Right Wing Nut House

Double your pleasure…double your fun.

Here are the results for the last two Watchers Council votes.

March 24th Results:

COUNCIL

1st Place - “Autum Ashante: Child Prodigy Or Something Else?” from Education Wonks

2nd Place - “A Tale of Two Fathers” from Me.

3rd Place - “The Elephant on Campus” from Gates of Vienna.

4th Place - “Why Kant Couldn’t, and Still Can’t” from Dr. Sanity

5th Place - “Civil War or Not” from Done with Mirrors

NON-COUNCIL

1st Place - “What Did You Do in the Great Gulf War II, Grandpa?” from Florida Cracker

2nd Place - “Guest Post: Mamacita on the PC of Dumbing Down and Why This May Be the Most Important Post You’ll Read All Year” from Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred.

3rd Place - “A Reason to Believe” from the Belmont Club

4th Place - “What Frank Miller Was Talking About” from The Colossus of Rhodey
(Tie)
4th Place - “War of the Morlocks” from The Mesopotamian

March 31st Results

COUNCIL

1st Place - “A Slap in the Face” from Me.

2nd Place - “Walking Out On Their Futures?” from the Education Wonks
(Tie)
2nd Place - “What Bush Needs To Do To Come Back” from Joshuapundit

NON-COUNCIL

1st Place - “Open Letter To Reformist Muslims” from Unwilling Self-Negation

2nd Place - “Hummer Deathtraps Suck” from Winds of Change

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

Readers of this site know that lately I’ve become something of a gloomy gus about our prospects of succeeding in Iraq. By way of a short explanation, let me just say that this does not reflect any loss of confidence in the performance of our troops nor does it mean that I thought the invasion a mistake - yet. I do think that the political situation absolutely must be resolved as soon as possible so that the government can start addressing the numerous issues that confront the nation and contribute to it’s instability.

I was a little amused this morning to see that Prime Minister Jaafari is whistling past the graveyard when he says that Secretary Rice and Minister Straw’s visits this past week “backfired.” One thing about a backfire is that you better not be kissin’ the tail pipe when it happens and unfortunately for the soon to be ex-Prime Minister, he’s got his lips firmly wrapped around the exhaust hole. Now that 3 of the 5 major Shia parties that make up the dominant coalition have called for his resignation, his position is rapidly becoming untenable, although I see in this New York Times article that the reporter was able to scrounge up one - just one - member of the opposition who agreed that the foreigners should have kept out of the business.

Jaafari may be on the ropes but he’s hanging on in hopes that his patrone Muqtada al-Sadr will come to his rescue. Al-Sadr himself may be losing some influence due to the fact that his militia has been participating in the cycle of revenge killings and other sectarian violence that most Iraqis are now seeing as the main threat to peace and stability. Still, the self-styled religious leader has 100,000 men with guns and should not be taken lightly. How that power translates into political influence is probably being worked out as I write this. Expect the Prime Minister to be given a prominent cabinet post in the new government.

Despite the political deadlock, despite the continuing (but reduced) sectarian violence, and despite the continuing vitality of the insurgency, there is one small ray of hope - and it may surprise you:

81, 76, 50, 49, 43, 25

What are these numbers? This week’s Powerball winners? … No, they’re the number of troops that have died in hostile actions in Iraq for each of the past six months. That last number represents the lowest level of troop deaths in a year, and second-lowest in two years.

But it must be that the insurgency is turning their assault on Iraqi military and police, who are increasingly taking up the slack, right? 215, 176, 193, 189, 158, 193 (and the three months before that were 304, 282, 233)

Okay, okay, so insurgents aren’t engaging us; they’re turning increasingly to car bombs then, right? 70, 70, 70, 68, 30, 30

Civilians then. They’re just garroting poor civilians. 527, 826, 532, 732, 950, 446 (upper bound, two months before that were 2489 and 1129).

The sharp drop in American casualties is great news and is due to several factors, not the least of which is our constant improvement refining our ground tactics in fighting the insurgency. There is also the fact that we have deliberately reduced the number of combat missions (on orders from the Pentagon who presumably got them from the President) in order to reduce our killed and wounded. I want to say that this was not done for political reasons but the evidence is to the contrary. That said, by re-deploying our forces to the countryside and out of urban areas, we are forcing the Iraqi army and police to start doing the job (with American advisers always close by). The results there have been mixed so far. The Iraqi army seems to be making steady and even encouraging progress. The problems with the police - poor training, infiltration by militias and insurgents, and just not enough of them - have been well documented here and elsewhere.

But in looking at those numbers and seeing a slow, steady reduction in casualties as well as the attacks that cause them, one can barely discern a silver lining in the clouds. But none of it will matter if the politicians can’t get past their differences and forge a truly broad-based coalition government that will give the Sunnis some confidence that they will not be steamrolled by the Shia majority. The Shia’s are balking because in order to instill that confidence, they have to give up a heck of a lot more than they are willing to do at this point. It’s understandable. Like any political party that comes out on top in an election, they want the rewards that go with that victory. And having to give the Sunnis - their deadly enemies for so many years - cabinet posts and other assurances sticks in their craw. Right now, they are unwilling to go the extra mile. Whether that will change anytime soon may depend on how much pressure American Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is willing to put on all the parties involved.

It’s a delicate job for Khalilzad who so far has proved himself fairly adept at keeping the process going despite the anti-Sunni violence and rhetoric from some of the radicals. He may have to insinuate himself into the process more forcefully to get the politicians off dead center which carries risks of offending the Shias - especially Ayatollah al-Sistani who is apparently sick of American interference, having refused to even open a letter from President Bush last week. At this point, there might not be a choice.

Reduced casualties is good news. Whether this is a lull before another round of increased insurgent attacks or whether it represents a slow petering out of the rebellion only time will tell. Either way, it won’t matter a fig unless we have a government sooner rather than later.

UPDATE

The Associated Press is reporting that the Prime Minister and other Shia members of the coalition have agreed to toss the question of Jaafari’s fate into the lap of Ayatollah al-Sistani:

Al-Attiyah said the deadlock had become “very complicated” and al-Jaafari’s supporters within the alliance want to ask the advice of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country’s most respected Shiite cleric, before deciding their next move.

Al-Attiyah said other Shiite politicians who are not affiliated with the major Shiite parties also have agreed to seek al-Sistani’s opinion.

Turning to al-Sistani shows the inability of the Shiite alliance to resolve the standoff, with many Shiite politicians fearing that a move to force out al-Jaafari would splinter their alliance.

A little speculation with your coffee…

I think this could be very good news. Prime Minister Jaafari needs some cover in order to step down gracefully (and safely) and al-Sistani may just provide it. By suggesting the PM step aside, the Ayatollah defuses a potentially dangerous situation regarding al-Sadr who would be very resentful if his Shia partners forced his hand-picked man out of office. Jaafari himself might be relieved in that his life expecancy probably would be reduced if he agreed to leave without the young cleric’s blessing. With Sistani taking the lead, al-Sadr can hardly complain about whatever decision the Ayatollah comes to.

Will al-Sistani rise to the occassion? Or will he toss the ball back to the negotiators and wash his hands of the situation? Keep in mind that al-Sistani has shown impatience with young al-Sadr in the past and he may see this as a perfect opportunity to put the upstart in his place. Watch this development closely, especially al-Sistani’s statement. It could be the break the negotiators need to get the process moving again.

UPDATE AND CLARIFICATION

The Commissar points out in the comments that the civilian casualty number for March is almost certainly too low. He read the Brookings numbers and believes that they reflect only a partial total for that month.

Given the level of violence and deaths during March I agree with that assessment. In fact, the last figures I saw on the sectarian violence alone since the bombing of the shrine in Samarra on February 22 was over 1300. That does not include those killed by car bombs, IED’s, and insurgent attacks.

While that diminishes the impact of the report slightly, I think the thrust of the report is still valid.

MORE: - In fact, the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (ICC) site lists 193 Iraqi police and 901 civilians died in March for a total of 1094. Curiously, that number, while much higher than previous months, is lower than 6 months ago.

Don’t quite know what that means except we can only hope it’s a trend.

The revelations involving NBC’s attempt to “out” NASCAR fans as anti-Muslim bigots by having men who “look Muslim” wander around during a race in order to raise the ire of of race fans toward representatives of the Religion of Peace says something profound about the red state/blue state divide in America and the conundrum facing liberals as they seek to claw their way back into power in Washington.

The utter contempt toward ordinary Americans exhibited by NBC in this case would be shocking except that it is representative of a mindset that permeates the journalistic elite in New York and Washington as well as the political and cultural elites along the Potomac and the ivory towers of academia. The fact is, these groups have about as much interest in the lives of ordinary Americans as they do in the study of some primitive New Guinean tribal culture. We are anthropological curiosities to them, best suited to keeping our mouths shut and voting “correctly.” Beyond that, our strange beliefs as Christians, our focus on families (”dysfunctional,” of course), our dangerous flag-waving patriotism, and our silly, sappy, sentimentality when it comes to our feelings about this country are mercilessly derided as simple-minded, unsophisticated, and just plain stupid.

Herein lies the dilemma for Democrats and liberals in general: How do you cover up the fact that you feel such haughty disdain for the very people you absolutely must convince to vote for you so that you can regain power in Washington?

We got a dose of this scornful contempt in the immediate aftermath of the election in 2004. The caustic remarks dripping with sarcasm about “Jesusland” voters being too stupid to know where their own interests lay and the long, thumb-sucking magazine pieces accusing Bush supporters of being afraid of gays, of blacks, of Muslims, of any and all things “different” which dovetailed nicely with their pre-conceived notions that the NASCAR culture is, at bottom, in favor of re-establishing Jim Crow and throwing the sodomites in jail while making sex illegal and chaining women to the kitchen.

There are even efforts in blue states to stop “trading” with people and companies who live in ordinary America, as if people who live, work, play, go to church on Sunday, take off their hat when the flag goes by, and get choked up when they hear the national anthem live in a different country than the urban sophisticates who dominate the culture and to a large extent, the national conversation. We are told what is proper to believe, what we should watch on television, what cartoons are blasphemous, and which European countries are better than we are. We are instructed in what is “good” and even what is funny and what is not.

And when red state America rebels against this cultural tyranny by voting the way they think rather than the way they are told to, they are belittled as morons, mouth breathers, hicks, hillbillies, and dolts.

And liberals wonder why they can’t win an election for dog catcher in most areas of the country?

In truth, as we head into the silly season in politics, Democrats are going to have to find a way to put a lid on this attitude of loathing toward ordinary voters lest they be discovered for the insufferable elitist louts they truly are. This will prove to be more difficult than they think given that their base makes their feelings known toward ordinary voters every single day on the web. With cries of “American Taliban” echoing in their ears, somehow I don’t think evangelical Christians are going to feel too kindly toward a party that thinks them capable of the kinds of crimes against women and gays that these webnuts assure us hovers just below the surface of the “theocrats” beliefs. In their conspiratorial fantasies, the Republicans are conspiring with Christians to throw progressives to the proverbial lions while waiting for the rapture with a brew in one hand and a bible in the other.

In another context, it would be amusing. But since the KosKooks are dead serious about this, it poses an enormous problem for the Democratic party who, thanks to the stupidity and arrogance of the Republican Congress, have a shot at taking back both the House and Senate in November. How does one go about rhetorically satisfying a base that sees apostasy in saying anything nice about their cultural enemies in red states while sounding a soothing note to those very same voters in order to get them to swallow the blue pill on election day?

The Democrats are going to need help. In this, they can count on their allies in the media who view red state voters in exactly the same way as the netnuts; culturally backward ape-like creatures whose worldview must be shaped correctly by carefully managing what news is fit to be disseminated and what news should be finessed. This dance with the truth will be vital if the true feelings of the left toward their fellow citizens is going to be subsumed by the mainstream Democratic message of “change.”

What that change represents will also be finessed. It just wouldn’t do to inform the public that the first order of business for a newly seated Democratic House will be to start impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States. Beyond that, changing Iraq by cutting and running and altering the war on terror to one similar to pursuing bank robbers will also be in the cards. Along with their complete contempt for the nature of red state voters, Democrats show a disdain for their intelligence by hiding their web-driven agenda behind platitudes and sophistry.

“Exposing” red state America may be satisfying to the elites in a cultural context. But I don’t think the NASCAR dads, security moms, or evangelicals who voted for Bush 62 million strong in 2004 will appreciate the spitefulness their cultural “betters” direct their way when they once again fail to do as they’re told and vote for a radical liberal agenda.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin has a round-up of reaction to the Dateline story, including an interesting email from Ramsey Poston of NASCAR to NBC:

“This is outrageous for a news organization with the reputation of NBC to stoop to the level of attempting to create news instead of reporting it. Any legitimate journalist should be ashamed.”

This is directed to a “news show” that has been exposed time and again in the past of trying to manipulate images in order to make a story more “dramatic.” I hardly think they can feel any shame since any pretensions to being legitimate journalists went out the window years ago.

UPDATE II

Do my liberal friends think I’m exaggerating?

Check out this column in today’s WaPo from Harold Myerson about the DeLay story:

Let us not think that Tom DeLay’s decision not to seek reelection was prompted by merely temporal concerns. The Rev. Rick Scarborough, DeLay’s sometime pastor, told the New York Times that The Hammer confided in him last Saturday that “God wanted him to get out of that race.”

DeLay’s apparently is the most obliging of Lords. He stuck with the embattled incumbent long enough for DeLay to give a “Texas whuppin’ ” to those infidels who ran against him in the Republican primary, only to counsel withdrawal when the polling made clear that a Democrat could still beat The Hammer in the fall.

The broader question is whether such a deity still rules in Washington. As gods go, He was surely more ethically flexible than most. Lesser gods might frown upon bribery, fraud, greed and the abrogation of the democratic process, but this one was willing to overlook such trifles if they strengthened the Republicans’ hold on the House and were performed in a spirit of piety.

Yes DeLay is a very bad man who was mean to Democrats, kicked dogs, beat little children, and probably ate human flesh. But please note Mr. Myerson’s dripping sarcasm when talking about DeLay’s prayers and the snide comments about religion in general. I’m sure Myerson is giving a good chuckle to his elitist, snobby friends. But if one were to ask a person of faith what they thought of Myerson’s humor, somehow, I don’t think they would find it quite as amusing - even if they were a Democrat.

Cue the trumpets! Play the fanfare! The March of the Cluebats has begun!

This week, we celebrate the induction of two totally unworthy, yet completely clueless denizens of the fever swamps of American politics into the Official Carnival of the Clueless Hall of Fame.

I always cry at these things…

As you might recall from last week, I listed the current Hall of Fame as it now stands:

1. Ted Kennedy
2. Hillary Clinton
3. John Kerry
4. Jimmy Carter
5. Pat Robertson

These members were chosen arbitrarily by me months ago based on the following criteria:

* Cluelessness demonstrated over a period of many years.

* A consistent track record of being clueless.

* Cluelessness above and beyond that demonstrated by others

* Originality and creativity in clueless behavior and statements.

As you can see, this is an extremely difficult Hall of Fame to crack. In short, the cluebat who wishes to be in the Hall must make every effort to be as clueless as possible over a long period of time and demonstrate that the cluelessness exhibited is far beyond what one would normally expect in another human being.

Many thanks to all our commenters last week as well as those who sent me emails. I appreciate all who gave a lot of thought to who should be nominated. We’ll start with the 2 finalists who didn’t quite make it this time.

HELEN THOMAS

This is what I wrote about Helen a few weeks ago after Richard Cohen referred to her as “indomitable:”

First of all, referring to Helen Thomas as “indomitable” is like calling a pig in a dress a prom queen. Thomas may be a lot of things – loud, obnoxious, disrespectful, kooky – but “indomitable” as a descriptive should be reserved for battleships, cancer survivors, and some race horses; not doddering old reporters who waddle around the press room talking about the glory days when Jack Kennedy prowled the White House looking for his next sexual conquest in the steno pool.

That just about sums up Helen’s qualifications for the Hall. The reason she didn’t make it this time is a question of notoriety. She’s a second tier cluebat. We will re-evaluate her status at the next Hall of Fame nominating session.

MICHAEL MOORE

First of all, I don’t think His Largeness could fit through the door of the Hall to give his acceptance speech so that kind of let him out right there.

Beyond that, Mrs. Moore just hasn’t been around long enough to garner the kind of clueless laurels our inductees have been able gather unto themselves over a period of many years. Mikey has been around a little more than a decade. Give him time - I’m sure with strenuous effort on his part, he has a real shot at making it some day.

With the preliminaries out of the way, I am now proud to announce our two new inductees into the Hall of Fame:

AL GORE

Citation:

For being more wrong, more often, and with more obnoxiousness than any politician since Jimmy Carter. Has been running for President since 1988 losing first to Michael Dukakis, then fellow cluebat Bill Clinton, and finally to George Bush. It is unknown at this time who he will lose to in 2008 but when he does, it will make him the biggest loser in the history of American politics.

Al Gore has succumbed to most of the loony conspiracy theories making the rounds in cluebat circles over the last five years which isn’t surprising given his less than penetrating intellect, his inability to differentiate between good and evil, and curious habit of dissing America while overseas in front of equally clueless foreigners.

JANE FONDA

Citation:

For demonstrating a cluelessness not only about politics, but also in one’s personal and professional life. Bad enough she sat on an anti-aircraft battery while visiting North Viet Nam back in the early 70’s; then she had to go and marry both the radical terrorist Tom Hayden and radical internationalist Ted Turner. And if there is a worse film ever made than Barbarella, we haven’t seen it.

In short…three strikes and she’s in.

I’m sorry if your candidate didn’t make it this time. Here’s hoping that leaving them out will spur them on to greater heights of cluelessness so that next time, they too can stand on the podium and wear that coveted crown made of Milk Thistle and receive the Plaque of Honor indicating their singular achievement of being named to the Carnival of the Clueless Cluebat Hall of Fame.

“Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise, they won’t go to yours.”
(Yogi Berra, Hall of Fame baseball player)

“Hey Yogi! I think you’d fit in with our Hall of Famers too!”
(Me)

*******************************************************************
Bergbikr of TMH Bacon Bits fills us in on the decade long effort to punish clueless Congressman Jim McDermott for leaking a private phone call between Republican congressmen to the New York Times.

Those placid pachyderms at Elephants in Academia are talking about explosives this week - as in blowing up Nevada with a new bunker busting bomb that has home state Senator Harry Reid demanding to be notified when a large part of his state is going to be annihilated.

Only one Swiftblog this week (last week we had three). This time it’s Dean Swift with a nice rant against Borders books for exhibiting clulessness for banning a magazine that dared show those cartoons of you know who.

The Liberal Wrong lives up to its billing and skewers Russ Feingold and the Democrats for trying to censure the President during wartime.

Cao has some real cluelessness in academia with Columbia University being totally unaware of what some people are using its computer equipment for.

Lots of cluelessness on display in Fausta’s piece on the heroic Cuban doctor Guillermo Fariñas who recently ended a hunger strike against deplorable conditions in the Cuban paradise. How about the UN Human Rights Commissioner who blames US support for democrats in Cuba for Castro’s oppression? Now that’s clueless.

Why don’t we just go ahead and give Congressman McKinney a great big dingo salute for being Cluebat of the Week by acclamation, shall we? Check out this piece from Josh Cohen on Mrs. Tin Foil hat.

Rofa Six has the viral video of the week. All girls school. “National School of Excellence.” And some guy is walking around asking the girls to sign a petition to “End Women’s Suffrage.” Absolutely. Hysterical.

Gullyborg has the clueless interview of the week with Liza Minnelli who has announced to one and all that she no longer wishes to be pleasured in the biblical way by anyone (nice pic of Gretchen Wilson btw! W00t!).

TIME FOR A LITTLE CARNIVAL SATIRE! FROM OUR UNSTABLE STABLE OF WRITERS!

The Baloney Press has a hilarious bit entitled “Congressional Democrats Prepare for Deployment to Afghanistan.”

Mr. Right has a one liner. Rodney Dangerfield is spinning, spinning in his grave.

Where do you suppose our favorite hippie chick Peace Moonbeam was during that march in LA for illegal immigrants?

Buckley F. Williams feasts on Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker who lived on fast food for 30 days, gained 20 pounds, and is now a speaker on the high school circuit.

Bookmark this site, Avant News “Tomorrow’s News Today.”

MAKES SURE YOU CHECK THE CARNIVAL EVERY WEEK FOR THE BEST IN SATIRE!

Minh-Duc has a searing piece about a Balkan genocide denier. Must read.

Mark Coffey has a “Note to Debbie Schussel” - a blogger who finished in the runner up position for Cluebat of the Week.

Scientist, Interrupted asks “Who is the Real Enemy of our Wildlife?” The answer may not surprise you but the story is gut wrenching nonetheless.

Kurt at Fly by Night has the skinny on cluebat John Dean’s appearance at the Feingold hearing on censure. Anyone else find it more than a little ironic that the man who handled the cover-up for Nixon is lecturing us on executive branch lawbreaking? Just curious.

Here’s some typical Kender: “Why Bush is the best President Mexico ever had…” Read it and weep.

Adam takes us to the dark side of liberal blogs where shooting the President passes as humor.

Pat Curley is riding Kevin Phillips who has been flogging the “Republicans Party is run by religious nut” meme for years.

Lovely Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has some typical moonbattery. Seems that NYU had a free speech event and the first thing they did was ban those cartoons of you know who.

Jack Cluth demonstrating the intellectual honesty he’s justly famous for (plus knowing a good target for humor when he sees it) makes Representative McKinney his “Dumbass of the Week.”

Finally, here are some clueless emailers who filled my mailbox following my C-Span appearance last Sunday.

Costs and benefits.

Short of all out war with a clear strategic goal such as unconditional surrender of the enemy, any military action taken by the United States must, in the end, take into account the price we will pay - human, economic, strategic - versus the benefits that will accrue to us in taking that action.

And if one were to tote up on paper the pluses and minuses of bombing Iranian nuclear sites to prevent the Iranian wildmen for getting their hands on a nuclear device, it would not be a pretty picture.

We would need an additional page or two for the minuses.

The gamble we took in Iraq was, at the time of the invasion, a good bet. There the potential gains to our security and our overall strategy in the Middle East far outweighed the minuses of roiling the volatile Arab street and spurring al Qaeda’s recruitment. As the war has gone on, however, the tote board is starting to look more and more even. There is still much to be gained with a successful conclusion to the Iraq operation (although lowering our sights as far as what can be realistically accomplished is now part of the game) and, of course, we’ve already benefited from getting rid of Saddam. But the minuses are starting to pile up and very soon we will be faced with the prospect of Iraq becoming a zero sum game with whatever benefits accruing to our security and strategic position in the Middle East being offset by losses to our overall security posture and an actual diminishing of our influence in the region.

We are not at that point yet in Iraq. But it is on the horizon. And if we ever do reach the point of diminishing returns outweighing any possible gain, we will have to reassess whether it is morally right to ask our men and women to remain in harms way for a cause in which there is no foreseeable gain to the United States.

One sure way to make Iraq a lost cause is to bomb Iran. If we were to take that step, the insurgents in Iraq would be joined by the two largest Shia militias - Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army and the largest pro-Iranian militia the Badr Brigade - in armed opposition. That would put at least 350,000 angry Shias in direct military confrontation with US forces, scramble the political situation perhaps beyond salvage, and almost guarantee a humiliating retreat by US forces. Any guesses about what kind of state would emerge from this chaos?

That’s for starters. The probability of Iranian missile counterstrikes against our bases in the Middle East not to mention their ability to attack our troops in Iraq would also have to go into the ledger under “minuses” when contemplating military action against the mullahs.

How about the economic impact of a strike on Iranian nuclear infrastructure? While I have complete confidence in our navy to severely degrade the Iranian capability to interdict shipping through the Straits of Hormuz, I doubt whether we would be able to destroy their ability to cause enormous problems for tankers making their way through that vital choke point.

At its narrowest, the Straits are only 34 miles wide - easy striking distance for a variety of land-to-ship missiles that the mullahs have been buying from the French, the Chinese, and the Russians over the last two years in anticipation of just such an eventuality. It is doubtful we could destroy all of them. And what would be the resulting increase in the cost of a barrel of oil if the Iranians managed to sink a couple of tankers in the Straits? Estimates range from a premium on the spot market of $20 BBL to $50 BBL which would put the cost of a gallon of gas at between $3.05 and $4.85 a gallon (2.5 cents rise per dollar increase in a BBL with a baseline of of $2.60 per gallon - which is what it is at the gas station around the corner from where I live).

Ask an independent trucker what $5 a gallon for deisel would do to his business. And these independents carry 80% of our food from distribution centers to the grocery store not to mention stocking shelves in a wide variety of other retail businesses. If a significant number of them were unable to make a living hauling freight, the consequences to the cost of living, employment, interest rates, and a wide variety of other economic indicators would be pretty grim.

Then there is the probability that the Iranians would engage in so-called “asymmetrical warfare” or terrorism. The WaPo article detailing this eventuality makes for some pretty frightening reading:

Former CIA terrorism analyst Paul R. Pillar said that any U.S. or Israeli airstrike on Iranian territory “would be regarded as an act of war” by Tehran, and that Iran would strike back with its terrorist groups. “There’s no doubt in my mind about that. . . . Whether it’s overseas at the hands of Hezbollah, in Iraq or possibly Europe, within the regime there would be pressure to take violent action.”

Finally, from all accounts I’ve read, since it is extremely unlikely we will be able to delay the Iranian nuclear program more than 2 or 3 years, one must also factor in the probability when the Iranians rebuild their infrastructure, they will make it that much harder for us to strike the next time.

John McCain has been quoted as saying “[T]here’s only one thing worse than the United States exercising the military option; that is a nuclear-armed Iran.” Clearly that is incorrect. There are several things worse than a nuclear armed Iran starting with the probability of a humiliating defeat in Iraq, moving on to a severe downturn in our economy, followed by increasing instability in the Middle East, and ending up with the real possibility of a 9/11 type attack by Iranian supported terrorists.

Of course, discussion of Iranian nuclear weapons has to include what options are available to Israel. And surprisingly, those options seem to be few and far between:

[O]ne of the take-aways from my recent Israel trip is that Israeli national security bureaucrats — diplomats and generals — have far greater confidence that there are numerous potential solutions to the growing Iran crisis short of bombing them in an invasive, hot attack.

One of the issues that came up in many of the national security related discussions I had was that Israel has maintained and cultivated a very strong human intelligence network inside Iran. The two nations were close strategic allies 25 years ago — and continue, in many behind-the- scenes ways, to communicate and possibly even to coordinate certain actions. It doesn’t mean that Israel is ready to appease Iran’s regional ambitions, but it does mean that I have witnessed far more worries about Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s anti-Holocaust and anti-Israel rhetoric in the U.S. than I did in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

Many serious Iran watchers in Israel think that chances are relatively high that “internal developments” will emerge in Iran to constrain Ahmadinejad’s “political options and political life.”

TALK TO THE ISRAELIS — the ones responsible for national security there. I found their sensibilities on Iran to be remarkably well informed, nuanced, confident, and sensible.

Nearly everyone I spoke to in Israel who ranged in political sympathies from the Likud right to Maretz left thought that the tone of the AIPAC conference had been too shrill and that Israel thought it wrong-headed and too impulsive to be engaged in saber-rattling with Iran at this stage.

In the past, I’ve been occasionally critical of Israeli influence over U.S. decisionmakers when I felt that American and Israeli national security interests were not as convergent in some respective case as some argued. However, in this instance on Iran, Israel’s national security thinkers and diplomats are on the side of logic — and it is in American national interests to hear the Israeli position and consider the roots of their surprising position.

I would be perhaps less sanguine about a regime change having any effect whatsoever on Iranian nuclear ambitions. The only alternative at this point seems to be former President Rafsanjani who initiated the Iranian nuclear program in the first place back in the late 1980’s and early 90’s. Combine that with a clear mandate from the Iranian people - who, like the Pakistani people see building a nuclear device as a question of national pride - and it becomes clear that even if the Supreme Council roused itself and ousted President Ahmadinejad, nothing would change in the Iranian drive to build nukes.

Israel is the one nation that would be in the Iranian crosshairs from the minute the mullahs went nuclear. And if the Jewish state is resigned to the Iranians getting nukes, then perhaps we should be looking at what our regional response should be in that context.

This monograph by the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) examined the question of what the United States could do in the region with a nuclear armed Iran. Here are some of their options:

* Engage in traditional deterrent strategies such as making it clear to Tehran that the use or threatening the use of nuclear weapons has reciprocal disadvantages to the regime.

* Allow the development of nuclear weapons by states threatened by Iran such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

* Employ a regional military strategy against the regime by building credible alliances.

* Work with dissident groups to create an armed, united opposition that could affect regime change.

These are just a few of the unsatisfactory but realistic options open to us if we resign ourselves to the reality of the Iranian government going nuclear. The question then becomes, are they better than bombing?

In the short term, one would have to say it’s a wash - equally bad outcomes to a bad situation. But in the longer term, the non-military options have a chance of isolating the Iranians and confronting their ambitions in the region. For those reasons, I think that unless something dramatic happens to change the situation, as it stands now the best course of action for the United States is to follow non-military actions, proceeding from the assumption that the Iranians will have a bomb in 3-5 years.

With their oil wealth, an exploding population that is becoming increasingly literate, and economic and strategic alliances forming with both Russia and China, Iran is going to be a threat to the region with or without nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future. By forgoing the military option, we can still confront the mullahs and stifle their dreams of dominating the region with their nuclear arsenal.

In all the rush of the last few days, I failed to post a link to my debut appearance on C-Span’s Washington Journal on Sunday.

Just in case you were waiting with bated breath in anticipation of seeing my munificent presence on the telly as I fought the good fight against the lovely Taylor Marsh, the liberal bias of C-Span, and the earpiece that kept trying to fall out of my ear…

Here’s a link to the video page at C-Span. My segment can be found under the Sunday, April 2 show.

(Hint: I’m the fidgety one)

Almost a year and a half ago, I did a post advocating the awarding of Medals of Honor to the passengers of Flight #93.

Now that the movie United 93 is set to be released April 28, I think it is time once again to propose that those brave men and women who became our very first warriors in the War on Terror be given the highest decoration that can be given to an American citizen.

The criteria for awarding the Medal of Honor can be found here. The eligibility requirements are pretty straightforward. One of three conditions must be met:

a.) while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States;
b.) while engaged in military operations involving an opposing foreign force; or,
c.) while serving with friendly forces engaged in armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party.

The passengers of Flight #93 meet one of those criteria. Al Qaeda is certainly “an enemy of the United States” and by storming the cockpit, our people certainly “engaged in an action” against that enemy.

What always struck me about the story was that these people charged that cockpit knowing full well that with the pilots dead, there was no one else on board who knew anything about flying a jet. Even if they had succeeded in breaking into the cockpit and overcoming the hijackers, the chances were next to zero that they would survive. This is the kind of selflessness and willingness to sacrifice one’s life that you see on a battlefield when someone falls on a grenade to save their comrades or charges a machine gun nest to give his unit a chance to retreat.

I understand the problem with giving the Medal of Honor to civilians. And giving it to all the passengers even though some did not participate in the action would also be problematic. Then there is the real issue of fairness; if you are going to give a Medal of Honor to the passengers of Flight #93, why not the passengers of the other ill-fated jets not to mention honoring the otherworldly courage shown by deceased firemen and policemen who died in the Towers.

All of this is true. But in the end, the passengers of Flight #93 made a profound statement to the world and especially to our enemies; Americans will not go quietly, that there is a cost to attacking us. They were the American counterpart to that brave Italian Fabrizio Quattrocchi who shouted at his al Qaeda executioners before he died “Now I’ll show you how an Italian dies…”

It is not my intention to cheapen this award by advocating that we give it to so many. Nor is it my intent to offend current Medal of Honor winners who may have a much different opinion than mine regarding the efficacy of giving this award to civilians. And I understand that the Congressional Gold Medal was created specifically as a civilian counterpart to the military’s Medal of Honor.

Despite all, I think it is long past time that some significant acknowledgement of the sacrifice of the passengers on Flight #93 be made. History demands it. And the more than 3,000 people who perished that day would, I believe, demand it as well.

UPDATE

MacRanger has a superior post about the movie and why it’s important to remember Flight #93 and 9/11. Must read.

Also, here’s my American Thinker piece today on the film United 93 and how Hollywood is uniquely suited to put 9/11 into a cultural context.

Judith Weiss:

I have a feeling this movie will quietly “separate the men from the boys,” as it were. It will make the moonbats more moonbatty, and it will strengthen the resolve of those inclined that way. It will draw a line in the sand. It will do medium boxoffice and medium DVD sales but become kind of a “cult classic” in that it will be a cultural identifier for the group of people who want to win this war and feel surrounded by those who are hostile or indifferent. So it will be a quiet steady propaganda/morale booster for our side.

That’s my prediction - we’ll see if it comes true.

I think momentum for this film is building very quickly. On his show today, Rush Limbaugh mentioned that he had talked to someone who had seen it and said it was extremely well done. I believe there is a real hunger out there for some certitude in this war and seeing a film about 9/11 just might be the cultural touchstone that supplies it. In this respect, I believe that Judith is mistaken in her belief that the film will be a modest success. I think it has a chance to be a real sleeper, a blockbuster not just in red states but blue ones as well.

Ordinary Americans are so far removed from the academic, journalistic, and cultural elites who continue to try and tell them what they should think, how they should feel, and most importantly, what they should watch in films and TV. These Americans - the people who do the working, the playing, the caring, the laughing, the living, and the dying in this country are ready to make a statement. They might not be particularly fond of George Bush. They might be heartily sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington. They could even be losing faith in our ability to win through to absolute victory in Iraq. But they will not abide seeing the country run down by a bunch of cultural thugs who never miss a chance to tell them how stupid they are to be patriotic, God fearing, flag waving, morons.

That gets old after a while.

UPDATE II

Reader Richard Riley makes two salient points in the comments.

The first is that the passengers were, in effect, combatants in a war as much as the farmers were who answered the call to march to the Lexington green and stand up against the British. Further, I believe a “militia” was defined in most states as all adult males over the age of 18. In this respect, the passengers were in fact warriors fighting for America.

The second point Mr. Riley makes is that a civilian has been awarded the CHOH in the past. So while it may be against current rules to give the medal to civilians and allow for a unit type citation, cannot exceptions be made? Will these exceptions cheapen the award?

I am not the one to answer those questions. Perhaps we should ask living MOH winners what they think.

Captain Ed appears to have a truly original story regarding a new data-mining project that seems to be a follow-up to Able Danger, the pre-9/11 program that was carried out by DoD and which some claim identified some of the hijackers as early as 1999.

CQ has learned that such an effort has already been launched at the Pentagon. Titled “Able Providence”, the effort seeks to use the Able Danger “engine” to generate hot leads for counterterrorism and law enforcement agents to pursue. Located in the Office of National Intelligence, AP will serve all agencies…

The Able Providence project, estimated at an initial cost of around $27 million, will report jointly to the Director of National Intelligence (John Negroponte) and the Joint Chiefs. The datamining component of the project, named KIMBERLITE MAGIC, will follow and update the SOCOM and NOAH efforts of the pre-9/11 period. After an initial burn-in phase, the Able Providence team will then coordinate with the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), SOCOM, Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS (Customs/TSA, etc) and partner with Army 1st Info Ops Command (IDC), Army Asymmetric Warfare Group (ASW), Navy DEEP BLUE, Air Force CHECKMATE to produce actionable “Decision Support” Option Packets. AP would then act as a conduit for these efforts to law enforcement agencies for immediate domestic action when required.

Congratulations to Ed on a terrific scoop. Check CQ frequently during the day as Ed plans to update the information.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Coming soon to a theater near you – whether you’re ready or not – will be the first mass market attempt by Hollywood to insert the tragedy of 9/11 into the American narrative. United 93, a Universal Studios project set to open April 28, tells the story of the ill-fated airliner whose passengers heroically attacked the cockpit and foiled the hijackers’ plans to fly the plane into the White House.

The question isn’t whether or not the film should have been made, but rather whether or not the people of the United States are ready for Hollywood to do what Hollywood does best: breathe life into myth and employ marketing skills honed over a century of huckstering to fold 9/11 permanently into the fabric of American culture.

The industry is watching very closely how U-93 does at the box office. Set to open later this summer is Paramount’s Oliver Stone blockbuster World Trade Center, which, unlike the Universal production, will feature big name actors and a very big budget. At bottom of course, it’s all about the money. And a good showing by U-93 will encourage other studios and other producers to jump on the 9/11 project bandwagon while the subject is “hot.”

By various accounts, there are half a dozen or more 9/11 projects on the boards awaiting final approval by the hard-eyed money men who rule Hollywood. And the question uppermost in their minds is the simple bottom line calculation of how many Americans are truly ready to accept our searing national nightmare of 9/11 played out on the big screen, with all the concomitant emotional and psychological baggage inherent in an event that all but the youngest among us lived through and shared.

Trailers for the movie shown in theaters have elicited some gut-wrenching responses. Newsweek tells of one such incident in New York City where the theater actually pulled the trailer after several complaints:

The AMC Loews theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side took the rare step of pulling the trailer from its screens after several complaints. “One lady was crying,” says one of the theater’s managers, Kevin Adjodha. “She was saying we shouldn’t have [played the trailer]. That this was wrong … I don’t think people are ready for this.”

A similar reaction occurred in Los Angeles when the trailer was shown there:When the trailer played before “Inside Man” last week at the famed Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, audience members began calling out, “Too soon!”

(Here’s a link to the trailer. It will upset you.)

“Too soon” may be a legitimate complaint for many, many people. The trailer is absolutely devastating. For many Americans, 9/11 is still a raw, open wound that refuses to close despite the passage of time. It is these people who will most likely recoil in horror at the images of planes flying into buildings and desperate people taking desperate chances.

But does this mean that U-93 will flop?

Ultimately, the success or failure of U-93 will hinge on the ability of the American people to embrace the tragedy as a part of our history and not shun it because the memory of that day lingers in the shadow world of nightmare.

No medium is more suited to this process of turning history into myth than film. The secret of the cinema has always been its ability to draw us into a story while at the same time allowing us to remain as a semi-detached observer, both in and out of the narrative. Where 9/11 is concerned, the emotional bombshells that will be at the film’s heart will be somewhat tempered by the realization – often deliberately fostered by the director using subtle tricks of camera angles and scene cuts – that we are, after all, watching a movie.

It is, of course, part of the film-going experience to be frightened, or thrilled, or titillated, or moved to tears. A director manipulates our feelings throughout his creation, conducting our emotions like Lorin Maazel before the New York Philharmonic. Good directors can play us like an instrument so that we never realize that we are held in thrall until we are jarred awake by a climax or plot twist. Alfred Hitchcock was a master at playing his audience, almost lulling them to sleep until he chose to hurl them out of their seats with a few seconds of terror.

The magic of movies is how very much like a dream they are; a third person excursion into a world created by the artistry and imagination of some very talented people augmented by a gee-whiz technology that can make the dream almost too real. For writer/director Paul Greenglass (The Bourne Identity) the challenge is obvious; try to immerse the audience in a film where everyone knows the details of the plot from beginning to end. We know who the protagonists are. We know what happens to the plane. The only question in the mind of the audience is will the story that unfolds match expectations of what it would have been like to actually be there.

Director Ron Howard had a similar problem confronting him when he chose to make Apollo 13. Everyone knew the bare outlines of the story – that the spacecraft got into trouble and only through the hard work of NASA and the grace of God did the astronauts survive. Howard chose to weave a narrative of unusual power by interspersing scenes from the damaged space ship with the scrambling technicians at NASA working against the clock and the human drama of the families of the astronauts in crisis. The result was an emotional blockbuster of a movie that had the audience cheering at the end despite knowing the outcome in advance.

Greenglass is not vouchsafed the luxury of a completely uplifting storyline. However, the raw material he has to work with is dramatic enough. And if the trailer of the movie is any indication, he will be able to use several dramatic devices to advance his story without resorting to cheap theatrics and special effects wizardry.

But there is a question that begs to be asked and answered; is it necessary and proper to make a movie about 9/11 now, less than 6 years after the tragedy?Hollywood has been known to stoop to unfathomable depths of exploitive degeneracy in the past when it came to tragedies. Movies about serial killers like David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), Jeffrey Dahmer, and Ted Bundy were all rushed into production and into theaters within months of their stories appearing on the news.

But 9/11 is different. There are people alive today whose flight from the doomed Towers has so altered their perceptions that the smell of the burning flesh of their comrades still resides in their nostrils and they can still hear the horrible, shattering sounds of people hitting the courtyard in front of the Towers after jumping out of windows far above to escape the flames.

For these and perhaps millions of others whose souls were seared by the horrific images of that day shown live and in color on our TV screens, 9/11 is not an historical event as much as it is a part of their life. In that respect, any film about 9/11 becomes an autobiographical portrait, more documentary than drama. It is almost like opening a personal diary, peeking at the contents, and showing all the secrets of one’s personal life to the rest of the world. For many Americans, it will be an intrusion so invasive that they will instinctively turn away. These are the walking wounded from 9/11 and they deserve our sympathy and understanding.

But for the rest of us, it is time to confront the evil and place it into the great narrative story of American history. The way events pass from history into myth often determines how future generations relate in an emotional way to the times. Pearl Harbor, an attack more devastating militarily but without the immediate emotional impact of 9/11, was mythologized almost immediately thanks to the brilliant propaganda work done by director John Ford, whose 1943 production December 7th: The Pearl Harbor Story was so iconic that Hollywood borrowed battle sequences from the film for years.

The film, however, never showed the true nature of the American Navy’s disaster that day because the military refused to allow Ford to show several sequences critical of the naval commanders, as well as scenes that offered analysis of what went wrong. It was left for later films like From Here to Eternity and the joint American-Japanese production Tora! Tora! Tora! to tell that excruciating story.

I would hate to see something similar happen to films about 9/11. The story of that day includes not only snippets of unparalleled heroism and base cowardice but also confusion, ineptness, and a fatal refusal to acknowledge the scope of what was taking place in the skies over America that day. Leaving these painful yet vital facts out of the myth will cheapen the sacrifice of those who gave their lives as well as allow people to draw the wrong conclusions about what kind of country America was that day.

A large part of the narrative of 9/11 has to be America asleep at the wheel, careening toward disaster for most of the previous decade, oblivious to the dark clouds of fanaticism and hate that were building on the horizon. The paralysis of all who could have either prevented or minimized the tragedy can only be explained in that context. And Hollywood is particularly well suited to tell that story in all its glory and shame.

Movies about 9/11 will be difficult to watch for all of us. Some may go to the theater fully expecting to view the movie but will be forced to get up and leave in the middle of it because the rush of memory will be so painful as to make it unbearable to watch. For others who stay until the end, let’s hope they are rewarded with a cinema experience that is both sobering and uplifting at the same time.

It’s going to be a long war. In order to fight it and win, we must be able to put the tragedy of 9/11 in a box and be able to view it as we would a sad memento as from the funeral of a loved one. And one way we Americans can put these memories into that kind of context is by allowing our greatest cultural gift to the rest of the world – Hollywood movies – to close one chapter of our national history book and begin another.

CAPTAIN RENAULT: Major Strasser has been shot. Round up the usual suspects. (Casablanca, 1942)

I don’t read them much anymore, but there was a time I was huge fan of the mystery novel. G.K. Chesterson’s Father Brown novels were particular favorites but Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were also on my summer reading list. And no, I am not the type that goes to the end of the novel first and peeks to see whodunnit although there were times that the temptation became almost overwhelming. This was especially true immediately after discovering that your own prime suspect either gets killed off or proves to be innocent. After having invested so much emotional capital in one suspect, to have him or her killed off 50 pages from the end of the book was maddening.

Nevertheless, I wanted to wait for that absolutely delicious moment when Father Brown or Marlowe revealed all, tying up the loose ends and fingering the killer. The thrill wasn’t necessarily in finding out who the killer was but in following the sheer, brute logic used by the detective to unmask him. There is something enormously satisfying in reading or listening to a good dialectic. And a good mystery writer will be able to get to the emotional core of a reader by taking him on a journey through the thought processes that leads to the exposure of the bad guy.

Television and film don’t lend themselves to such “Eureka!” moments because we can see too much of what’s going on. For instance, with one or two exceptions, Agatha Christie’s novels did not translate well to the silver screen. Christie and most other mystery novelists rely on intimacy with the reader to build suspense, something that is rarely possible in film (although I thought The Orient Express worked quite well because of the constricted space - the train - where the action took place).

The revelation in last night’s episode that President Jellyfish himself is the monster behind it all proved to be the shock of the year. Lots of good misdirection by the writers in previous episodes as well as some great acting by Gregory Itzin made the moment work as well as almost any similar moment I can recall. Perhaps the revelation that Kevin Spacey’s character in Usual Suspects was actually the legendary Kaiser Sozsa rivalled it in the theater. But one would be hard pressed to think of a more shocking moment on TV in recent memory.

So now, after 18 episodes, Jack and CTU (what’s left of them) realize who and what they are up against. The race is on to save American democracy. And I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have on the frontlines than Jack Bauer.

SUMMARY

Where’s Jack? The final explosion that ripped through the gas distribution center had Jack and Bierko perilously close to the flames and falling debris. Did Jack make it? Or, is Chloe going to have to strap on a pair of six shooters and battle the terrorists in Jack’s place?

That image alone is enough to get the terrorists to surrender.

Then, through the swirling smoke and back-lit gas works, a figure emerges carrying someone. It’s Jack and he has Bierko slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Dropping the terrorist on the ground at Curtis’s feet like a trophy buck from a deer hunt, Jack screams into Bierko’s face trying to wake him. The terrorist is either too injured or too terrified to answer so Jack orders him transferred to CTU medical so that he can be patched up for his little session to come with Richard and his little black bag of truth serum.

In the meantime, Jack is doing some thinking. He figures Henderson, the poor misguided patriot that he is, would never kill 200,000 of his fellow citizens. Hence, since his ex-friend was protecting someone big and important (so big he allowed his wife to get shot in the thigh by Jack in fear of revealing the name) Jack reasons that the plot extends into the highest reaches of the United States government. In his conversation with Bill about this turn of events, Jack lets on that he’s scared.

If Jack is scared, it’s time to pack up the wife and kids and move to Montana to join a survivalist cult.

Back at CTU, Grandma Hayes gets an earful from Vice President Strangelove who wonders what the hold-up is with the Homeland Security takeover of the Counter Terrorism Unit. Granny’s bureaucratic antennae is fully extended, realizing as she does it is going to be hard to justify the coup d’etat if Bill puts up a stink. Enter her slimy assistant Miles who comes up with the perfect CYA instrument - a letter, signed by Audrey, implicating Bill in all sorts of incompetence regarding the day’s events. The elegance of the ass covering plan reveals why some people are born to be bureacrats and most others are birthed as human beings.

Informed that Wayne and Aaron eluded the trap set by his men, Henderson decides it’s time for Plan B - kidnapping the 8 year old daughter of Evelyn, the First Lady’s assistant who, we are informed by Wayne, was President Palmer’s source for information coming out of the Executive Branch. Confronting Evelyn, Wayne tries to get her to reveal what she knows. Alas, Evelyn wants her daughter rescued before she’ll talk (cue Jack in the wings).

Jack understands perfectly, having made worse deals with terrorists, and agrees to go after the little girl. He tells Wayne to meet him at an old barn near the Presidential retreat.

The coup at CTU by DHS is carried out with ruthless efficiency. All that’s left to do in order to cover all the bases is to get the CYA document with Audrey’s signature on it. For this, Miles takes it upon himself to convince Audrey of the practicality of the matter. When Audrey balks and gets ready to leave, Miles congratulates on her loyalty and then, quite casually, raises what the slimeball thinks is his piece de resistance :

MILES: Oh…just to confirm; as on-site liaison for DoD, you participated in today’s decision making process?

AUDREY: What’s your point?

MILES: Serious mistakes were made here today that resulted in the loss of American lives. It would be a shame to see the taint of CTU’s mismanagement spread to your agency (pregnant pause)…or your career. By signing this, you isolate the fallout from today’s events to Bill Buchanan and CTU…where it belongs.

AUDREY: (Walks deliberately over to Miles and leans over) I’m proud of what we did here today. The people at CTU are heroes including Bill Buchanan. This takeover is completely unwarranted. And I won’t help you justify it.

The crestfallen reaction of Miles was priceless. It’s the second time he’s been forced to retreat like a beaten dog, the other incident involving Chloe and Sweet Sherry. Let’s hope he makes a habit of it.

No sooner had Needlenose stood up to the bureaucratic bully than Jack calls and tells her that he needs a satellite tasked to help in the rescue operation involving the kidnapped girl. Audrey realizes right away that she needs Chloe’s super-geek skills in the matter and also sees that the only way she can do that is by signing the CYA document and bargaining for Chloe’s services.

Swallowing her pride, she makes the deal with Granny regarding Chloe. The confrontation with Bill (and slimeball Miles being insufferably smug in giving Bill the news) is painful but necessary. She nearly has to kidnap Chloe who has her own strong feelings about loyalty in order to help. Chloe at times seems like a little lost girl, running up to Bill to ask him what’s going on and needing reassurance that everything is going to be alright. It would be a very attractive trait - if she wasn’t such a bitch the other 99% of the time.

When Henderson calls Evelyn to set up the exchange - information implicating the real villain for her daughter - Jack is listening in and gets Chloe to give him satellite coverage of the killing field. Jack is once again going to have to wade through a river of gore to achieve his immediate objective; save the little girl and capture his nemesis Henderson.

Wayne, perhaps not realizing what he’s letting himself in for, volunteers to help Jack in his mission. Bauer tries to dissuade him:

WAYNE: I was a Marine, Jack.

JACK: I know that Wayne. And you never saw combat. There’s a big difference between training to kill someone and actually having to do it. I can’t put you in harm’s way out of respect for your brother. Your family needs you now.

WAYNE: (Quietly) These are the people who killed my brother, Jack. They shot a bullet right through his neck and then he died in my arms. Put yourself in my position. Could you just walk away.

JACK: No.

WAYNE: Neither can I. I’m coming with you.

And so Wayne, not realizing that most of Jack’s partners end up wishing they hadn’t gone with him, teams up with Jack to get the little girl back and unearth the plot threatening the United States.

Downloading an infrared satellite image of the kill zone to Jack’s PDA shows 10 targets. After offing two bad guys, Jack sends Wayne on an end run to take out a guard so that he can make it to a tower and take out a sniper.

Wayne makes it to the kill point but perhaps because he can’t shoot the terrorist in the back, waits until he turns around before plugging him twice. Let’s hope Wayne loses that hesitancy if he and Jack are going to be teamed up again. Next time he won’t be so lucky.

After Jack takes care of the sniper, Evelyn shows up and demands her daughter from Henderson. The unsuspecting traitor then finds out just how much trouble he’s in when, after the mother-daughter reunion, Jack opens fire taking down two while Wayne, in perfect flanking position, takes out two more. Seeing the jig is up, Henderson starts to take off in Evelyn’s car, slamming into one of his own men while making his escape. Jack and Wayne fire wildly at the fleeing SUV but once again, Henderson lives to see another day.

Jack races over to find Evelyn slightly wounded. He orders Evelyn to live up to her agreement and tell him about the Vice President’s involvement. Evelyn looks at Jack with horror; the Vice President had nothing to do with all this…

Then…who?

Speeding away from Jack, Henderson is on the phone apologizing to Mr. Big, the man in charge of the entire operation. The peremptory tones and authoritative voice telling Henderson to get the job done is unfamiliar and yet…

And yet the voice betrays the speaker as someone used to giving commands and having them obeyed. The conversation between the two traitors is ending. We see the back of Mr. Big. He is in shadow. As the camera slowly pans left, the face starts to come into view - the hooded eyes, high forehead, look familiar but…but it can’t be. For the briefest of moments, the mind recoils in denial not quite believing what they eyes are telling it.

But there’s no mistake. It is President Logan. And the look on his face and body language showing a commanding presence and determination reveal the man to be a consummate actor. He has had everyone fooled. And now the race is on to foil whatever ex-President Jellyfish’s plot turns out to be.

BODY COUNT

Jack takes down 5 traitors while Wayne accounts for 3. And you can add hit and run homicide to Henderson’s list of crimes.

JACK: 24

SHOW: 164

SPECULATION

Does Logan actually believe he can take over the government of the United States and establish a dictatorship? If so, he must have one more terrorist attack up his sleeve that will devastate the country and have people begging him to take on dictatorial powers. Will it be a nuke? More bio-terror? How about starting a war?

Have some fun in the comments…

UPDATE

As usual, for the best liveblogging, snarky commentary, photoshop magic, and general Jack Bauer mayhem, click on Blogs4Bauer and keep scrolling.

UPDATE II

It’s 10:00 AM and no one has speculated on the obvious reason for Logan’s transformation.

Don’t you people watch soap operas? Obviously, Logan is suffering from a split personality. His wimpy side doesn’t know what his Orwellian side is doing which would explain everything.

The only drawback to that theory is his wife. But given she’s nutzo herself, maybe she couldn’t see it in him.