Right Wing Nut House

I was hugely amused at the celebrating being done by lefty blogs the last two or three days over what they perceive as signs that some righty bloggers are throwing in the towel and virtually conceding Republican defeat at the polls in November.

Being used to propagating fantasy, we shouldn’t be surprised at this latest bit of wishful thinking on the part of liberals. After all, these are the same folks who were so sure a military draft would be instituted, some of them had plane reservations for Canada. And who can forget “Merry Fitzmas” where a dozen or more White House aides were to be frog marched out of the west wing and into the courthouse after being indicted over the Plame affair.

The list of liberal idiocies is endless. Remember the 10,000 dead American soldiers who were to be lying in the streets of Baghdad following our attack? The million dead Iraqis from starvation and disease? The 500,000 refugees? The “quagmire” in Afghanistan? The civil war that has been predicted in Iraq seven times since May, 2003? Jeff Gannon/Guckert bringing down the President? Ditto Fahrenheit 911, Cindy Sheehan, and a host of minor political scrapes that the left confidently predicted would end up en either Bush’s impeachment or defeat?

So now a few righty bloggers are suffering from battle fatigue and we are supposed to believe that the entire conservative movement is suffering from a crisis of confidence?

Phooey!

I feel for people like The Anchoress, one of my favorite writers, who finds the sniping by the left and carping on the right irksome enough to take a break from writing about politics. And while there has been some discussion at some righty sites about conservatives “staying home” on election day, I can guarantee you that every time Nancy Pelosi opens her mouth, thousands of potential couch potatoes on election day are re-energized and recommitted not to let these morons get control of anything more important than the menu for the Congressional cafeteria.

This is the Republican’s secret weapon; the Democratic party.

With Pelosi frantically trying to backtrack this weekend from her smirking pronouncements about investigations of the President leading to impeachment, it’s clear that the Democrats realize they are their own worst enemy. Try as they might, however, they will be unable to muzzle their base of netnuts who will make Ken Mehlman’s job of getting conservatives to the polls ridiculously easy. Calling for the President’s head on a pike for transgressions big and small (real and imagined) on a daily basis is the only thing that will energize just enough Republicans to march to the polls on election day and hold their noses to vote for the big spending, arrogant SOB’s who have temporarily hijacked the conservative movement for their own selfish purposes. And by just enough, I mean that a loss of half a dozen House seats and 2 or 3 Senators is probably about the best that the GOP can hope for at this point.

While that may sound like a backhanded endorsement of the congressional wing of the GOP (actually more like a closed fist uppercut to the chin), it is not in personalities nor in electoral success where the fire in the bellies of the right burns. Much more than the left, conservatives continue to be energized by issues. Discussions and debates about the serious issues of the day still largely take place only among conservatives because the left has abandoned debate, ceding the battleground in favor of name calling, conspiracy theorizing, and a childish petulance about not getting their way that extends from the outcome of elections to the confirmation of judges.

Foot stomping and tantrum throwing may be personally gratifying for the three year olds who run liberal websites but as far as engaging in meaningful political debate on issues such as taxes (”helping the rich get richer!”), the War (”No blood for Haliburton!”), immigration (Republicans are racist xenophobes!”) or civil liberties (”Bushhitler!”), they leave much to be desired.

This is reflected in the curious, almost cute way in which Duncan Black actually posted something longer than “Bush Sucks! Open Thread,” and tried in that earnest, simple minded way in which liberals tend to approach everything to define what issues today’s liberal Democrat should be supporting.

Basically, it takes the United States back to January 19, 2001. And that’s all you need to know about it. September 11? Never happened. Iraq? Out now! And the rest of the usual lefty ideas about spreading the nice, warm blanket of government control over your lives.

The problem for Black is that national Democrats don’t stand for those things. Their simple strategy to take back Congress is to call Bush and the Republicans names and hope against hope that the economy goes south and something bad happens in Iraq. This strategy proved a real winner in 2004 and while some of the dynamics have changed in their favor, the fact is it is still a long way to November. And of course, no matter how low Bush’s numbers go, he’s still the President and can pull all sorts of rabbits out of his hat to undermine the Democratic cause.

Yes, there are some conservative’s who may have abandoned the GOP congressional party. Some, perhaps permanently. But there’s plenty of time for conservatives to take a deep breath, revitalize their intellects, sharpen their arguments (and their vitriol), and storm the battlements once again. As John Podheretz pointed out here, the consequences of staying on the sideline are too terrible to contemplate:

If a more sober reckoning of political reality does not intrude here, the Right will hurtle headlong toward schism, division, a third party and all sorts of other “pox on all your houses” actions. The cost of this is what I detail in the direst parts of my book Can She Be Stopped? — the easy transfer of power on Capitol Hill and the White House to the Democrats, and particularly to Hillary Clinton.

The potential for self-destruction is terrifying. The potential for grave national harm is worse. Please, you guys, pull back from the edge.

And Ed Morrissey (in a follow up to a post here) puts the choice matter-of-factly:

Declaring all choices as “evil” provides false justification for abdication of that responsibility. In this case, once the primaries have determined the candidates for office, voters are presented with two candidates (in most cases) with realistic chances for victory. They rarely turn out to be philosophical or policy twins and/or uninspired candidates, but if that happens, the parties they represent have real differences, and the choice made in this one race will impact the ability of both to push their national agenda. When voters of either party refuse to vote, the absence of the vote has a negative impact on that national agenda.

By all means, if faced with a choice between Hitler and Mussolini on the November ballot, I would choose to write in Winston Churchill. However, the notion that we face that kind of choice is really nothing more than an expression of anger resulting in futility. It’s eminently understandable, but it results in disaster. The only evil that we likely face is that the American electorate has grown so dismissive of the political process that it may squander its birthright. People across the political spectrum need to stay engaged in the process through the vote in order to get a government that most truly represents us — and if we don’t like the final choices presented us, then we must work harder in the next cycle to ensure that the final choices improve.

It doesn’t get any simpler than that. And this is why all that celebrating done by the left over the imminent demise and crack up of the right is just a tad premature. In the end, conservatives will come home.

This morning, dozens of lefty blogs were buzzing with the news; Karl Rove would be indicted Monday morning by Patrick Fitzgerald for perjury.

In a very detailed article at the hard left site Truthout.org, Jason Leopold tells a story of marathon meetings between representatives of Fitzgerald and Rove, apparently trying to hash out a plea agreement as well as a meeting between Fitzgerald himself and Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin:

Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney, did not return a call for comment. Sources said Fitzgerald was in Washington, DC, Friday and met with Luskin for about 15 hours to go over the charges against Rove, which include perjury and lying to investigators about how and when Rove discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative and whether he shared that information with reporters, sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said.

It was still unknown Saturday whether Fitzgerald charged Rove with a more serious obstruction of justice charge. Sources close to the case said Friday that it appeared very likely that an obstruction charge against Rove would be included with charges of perjury and lying to investigators.

An announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week, sources close to the case said. However, the day and time is unknown. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the special prosecutor was unavailable for comment. In the past, Samborn said he could not comment on the case.

The grand jury hearing evidence in the Plame Wilson case met Friday on other matters while Fitzgerald spent the entire day at Luskin’s office. The meeting was a closely guarded secret and seems to have taken place without the knowledge of the media.

How much of this is true and how much is a figment of Mr. Leopold’s overactive imagination is hard to say. Certainly there are many who are following the Plame case who fully expect Rove to be indicted at some point. Others, like Clarice Feldman of The American Thinker, an attorney in Washington believe that Fitzgerald’s case is actually falling apart against Scooter Libby:

I’d say from the discovery proceedings to date, the Prosecution cannot and will not show that Plame was “classified,” that it cannot and will not show that disclosure of her identity caused any harm, that the person who did do that has not and will not be charged, that it has yet to show even potential harm, and that it is a far way from showing that Libby had the slightest motive to lie. And that the stench of selective prosecution is unmistakable

I think the case is taking on lots of water and the Prosecutor is quite frankly out of his depth.

Clarice, whose sources and analysis of this case have been spot on, believes that Rove is not in any immediate danger of indictment. This is apparently more reliable information than that from Leopold since NRO’s Byron York investigated Leopold’s claims today and found them wanting in accuracy:

I talked with Rove defense spokesman Mark Corallo, who told me the story was completely baseless. Part of our conversation:

Did Patrick Fitzgerald come to Patton Boggs for 15 hours Friday?
No.
Did he come to Patton Boggs for any period of time Friday?
No.
Did he meet anywhere else with Karl Rove’s representatives?
No.
Did he communicate in any way with Karl Rove’s representatives?
No.
Did he inform Rove or Rove’s representatives that Rove had been indicted?
No.

So there seems to be nothing to the story, certainly nothing which any other reporter has seen fit to report. Which raises a question: What is going on here? The journalists who checked out the story, quite properly, did not repeat Leopold’s bad information. But for some media blogger out there, it might be reasonable to ask: Where are these reports coming from?

Where are the reports coming from? The overactive and fertile imagination of Jason Leopold. I have a feeling that if Rove is, in fact, indicted this week, Mr. Leopold will be the last to know.

UPDATE

Seixon has two noteworthy posts on Mr. Leopold. First, Everything you want to know about Jason Leopold but was afraid to ask” - a superior piece of research and writing. Then, a post on Leopold’s steadfast insistence that he is correct and that his two sources are solid.

George also informs us that VIPs conspirator Larry Johnson called him “a moron.” Coming from someone who said that the terrorist threat was exaggerated 30 days before 9/11, that’s quite the whopper.

I would like to beg forgiveness from those of you who I’ve playfully referred to as “slimeball” or “marmoset brain” or even “liberal pus bucket” over this whole Mary McCarthy imbroglio. In my towering ignorance of her pure and unsullied motives for leaking classified information, I probably went a little overboard in my criticism of your defense of this delicate waif, this fragile flower of a leaker who, according to this very interesting and informative article in the Washington Post this morning, was only exercising her God given right as an unelected American intelligence officer to determine which policies she must undermine and which she should simply blab to the entire planet. The difference between the two is unimportant as the result is exactly the same; aid and comfort to people who would just as soon slit your throat than thank you for looking out for the interests of their captured comrades.

But, as we’re informed in this piece by R. Jeffrey Smith, who uses language and imagery reminiscent of one my favorite books from childhood - Lives of the Saints - to tell our Mary’s story, the effect on our enemies simply doesn’t matter. Not when you are trying to save the soul of America - battling the forces of evil in the Bush Administration while those fake enemies in al Qaeda, trumped up bogeymen by the warmongering neocons, rub their hands together in glee and exchange knowing glances, remembering the words of Osama Bin Laden who informed the entire world that America would lose in the end because she didn’t have the stomach or the staying power to outlast he and his cause that seems to be advancing steadily across the Islamic world.

According to Mary’s friends (who all seem to have the same name; “Anonymous”), our heroine’s sensibilities were upset by policies toward terrorist detainees that “authorized treatment that she considered cruel, inhumane or degrading.”

“She considered” is, of course, the key. After all, Mary may not be elected, but by God she’s an expert in the outrage department. And when our heroine makes a determination that, using her own personal code of morality, the Administration has done something bad, best tell the whole world about it rather than work within the system to right any perceived wrong. After all, it’s just not any fun unless you can get that vicarious thrill of seeing your moral position validated on the pages of the Washington Post.

And what of that “system” that, according to Mary, “lied” to Congress about the detainees?

McCarthy was not an ideologue, her friends say, but at some point fell into a camp of CIA officers who felt that the Bush administration’s venture into Iraq had dangerously diverted U.S. counterterrorism policy. After seeing — in e-mails, cable traffic, interview transcripts and field reports — some of the secret fruits of the Iraq intervention, McCarthy became disenchanted, three of her friends say.

In addition to CIA misrepresentations at the session last summer, McCarthy told the friends, a senior agency official failed to provide a full account of the CIA’s detainee-treatment policy at a closed hearing of the House intelligence committee in February 2005, under questioning by Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the senior Democrat.

McCarthy also told others she was offended that the CIA’s general counsel had worked to secure a secret Justice Department opinion in 2004 authorizing the agency’s creation of “ghost detainees” — prisoners removed from Iraq for secret interrogations without notice to the International Committee of the Red Cross — because the Geneva Conventions prohibit such practices.

First, for all my liberal friends who have been laughing about my contention that there is a cabal of CIA officers who are actively working against the Bush Administration, please note that our heroine joined the “camp of CIA officers who felt that the Bush administration’s venture into Iraq had dangerously diverted U.S. counterterrorism policy.” What the Post doesn’t say is what that “camp” was doing about their dissatisfaction; leaking like gray matter from a liberal’s brain. And if that reason sounds familiar, it should. Iraq as diversion from catching Osama was the #1 John Kerry talking point on the war during the 2004 Presidential campaign.

But our Mary an ideologue? Perish the thought.

And the fact that our heroine was “offended” by the CIA getting a secret opinion from the Justice Department on the treatment of detainees is very revealing. It is, after all, inherently offensive to keep secrets. And we just can’t have our unelected bureaucrats being offended like this. How dare the Bush Administration even think of “offending” their employees in this manner? It’s outrageous. Why, it’s almost as offensive as fanatics flying planes into buildings except we can’t do anything about that kind of behavior. Best concentrate on things that we personally find sinful in order to shine the light of truth - even if it harms the nation’s interests far more than it would ever harm the Bush Administration politically.

This was no reason to fire such a morally upstanding, conscientious intelligence officer with delusions of martyrdom:

But McCarthy’s friends, including former officials who support aggressive interrogation methods, resist any suggestion that she handled classified information loosely or that political motives lay behind her dissent and the contacts she has told the agency she had with journalists. She was, in the view of several who know her well, a CIA scapegoat for a White House that they say prefers intelligence acolytes instead of analysts and sees ulterior motives in any policy criticism.

They allege that her firing was another chapter in a long-standing feud between the CIA and the Bush White House, stoked by friction over the merits of the war in Iraq, over whether links existed between Saddam Hussein’s government and al-Qaeda, and over the CIA-instigated criminal inquiry of White House officials suspected of leaking the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Why should we believe her motives were anything but pure as the driven snow? After all, she was simply a dissenter who talked to the press. Why should we ascribe any but the most unalloyed of motives to someone who joined a cabal of Administration opponents at the CIA whose major disagreement rested on Democratic party talking points?

And why, pray tell, would the Administration see “ulterior motives” from this patriotic group of leakers? Just because their leaks were timed for maximum political effect - such as the leak of a contrary post war analysis two days before the first Presidential debate - doesn’t mean there was an ulterior political thought in their non-partisan little brains. The Administration really should get a grip on reality. Next thing you know, they’ll start to think there are people in the world who don’t like us very much and want to kill us all. And what a threat to American values and civil liberties that would be!

In the end, our Mary just couldn’t take it. Armed with knowledge known only to the CIA and those unimportant people who work on top of that big Washington, D.C.hill in that funny looking domed building, this just wasn’t enough. Due to her superior moral sense, our heroine just knew - she felt it in her bones - that absolutely everyone should know what she knows. Only then would her moral outrage be assuaged and goodness triumph over evil.

When I grow up, I want to be just like Mary. I wonder what Mary wants to be when she grows up?

UPDATE

AJ Strata takes down Jeffrey’s hagiagraphic portrayal of McCarthy and fills us in on what’s between the lines.

But we know from Democrat and Republican staffers McCarthy never once availed herself of the whistleblower status. There is no record of her once challenging the reports to Congress. She had all the opportunity, but she went to Dana Priest? If she was such a maverick, independent thinker, why not turn these people into Congress? She was retiring! There could be no retribution aimed at her for disclosing lies!

My article in Thursday’s American Thinker about 9/11 conspiracy theories has brought some not-so-lovely company over for dinner here at The House. In fact, since Google News placed the article near the top of the queue, I have been deluged with almost 40 emails from crackpots, crazies, kooks, and paranoids, all trying to tell me that I’m a fool for believing the “official version” of what happened.

Ordinarily, I laugh this kind of stuff off. But some of these emails are truly frightening and I thought I’d share a few of the more readable ones.

This is the dark underbelly of American politics. It exists on both the right and the left and, in fact, both sides are generally in agreement on who the “enemy” is. Even the articulate emails are filled with a kind of desperation that Daniel Pipes attributes to people’s feelings that their lives are out of control. Pipes scholarly work on the origins of conspiracies and conspiracy theories shows that such political paranoia is common following shattering events like 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination as people seek to “explain” events. The great historian William Manchester described the disbelief in Oswald as the lone Kennedy assassin using a scale analogy. On one side, you had the President - handsome, dashing, admired by millions. On the other the loser Oswald. Manchester points out that the imbalance is so great, so striking, that many simply cannot accept what still stands as the most logical theory regarding the assassination; that the preponderance of evidence shows that Oswald shot Kennedy acting alone.

Conspiracies surrounding 9/11 have some of that same flavor best articulated by Michael Moore; how could a guy hiding in a cave carry out such a deadly attack? The scales just don’t balance - until you look at al Qaeda and its deadly effective organization, it’s massive financing, its support from rogue elements in the Pakistani government (and probably others as well), not to mention the over riding motivating factor of pure, homicidal hatred for America and Americans.

Conspiracy theories are hard to answer because, as I say in the article, it takes an enormous amount of time and expertise to do so effectively. I just wish that some of these nuts would have followed a few of the links I gave in the article that would have seriously challenged their ideas.

david denhouse wrote:
That was really sad.

Pathetic.

Come along with something better - something that has been peer reviewed like the FEMA study, and I’ll take a look. Until then, best that you turn off your TV on Monday when Bush is speaking. I hear that if you look into his eyes, he will have you under his spell.

cv wrote:
i just read you 911 article. you are the nut and people like you perpetuate
false history. i would like to think you are at at least sincere, but i don’t.
you are either a fool or a traitor. i think a traitor.

anyone with eyes see’s the collapse of the world trade center buildings for
what they were- controlled demolitions.

A “traitor?” MMMM…’kay. At least I’m a sane traitor.

Etienne de la Boetie wrote:
You should really examine the evidence of 9-11 a little more carefully with an
open mind. you could start with my website. It was elements of the
intelligence agencies, the executive branch, and the military.. they painted
you a picture… start with Cui Bono.

Website: www.involuntaryservant.blogspot.com

I couldn’t resist putting that web address up there. All I can say is…WOW!

Terry Gabrich wrote:
There is to much proof of a conspiracy concerning 911. Especially when there is
proof that Bush ordered it, and signed an order for it.

And I’ll bet you have a signed copy of the order, too.

Andy wrote:
Hey, f**ko! You have the nerve to try and defend the Warren Commission?
Look, we’ll go on and glass Iraq, and you and
Dubya, and Hannity can all move there and be fascist together; ok? How about
that?
And we’ll stay here and restore our Republic; ok?

Ok…Get thee to a nunnery.

How supposedly rational people can believe the pronouncements of dubious
leaders who demonstrably lie to us as a matter of course is a sad indicator of
pandemic cognitive dissonance.

CS

Another common denominator of the conspiracists is their wish that you “open your eyes” and see “the truth.” Aside from the obvious condescension involved in such a “wish,” it is enormously satisfying for the conspiracist to play “I’ve got a secret.” They know something you don’t which makes them superior in their own eyes. Pipes speculates that this covers up feelings of inadequacy elsewhere in their lives. If they are a failure at everything else, at least they have that “special knowledge” that others lack.

Pitiful.

Finally, this gem. Sounds like its from a jihadist:

sorry loooooser…. U have lost and usa gov has lost. SHALL be destroyed and
USAers like U punished!

And U are a LUUUN.

UPDATE 5/14

Look ma! Top o’ the World!

I just can’t believe it. After all these years of working and slaving for the Forces of Darkness, I’ve finally graduated: I’m a full fledged member of the New World Order!

You’ll dress only in attire specially sanctioned by MiB special services. You’ll conform to the identity we give you, eat where we tell you, live where we tell you. From now on you’ll have no identifying marks of any kind. You’ll not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You’re a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly. You don’t exist; you were never even born. Anonymity is your name. Silence your native tongue. You’re no longer part of the System. You’re above the System. Over it. Beyond it. We’re “them.” We’re “they.” We are the Men in Black.

I am, indeed, a member of “them:”

“They’re getting so worried, they’re writing articles like this :-)” Poster of my article referenced above at The Liberty Forum. The poster’s name is “Origin Unknown” and lists as his hobby “Fighting the New World Order.”

I wonder when I’ll get my pass to fly in one of those black helicopters.

There’s a fascinating colloquy on immigration over at The Corner that went on most of the day yesterday which reveals both the opportunity and the danger for Republicans inherent in the debate over immigration reform.

Podhertz’s last post on the issue (from last night) hits the nail on the head:

There are really three immigration debates. There is the cultural debate, there is the economic debate, and there is the security debate. On matters of culture, I believe as everybody else here does that our immigration policy makes no sense if it is not directed at the process of turning non-Americans into Americans through the instruction of English, knowledge of civics and American history, and helping to instill a sense of pride and commitment to the country.

On economic matters, I agree that if immigrants are not of net benefit to the country, it makes no sense for us to allow newcomers to do harm in this way — and here, in my opinion, the case made by restrictionists is by far the weakest. On security matters, an uncontrolled border is clearly unacceptable, and a panoply of measures, including a border fence, is more than called for.

As for dealing with the illegals already here, there’s a sense in which this debate has been radicalized to such an extent that the Right won’t be satisfied with a policy that does not explicitly advocate expulsion — all other policies being dubbed “amnesty” and therefore illegitimate — while the Left refuses to consider any policy other than special-treatment affirmative-action line-jumping legalization. In other words, there is nothing our politicians can do, absolutely nothing, to satisfy the activists — because neither extreme will be reflected in any kind of law or policy that emerges even from a Washington energized to deal with them.

If one were to look at each of those issues separately, Republicans would seem to have it all over Democrats as far as support for their positions by the American people. The problem is, when dealing with immigration reform, the American people assign different weight to each of those issues. Some would like more emphasis on border security while allowing those already here a place at the table. Others (myself included), would like more emphasis placed on assimilation over other issues. Then there those who recognize that illegals are a huge part of our economy and that granting them legal standing in order to continue to contribute to the American economy should be paramount (Bush supporters).

Is there no reconciling the factions? Andrew McCarthy doesn’t think so. And his reasoning is sound; there is no comprehensive fix to our immigration problems:

The problem with this controversy is the seeming sense that it is essential for us to strike some kind of comprehensive solution. Although the proposed solutions are radically different, the sense of urgency for the Big Answer is common among all disputants, whether they are from the trans-nationalist, post-sovereign Left (for whom “rights” for illegals are a natural fit), the portions of the Right kindly toward illegal immigrants due to political/economic calculations, and those on the Right opposed to rights for illegals owing to cultural/economic/rule of law/national security concerns (in whose number I count myself).

I continue to be mystified by this. Government almost always resists hard choices, and thus when it occasionally tries for the Big Answer, it is virtually always the Wrong Answer. See, e.g., intelligence reform, Sarbanes-Oxley, etc., etc. Jonah will hopefully correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve always thought Hayek explained the reasons for this – which lie in the inability of fallible humans to foresee and rationally regulate all downstream consequences of ambitious schemes – as well as anyone.

What then can Bush do to re-unite the party on immigration? More than the unhappiness over spending (that we’ve put up with for 5 years after all), more than taxes, or the war, or any other issue, immigration has the potential to doom Republicans in November. And the consequences down the road could be cataclysmic as J-Pod points out:

If a more sober reckoning of political reality does not intrude here, the Right will hurtle headlong toward schism, division, a third party and all sorts of other “pox on all your houses” actions. The cost of this is what I detail in the direst parts of my book Can She Be Stopped? — the easy transfer of power on Capitol Hill and the White House to the Democrats, and particularly to Hillary Clinton.

It’s doubtful the policies she will follow as president on immigration will please anyone on the Right. It’s certain that the policies she will follow on courts, on social issues, on foreign policy, on taxes, on regulation and on almost everything else you can think of will be deeply displeasing to people on the Right. And then, as a result of the pursuit of an impossible policy of purity on immigration, the country and the world will suffer the consequences.

The potential for self-destruction is terrifying. The potential for grave national harm is worse. Please, you guys, pull back from the edge.

Is there common ground to be found? Yes there is, especially if we take Mr. McCarthy’s sage advice and not seek some kind of “Big Fix” solution. Because ultimately, immigration is not a “problem” as much as it is an expression of a desire on the part of all of us for a national identity.

Illegal immigration dilutes our citizenship in ways that the de-nationalists on the left either deliberately ignore or purposefully downplay. I think a large part of the attraction of the Minutemen is that even if you are uncomfortable with some of what they are doing (like me), they are asserting their rights as citizens in a way that hasn’t been seen in this country in modern times. Not vigilantes but rather an expression of something truly and uniquely American; the recognition that citizenship is precious commodity whether one is born here or not. I like to see the Minutemen as standing up as much for legal immigrants as they are doing for those of us lucky enough to be born here. They see correctly that the illegal immigrant problem is not so much one of security as it is a symptom of a larger malaise affecting the governing class in America; a loss of confidence in average people to govern themselves.

As imperfect as the Minutemen solution may turn out to be - and given the potential for tragedy, I can’t help but fear for their future in that regard - it nevertheless should be a rallying point for illegal immigration foes who see the problem both as a security threat and a threat to the value placed on being a US citizen. For if there is no difference between being an illegal alien and a natural born citizen in America, what stake will either have in forging a national identity that expresses the will of the people? At some point, all the clashing interests that roil our politics must coalesce and some sense of nationhood emerge. And thanks in no small way to the vigorous prosecution of ideas like cultural relativism, multi-culturalism, and other aspects of identity politics, the sense of being an American is getting lost.

Make no mistake. There are those on the left and even some conservative elites who are willing this to happen. The globalization movement is not simply one that advocates free trade zones and ease of communications across national borders. There are many who see globalization as breaking down national borders in order to either increase profits or, as in the case of the George Soros’s of the world, actually facilitate a quasi-one world government. Not ruled from the United Nations, but actually loose knit groups of think tanks, foundations, and “Non-Governmental Organizations” or NGO’s who will not do away with governments as they are today as much as exercise a pernicious influence on issues such as immigration, foreign policy, and perhaps even basic freedoms like freedom of the press and speech (Don’t believe me? Read “The Colombo Declaration“)

The above is not tin foil hat stuff. One need only go to the next meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) on the Kyoto treaty and realize why any kind of rational debate on global warming is impossible - even among scientists. The hundreds of NGO’s that attend these meetings as well as the support they receive from foundations and think tanks has a deadening effect on debate. These groups have so much invested in the idea of climate change that, like a religion , anyone who disagrees with them is treated as a heretic.

The fact is, there are many people working to destroy the idea of nationhood. And one way to do that is to blur the distinction between citizenship and illegal immigrants. For this reason, we must work much harder to help those who are here to assimilate. By drastically reducing illegal immigration and expanding legal immigration, we will be able to mitigate our security problem while addressing the economic impact caused by a fall off in people who enter the country illegally. Increased legal immigration also helps the assimilation problem as every study ever done shows that legal immigrants are much more likely to work to become citizens than illegals.

I don’t expect the President to propose anything different on Monday night than he’s already offered. He will probably stress enforcement - more guards, more money, blah…blah…blah. We’ve heard it all before. He may drop the “guest worker” provision - for now. And I’m sure we’ll hear some fine, uplifting words about how immigrants are the backbone of the country.

What we won’t hear is anything that will unite Republicans in a way that will stop the bleeding from his base and cause conservatives to come back home. Conservatives want to hear tough talk, not platitudes.

I have a feeling we’re going to be royally disappointed.

I got a kick out of reading this in the WaPo today regarding Nancy Pelosi’s promise not to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush:

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) told her caucus members during their weekly closed meeting Wednesday “that impeachment is off the table; she is not interested in pursuing it,” spokesman Brendan Daly said.

Some House Democrats, including ranking Judiciary Committee member John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, have called for impeachment hearings into allegations that Bush misled the nation about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and that he violated federal law by approving warrantless wiretaps on Americans. In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Pelosi said a Democratic-controlled House would launch investigations of the administration on energy policy and other matters. She said impeachment would not be a goal of the investigations, but she added: “You never know where it leads to.”

GOP activists seized on the remarks to warn potential donors of Bush’s possible peril if Democrats pick up the 15 net House seats they need to become the majority. The National Republican Congressional Committee republished The Post’s Sunday article in a letter to supporters and donors that stated: “The threat of the Democrats taking the majority in the House this November is very real.”

Some Democratic activists criticized Pelosi, saying she made the party appear extreme while drawing attention away from more useful issues such as gasoline prices and Republican lobbying scandals.

Is this anything like the Democrat’s promise not to try and filibuster Judge Alito? You will recall that the “Gang of 14″ solemnly declared that blocking the Supreme Court nominee was also “off the table” and then, lo and behold! John Kerry initiates a filibuster that set off the lefty blogs (who had been skewering their own for not having the courage to buck the Republicans on Alito) into paroxysms of joy. The netnuts scrambled for a few hours but only managed to corral 25 votes for the filibuster. But this is after two-faced Harry Reid promised that the attempt wouldn’t even be made.

Pelosi is living in La-La Land if she doesn’t understand what is boiling and frothing on lefty websites from the very largest to the very smallest. These loons live, eat, breathe, and fornicate impeachment. As of this writing, there are almost exactly 71,000 posts in Technorati that mention impeachment. And while I’m sure there are some posts (like this one) that find the idea of impeaching a President during a time of war abhorrent, I would hazard a guess and say that the overwhelming majority of those blog posts are rabidly in favor of the idea.

This is the political class of the Democratic party. They are activists and contributors. Almost to a netnut, they vote. The Democratic establishment couldn’t ignore these people during the 2004 election (which is a big reason Kerry lost) nor could they ignore them during the Alito debacle. How do they figure on ignoring them in January when, flush from a victory that they will claim complete credit for, will start agitating to have George Bush’s head on a pike?

Does talk of impeachment really hurt Democratic chances and boost the Republicans? Personally, if I do vote this November, the only reason I can think of supporting Republican candidates is to keep the Democrats from trying to remove the President from office. So in my tiny corner of the universe, it makes sense for Republicans to trumpet this to the skies. If I were a Republican strategist, I would have someone glued to lefty blogs from now until November relaying what the netnuts are saying about impeachment on a daily basis to conservative websites. It may be the only thing that gets many of us out of the recliner and into the voting booth on election day.

Is there any relevance at all to the salutation that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used in his letter to President Bush? Was it just a throw away line that had no meaning? Or was it a specific warning to America and the west to convert to Islam or be conquered?

Taken by itself, the line as translated “Peace only unto those who follow the true path.” would seem to indicate more religious hyperbole from the the man we are assured by our intellectual betters is only talking in apocalyptic terms for “domestic consumption.” Let him rant, they tell us, for Iran is no danger to the United States and after all, we’ve been beastly to them in the past, haven’t we?

But if that ending salutation was included deliberately - and given the huge importance placed by the Iranians on the letter this seems a pretty good bet - then one is left to ponder what exactly President Ahmadinejad meant when he used it.

Is the Iranian President echoing the Prophet Mohamed from 1500 years ago?

It is a phrase with historical significance in Islam, for, according to Islamic tradition, in year six of the Hejira – the late 620s – the prophet Mohammad sent letters to the Byzantine emperor and the Sassanid emperor telling them to convert to the true faith of Islam or be conquered. The letters included the same phrase that President Ahmadinejad used to conclude his letter to Mr. Bush. For Mohammad, the letters were a prelude to a Muslim offensive, a war launched for the purpose of imposing Islamic rule over infidels.

The exact words? Pretty chilling, that. But as I said, are we taking these words out of context? After all, this is not the 7th century and no one in their right mind would declare war on America and the west, right?

Here’s the Iranian President talking about exactly what he means during his visit to Indonesia:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Thursday that his letter to President George W. Bush did not concern the nuclear dossier, but rather was an invitation to Islam and the prophets culture.

He made the above remarks in reply to a reporter while attending press conference on his letter to President Bush in Jakarta in the afternoon of the third day of his stay in Jakarta. Stressing that the letter was beyond the nuclear issue, the chief executive said that in principle, the country’s nuclear case is not so significant to make him write a letter about it.

“We act according to laws and our activities are quite clear. We are rather intent on solving more fundamental global matters.”

“The letter was an invitation to monotheism and justice, which are common to all divine prophets. If the call is responded positively, there will be no more problems to be solved,” added the president.

The president said that the letter actually contained a clear message of invitation to human beliefs, adding that its response will determine the future.

The fact that this statement reconciles with what he wrote throughout his letter to President Bush should give any thinking person in the western world pause to consider how exactly Ahmadinejad might go about making good on this “invitation.”

Of course, our betters are already assuring us that Ahmadinejad was only speaking truth to power when he wrote that strange, insulting letter to the President. He, like his ideological soulmate Adolph Hitler, only used such language and such a tone to get attention. They are not really serious about “ridding Europe of the Jew menace” or “wiping Israel off the map.” This is all exaggerated rhetoric and therefore not even worth writing about. Best to portray the Iranian as a reasonable sort, someone the west can do business with if only we stopped being so darn insistent that someone be allowed to take a close look at his nuclear program to make sure (and believe me, we’re sure) that he’s not building one of those nuke thingies.

I am perplexed that we in the west have become so supine about our invincibility that when someone who has proven in thought, word, and deed that they are the mortal enemy of everything we hold near and dear to our hearts - that which falls under the rubric of “western liberal democracy - and then spells out in language that his culture and background tell him is a merciful warning to the infidel to change or be consumed, at which point we do absolutely nothing, I wonder if we in the west still has what it takes to defend our values and our beliefs.

Has Ahmadinejad taken note of our disinterest? I daresay we will regret the day we find out the answer to that question.

UPDATE: FROM OUR “HOLY SH*T!” FILE

The IAEA bumblers have apparently stumbled across some uranium residue that has been enriched far beyond anything the Iranians need for nuclear fuel. While further tests are needed, the residue tested is “beyond” weapons grade:

The U.N. atomic agency found traces of highly enriched uranium at an Iranian site linked to the country’s defense ministry, diplomats said Friday, adding to concerns that Tehran was hiding activities aimed at making nuclear arms.

The diplomats, who demanded anonymity in exchange for revealing the confidential information, said the findings were preliminary and still had to be confirmed through other lab tests. But they said the density of enrichment appeared to be close to or above the level used to make nuclear warheads.

Still, they said, further analysis could show that the traces match others established to have come from abroad. The International Atomic Energy Agency determined earlier traces of weapons-grade uranium were imported on equipment from Pakistan that Iran bought on the black market during nearly two decades of clandestine activity discovered just over three years ago.

Why the IAEA has not revealed this is obvious; if they did so, then they would have to do something about it. And that means confrontation, something that ElBaradei and his cohorts try to avoid at all costs. Never mind that their job is to “speak truth to nuclear power.” Never mind that the Security Council relies on them to give members all the facts so that one of the momentus decisions of the young century can be made.

Is this what has emboldened Ahmadinejad? Could it be possible, even remotely, that the Iranians already have the bomb or are within an angel’s hair of building one?

I want to disbelieve what this news portends. But frankly, I do not trust the IAEA and ElBaradei to stop any country from developing nuclear weapons if they are so inclined. If Iran did indeed (as many suspected as recently as 6 months ago) have a two track nuclear program with greater urgency and secrecy given to the military end, it is remotely possible that they are much further along in developing a working nuclear weapon than we have been led to believe by our own experts as well as the CIA.

Will we even hear if the IAEA determines that the uranium residue is not from equipment bought in Pakistan but is actually the result of experiments done on site in Iran?

Don’t go there….

The news that billions of phone records are stored in a faceless, lifeless, dumb brute of a computer data base has set off a tantrum on the left the likes of which have not been seen in this country since the Civil War. Whipped into a frenzy of outrage not by any actual “spying” or “eavesdropping” by the NSA’s data mining of call records but rather by the idea that the government now has the exact same information available to it that your phone company has had all along, Members of Congress as well as the left side of the blogosphere have given in to hysteria and have allowed their imaginations to take flight about the program, positing all sorts of sinister scenarios where we are a hair’s breadth away from some kind of third world dictatorship.

Their reasoning (or unreasoning) goes something like this; if the NSA wanted to, it COULD abuse the program. Or, THERE IS THE POTENTIAL for mischief by the government if the program’s parameters were violated. The point, of course, is not to demonstrate anything untoward that has actually happened but rather to flaunt a self-image of themselves as saviors, crucified for their beliefs, manning the battlements, waving the bloody shirt, DEFENDING DEMOCRACY while the rest of us peasants look upon them with doe-eyed admiration and worship.

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the exaggerations about the “danger” that the country is becoming a dictatorship, a word they throw around with the practiced ease of someone who has no idea what an actual dictatorship looks like. I’m sick of the ginned up outrage against anything and everything the Administration has done in the past 5 years to protect us. I’m sick to death of these immature, emotionally unstable, intellectually dishonest philistines whose foot stomping tirades have begun to resemble the wailings of teenage girls who put on melodramatic, angst ridden histrionics over the tiniest of slights.

CNN’s Jack Cafferty is the star of this high school production of Little Women. In what must be considered some of the most unbalanced, off the wall remarks ever uttered on a major television network, Cafferty gravely informed us (in all seriousness) that “all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country” is…is…(wait for it) ARLEN SPECTER!

Cafferty: We all hope nothing happens to Arlen Specter, the Republican head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cause he might be all that stands between us and a full blown dictatorship in this country. He’s vowed to question these phone company executives about volunteering to provide the government with my telephone records, and yours, and tens of millions of other Americans.

Shortly after 9/11, AT7T, Verizon, and BellSouth began providing the super-secret NSA with information on phone calls of millions of our citizens, all part of the War on Terror, President Bush says. Why don’t you go find Osama bin Laden, and seal the country’s borders, and start inspecting the containers that come into our ports?

In another age, another time when such drivel would have led to the newscaster’s immediate dismissal (or earned him a trip to the sanatorium so that he could dry out properly) Cafferty would suffer the consequences of his on-air breakdown. Instead, he is lionized, feted, elevated to sainthood all because his outburst reflects exactly what they have been saying on conspiracy laden websites for years; that George Bush is hell bent on turning this country into a dictatorship, that 9/11 was part of the plot to make him king, and that there are top secret government concentration camps that are already built and just waiting to be filled up with all the courageous liberals who “speak truth to power.”

Nice company you’re keeping there, Jack.

Not to be outdone in the Getting Hysterical Department, the mainstream media has predictably gotten on the conspiracy bandwagon and millions of words have been written about what the program is about, what Bush said about the NSA, and, of course, the inevitable quotes from civil liberties absolutists who get their panties in a twist if the government so much as raises a finger to try and find out what al Qaeda and their sympathizers are doing in the United States.

This is all predictable - as is their raising the strawman of potential abuse while offering absolutely no evidence that any shenanigans have taken place:

The New York Times:

The phone records include numbers called, time, date and direction of calls and other details but not the words spoken, telecommunications experts said. Customers’ names and addresses are not included in the companies’ call records, though they could be cross-referenced to obtain personal data.

And from the NY Times editors desk:

The government has stressed that it is not listening in on phone calls, only analyzing the data to look for calling patterns. But if all the details of the program are confirmed, the invasion of privacy is substantial. By cross-referencing phone numbers with databases that link numbers to names and addresses, the government could compile dossiers of what people and organizations each American is in contact with.

The Washington Post:

According to USA Today, the telephone companies are removing the names and addresses of their customers from the records they give the NSA. But the government has many means of identifying account owners, including access to commercial databases from ChoicePoint and LexisNexis.

NBC News:

Although customers’ names and addresses are not being handed over, “the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information,” it said.

The Los Angeles Times:

On Thursday, USA Today reported that after 9/11, the NSA asked telecommunications companies to turn over the “call-detail” records of millions of customers. The records — essentially a list of phone numbers — reportedly have been used by the agency to identify patterns that would help identify terrorists. The newspaper said that the data turned over by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth did not include customers’ names or personal information. But it would not be hard for the agency to connect those dots.

One needs to ask if it is the government’s plan to get the names and addresses attached to these phone records why in God’s name didn’t they just ask for them at the same time that they asked for and received the other information? What stayed their hand? Fear of Jack Cafferty’s outrage? Maybe it was something a little more basic; they had no intention of getting the names and addresses of American citizens attached to those records unless they represented a threat to the people of the United States!

A regular reader of this site knows that I am not a huge fan of this President, or Republicans, and am even getting a little disgusted with my conservative brethren over some issues. But the behavior of the left, of the media, and of Members of Congress these past 24 hours has gone beyond mere political posturing and has become pure scaremongering. There may be reasons to rationally examine this latest revelation about what the NSA is doing to safeguard the United States. The fact that 12 Members of Congress knew about this program and never opened their yaps in opposition to it should tell you all you need to know about the program being a nail in the coffin of democracy- it isn’t even close.

And for the purveyors of Bush hatred and partisan scare tactics, perhaps they should ask who is a greater threat to America? The people who are doing their best to protect us from a terrorist strike? Or those who seek political advantage by making their jobs harder?

UPDATE

Howard Kurtz, Washington Post media columnist, linked to my post yesterday where I stated flatly that this latest leak about an NSA program was designed to derail the nomination of General Hayden for CIA chief.

Kurtz dismisses my speculation saying “Well, maybe. But how does he know the motivation of sources whose identity we don’t know?”

Although arithmetic is not my best subject (having given my poor parents near heart failure in high school, worrying about whether or not I would pass Algebra), let’s try a little basic math out and see what we can come up with, ‘kay?

1 + 1 = 2

As in: Hayden ran NSA when the data mining program began. There are those who wish to hurt the President by denying Hayden the post of CIA chief. Ergo, being an inveterate (degenerate?) gambler, I would bet a substantial amount of money that the reason the details of the program were leaked at this time was to hurt said General in his quest to serve as CIA chief.

If Mr. Kurtz were to peruse the pages of his own paper, he would find similar dot connecting even when the dots are half as visible as they are in this case.

Dana Priest, anyone?

UPDATE II

Michelle Malkin rounds up the react today (which may turn into a plus for the President if the overnight ABC poll can be believed) and links to her column in today’s New York Post:

Nevertheless, the civil liberties Chicken Little are screaming “Bushitler!” on cue. What they should be screaming for are the heads of the blabbermouths endangering all of us by running to the fifth-column press when they don’t get their way in Washington. But you can never find the leak-decriers when you need them, can you?

Prediction: To the dismay of the USA Today prize-seekers and fear-stokers, most Americans won’t react to their precious scoop by hysterically throwing their cellphones into the nearest lake and calling for President Bush’s impeachment.

Speaking of the Post, they are the only major media outlet I’ve read so far that comes out four square for the NSA data mining program. This Week’s Treason:

Far from disqualifying Gen. Michael Hayden from the job of CIA director, the political and news media uproar over a report that the National Security Agency is mining data from domestic phone calls only reinforces why Hayden should be confirmed.
For all the hyperventilating on the TV news and on Capitol Hill - by Republicans as well as Democrats, sad to say - there is little new in yesterday’s “disclosure” by USA Today. And even less to cause Americans concern.

As a matter of fact, prominent stories in both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times reported the details of the program months ago. And a lawsuit filed against the NSA in January spelled out specific details.

Plus, the program has clear antecedents in a widely rumored surveillance program called Echelon, which was hotly debated across the Internet back in 1999 - nearly two years before President Bush took office.

UPDATE III

This is pretty much a “topper.” Glenn Greenwald is telling the American people that they’re too stupid to understand the “nuances” of the NSA telephone program and therefore, they should wait until Greenwald and his intellectual bully boys spin the story until they are told exactly what they should think about it:

The whole point of having political leaders and pundits is to articulate a point of view and provide support for that view in order to persuade Americans of its rightness. That process changes public opinion on every issue, all of the time, often dramatically. None of that has occurred here. Let’s have a few days of debate over whether Americans actually want the Government to maintain a permanent data base of every call they make and receive — to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their doctors and lawyers, their psychiatrists and drug counselors. And let’s have a debate about whether the law prohibits this program. And then let’s see where public opinion is.

Is he kidding? What arrogance! Leave aside the hyperbole about the program itself (”Let’s have a few days of debate over whether Americans actually want the Government to maintain a permanent data base of every call they make and receive — to their girlfriends and boyfriends, their doctors and lawyers, their psychiatrists and drug counselors.”) - as if the NSA is curious about your call last week to Aunt Martha - and see how the left actually thinks of themselves. The whole point of having political leaders is to represent us. And to compare a pundit with a Congressman is scary as hell.

The people are perfectly able to make up their own minds about issues without Glenn Greenwald telling them what all the cool kids are thinking. Greenwald - not they - need to be instructed.

Is it possible that Iran is using a two track approach in its efforts to head off sanctions as well as cool the rhetoric between Tehran and Washington?

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hectoring letter to George Bush was rightly dismissed by the US government largely because it offered absolutely nothing in the way of concrete proposals for a starting point in negotiations. It was 17 pages of Ahmadinejad - cloistered as he is in Iranian cuckoo land - believing both Arab propaganda as well as the over-the-top exaggerated rhetoric used by the left in the west about America and Bush, telling the President where he’s gone wrong. The exercise would be laughable except one must keep in mind that Ahmadinejad will one day be in possession of a weapon that he has made absolutely plain to all but the most willfully self deluded will be used to destroy Israel and if at all possible, the United States of America.

And while the Iranian President offered nothing new in the letter, it has been rightly pointed out that there was a slight - only a slight - cooling of the overheated, hateful rhetoric that is usually employed by him when talking about the United States. It says something absolutely damning about Iran when we take it as a positive sign that the President of a fairly large nation did not use the term “Great Satan” when talking about America.

It is a real possibility that this letter was meant largely for domestic (and regional) purposes, designed to show the Iranian President as a reasonably sane, albeit a ridiculously ignorant and misinformed person. There certainly was nothing in the letter that could be used as the basis for opening a dialogue.

Then, the other shoe drops.

Time Magazine has revealed that they received another letter on the same day that Ahmadinejad’s letter was delivered to Bush by the Swiss. This communication was from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini’s representative on the Iranian National Security Council Hassan Rohani, and Iran’s former top nuclear negotiator under former President Khatami. It is this letter that appears to contain the meat of Iranian proposals to jump start direct negotiations with the United States:

In the two-page memorandum, intended for publication in the West, Hassan Rohani,representative of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, on the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Iran’s former top nuclear negotiator, defends Iran’s nuclear posture, decries American bullying, and puts forward a plan to remove the nuclear issue from the U.N. Security Council and return it to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, a long-standing Iranian goal.

The letter also offers some specific Iranian starting points for negotiation. Rohani said Iran would “consider ratifying the Additional Protocol, which provides for intrusive and snap inspections,” and that it would also “address the question of preventing ‘break-out’” — or abandonment of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Independent nuclear experts consulted by TIME said these proposals were “hopeful” signs.

Why didn’t Ahmadinejad include these proposals in his letter, a communication that was sure to get the widest possible airing due to the historic nature of the missive: It represented the first direct communication between leaders of the two countries since 1979? Why use a media outlet like Time Magazine to make such a serious diplomatic overture?

And make no mistake, these proposals represent a possible breakthrough. The Europeans and the IAEA tried for three years to get Iran to agree to these “snap inspections” which are vital if any kind of confidence can be achieved in monitoring the Iranian program. And their possible agreement to abide by the NPT is another hopeful sign that someone or some faction may be trying to reign in the Iranian President and take a step or two back from the precipice that Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric and actions have brought the Islamic Republic.

The reason for the two track approach to negotiations is not clear and could mean several things. Ahmadinejad could be more subtle than we give him credit for - a longshot to be sure but not impossible. Or his boss Khameini could be either undercutting his efforts or trying to rein him in, seeing the danger of an increasingly isolated Iran. After all, Khameini used as his errand boy the very man that Ahmadinejad fired when he came into office. The Iranian President was unhappy with the moderate’s approach to the negotiations and replaced them with hardliners, virtually guaranteeing that the talks with Germany, France, and Great Britain on their nuclear program would fail.

If it is a sign of factionalism rearing its ugly head in Iran, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. While the Iranian President has been busy gutting the civil service by purging long time employees and replacing them with fanatics (his foreign minister was kicked out of Turkey when he was Ambassador for supporting attacks against Iranian dissidents), a crisis is brewing with the west over his nuclear program that demands experienced, level headed hands to defuse. This communication that we must assume comes directly from Supreme Leader Khameini, is the first hopeful sign that cooler heads might be prevailing at the highest levels and Ahamdinejad may have to change directions or find himself out of a job (or, more likely, on a mortuary slab - victim of an assassination).

This is not the first time that a government wishing to use a back channel to talk with the United States has used the media as a go-between. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Nikita Kruschev used an old army friend, Alexander Fromin, who was a Counselor at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, to contact ABC News correspondent John Scali in order to have the reporter carry personal messages to Kennedy from the Soviet Premiere. Kruschev used the Fromin-Scali channel to bypass his Central Committee who were determined to keep the missiles in Cuba unless the US gave in on moving its missiles out of Turkey. Kennedy eventually gave in to that demand (along with guaranteeing Cuban sovereignty by promising not to invade) but got the Soviets to keep that part of the deal quiet.

Scali later said that while he was troubled by being used in this manner by both governments, he fully recognized the stakes involved and was therefore willing to act as a go between.

While this second diplomatic track using Time Magazine doesn’t have quite the drama of Scali’s secret diplomacy, it could prove to be just as crucial in getting the US and Iran to the bargaining table to head off a confrontation that would result in untold consequences for the region, and for both Iran and the United States.

UPDATE

Marc Schulman has an extremely detailed posting on what exactly was in that second letter as well as some quotes from people who (unlike me) know what the heck they’re talking about:

William Samii, the longtime senior Iran analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, says this:

Mr. Samii seems rather incurious that the Iranian President is having his legs cut off by the Supreme Leader, especially given what Ahmadinejad has been up to in the last few months with his various purges. What Samii seems to be saying is that the Iranian government has split in two - just ignore our President and deal instead with the Supreme Leader Khameini.

Is he saying we can reach some kind of agreement with him and ignore whatever Ahmadinejad says? What the heck is going on in Iran?

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council vote and the winner is Gates of Vienna for “The Last Boat out of Liverpool.” Finishing second was New World Man for “You’re being mean to me Liberalism.”

In the non Council category, Villainous Company walked away with top honors for “Can America Still Win Wars?”

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