tell the Democrats this. When ABC’s The Path to 9/11 was going to air and even the mildest of criticisms of the Clinton Administration was implied, the left went ballistic and called for the show to be cancelled. They had worked 5 years to develop a narrative of what happened and the last thing they wanted was any kind of truth to intrude on their “Blame Bush” party. They didn’t want the image of people jumping out of 100 story windows to be the story from that day but rather one of the President sitting in a classroom in Florida reading from a Children’s book. And by and large, they have been successful.

Bill Buchanan was sacrificed on the altar of necessity because the culture in Washington as it exists today demands a scapegoat for tragedy. The question we should all be asking ourselves is can’t we do any better than this? When the next terrorist attack occurs - and we all know that it will happen, it’s just a question of when - what will be the reaction of our political elites in Washington? For the answer, we need look no further than the instructive fate of Bill Buchanan and how good people can get caught up in “The Blame Game” and ground to dust as a result.

SUMMARY

After getting the boot from the car by Jack, Little Ricky tries to flag down another vehicle to take up the pursuit. For some reason, no one seems to want to stop their car at midnight along a dark road with a guy dressed all in black waving like a crazy man in the middle of the street. One luckless civilian does indeed stop and is dragged out of his car for his trouble. Good thing it just happened to be another black SUV and not some POS Gremlin or Saturn.

Using the unfortunate man’s cell phone (can you imagine the roaming charges?) Doyle calls CTU with the bad news that he’s lost Jack. Morris, keeping on eye on the circuit board’s position via the tracking device, vectors Little Ricky toward Jack’s position and the chase is on.

Bill tells the staff that Jack has “gone rogue” and that their top priority is now to apprehend him before he can hand the board to the Chinese. Given the fact that Jack has “gone rogue” a gazillion times in the history of the series, the proper question might be to ask Bill why he doesn’t announce when Jack is being a team player instead of when he’s off the CTU reservation. Bill also tells Chloe that her exile is over and she is back on the team because “I need my best people working for Jack.” Seeing as how it is apparent that CTU will do just about anything - including taking Jack out - in order to keep the Chinese from getting the board, that statement just doesn’t ring true - unless they are going to help Jack facilitate his own suicide.

This may be true, but first Jack has to lose his pursuers. He pulls up underneath a forest of high tension wires where all that electromagnetic energy not only masks the tracking signal from Morris and prying eyes at CTU but will also probably give Jack brain cancer - if you can believe the alarmists who think that we’d be better off living in the horse, buggy, and Whale oil era. Bauer loses the tracking device and races off for his rendezvous with Cheng and the Chinese who are holding Audrey.

An interesting aside - the White House press secretary announces that the Veep has taken over and will make a speech to the nation at 9:00 AM eastern. Since the show is due to end at 6:00 AM Pacific time (9:00 AM Eastern) one wonders if Daniels will indeed be making that speech or whether some misfortune of his own doing will befall him. Stay tuned.

Speaking of Old Noah, the Veep has a heart to heart with Tom and tries to ascertain whether Lennox will use the recording of him plotting perjury as a weapon to hang over his head. Inexplicably, Tom promises not to use the damning evidence.

I don’t know about you, but if I had information in my possession that could bring down the most powerful man in the world at any time, I doubt seriously that I would foreswear using it. But Tom acts the good little soldier and swears that he’ll keep the info under wraps.

In a phonecon with Cheng, Jack informs the Chinese security official that it’s his ballgame now since CTU is after him and only he can escape their net of satellites and cameras. He says that he will meet Cheng at an old abandoned motel to make the exchange.

Doyle pulls up to where Jack ditched the tracking device and is able to divine which way Bauer headed. His logic is impeccable but one wonders how he was able to determine the exact place that Jack got rid of the tracking device and how he could tell the direction Jack took off toward. Maybe he’s part bloodhound.

Back at CTU, Morris and Chloe have a little sparring match that proves how far the show has fallen. Instead of Morris’s witty bantering and Chloe’s pouting responses, we have them both trading mean spirited barbs, ending up with Chloe telling him that one of the ways he can change his behavior is “Don’t arm nuclear bombs for terrorists.” While she immediately regrets saying it, I have to think that Chloe in the past would never have been so deliberately hurtful toward Morris. It just didn’t ring true. Morris sulks away - for good reason.

Back at the White House, Karen is informed of a visitor from the Department of Justice. Peter Hock has been interrogating Tom’s former aide Reid Hollock, who is desperate to avoid the death penalty for his role in the assassination attempt on the President. Reid gives Hock the info that had Karen resigning a few hours ago - the fact that Bill Buchanan released Fayed two years ago in Seattle as a result of an immigration sweep. The fact that there was no follow up was normal since Fayed was a nobody at the time. But Hock tells Karen the long knives are out and that blame will be assessed for Bill not having the ability to know the future. He is going down and it’s best that Karen not go down with him.

At CTU, the gang was able to intercept Jack’s call to Cheng thanks to the fact that he was using one of the cell phone CTU collected from the terrorists. While the call is encrypted, the geeks are able to ascertain that Jack was headed down Highway 305 - just where Little Ricky thought. They narrow down the search to an unincorporated area.

Jack arrives at the motel and starts preparing for Cheng’s arrival. We see him setting the charge that will obliterate the room, the board, and presumably Mr. Cheng and yours truly, Jack Bauer. Jack makes an affecting call to Bill’s answering machine telling him that he will indeed commit suicide rather than allow the board to fall into Chinese hands. He asks Bill to “take care of Audrey” and tells him that he’s been a good friend.

These moments where Jack actually seems human have been missing the last few weeks. Early on when Jack was having trouble getting back into the swing of torturing and killing people, it made for interesting television to see him torn. But that part of Jack has dropped by the wayside the last several hours and all we’ve seen is the Jack obsessed with duty or the Jack driven to get the job done at all costs. Since I believe the popularity of the character depends a great deal on his ultimate humanity, it was good to see the writers give Jack a little slice of reality to go with the mayhem.

Back at the White House, Karen has a heart to heart with her new best friend Tom Lennox. Always the realist, Lennox tells Karen that she has no choice but to feed Bill to the waiting sharks in the press and punditry. It just won’t do for someone close to the President to be seen having anything to do with Fayed’s release. Reluctantly, she appears to agree.

The blow up between Morris and Chloe has serious repercussions when Morris sees Bill and asks to be transferred away from Chloe. Bill agrees and promises him another spot. This proves to be problematic when Bill calls Karen and finds out that his loving wife is giving him the ax. Shocked, Buchanan claims he didn’t do anything wrong. Immaterial says Karen since it’s either you or me and better it be you because of my closeness to the President. Bill hangs up on her and one wonders about how solid that marriage is at the moment.

So Bill rides temporarily off into the sunset, first informing Nadia that she’s the boss until Division sends someone over. As Bill is escorted off the premises by white shirted security guards (as opposed to the red shirted idiots who have allowed so many lapses in security through the years that they have become a running joke), Nadia tells the gang that nothing has changed, that they still must get Jack before the board changes hands.

Toward that end, Little Ricky is in hot pursuit of Jack and the board when he spots the telltale black SUV of Jack’s parked off road near the motel. Scoping the place out, Ricky has arrived just in time to see Cheng’s stretch limo pull into the abandoned parking lot. When he sees Audrey emerge, he knows the switch is about to take place and begs for backup. Nadia tells him that it’s still minutes away, that he must do something to prevent the exchange.

Cheng walks into the darkened room and demands the chip. Jack demands that he see Audrey. When the love of his life walks into the room looking for all the world like a scared little girl, Jack melts. He removes her gag and has a tender moment with her, stroking her face and telling her everything is going to be alright. Again, Cheng demands the board. Jack informs him that Audrey is to be let go and out of sniper range before he hands it over. He whispers to Audrey that she should go out the door and walk toward a bridge where she will find a cab that will take her to CTU.

Desperate now as Audrey walks out the door, Doyle once again inquires about back up only to be told it won’t be there in time. So as Jack, seeing that Audrey is free and almost to the bridge, tosses the board to Cheng and puts his hand on the detonator that will mean his certain death, Little Ricky takes matters into his own hands and offs one of the sharpshooters taking aim at Audrey.

Rather than a huge explosion, Jack is forced to defend himself. He takes out one Chinese security guy but the other one gives our hero a burst of automatic fire right in the chest. Jack goes down but is protected by his vest. Just then, CTU TAC shows up and all hell breaks loose. A vicious firefight erupts as TAC members surround Audrey and take her into custody while Cheng and some of his men bolt out the back way and get into three separate Hummers, driving off into the night into the foothills of the mountains. CTU has Audrey but Cheng has the circuit board. The Chinese shoot down a trailing helicopter and suddenly, CTU is blind with no coverage of the area. We watch helplessly as the Chinese split up, the Hummers going in three different directions.

Jack meanwhile takes down the Chinese security guy who shot him only to be confronted by a TAC team member who sprays the inside of the room with gunfire. Lucky not to be hit, Jack surrenders and demands to see the CTU agent in charge. Jack is mad that Little Ricky didn’t trust him to kill himself. He’s also upset that Cheng was able to slip through their fingers. Now they have no leads about Cheng’s destination or whereabouts, Jack is being led away in handcuffs, and Jack has precious few friends in high places who can help him get out of this one.

And Audrey? Led back into the room, Jack searches her face only to discover to his horror that she doesn’t recognize him, that she is exhibiting all the symptoms of someone who is totally traumatized. In short, she’s a nut case. And Jack can’t do a thing to help her.

BODY COUNT

A confused action due to the darkness and the quick cut technique of the editors. Unknown: The fate of the CTU helicopter crew who took a heavy hit from a shoulder fired anti-aircraft missile and was going down. But Jack managed to drop two Chinese, adding to his total:

Jack takes out one Chinese only to get flattened by the other.
CTU TAC accounts for two Chinese gunmen.
Jack offs the second Chinese in the room, although it took him two rounds to do it (he must have been stunned by the bullets slamming into his flak jacket).

TOTAL:

JACK: 25

SHOW: 407

After mulling over the idea for a few months, I’ve decided to take the plunge and re-launch The Rick Moran Show at Blog Talk Radio.

The show will premier tomorrow at 2:00 PM Central time. Clarice Feldman of The American Thinker will be my special guest and we’ll talk about the scandal culture in Washington and how out of control it truly is.

WAR Radio seems quiescent at the moment. When Kender re-launches, I will probably switch back to that network since the format allows for shows longer than 1 hour.

This will be more of a podcast effort so the interview format will fit nicely And, in fact, I understand that a podcast of the show will be available on my host website after the show is over.

For the moment, I have scheduled the show for one day a week. That may change if things work out the way I’m hoping. I hope you can join me tomorrow.

A wonder of western inventiveness and technology; the Bidet

The first time I ever saw one, I fell in love.

I was staying at a very expensive hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. - one of my more radical efforts at persuading some comely lass that she could do worse than bedding down with me for the night despite my less than impressive bank book. The fact that I lost the girl, ended up spending the night alone, and got charged $75 bucks for a bottle of flat champagne is one more reason I should write some kind of history detailing my many outrageously failed and sadly ironic amours. I can’t promise too many racy anecdotes but as a cautionary tale/tragedy, it could end up being a bestseller.

But back to the matter at, er…hand. I noticed when getting ready for my doomed from the start date that the bathroom seemed particularly well equipped. In fact, there appeared to be two toilets. “So this is how the rich live,” I thought. “Must be nice. One toilet to sit down on and another to piss standing up.”

But this second toilet appeared to contain enough differences that I felt a thorough investigation was called for. There appeared to be some kind of bizarre structure to the metal assembly at the bottom of the bowl. I didn’t think it was some kind of fancy drain but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out just what function the strange grouping of what appeared to be towers and bars might be for. It looked like a miniature from the set of Metropolis.

Kneeling in front of the contraption, I noticed a knob on the side. Recognizing that when twisted it would turn water on somewhere, I was thinking to myself “Jesus! Are the wealthy really able to control the flush of their own toilets? Now that’s what I call power.”

Not hardly. A face full of water disabused me of that notion right pronto. The metal assembly was a complex, elegant water disbursal system and the knob controlled the force of the water that shot from the metal assembly at the bottom of the bowl.

Now I will admit to being something of a rube about many things in life. I am a simple, dumb American when it comes to food, clothing, alcoholic beverages, and art. I like my sports violent and my sex hot, sweaty, and loud. And if someone disses my country or the flag I take it very personally.

Having said that, I confess that I pondered the utility of this nameless bathroom contraption for about 10 minutes before the light bulb went off. “Aha! What will those Europeans think of next.”

Notice that I automatically assumed a European ancestry for the beast. No self respecting American would squat like a Sumo wrestler over an open cave of porcelain even if the end result would be fewer pairs of undies needing an extra dab of Spray and Wash to get out those “stubborn stains.” But at the same time, a wave of jealousy washed over me and I envied our cousins across the sea. It means that European bathrooms are probably bigger than my kitchen. And any married couple in a hurry to get out the door in the morning can attest to the dire straits of American home design where closet sized bathrooms seem to be the norm and the fights that break out over premium space in front of the sink (and hence, the mirror) have been the cause of upping our country’s already astronomical divorce rate.

It was only later on that I connected the word “bidet” (pronounced “B-day”) with the gizmo I’d seen at the hotel. And proving once and for all that you can find anything on the internet, I dug up this little history of the contraption along with some surprising uses those marvelously clever Europeans put it to:

The bidet is certainly an invaluable aid to hygiene, and can be especially helpful among the elderly and those with handicaps. Another valuable feature of the dear bidet is its use as a “sitz bath” or “hip bath.” This is a type of bath in which only the hips and buttocks are soaked in a saline or salty water. “Sitzen” in German means “to sit”. Many diseases and discomforts are remedied in a sitz bath; patients of surgery, infections of the bladder or vagina, even to ease the pain of hemorrhoids. In the United States, the bidet has developed an aura of indelicacy, mostly for its principle use; to wash the private parts, but its funny, because its purpose can be extended - used even to wash lingerie and soak feet!

All of this becomes relevant when discussing Sheryl Crow’s idea that the government should build toilet paper dispensing machines that hand out one square of paper per customer. No more, no less. One square of toilet paper or you are branded “not very green at all” and are shunned by your neighbors, your brainwashed children, dogs, cats, and the rest of civilized society.

Of course, there are other things you can do to be green. Like giving up your private jets. Or even foreswearing electric guitars, amplifiers, microphones, synthesizers, and all other electronic means of making music which use carbon polluting electricity generated by dirty power plants. Also, the production of CD’s is among the most polluting activities known to man. (Ever see the leftover sludge from the metals contained in a CD?) And giving up concerts where tens of thousands of people make the pilgrimage to your appearance in not very eco-friendly automobiles would probably do more to stop global warming than 300 million people walking around smelling like a sewer because they were unable to properly attend to the hygienic necessities as a result of eating solid food.

Perhaps Ms. Crow doesn’t realize that her suggestion is a washout because when she takes a crap, something much different emerges to plop into the toilet than what normal humans may be used to seeing. Perhaps she is special in this regard and only the very best of stools - well formed, neat, symmetric, and smelling like a Texas yellow rose - are gifted to the world.

Maybe someone will slip Ms. Crow a little Ex Lax. Serve her right for meddling with the primal forces of nature, trying to come between an American citizen and his Charmin. And I’d love to be there when she’s forced to use that one square of TP after the explosion of “reality” that the Ex Lax supplies.

Of course, there’s always the B-Day.

UPDATE

This BBC story is self explanatory. And unintentionally funny.

I have a piece up at PJ Media previewing (sort of) the NBA playoffs. A sample:

The 82 game regular season Marathon has been run. But unlike old Pheidippides who, in 490 BCE, collapsed and died after racing 26 miles with the glad tidings of who made the NBA playoffs (a little tidbit of history not widely disseminated by the Athenians), NBA players from 16 teams are girding their loins and slapping on their armor, preparing for the wars to come.

We have the Greeks to thank for all of this, of course. They may not have invented basketball, but they invented everything else that goes along with the NBA playoffs. Holding their Olympics once every four years meant that when they actually got to the time of the games, excitement was at a fever pitch. In short, if the Greeks didn’t invent the sports hype, who did? ESPN are pikers compared to to the Athenians in that regard.

I do so love writing about sports.

I read this report from the notoriously anti-War media outlet McClatchy Company three times before I realized that the scare headline - “Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy” - and false lede had little to do with the guts of the dispatch.

First, the misleading lede to the story:

Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.

Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.

No change has been announced, and a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Gary Keck, said training Iraqis remains important. “We are just adding another leg to our mission,” Keck said, referring to the greater U.S. role in establishing security that new troops arriving in Iraq will undertake.

But evidence has been building for months that training Iraqi troops is no longer the focus of U.S. policy. Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq. The officials spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to discuss the policy shift publicly. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made no public mention of training Iraqi troops on Thursday during a visit to Iraq.

Have military planners “abandoned” the idea that training Iraqis will allow Americans to come home? This is farther down in the article:

Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who’s in charge of training Iraqi troops, said in February that he hoped that Iraqi troops would be able to lead by December. “At the tactical level, I do believe by the end of the year, the conditions should be set that they are increasingly taking responsibility for the combat operations,” Dempsey told NBC News.

Maj. Gen. Doug Lute, the director of operations at U.S. Central Command, which oversees military activities in the Middle East, said that during the troop increase, U.S. officers will be trying to determine how ready Iraqi forces are to assume control.

“We are looking for indicators where we can assess the extent to which we are fighting alongside Iraqi security forces, not as a replacement to them,” he said. Those signs will include “things like the number of U.S.-only missions, the number of combined U.S.-Iraqi missions, the number where Iraqis are in the lead, the number of Joint Security Stations set up,” he said.

That’s a far cry from the optimistic assessments U.S. commanders offered throughout 2006 about the impact of training Iraqis.

Does it sound like we are abandoning any training programs? Do you read anything in what those commanders are saying that justify the lede ” U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces…?”

There has been no change in policy with regards to training Iraqi troops. But there has been a shift in focus:

Casey’s “mandate was transition. General Petraeus’ mandate is security. It is a change based on conditions. Certain conditions have to be met for the transition to be successful. Security is part of that. And General Petraeus recognizes that,” said Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group in charge of supporting trained Iraqi forces.

“I think it is too much to expect that we were going to start from scratch … in an environment that featured a rising sectarian struggle and lack of progress with the government,” said a senior Pentagon official. “The conditions had sufficiently changed that the Abizaid/Casey approach alone wasn’t going to be sufficient.”

Hence, the need for the surge. And as far as this being “a far cry from the optimistic assessments U.S. commanders offered throughout 2006 about the impact of training Iraqis” that may be true to a point. But those “optimistic assessments” were always tempered with statements that much would depend on the situation on the ground - something our intrepid McClatchy reporter fails to note.

Then there are questions about the reporter’s sources. What makes me suspect that these sources are not being entirely forthcoming is that such a monumental change in policy initiated by the Pentagon would be extremely hard to keep secret which means that at the very least, Gates should have mentioned it by now.

Besides, reading the fourth graf carefully, one sees that the headline may, in fact, be very misleading. The source reveals that “Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq.” It doesn’t say those training resources will be abandoned or even reduced. It makes one wonder why the reporter went with that lede in the first place, doesn’t it?

Much more likely is that the leaker(s) have an ax to grind (probably Abizaid loyalists) and that they’re simply throwing the worst possible light on things to stir the pot.

From the guts of this article, we can deduce the following:

1. We are not abandoning the training of the Iraqi army in any way, shape or form.

2. There is no evidence that the Iraqis are going to sit on the sidelines while we fight the insurgency as the reporter intimates in the first graf.

3. We are making progress in training the Iraqi troops at a tactical level and that the takeover of many combat operations by them by December is still on track.

4. McClatchy is a biased news source.

That last should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of discernment. This article is a textbook example of bias and should be widely criticized for its patently false and gimmicky headline and lede.

Harry Reid opened his mouth yesterday and out came the words that Democrats have striven mightily these last months to suppress, biting their tongues until after the election so that the American people would be fooled in thinking that they actually gave a damn about Iraq as anything other than a political weapon to use against their opponents:

The war in Iraq “is lost” and a US troop surge is failing to bring peace to the country, the leader of the Democratic majority in the US Congress, Harry Reid, said Thursday.
“I believe … that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week,” Reid told journalists.

Reid said he had delivered the same message to US President George W. Bush on Wednesday, when the US president met with senior lawmakers to discuss how to end a standoff over an emergency war funding bill.

“I know I was the odd guy out at the White House, but I told him at least what he needed to hear … I believe the war at this stage can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically.”

Congress is seeking to tie funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a timetable to withdraw US troops from Iraq next year, but Bush has vowed to veto any such bill and no breakthrough was reported from the White House talks.

Reid is not an “odd guy out” for the Democratic party. He is the leader in the Senate and speaks for legions of Democratic lawmakers who subsumed their defeatism just long enough during the campaign last fall in order to keep the truth from the American people; that despite their pledge to “change course” in Iraq (and by intimation, bring the war to a successful conclusion), they had no intention of attempting to help the Iraqi government fight off the numerous enemies that seek their destruction but rather hand George Bush and America a humiliating military defeat.

Let me say up front that it is ridiculous for anyone to make a judgement about the success or failure of “the surge” at this point. That’s because 1) all troops earmarked for deployment have not arrived; 2) other factors relating to the new strategy such as the increased number of reconstruction teams have not been realized as yet; and 3) it will be largely up to the Iraqi government and the political steps it takes to confront its shortcomings and reach out to various factions to discern whether or not our military efforts have born fruit.

That last is critical. All our military can do is create the conditions necessary for political reconciliation. Even our battles against the Sadrites and other militias will, in the long run, not be as significant to the success or failure of the mission as what Prime Minister Maliki has begun to do to heal the country.

And the steps he has taken so far have been tiny and mostly ineffective. The best news seems to be coming from Anbar province where cooperation is at an all time high with tribal leaders in fighting al-Qaeda and tamping down the insurgency through reconstruction efforts. I think it can cautiously be said that we are on the right track in that troublesome area and that the future has brightened considerably.

But in other areas, the news is not so good. Maliki has done precious little to reach out to Sunnis and bring them into his government. The endless negotiations going on between leading Sunni politicians and the major Shia political parties to bring about a more representative Iraqi government are beginning to look like a sham. Even the moderate cleric Ayatollah al-Sistani has begun to distance himself from these talks, seeing quite rightly a loss of Shia power at the federal level if they succeed. And the wily parliamentary leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim who heads up the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) continues his stalling tactics on not only government reorganization but on the vital bill that would divvy up oil revenue in the future. That legislation was passed by the cabinet months ago but has yet to see the light of day in the legislature thanks to al-Hakim’s maneuvering.

Despite these problems, there is still time for Maliki to offer bold leadership that will start the Iraqis on the road to political recovery and allow for at least some of our troops to come home - on our own terms. Not terms dictated by the Democrats who have developed an unerring sense of what al-Qaeda and the insurgents in Iraq want them to do by eagerly highlighting the terrorists attempts to undermine confidence in our new strategy via horrendous attacks on civilians.

The enemy knows full well who their allies in this country are and what it takes to get them to spout their talking points for them. In fact, in one of the great historical ironies of all time, the left - who viciously criticized the US government and the military 40 years ago for basing their rosy pronouncements on the war largely as a result of encouraging numbers of enemy dead (body counts) now are using the very same tactic of civilian body counts as a yardstick for determining that the surge is a failure.

This would be despicable enough. But the real immoral cowardice by the Democrats in not calling for a total cutoff of war funds and an immediate withdrawal of troops now that they have come out and said the war is “lost” is unconscionable.

How can you possibly justify continuing to vote for a war that you believe is hopelessly lost? Our young men are dying in numbers not seen since the first weeks of the war and the Democrats are cowering in the corner, afraid of their own political shadow. The only option open to the Democrats if they truly believe the war is “lost” is to scrap the deal on the emergency supplemental and only vote for funds that would withdraw American troops from combat. It is a mystery why they are hesitating in this regard. The most recent Gallup poll shows that nearly 70% of Americans agree with Harry Reid - that the surge is a failure. How much more political cover do you need? When are you people going to grow a set and stand up for your principles rather than try more trickery and back door shenanigans?

To use the excuse that the Republicans will “blame” the Democrats for the lost war is unbelievable. If you really believe the war is lost our boys are dying for nothing and you’re concerned with your own political hides? For shame, I say! Besides, that excuse works only if you believe the American people are stupid and will have forgotten the last four years of mistake after mistake made by the Administration in Iraq. This is not likely which means your fear of voter retribution only makes you look more spineless.

There is nothing inherently unpatriotic in believing that we’ve lost in Iraq. But by refusing to act on this belief, the Democrats have revealed themselves to be traitors to their own conscience. For this, I hope there are plenty of primary challenges directed against the jellyfish who refuse to act on their belief that our men are dying for nothing and that it is more important to try and fool the American people than take a stand for what they think is America’s vital interest in leaving Iraq before the job is done.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin has published a dozen or so emails from the troops who take issue with Senator Reid’s characterization of the war being “lost.”

Here are the last couple of Watchers votes that I failed to report on due to whatever bug has gotten a hold of me and won’t let go.

Results from W/E March 30:

Council

1. “Demographics and the Medicalization of Human Existence” by Eternity Road

2. “Student Press Rights” by The Colossus of Rhodey

3. “Tinker Must Be Preserved” by Rhymes With Right

4. “3 Card Monte — the Palestinian aid Scam Continues” by Joshuapundit

5. “NanFran’s Cool Investments” by Cheat Seeking Missiles

6. “O Believers” by Done With Mirrors

Non Council

1. “Tabula Rasa” by Michael Yon

2. “Iranian Machinations: Sun Tzu Would Be Pleased” by Kobayashi Maru

3. “The Special Care and Feeding of Bullies” by Freedom’s Cost

4. Geneva What’s That Again?” by The Sundries Shack

5. “Sherman — Stoic Warriors” by Chicago Boyz

Results from W/E April 6

Council

1. “The Scourging” by Eternity Road

2. “Leftist Media Bias, Israeli Style” by Bookworm Room

3. “First Israel, Now Britain — The Chickens Come Home To Roost” by Joshuapundit

4. “Question any Excuses…” by The Colossus of Rhodey

5. “How to Win/Lose In Iraq” by Big Lizards

6. “Not the End of the World” by Done With Mirrors

Non Council

1. “Universal Moral Equivalence” by Gates of Vienna

2. “It’s a Long Way from Port Stanley to the Shatt-al-Arab waterway” by Britain and America

3. War for Profit” by Blackfive

4. “Mainstream Islam Promotes Violence Through Sex” by Israel Matzav

5. “Americaphobia: Final Thoughts” by Dean’s World

Results W/E/ April 13

Council

1. “Don’t Know Your Enemy” by Cheat Seeking Missiles

2. “The Black Flag Flying: The Arabs and Iran Ally Against the West” by Joshuapundit

3. “Strangers” by Eternity Road

4. “Al-Qaeda in Iraq Committing Institutional Suicide” by Big Lizards

5. “Heart-rending Stories” by Bookworm Room

Non Council

1. “Orwell, the Left, and 9/11″ by American Future

2. “Iraq: A Place of Ambivalence” by The Huffington Post

3. “Britain On Its Knees” by Melanie Phillips

4. “We Were Slaves” by ShrinkWrapped

Dinesh D’Souza asks an interesting question in his AOL Blog relating to the tragedy at Virginia Tech; “Where Is Atheism When Bad Things Happen?”

Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found. Every time there is a public gathering there is talk of God and divine mercy and spiritual healing. Even secular people like the poet Nikki Giovanni use language that is heavily drenched with religious symbolism and meaning.

The atheist writer Richard Dawkins has observed that according to the findings of modern science, the universe has all the properties of a system that is utterly devoid of meaning. The main characteristic of the universe is pitiless indifference. Dawkins further argues that we human beings are simply agglomerations of molecules, assembled into functional units over millennia of natural selection, and as for the soul–well, that’s an illusion!

To no one’s surprise, Dawkins has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community. What this tells me is that if it’s difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil. The reason is that in a purely materialist universe, immaterial things like good and evil and souls simply do not exist. For scientific atheists like Dawkins, Cho’s shooting of all those people can be understood in this way–molecules acting upon molecules.

If this is the best that modern science has to offer us, I think we need something more than modern science.

As an atheist myself, I find Mr. D’Souza’s question laughably simplistic and shockingly uninformed. I daresay that atheists are standing shoulder to shoulder with people of faith this day in condemning the tragedy as well as expressing sorrow and solidarity with the families of the victims. A belief in God is not a prerequisite to being a decent human being nor does empathy for your fellow man depend on having faith in a supernatural power greater than yourself. These things are independent of religion and have much more to do with one’s upbringing and society inculcating values and modes of acceptable behavior above and beyond that which one might learn through participation in organized religion.

I have no argument with people of faith. And I abhor the way in which many atheists belittle those who believe in God or feel themselves somehow superior for their non-belief. In fact, I find as much ignorance about religion emanating from atheists as I see stupidity about the natural world coming from many who believe in God. Atheism is a matter of choice arrived at after a careful, independent examination of the nature of the universe and one’s own conscience. A true atheist acknowledges and accepts the fact that others hold opposing views on how the universe can be explained and that those views should be respected. Anything less only proves how closed one’s mind can get when certitude replaces inquisitiveness and dogma just as rigid as any pronouncements from the Vatican is substituted for open and honest inquiry.

I digress here because it is painfully obvious that D’Souza’s triumphalism regarding people of faith having some kind of superior insight into tragedies like the murders at Virginia Tech is based on a towering ignorance both of atheism and humanity. He uses the words of the positivist Richard Dawkins in an attempt to show that a belief in the randomness of nature is the same as postulating that randomness in human behavior can be explained the same way - killing 32 people can be understood as “molecules acting upon molecules.”

In fact, most atheists believe in causal relationships when trying to fathom how the human animal behaves. This is being born out as every hour since the tragedy, it becomes clearer that Mr. Cho fell through the cracks of a mental health system designed not to protect society but rather enable the legally insane to avoid involuntary incarceration. And despite good faith efforts by some in the Virginia Tech community to get the young man help, the legal roadblocks to protecting ourselves from people like Mr. Cho turned out to be a direct cause of the tragedy.

And to ascribe “evil” intent to someone obviously suffering from a mental disorder is risible. Mr. Cho was a sick young man. He was diagnosed as such. Perhaps Mr. D’Souza should recalibrate his humanity and look more to his belief in a supreme being before labeling someone who by both legal and moral definitions was not responsible for their actions.

It is Mr. D’Souza who is having a hard time defining “evil,” not atheists. Yes, there are some who believe good and evil are relative terms and cannot be applied with any certainty to human behavior. I totally reject that notion. One does not need to believe in God (or the devil for that matter) to recognize the conscienceless barbarity of a Saddam Hussein or Adolf Hitler as true “evil.” Nor does one need to believe in the saints to recognize the innate goodness in people like the late Pope John Paul or even Jesus Christ. The conscience-driven life should be aspired to by all - not just people of faith.

Herein lies another aspect of Mr. D’Souza’s ignorance; the growing scientific evidence that what we term “conscience” is, in fact, an outgrowth of human evolution and our need to live in large groups. It may not be “molecules acting upon molecules” but rather the still mysterious evolution of the human brain and how both genes and learned behavior contribute in some fascinating mix to the development of, for lack of a better terms, our spiritual selves. Can one be a moral individual without a belief in God? Can one act ethically without fear of going to hell if one transgresses the law?

Of course they can. The Ten Commandments are a very good adjunct to common sense behavior if one is to live in a large, diverse society. Don’t kill anyone or steal from them. Keep your hands off their spouse. Always try and tell the truth. Be good to your parents. These things can be ordered as a result of basic human decency - perhaps even instinct if the evolutionary biologists like Dawkins keep digging - and not necessarily because disobeying these strictures could land the transgressor in a very bad place after they die.

Does it matter how one arrives at moral behavior be it through belief in the Commandments or acting out of a sense of obligation to society? Is it important that we all recognize that the true marvel of the human animal is in our capacity to live by “the Golden Rule” and treat others as we would like to be treated regardless of whether that urge is biological or spiritual in nature?

D’Souza would do well to read Thomas Aquinas who not only said “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible,” but also “Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.” That last is not dependent on anything except the individual conscience of each and every one of us, informed by both socialization and a desire to live among others of our kind in peace and harmony.

UPDATE

Hilzoy has a much snarkier, more thorough takedown of D’Souza.

This post originally appeared April 18, 2005

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

The image has captured the imagination of American school children for almost 150 years. A lone rider, braving capture at the hands of the British, riding along the narrow country lanes and cobblestone streets of the picturesque towns and villages of New England, shouting out defiance to tyranny, raising the alarm “To every Middlesex village and farm,” his trusty horse carrying him on his ride into legend.

To bad it didn’t quite happen that way.

Longfellow’s poem immortalized Revere’s ride in a way that would never have occurred to the silversmith’s contemporaries. It wasn’t so much that the incident went unnoticed. It’s just that Longfellow took so many liberties with the facts surrounding the event as to obscure the real story of that night and by so doing, overshadow the real accomplishments of one of the more interesting characters in the entire revolution.

Let’s forgive Longfellow his myth making. The poet was, after all, using the ride to illustrate American themes - something almost unheard of in literature until that time. Along with his other great narrative poem Hiawatha, Longfellow has been credited with introducing the rest of the world to truly American motifs and myths. Paul Revere’s Ride, while historically inaccurate, nevertheless conveys the breathless spirit of resistance of the colonists to British rule.

Revere himself joined that resistance early on. Born in 1734, Revere has been described as a silversmith. This does him an injustice. He was much more the artist than the craftsman. His involvement in the earliest stages of the revolution was a consequence of his friendship with that scowling propagandist Sam Adams. He was a prominent member of the “Committee of Safety” that was formed to protect the rights of Massachusetts citizens against threats to liberty, both real and imagined, of the colonial government. And he was one of the grand jurors who, in 1774 refused to serve after the British Parliament made the justices independent of the people by having the colonial governor pay the salaries of the judges.

Sam Adams knew a good thing when he saw it and used Revere’s talents as an artist to further the cause of rebellion. He urged Revere to engrave several inflammatory caricatures of British politicians that Adams promptly had copied and distributed. Following the Boston Massacre in 1770, Revere engraved a seditious remembrance of that event that was also widely disseminated. This use of art in the cause of revolution wasn’t necessarily new, but it showed just how imaginative Adams could be.

Revere and Adams were also behind one of the most shocking events of the revolution, the Boston Tea Party. Adams was trying to provoke the British government and succeeded beyond his wildest imaginings. England closed the port of Boston and bivouacked troops in the city.

Which brings us to Revere’s ride. Or, more accurately, the part that Revere played on that momentous night. The redcoats decided that it was prudent to both capture the more radical elements of the Sons of Liberty, the group started by Adams and John Hancock as an adjunct to the colonial militia, as well as disarm the populace. To that end they sent two company’s of elite Grenadiers into the countryside to arrest Hancock, Adams, and Joseph Warren for treason as well as seize the cannon and powder of the local militia being stored at Concord.

Revere was a member of a group known as the North End Mechanics who patrolled the streets of Boston, keeping an eye on British military activity. When it became clear the British were ready to march, Revere borrowed a horse and rode off from Charlestown to Lexington where Adams and Co. were staying. Duly warned, the trio of patriots made ready to flee. Before going, Warren sent both Revere and another friend of Adams’, William Dawes, on the ride that would echo down through the ages. They left Lexington around midnight and were joined by another patriot Samuel Prescott. Making their way to Concord, the three men alerted the farms and tiny villages along the way with the news that the red coats were on the march.

Around 1:00 AM, the little group ran into a road block manned by British regulars who had been told to stop the colonists from trying to communicate with one another. Revere was captured while Dawes and Prescott got away. Prescott eventually made it to Concord and alerted the militia there.

Revere was extremely cooperative with his captors. He told them that he had already warned Hancock and his friends and that 500 militia men were assembling at that moment to resist the British. That last part was pure bluff but the regulars didn’t know that. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, the British soldiers decided to return to barracks, releasing Revere around 3:00 AM.

But what about the lanterns in the North Church, the famous “One if by land, two if by sea?” Revere had actually asked a friend to be ready to do that to warn patriots on the other side of the river in Charlestown. By the time those lanterns were hung, Revere was gone. While he probably saw them, he didn’t need to know how the British were coming, just that they were on their way.

What all this goes to show is that, while the myth may be more dramatic than what actually happened, the reality of what was going on that fateful night is certainly interesting enough. Thanks to Revere, his friends avoided the gallows for they most certainly would have been convicted of treason. And given what happened the following day in Lexington and Concord, the work done by Revere, Dawson, and Prescott to arouse the countryside contributed in no small way to events that became known as “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”

Revere’s participation in the revolution was by no means over. He was commissioned a Major of infantry in the Massachusetts militia in April 1776; was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of artillery in November; was stationed at Castle William, defending Boston harbor, and finally received command of this fort. He served in an expedition to Rhode Island in 1778, and in the following year participated in the disastrous Penobscot Expedition. Upon his return from that fiasco, he was court martialed for failing to obey orders. The charges were trumped up by his commanding officer, trying to absolve himself of blame for the military disaster that cost of the lives of 500 men and 43 ships. Revere was acquitted.

After the war, Revere proved himself a canny businessman and bold entrepreneur. He took advantage of the religious revival sweeping the country after the revolution by manufacturing church bells, a business that made him wealthy. He also pioneered the production of copper plating in America and supplied the young country’s navy with copper spikes for the planking. In effect, he became one of the first successful industrialists in American history.

Where do we place Revere in the pantheon of American heroes? While not a Founding Father in that he didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence or serve in Congress, Revere played a very large role in acting as “the sharp end of the stick” the Founders sought to beat the British with. While not a part of some of the more unruly elements that took part in the Boston Massacre and the Tea Party, he and his friend Sam Adams were not above using those elements to further the cause of revolution, a goal for which he worked more than a decade to achieve. In that respect, perhaps we can call him a “Founding Brother.”

As we celebrate the 230th anniversary of his ride into history (as well as the poem that immortalized it), it’s good to remember that Revere was the quintessential American soul; an artist whose talents and ardent support for the cause of American liberty defined a generation of patriots who, to this day, we stand back and look on in awe, marveling at their accomplishments.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

UPDATE:

The Commissar has a first class “update” to Longfellow’s poem that is not only riotiously funny but spot on satire as well. A sample:

Listen my children and you shall hear
- insensitive to the hearing-impaired, no ASL inset
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
- in violation of Massachusetts seat-belt and helmet laws
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
- non Y2K-compliant wording (not even Y1.8K compliant)
Hardly a man is now alive
- grossly chauvinistic, patriarchal, and misogynist
Who remembers that famous day and year.
- insulting to victims of Alzheimer’s Disease

UPDATE II: 4/19

I wish I had seen this yesterday.

Jule Crittendon has about a dozen eyewitness accounts and sworn statements on what exactly happened that night both from the British and American viewpoints.

Fascinating stuff. Read it all.

It finally happened as I knew it always would happen; as cat people all over the world know someday it will happen to them and as even non-cat people suspect it happens despite them being dog people and extremely jealous and hateful of any outward manifestation of feline superiority.

I talked to my cats last night. And they talked back.

What’s that? The answer is no more than usual but I wouldn’t have wanted to take a breathalizer. And because I know you’re curious, Ebony, the liberal’s liberal, sipped several bottles of my best Fritz Haag Estate Riesling and nibbled on Edam cheese all night while wise old conservative Aramas went through my entire stock of Courvosier (VSOP) and the little angel Snowball was knocking back chocolate/Rasberry milkshakes as fast as I could make them - that is, until Ebony, tiring of the youngster’s interruptions and attention getting antics, strongly cuffed the little girl across the ear, sending her rolling like a ten pin out into the kitchen.

Cats make great parents. The little one was barely heard from again for the rest of the night.

Now I know what you’re saying. Even if cats could talk, they wouldn’t be political animals. And before last night, I probably would have agreed with you. But the way Ebony explained it, everything makes perfect sense.

Cats are not so mysterious or otherworldly as much as they exist in a world of emotional and psychic intensity that is so foreign, so unfamiliar to us humans that it seems to put the beasts on a separate plane of existence.

They are, in effect, the barbarians of the animal world. They are the Visigoths sacking Rome, ravaging without pity or remorse. Now what do you suppose the politics of the Visigoths were all about? Or the Huns, or Vandals, or any number of other pagan hordes who swept across Europe, bringing about 1000 years of darkness, disease, and death not to mention unpronounceable names and really bad teeth?

Pretty basic at that. Cat’s are not sophisticated creatures but they are direct and will tell you exactly what they think about any issue under the sun. For instance, my old girl Ebony (who swears she wouldn’t have voted for Clinton if she had the opportunity but thinks that Noam Chomsky is the cat’s meow), is blaming Bush for the massacre at Virginia Tech.

“It’s Bush’s fault,” she said, her tail whipping furiously back and forth showing her displeasure. “The nutcase who did this was obviously inspired by the violence going on in Iraq.”

“Put a sssssssssssock in it,” hissed Aramas. “Can’t you see that it was the guy’s parents who are at fault here?” The old kitty’s face assumed a “wisdom of the ages” look - the kind of look that cats get when they watch PBS - “As usual, you are delusional when it comes to Bush. You even blamed him for the Imus flap.”

“Imus is a penis! Imus is a penis!” screeched the baby Snowball, rolling around at my feet begging for another milkshake. The two adults exchanged knowing looks with Aramas taking the responsibility. He sauntered over and buried his teeth in Snowball’s shoulder causing the youngster to yowl in pain and make a beeline for the cat condo where she climbed to the topmost perch and looked out in fright over the carpeted cat rest. Ebony cast a baleful glance in her direction telling the baby with her eyes that no more interruptions would be welcome.

And so it went, far into the night. The more wine she drank, the louder Ebony got, sometimes breaking into hysterical laughter when talking about how stupid Bush had acted in some crisis or another. She mewled uncontrollably when talking about the war and became absolutely incoherent when trying to convince us that 9/11 was an inside job.

For Aramas, the more brandy he drank, the more sense he made. Or maybe it was because I was drinking as much as he was. He stopped trying to rebut Ebony’s charges and would simply whack her across the nose when she said something really stupid. This would send the two of them tumbling into a heap of a catfight, neither one doing much damage due to their diminished capacity. And just as suddenly as they began, they would stop, taking turns licking each other and quietly nursing their drinks. Until Ebony would blurt out something ridiculous and the fur would fly again.

Sometime toward morning, I tried to change the subject to cat behavior but both of them looked at me as if I was some kind of dog. I distinctly got the impression that both of them felt it was none of my business why they would spend hours just looking at me and what they were thinking (although Ebony continually licked her lips, salivating at the thought of something when I asked what was on her mind when she was staring at me with an intensity that would put 150 watt bulb to shame).

I finally fell asleep sometime around dawn. When I awoke, I was confused. Had I dreamt the entire episode? Can cats really talk?

I’ll have to ask them when they wake up…