Right Wing Nut House

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.

It’s official. The Republican party is now as ideologically monochromatic as a political party can get. With the defeat of a dozen northeastern and Midwestern moderates, the GOP is now truly a conservative party, the kind envisioned by Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater many years ago.

The problem - and this will become readily apparent in 2008 - is that the party has also shrunk geographically. At the moment, the GOP is now a largely southern party with strong points in the mountain west. And most disturbing is that in the 10 battleground states that determine the winner of every presidential election, the GOP is a ghost of its former self (save Texas and Florida). In New York (3 seats lost) and Pennsylvania (4 seats lost), the party has virtually disappeared. Also worrying is the massacre of the GOP in Indiana (3 seats), North Carolina (2 seats), Arizona (2 seats), New Hampshire (2 seats), and Iowa (2 seats).

It is hard to overstate the threat to the Republican stranglehold on the electoral college these losses represent. In 5 of the last 7 presidential elections, the GOP began the race with a huge tactical advantage. They were virtually guaranteed more than 170 electoral votes before the ballots were cast thanks to their death grip on a solid south, the mountain west, and several Midwestern/border states that had become as reliably red in national elections as is historically possible.

No more. Now the GOP must fight to hold states like Indiana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Arizona, and probably even Colorado if they wish to win in 2008. That’s because of the big state advantage of the Democrats who have won 7 of the 10 largest states that last two presidential elections. Only Ohio and Florida - two states now considered toss ups in any national election - saved the GOP in 2004 and 2008. And given the election results on Tuesday, Ohio especially would appear to be an uphill battle for Republicans.

Another bad omen for Republican chances in 2008 is the fact that the Democrats now hold 29 of the 50 governorships - a significant tactical advantage on the ground in any statewide race. Governors have their own political organizations and connections that can give a Presidential candidate for their party a significant boost on election day.

The most significant result from Tuesday’s election may be the stake driven through the heart of the old Rockefeller wing of the GOP. While this faction had been declining in influence and members since 1964, (and as the definition of “moderate” moved further right in the intervening years), the loss of long time members like Sue Kelly ( NY-6 terms), Nancy Johnson (CT-12 terms), Jim Leach (IA-15 terms), and Charles Bass (NH-6 terms) knocked the chocks out from underneath the moderate wing of the GOP, making the party more conservative than at any time in its history.

Charles Krauthammer sees the same thing:

The result is that both parties have moved to the right. The Republicans have shed the last vestiges of their centrist past, the Rockefeller Republicans. And the Democrats have widened their tent to bring in a new crop of blue-dog conservatives.

Rockefeller Republicans have a long and honorable history in the party. Civil Rights legislation in the 1960’s would have been doomed without them. Many programs having to do with workers’ protections like OSHA and MSHA (mine safety) couldn’t have been passed without their support. In many ways, this group of northeastern and Midwestern Republicans was the social conscience of the Republican party, always applying common sense arguments on social legislation that swayed some of their more conservative brethren while reining in some of the excesses of the liberals across the aisle.

I realize many modern conservatives viewed these “RINO’s” with contempt. But the moderates shared many mainstream Republican values with conservatives like fiscal responsibility, support for a strong national defense, and a love of individual liberty which, in my mind, tended to offset their apostasy on other issues. And celebrating their defeat is akin to cheering as the friend you made a suicide pact with offs himself first. Political parties that cede vast swaths of territory to their opponents tend to disappear rather quickly. Just ask the Whigs.

Does this mean the GOP should field more moderate candidates in 2008? That probably depends on what your definition of a “moderate” might be. Can one be a conservative but be pro-choice? No one has drummed me out of the conservative movement yet despite my stance on abortion. Nor has anyone accused me of being “moderate” about anything.

I think what we are about to see is a definitional change in what being a conservative means. This will come about as a result of the coming schism between GOP social conservatives and its libertarian wing - a subject I address in a post I’ll have out later today.

UPDATE

The Barrister at Maggies Farm has a slightly different take on this issue.

This is unbelievable.

A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.

DISTORTED! HOW ABOUT “FAKED?” HOW ABOUT “MANIPULATED?” HOW ABOUT “PROPAGANDIZED?”

It appears that someone emailed Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs with some compelling evidence that a Reuters photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut was heavily altered. After Charles posted the original story, the blogosphere went to work with a vengeance.

Several bloggers weighed in with their own evidence, including a photographer’s blog who determined that the photo indeed had been altered. From there, the blog frenzy continued with one blogger finding a probable match for the photo that was undoctored. Others weighed in that the photo really was an awful photoshop image, an obvious fake.

The rest is familiar. As more and more evidence piled up, it became obvious that Reuters had screwed the pooch. And the final bit of evidence that sealed the fate of this photo was the photographer in question, one Adnan Hajj, who just happened by Qana at the moment the “rescue worker” in the green helmet was holding aloft a dead child.

Coincidence or collusion between the photographer and Hizbullah?

It certainly raises some interesting questions about how the Qana story has been reported. First the drastically lower casualty figure of 28 instead of 56 and now we have Mr. Hajj and his travelling propaganda show revealed as a liar and perhaps even an agent of Hizbullah.

Read the entire story at LGF and see the genesis of a Blog Strike. It should probably go without saying that the lefty blogs sat this one out, never dreaming that the international media could be playing them for fools. And it should be interesting to see what they’ll be saying about this as the day wears on. Perhaps I’ll post reaction - if there is any.

Kudos to LGF, Charles, and all the bloggers who participated in this exercise in people power at its best.

Really. I’m serious. There’s no other possible explanation for this riotously funny, over the top, idiocy that I predict will be linked to by more right wing bloggers than any story this year so far:

TAKE THE WHITE HOUSE BY STORM - Stop Genocide, Torture and Occupation

U.N. SOS - We need your help to end the reign of international criminals.

It is our duty and the duty of the United Nations to rescue the people of the world from the U.S. dictators. Murder for occupation and theft of land is illegal. Murder of journalists is criminal. Remove the traitors who have stolen the U.S. budget and used it to commit international crimes against humanity.

If we were being bombed and our journalists were being murdered here in the U.S. by a foreign country’s military, we would hope that the people of that country would stop what they are doing and go to their president’s office and demand that it was stopped. If we were the ones burying thousands and thousands of our family members and watching the destruction of the homes, schools, churches and offices that we had worked for decades to build, we would hope that someone, somewhere would care enough to do something for us. We must stop the criminals in our government NOW. There is no meeting with Congress that is going to change what they are doing. We must put the power of the people into action and stay there until they leave!

Inviting everyone to the White House for a protest rally to show that we do not accept the criminal government, illegal wars and the permanent occupation planned for Iraq and Afghanistan. For Nat Turner, For Martin and Coretta, For all the Torture and Assassination in Afghanistan, Iraq, Haiti and many others - We will not allow the Slave Holders that Still Prevail in this Country to Rule us any longer. Imprisonment and torture based on race, religion, resources or region is no different than the slavery we sought to abolish years ago. The Administration is Criminal and if they will not step down, we must storm in, show them how many of us do not accept a criminal government. How can we stand by and watch them kill our brothers, sisters, journalists and friends for their dollars?

We are calling on all citizens and governments in every country to stand with us. We are calling on all Member Nations of the U.N.; All Representatives and Justices in the World Court and International Criminal Courts; All Human Rights Advocates; All Soldiers and CIA agents and government officials who have been blackmailed or are in fear of the dictators to join us in ending this reign of corporate terror in our government. The World Criminal Courts need to incarcerate Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for admitted crimes and known crimes of international scope. The Political Cooperative will put a new, temporary government in place that is comprised of people from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and all the organizations that have finally made us aware of the truth of the savage practices and illegal policies of our government in assassinating our own officials as well as people throughout the world who oppose their criminal activity. We need all of you to save U.S. victims and global victims from their ongoing criminal activity. We are calling on the military, police, citizens and religious organizations to stand with us and help us to bring democracy back to the United States and by doing so, free the world from the wrath, occupation, theft, torture, blackmail and assassination by the Criminals in the United States Government. What they have done all over the world is much worse than what Saddam Hussein has done, so why are they not in jail too? They have admitted to international and national crimes, so why have they not been taken to Court too?

(HT: Michelle Malkin)

The person behind this comedy is Darrow Boggiano. Now, Mr. Boggiano fancies himself something of an activist…or a fantasist. On his website Political Cooperative.Org, he writes this plea for volunteers:

Any amount of time you have to offer is greatly needed! We have over one million subscribers and have a lot of work to do in preparing for upcoming events.

If this guy has one million subscribers anywhere except his overactive imagination, I’ll walk down the middle of Market Street in San Francisco totally naked singing the Internationale. It wouldn’t be pretty, I assure you.

Now just to prove that this fellow is 2 shakes short of a finished martini, here’s what he wrote in tribute to lost comrades who were reporting the “truth” in Iraq and were killed by American soldiers:

The Political Cooperative is a tribute to our recently lost Activists and Journalists who were photographing or reporting the truth of the war (many of whom were killed by U.S. and British Troops), and they include Ossie Davis, Rosa Parks, Paul Wellstone, Bill Rodgers, Terry Lloyd, Paul Moran, Gaby Rado, Kaveh Golestan, Michael Kelly, Kamaran Abd al-Razaq Muhammad, David Bloom, Julio Anguita Parrado, Christian Liebig, Tariq Ayoub, Taras Protsyuk, Jose Couso, Mario Podesta, Veronica Cabrera, Elizabeth Neuffer, Walid Khalifa Hassan al-Dulami, Richard Wild, Jeremy Little, Mazin Dana, Ahmad Shawkat, Ali Abdul Aziz, Ali al-Khatib; and many others.

I wonder what Michael Kelly’s widow thinks of this moonbat using her dead husband’s name to promote his anti-American views?

Mr. Boggiano seems to have sprung up from literally no where. A Google search turned up only a couple of references to him mostly about this upcoming coup d’etat. This leads me to believe that this is a classic CIA destabilization operation carried out by clandestine agents bent on destroying the credibility of the left in the United States.

Simply put, no one can be this stupid. Calling for Amnesty International to take over the government of the United States? Storming the White House in the first place?

It’s a CIA trick, gotta be. If I were Kos or the DU’ers, I would file a FOIA request for all information regarding the government’s involvement in this operation. The credibility of moonbats everywhere is at stake. Just think about it; how can any self respecting conspiracy theorist be tied to this nutjob? Who is going to believe that “Bush lied and people died” if they are lumped in with this wacko?

The funny thing is going to the White House on March 15 and seeing how many people actually show up. Since the time set for the revolution is 12:00 AM, my guess is most of the moonbats will be too drunk or stoned to remember where they were supposed to be and what they were supposed to be doing.

Well, at least Mr. Boggiano got what he was after; a lot of attention. Now let’s see what he does with it.

UPDATE

As I suspected, we on the right are going nuts over Mr. Boggiano’s delusion. Top bloggers like Charles Johnson (check out the always hilarious lizardoids in the comments) Ed Morrissey, Rand Simberg and a host of smaller sites are all having a lot of fun at this idiot’s expense. As of 11:30 AM Central there were 14 blogs listed on Technorati linking to the moonbat’s site.

I’m sure it is he who is getting the last laugh, however. By paying him so much attention, he’ll probably be able to raise his ad rates not to mention giving him what he so desparately craves; attention.

The guy is going to be a hero at the DU site by sundown.

Also, Alexandra only has one thing to say…

Sweetness and Light prints the specific law broken by Mr. Boggiano and anyone who conspires with him.

At this rate, the guy will have his own blog at Daily Kos…

I really hate it when other people make me look like a fool.

Most who know me are aware that I need no help in that department. I am quite capable of looking like a fool all by myself without so much as a “by your leave” from anyone else, thank you. Hence, when others, by their actions, show me to be either naive or just plain wrong, I really hate it.

First of all, it requires the obligatory mea culpa post full of angst-ridden questions like “How dare they?” Or perhaps “Am I really that stupid?” This is followed by a flood of comments from readers along the lines of “I don’t like saying “I told ya so’ but I told ya so,” and other deep thoughts. In the end, I give the lie to the old adage “There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers” by proving that if the interlocutor is clueless, no answer on God’s green earth is dumb enough to justify being wrong in the first place.

I have been dead wrong about the Cartoon Controversy. I haven’t been just a little off target or slightly misguided. I have been four square, 100%, dyed in the wool, hugely mistaken about both the issues at stake and my analysis of so-called “moderate Muslims” whose almost virtual silence on these matters has made me look like an imbecile while trying to defend them.

I really hate being made to look like an imbecile by people I’ve stood up for. In short, my call for forebearance and understanding on the cartoon issue has been tossed back at me with a sneer and a kick in the ass by many of the Muslim leaders I counted on to calm the situation. This is no longer an issue of trying to separate the jihadists from the so-called “moderates.” At bottom, they are both using each other and the controversy itself to advance their own agendas while at the same time, viciously attacking the very concept of free speech as we in the west understand it.

When radical Muslims like President Ahmadinejad of Iran start echoing the arguments made by what passes for moderate Muslims in Great Britain, it is time for everyone who supported the notion that the cartoons were making it more difficult for moderate Muslims to marginalize the fanatics to admit they were wrong.

Ahmadinejad is trying to pressure Europeans to address Muslim “sensitivities” by making it illegal to criticize Islam. He is trying to do this through the “moderate” Organization of Islamic Council (OIC) who know a good thing when they see it:

Iran has demanded an emergency meeting of the 57 Muslim countries comprising the Organization of Islamic Council (OIC), which announced it would call on the European Union (EU) to pass laws to counter hostility to Muslims.

“The OIC member countries expect the EU to identify islamophobia as a dangerous phenomenon to be scrutinized and combated as is the case with xenophobia and antisemitism,” the council said in a statement to AFP Saturday.

Europe had to create “appropriate mechanisms of surveillance and to look again at its legislation with the aim of preventing in the future repetition of recent unfortunate events,” the statement said.

By piggybacking their victimhood claims on the back of the cartoon controversy along with the radical’s call for suppressing free speech, we see an instance where the fanatics and “mainstream” Muslims scratch each other’s backs in order to advance their own agendas.

Thanks for that kick in the groin, guys.

Not to be outdone, the Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the most important mosque in holiest city in Islam, has said “thanks but no thanks” to western apologies for the cartoons and instead, has called for the arrest and trial of the cartoonists:

Speaking to hundreds of faithful at his Friday sermon, Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Seedes, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, called on the international community to enact laws that condemn insults against the prophet and holy sites.

“Where is the world with all its agencies and organizations? Is there only freedom of expression when it involves insults to Muslims? With one voice…we will reject the apology and demand a trial,” Al Riyad, a Saudi daily newspaper, quoted al-Seedes as saying.

Al-Seedes said the cartoons “made a mockery” of the Islam and the Prophet and called them “slanderous.”

Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Seedes is not some obscure radical preaching from the hinterlands of Islam. He is one of the most important leaders in the Muslim world. To “reject” the meek apologies of the Europeans and call for criminalizing free speech goes beyond the pale. Charles Johnson has noted that the US has taken the Syrians and Iranians to task for stoking the fires of this controversy but have been unconscionably silent about our Saudi friends.

Don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

More suggestions from “moderates” on what the West can do with their free speech comes from the President of the semi-free, military dominated government of Indonesia:

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono reiterated that many Muslims consider the cartoons an insult to their faith, but he called on Muslims to forgive those who have sincerely apologized.

“Reprinting the cartoons in order to make a point about free speech is an act of senseless brinkmanship,” he said in a commentary in the International Herald Tribune.

“It is also a disservice to democracy. It sends a conflicting message to the Muslim community: that in a democracy it is permissible to offend Islam. This message damages efforts to prove that democracy and Islam go together.”

How very big of President Yudhoyono. He forgives us while accusing the west of “brinksmanship” for practicing free speech and then showing how really clueless he is about the idea of freedom by saying that it is undemocratic to offend Islam.

If I got a dollar every time I’ve read over the past three weeks of some Muslim “leader” giving lip service to the idea of free speech and then undercutting it by saying it should be illegal to criticize Islam, I’d be able to buy a new laptop.

Since my original postings on the cartoon controversy, we have learned about how both the Syrians and Iranians are using it to deflect attention from other problems. We have learned that western Muslims are using the controversy to advance their own agendas by playing upon the timidity and meekness of European governments. And we have witnessed the depth of hatred that the fanatical jihadists have for us and the contempt with which they view our most cherished freedoms.

What good does empathy and forbearance do in the face of such calculated calumny? To be considered whatever the Muslim equivalent of a “useful idiot” is does not sit well with me. It’s a mistake I will not repeat.

In fact, if the moderates want to impress me, they can start by coming out and laying into President Ahmadinejad for his constant denial of the Holocaust. That would be a pretty good start toward initiating a useful dialog that would lead to a better understanding between Islam and the West.

Ever since fanatical Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was installed by the Guardian Council last June via a questionable election, nearly every step taken by the former Commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s foreign assassination outfit has been designed to either solidify his hold on power by purging those in the Iranian government deemed not “revolutionary” enough or making it clear that he seeks confrontation with the west and Israel over the Iranian nuclear program.

Many analysts questioned Ahmadinejad’s victory in the runoff election against long time Iranian politico Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani whose loss to the little known former mayor of Tehran occurred under suspicious circumstances. Prior to the run-off, there were several charges of corruption, including the unleashing of 300,000 Revolutionary Guards to mobilize support for Ahmadinejad. Two newspapers who dared to print a letter outlining the charges from a reformist politician were summarily shut down. Then, in the subsequent run-off between Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad, ballot box irregularities were reported as a sizable segment of the population boycotted the election. Polling places that were deserted on the day of the election ended up showing thousands of ballots cast for the former hard-line mayor.

It is important to understand that the President of Iran is on a very short leash. His decisions must be ratified by Iran’s Supreme Leader who also controls the ruling Guardian Council which has absolute veto power over laws passed by the Iranian parliament as well as access to the big stick in Iranian society; the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). The Council is made up of 6 clerical members and 6 lawyers, all of whom are appointed by the Supreme Leader. The Council also has absolute authority in matters involving elections, determining who can run and, as we have seen, who wins and who loses.

The Supreme Leader of Iran is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A former two-term President during the time Ayatollah Khomeini served in that position, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Khomeini in 1989. Since then, Khamenei has gradually radicalized the Council by appointing hard-line Islamists to the clerical positions. This move has stifled whatever reformist impulses were generated by the election in 2000 in which a group of (relatively) more moderate politicians swept into parliament and the presidency. Former President Mohammad Khatami who was extremely popular among students and some of the more secular parts of Iranian society, ended up being emasculated by the Council who saw to it that even some of the more modest reform proposals were shot down.

It also became apparent that the reform politicians engendered something that the Guardian Council could not deal with; hope for a more secular and freer Iran. Demonstrations - some of them violent - broke out in support for some of Khatami’s proposals which were ruthlessly suppressed by the real power center in Iran; the IRGC. These fanatics are under the direct control of the Supreme Leader who functions as their commander. It would not be too much of a stretch to say that the election of Ahmadinejad was a recognition by the Guardian Council that reformers like Khatami were dangerous to the stability of the Islamic Republic not to mention their own stranglehold on power.

So what are we to make of Ahmadinejad’s actions over the past 5 months? Here’s a partial list of what he has said and what he has done since the election:

* Before even taking office, he said the Islam will conquer the world: “Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world,” he said. “The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world.”

* Denied taking part in the takeover of the US embassy in 1979 despite bragging about his involvement on his website.

* Restarted the Iranian nuclear program while negotiating with the EU to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

* Reiterated his belief that “Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world.”

* Continued to support the terrorists killing our troops in Iraq.

* Vowed not to stop the conversion of uranium into bomb-grade material no matter what the Europeans and Americans did.

* Promised to share nuclear technology wit the rest of the Islamic world.

* Promised to to abandon co-operation on nuclear matters if his country was threatened with penalties due to its work on making a nuclear bomb.

* At an anti-Zionist conference, he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

* Defended those remarks and engineered massive protests in support of them.

* Offered a solution to Iran’s stock market crisis by saying that “if we were permitted to hang two or three persons, the problems with the stock exchange would be solved for ever.”

* Continued to purge perceived moderates from his government, especially in the foreign service.

* Has now closed all nuclear sites to UN inspections.

(Very big Hat Tip to Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs whose website made the previous extremely easy to document).

A cursory examination like the one above of what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said and done since his election should make even the most casual of observers sit up and take notice. This is no “business as usual” run of the mill Islamic theocrat. He is a radical anti-Semite, a dyed in the wool America hater, and an experienced terrorist who personally was involved in the July 1989 execution-style murders of Abdul-Rahman Ghassemlou, leader of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (which opposed the mullahs’ regime), and two others in an apartment in Vienna.

And very soon - if not already - he will have his finger on a nuclear trigger.

The big question is why? Why would Supreme Leader Khamenei place the future of his country not to mention the world in the hands of someone like Ahmadinejad?

Ignore the mainstream press who have downplayed the more outrageous statements made by this terrorist by saying it is for “domestic political consumption.” Neville Chamberlain said exactly the same thing about Hitler.

The point is this; Ahmadinejad appears to have the experience, the temperament, the zeal, and ideological purity for one thing and one thing only - to confront Israel and the west and go to war if necessary in order to secure the regimes future. And that future and the future of the Islamic world as Iran sees it lies in their building a nuclear arsenal.

With the United States involved in Iraq, with Israel under siege from both the Palestinians and most of the rest of the world, with defeatism and timidity infecting the governments of western Europe, and with the probability that they will soon have nuclear weapons, perhaps (pure speculation alert) the Iranians feel the time is right for confrontation. After all, the military situation heavily favors them at the moment as only a massive invasion would probably be able to slow their march toward acquiring nuclear weapons. Their nuclear sites are not only spread out over many parts of the country, but those sites have also been placed underground making them almost inaccessible to all but the largest bombs in our arsenal.

Ahmadinejad’s election makes sense only in this context. If you are going to opt for confrontation, would you rather have a relative moderate like Rafsanjani who was in favor of negotiation with the west over Iranian nuclear ambitions or an Ahmadinejad who has proven track record as a military commander and has demonstrated himself as tough as nails in negotiations that more and more look like a sham, a stalling tactic while Iran continues to enrich enough uranium to build bombs?

The ball is now in our court. Will we allow Iran to realize its nuclear ambitions? Common sense says no. But in the end, there may not be very much we can do to stop them.

UPDATE: 11/28

The Captain has some sober thoughts on Ahmadinejad’s administration. I think that Ed fails to carry through his analysis to its logical conclusion by not asking the question: Why?

Why would Khamenei support someone like Ahmadinejad whose governing style and rhetoric are so beyond the pale of civil discourse between nations and civil society? Why doesn’t he mind that Iran is becoming increasingly isolated internationally?

I tried to answer that in my post above by speculating that the next few months will be crucial to the regime in that they will likely face military action of some sort either by Israel or the US for their continued instence to develop nuclear weapons. In light of that, isn’t Ahmadinejad the kind of man you want leading Iran?

What a difference a year makes, eh Mary Mapes?

Just think…a year ago you were a big shot producer at the “Tiffany Network” of CBS. You had gofers at your beck and call. A nice, fat, expense account. A couple of awards under your belt. The fawning admiration of your colleagues. Dan Rather even said hello to you in the CBS cafeteria.

Now, you’re a wreck:

I was extremely battered,” she said in an interview yesterday. “I’d had months and months of having my head kicked around a soccer stadium by much of the Western world. I needed some time to regroup.”

Just goes to show that the more elevated your own opinion of yourself, the farther you fall when you blow it. And Mary, let’s face it; you screwed the pooch big time.

But don’t worry. It appears you are landing on your feet, as your ilk usually does. And what better parachute to hang on to than a chatty, tell-all book in which everyone is accused of being against you, or undermining you, or trying to destroy you. It makes for great copy if not very accurate story telling. But hey! At this point, who’s keeping track?

“I’m a human being; I do things wrong from the first breath I take in the morning,” Mapes said. “I don’t in any way feel I am without responsibility in this. . . . I probably shouldn’t have been as pliable or as malleable as I was” when her bosses were finalizing the story. “This is a huge shortcoming. I didn’t know how to say no. . . . I was trying very hard to please them.”

There, there, little one. You also seem to have trouble saying “no” to partisanship. Remember that call to Kerry campaign mouthpiece Joe Lockhart offering to put serial liar and mentally disturbed Bill Burkett in touch with the Kerry campaign? Of course, that was just in furtherance of the story, right? It had nothing to do with trying to get the opposition party to help you smear the President of the United States in a time of war. After all, you’re just a victim of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

“Truth and Duty” unloads on Rove, the White House senior adviser, calling him “the mastermind of the Republican attack against the story.” Asked about this, Mapes said Rove was “an inspirational figure” for the critics. “I’m not saying I had any proof at all” of his involvement.

I am continually fascinated with the left’s fear of Karl Rove. It reminds me of the way the Union Army looked upon Robert E. Lee during the civil war. Prior to the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864, Union Generals were fretting that Lee would slip around their flank as he had on numerous occasions. The usually phlegmatic Ulysses S. Grant exploded upon hearing this saying “Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time.” This is the way the left sees Rove - as some kind of magic man who can not only cast a spell to bewitch the American people but also call upon his minions to do his evil bidding. I wonder if Captain Ed, the Powerline boys, Charles Johnson, and Michelle Malkin - the biggest conservative bloggers - laugh out loud when they read that they’re in Rove’s pocket and can be activated whenever The Evil One feels the need.

It takes a special kind of stupidity to believe that you are right when everyone else on the planet says you’re wrong:

She is disdainful of Moonves, the CBS president who ordered the outside investigation. “He doesn’t know journalism from dirt farming,” Mapes said. In the book, noting that Moonves courted and then married “Early Show” anchor Julie Chen, she writes: “I used to say everything Les knows about journalism had been sexually transmitted. Now I know even that hasn’t taught him much.”

She says Viacom, CBS’s corporate parent, threw her overboard because Chief Executive Sumner Redstone feared regulatory retaliation by the Bush administration.

There’s a clinical term for that kind of fantasy; paranoid delusion. There is not one shred of evidence that the Bush White House has ever even contemplated using the FCC to “intimidate” networks. In order to posit that notion, you’ve got to make it up out of whole cloth; something Mary Mapes is an expert at doing.

She’s also an expert at the put down:

Mapes is dismissive of Marian Carr Knox, the 86-year-old former secretary to Bush’s late squadron commander, who told Rather she believed the memos were fake but the substance of the documents was true. Mapes called her “maddening” and “a quite self-righteous typist.”

Being an expert in “self-righteous,” I can see where Mary Mapes would recognize that personality trait - especially in an 86-year old woman who by all reports knew a helluva lot more about the authenticity of those memos than you did.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of “why?” Why go after a story that’s 30 years old?

“Bush didn’t keep his promise to the country,” Mapes writes. “He swore he would fly military jets until May 1974 . . . .”

No Mary, he swore to serve the country until May of 1974 , something he did honorably which is more than can be said about you . The last time I looked, the oath taken upon entering military service does not specify anything like “I will faithfully drive a tank” or “I will gladly work as a PR flack” or even “I will command a swift boat for a couple of months and then carry on with traitorous anti-war activities while still in uniform.”

And what about us, your favorite people, the bloggers?

Perhaps her greatest fury is reserved for the “vicious” bloggers who pounced on the “60 Minutes II” report within hours — and who she believes provided the map that major news organizations, including The Washington Post, essentially followed.

“I was attacked, Dan was attacked, CBS was attacked 24 hours a day by people who hid behind screen names,” Mapes said. “I may be a flawed journalist, but I put my name on things.” Some of the key bloggers, however, posted criticism under their own names.

Okay, let me get this straight. The “map” supplied by bloggers to newspapers like the Washington Post contained information vetted by thousands of individuals with more expertise than any of the “experts” you retained to authenticate those memos (whose judgment you ignored anyway) and you have the unmitigated gall to say that bloggers were “attacking” you? Could it be because you were standing by a bogus story that you had cooked up for partisan political purposes?

The story of Mary Mapes is classic tragedy. There are two elements that mark the difference between tragedy and melodrama. The first is the main character’s “tragic flaw” which is usually one of the seven deadly sins. In Mapes case, you can take your pick; pride, envy, or anger will do. But it is the second element in tragedy that is the most difficult to achieve for both the playwright and the actor playing the tragic character. And that is the character’s cluelessness regarding why they are suffering this downfall. Look at the great tragic characters in literature and you will see that they go to their deaths without any idea of why their world collapsed around them. In that respect, their sin is always the sin of overweening pride and ambition.

Reaching for the brass ring carries with it the danger that eventually, you’ll fall of the horse. Mape’s fall may have been written in the stars long ago when she ceased being any kind of an impartial journalist and decided to become an advocate. It may have been emotionally satisfying for her to see herself on top of the battlements waving a bloody shirt. But in the end, her belief in her own moral superiority was her achilles heel. How can anyone so good she might have asked herself, be wrong?

The fault, dear Mary, lies not in our stars but in ourselves.

There are times when writing is a sheer joy, an uplifting combination of out of body experience and sexual arousal where all the tumblers click into place as if God ordered the mysteries of the universe to be revealed in a breathtaking cyclorama and one can almost taste colors and smell beauty.

Then there are times when writing really, really sucks.

It’s at those times that, like an addict stealing money from a roommate to feed their insatiable desire for a fix, I must confess to occasionally stealing ideas for articles from others in order to feed this demon of a blog whose screaming desire for CONTENT! CONTENT! is both ceaseless and wearying.

A notable example of my shameless plagiarism of ideas was a post I did a few months ago entitled “Moonbat Blog Taxonomy” where I stole the idea of doing a post on some of the top lefty blogs from a liberal writer (and shall remain nameless here given the nauseating racism and sexism exhibited in the article by the author) who did a hit piece on top righty sites.

This morning, after sitting in front of the monitor for two hours with a blanker stare than usual, my mouth hanging open, settling in its accustomed place to allow for the full intake of oxygen (I am, in fact, a mouth breathing right wing conservative) I happened to click a link on John Hawkins site that led me to this post by Jon Henke at Q & O Blog which reviewed conservative blog sites.

It took a couple of seconds for those tumblers to click into place but eventually I slapped my hand to my head saying “That’s it!” (Note to self: Next time put the coffee cup down before slapping your head, ninny). And since Henke shamelessly stole my idea during the last go-around with liberal sites, perhaps turnabout is fair play in this case and Jon will vouchsafe my theft of his excellent idea.

Mr. Henke approached his subjects from his viewpoint as a libertarian…or is it neo-libertarian…as opposed to a paleo-neo-libertarian like me. At any rate, since Jon was kicked out of the Conservative Book Club a long time ago for being an apostate and mortal sinner, he felt no compunction about criticizing many of the conservative blogs for their shortcomings both real and perceived.

Now Jon is a respected blogger, widely read and justifiably so for the excellent commentary he and his compatriots publish on their site. I however, am not very respected and little known outside of a small circle of people whose computers have mysteriously malfunctioned and permanently frozen on my webpage. The fact that most of them are from foreign countries where English is not usually spoken gives me the confidence to write whatever I please without fear that anyone of any note would ever take offense to anything I said about them since the odds of them seeing what I wrote approach those being laid in Vegas for a Cubs World Series championship next year.

That said, here is my review of some conservative sites that I visit everyday.

INSTAPUNDIT

Glenn Reynolds is a fascinating combination of lawyer, teacher, sage, and geek. Anyone who can start an internet wide discussion on the relative merits of various shaving blades (or lawnmowers, or cameras) deserves serious consideration as a true Renaissance man. One gets the impression at times that Mr. Reynolds is permanently plugged in to the internet with his brain downloading and processing information even as he sleeps. I also believe he is dismissive at times of the religious right and of moral arguments in general as well as being occasionally condescending to those with which he disagrees. Not a deep thinker but appears to have a clear, well ordered mind which manifests itself in his excellent writing ability.

MICHELLE MALKIN.COM

Malkin’s site has actually surpassed Instapundit as the top blog in the ecosystem according to linkage. The reason is that there is no one who has better round-ups of blog and media reaction to The Big Story. Within minutes of breaking news, Malkin has a dozen links to posts that give both information and opinion. It is not empty flattery to say that she is a blogger’s blogger, someone who provides quotable perspective and great links for one’s own blog posts. I’ve never been able to figure out what drives the left to attack her in such despicably viscous ways. Her book In Defense of Internment is one of the most provocative and from my point of view, wrongheaded books I’ve ever read. But the arguments made were I thought, reasonable and well researched. Why the left can’t see past their own myopia and judge the book on its merits instead of their using some of the most vile, personal invective imaginable is beyond my understanding. That said, there are few who wield a sharper pen than Malkin when it comes to exposing the hypocrisy of liberals. Maybe that is what’s got them in a constant lather about her.

POWERLINE

If you’ve read Jon Henke’s review of Powerline, you can see where he doesn’t much care for the trio of attorneys who write for it. I actually thought Mr. Henke was unfair in this case as he criticized specifically their “corrections policy, their interest in criticism, and consistency.” I have seen many corrections on that site as well as responses to criticisms, most recently a thoughtful response to E.J. Dionne. As for consistency, the post Jon linked to trying to equate Clinton and Scooter Libby is a false analogy - at this point. Did Scooter Libby not remember certain conversations or did he deliberately lie to the Grand Jury? There’s no such question about Mr. Clinton’s guilt in that regard.

As for the blog itself, I must confess to being more of a skimmer recently than a reader. Powerline is still the “goto” place for analysis on a Supreme Court decision or other legal issues. And their forays into music and the arts are always fascinating reads. But I now go for politics elsewhere.

LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS

If there is something going on in the Middle East that affects America, LGF has the link to the story. Jon Henke rightly says it’s “all anti-Islamism all the time.” I consider the site a valuable public resource that gives a perspective on radical Islam that is missing from media coverage in general. That said, I wish the proprietor of the site Charles Johnson would interject his views more often and in greater detail. And while the vast majority of his commenters (”Lizardoids”) add valuable insights and information to the discussions (many of them scholars in their own right) the level of discourse can be lowered considerably by the occasional knucklehead who spouts bigoted claptrap. To their credit, other commenters usually slap the offender down, something not usually mentioned when liberals write about the LGF community.

HUGH HEWITT.COM

Jon calls Hewitt “the distilled essence of the Party Man.” I suppose he means that as a criticism. The question is, does Hewitt try to hide his party loyalty? If not, what’s the big deal? If Hewitt was trying to pass himself off as a disinterested observer, I can see where such criticism would be in order. Seeing that Mr. Hewitt has on more than one occasion taken both the President and the Republican party to task for a variety of transgressions, Jon’s criticism - if that’s what it is - would be unwarranted. I would say there is a huge difference between Ken Mehlman and Hugh Hewitt.

Hewitt is sometimes called the “Father” of the blogosphere and I generally read him to find out what other bloggers are writing about. Content wise, I have to say that his postings since the election have appeared to be rather desultory rather than inspired. That said, I listen to his radio show where he seems much more animated and interesting. Perhaps that’s where his energies are being directed these days.

Why stop here? First of all, this post is getting tiresome and not very interesting to write which probably means if you’ve come this far with me, you are either really a fan or in some kind of drug induced stupor.

Secondly, if I don’t get this published in the next 10 minutes, I’m going to be late for an appointment. Why not leave a comment about your favorite blog with a short paragraph saying why you like it? I might even put it in an update to this post I’m doing later this afternoon.

Get busy…

I feel so much better knowing that Pat Robertson has proposed a practical albiet illegal solution to our problem with Venezualean President Hugo Chavez; grease the strutting S.O.B.:

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson called on Monday for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, calling him a “terrific danger” to the United States.

Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a former presidential candidate, said on “The 700 Club” it was the United States’ duty to stop Chavez from making Venezuela a “launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.”

Before we start hearing barking from the moonbats, I might point to this delectable bit of information that came to us yesterday in which far left communists and Islamists have joined together to oppose “The Great Satan” … that is, unless you’re a communist. Communists don’t believe in Satan. Or God. Or sanity, for that matter:

On Monday, Sept. 12, 7:30 p.m., Middle East historian Mark LeVine presents his new book Why They Don’t Hate Us: Unveiling the Axis of Evil and engages in conversation with CODEPINK cofounder Jodie Evans, who has made several trips to Iraq, along with Baghdad-born Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a progressive voice for Muslim Americans based in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The evening is moderated by political scientist Suzi Weissman, host of KPFK’s “Beneath the Surface” Monday edition, and is cosponsored by CODEPINK and MPAC.

CODEPINK you may recall is spending the month of August with other all-American moonbats in Crawford babysitting Cindy Sheehan. But of course, the loons in Crawford love America as much as you or I…as they tirelessly keep trying to convince us.

Charles Johnson on this strange marraige between the far left secularists and far right religious nuts:

Salam Al-Marayati is notorious for telling radio station KCRW, within hours of the September 11 mass murder: “If we’re going to look at suspects we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list because I think this diverts attention from what’s happening in the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their aggression and occupation and apartheid policies.”

Quite a “progressive voice,” eh?

Indeed. But getting back to Pat Robertson, one might ask why such a drastic step would be necessary to get rid of Castro’s mini-me?

“You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,” Robertson said. “It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war … and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”

“We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,” Robertson said.

“We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator,” he continued. “It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”

If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I was reading some dialogue from Team America except that Trey Parker is much saner than Robertson and has a better sense of humor.

Did anyone ask what the Lord said about all this? As you may be aware, Robertson talks to God quite often. In fact, if there’s one person I’ve heard of who has more than just a passing familiarity with the Almighty its the Reverend Robertson. I mean, he and the Lord are on a first name basis to hear the Reverend tell it.

That said, wouldn’t it have been more Christian of Robertson to pray for a bolt of lightening to strike the Venuezalean Dictator rather than a bullet between the eyes? Or maybe something a little less suspicious like a gas explosion in the Presidential Palace? Better yet, the CIA at one time tried to kill Castro by giving him a poisonous cigar. Anything except a gundown in the middle of some street.

This is a man who ran for President in 1988 and was actually taken seriously by some Republicans. I sincerely hope that this outburst is due to the onset of some form of dementia rather than a serious proposal from the biggest albatross going for the Republican party.

I am taking a well deserved break today from blogging. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not writing. I’m working on a brand new article for The American Thinker as well as an article I hope to have published in a major national publication about Civil War Re-enactors. But Mr. Blog himself will have to go without today.

I’ll leave you with some excellent stuff from other bloggers. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Here’s Varifrank’s latest. As usual, very powerful stuff.

Powerline fisks the Frank Rich piece from today’s New York Times, something I wanted to do but got too lazy. “Defeatist Triumphalism?” Read it.

Pat Curley has pictures of a local moonbat. Well, he’s colorful anyway.

Ferdy the Cat has some thoughts on begging…and pouncing.

Charles Johnson has some PR strategy sessions from Kos regarding Cindy Sheehan. “Mother Sheehan” indeed!

Read this piece that appeared a couple of days ago by Greg Djerejian and realize that when very smart people like Greg start to worry about Iraq, the rest of us better sit up and take notice.

John Cole has his own unique take on the Cindy Sheehan matter. So does Jay Tea at Wizbang.

Even though I linked to this post by Rusty Shakleford yesterday, it’s so good I’m linking to it again.

Michelle Malkin has an unconfirmed report about the pending divorce of Cindy Sheehan.

Hugh Hewitt links to a column on Iraq by one of my favorite historians Niall Ferguson.