Right Wing Nut House

There has been plenty of ink spilled and hot air expelled the last couple of days by members of the Reality (sometimes) Based Community over Senator Feingold’s proposed censure resolution. The dominant theme seems to be that the netnuts are upset that more Democrats aren’t rushing to the battlements to hold the Senator’s coat while he waves the bloody shirt before jumping off the catwalk into the alligator-infested moat below. Democrats being a canny breed, are fond of their political skins and do not look kindly on someone who exposes them to the prospect of ravenous media beasts taking huge chunks out of their hides in a doomed effort to prove…what exactly?

Well, according to Senator Cheesehead, we must censure the President because he “knowingly broke the law” by intercepting the domestic end of al Qaeda overseas communications while not informing the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This “fact” is not in dispute according to the netnuts. In truth, the “crime” is stated matter-of-factly, as if all the details of the NSA intercept program were common knowledge and there is unanimous agreement among legal experts that the President did indeed knowingly violate the law.

As to the former, what we don’t know about the program (and others like it) could fill the gaps between the ears of all the mindless loons who seek to censure a sitting President during wartime. To the latter, I would simply say Google up “NSA intercept program + legal” and scroll through a few pages. There is plenty of legal fodder for disputatious argument on both sides. To posit the notion that the issue of the program’s legality is settled is to betray both an ignorance of the facts and an arrogance of mind that has lately come to define the desperation of the President’s critics.

At bottom, the problem that Democratic Senators have is part political, part practical. Politically, they would be hard-pressed to justify voting for a motion of censure based largely on the President’s actions running a program that they support. That’s because unmentioned in all the unhinged rhetoric coming from the netnuts is the fact that very few Senators have come out and said they want the program to end. And a good case can be made that one would look like an idiot voting for censure when the censurable action is considered by the Senator to be justifiable in our present circumstances.

From a practical standpoint, only losing Roman generals and liberal netnuts fall on their own sword in order to make a point. And since the Democratic party fully realizes that the mess made by Republicans in Congress as well as several high profile missteps by the President and his people have given them an opening to take back one or both Houses of Congress in November, there won’t be too many sober-minded Democrats to jump on board the Cheese Train headed for Censureland.

The censure ploy is, in part, a creation of the far left who seek to sow the seeds for impeachment if, in the unlikely event, the Democrats were to overturn Republican control of both Houses of Congress. Despite the small chance of such a “World Turned Upside Down” scenario, the netnuts are beside themselves with anticipation. What is curious to me is that the professionals in both parties are oblivious to the probability that if the left were to regain control of the Congress, impeachment would be the number one priority:

Few lawmakers in either party think there is much chance of impeachment even if the Democrats do take the House. Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, called the idea “not realistic” but nonetheless useful. “It shows people how extreme the leaders of the Democrat Party actually are,” Mr. Forti said.

Mr. Forti is whistling past the graveyard if he doesn’t think that the day after November elections showing Democrats in control, Kos & Co. as well as every lefty loon in the United States wouldn’t be salivating for impeachment. And lest anyone think that this doesn’t matter, I urge you to look back at the confirmation debate over Judge Alito’s elevation to the Supreme Court. For weeks we heard the professionals say that a filibuster was impossible, that no one would attempt it. All it took for a filibuster to materialize was the netnuts going ballistic day after day before John Kerry answered their call, pandering as he did to a segment of the party whose support he was seeking for his 2008 Presidential run.

There are few scenarios for November that involve the Republicans losing both Houses of Congress. But that won’t stop the loony netnuts from pushing this censure resolution until they shame (or frighten) Democratic Senators into coming out in support of it. Expect the motion to be voted down in Committee but brought to the floor by Bill Frist himself who, like Speaker Hastert’s ploy of bringing Representative Murtha’s cut and run resolution on Iraq to an immediate vote, will seek to hold Democratic Senator’s feet to the fire and dare them to vote to punish the President for running a program they want to see continued.

THE BODIES OF 11 FAMILY MEMBERS KILLED EXECUTION STYLE IN TIKRIT LIE IN FRONT OF THE TOWN’S MORGUE.

It is sometimes difficult to wade through media reports of the war and try and ascertain what is true and what isn’t. That’s why we should be very careful in evaluating this story that appeared in The Daily Star, one of the more respected news organs in the Middle East:

Eleven members of an Iraqi family, including five children, were killed in a U.S. raid on Wednesday, police and witnesses said. The U.S. military said two women and a child died during the bid to seize an Al-Qaeda militant from a house. A senior Iraqi police officer said autopsies on the bodies showed each had been shot in the head.

[...]

Associated Press photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures arriving at Tikrit General Hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives.

The U.S. military said in a statement its troops had attacked a house in Ishaqi, the town 100 kilometers north of Baghdad, to capture a “foreign fighter facilitator for the Al-Qaeda in Iraq network.”

“There was one enemy killed. Two women and one child were also killed in the firefight. The building … [was] destroyed,” the military said, adding the Al-Qaeda suspect had been captured and was being questioned.

Major Ali Ahmad of the Iraqi police said U.S. forces had landed on the roof of the house in the early hours and shot the 11 occupants, including the five children. “After they left the house they blew it up,” he said.

Another policeman, Colonel Farouk Hussein, said autopsies had been carried out at Tikrit hospital and found that “all the victims had gunshot wounds to the head.”

The bodies, their hands bound, had been dumped in one room before the house was destroyed, Hussein said. Police had found spent American-issue cartridges in the rubble.

Three things to keep in mind:

1. We could be talking about two different incidents here which would explain the discrepancy in stories between the US military and Iraqi police.

2. The story could be a plant. It is not unknown for media outlets like The Daily Star or Al Jazeera to receive propaganda stories planted by al Qaeda that later turn out to be false.

3. Tikrit is the hometown of Saddam Hussein. It would not be beyond imagining for Saddam sympathizers to fabricate this story (or embellish it) in order to put the Americans in the worst possible light.

If this story has any truth to it, look for the left to once again invoke the specter of Viet Nam by comparing the massacre of the family to the My Lai atrocity. My Lai was an unspeakable barbarity carried out by American soldiers who killed 300 men, women, and children after being ordered to by superior officers. And while the death of 11 family members would be an atrocity that would require swift investigation and punishment, the story itself just doesn’t ring true.

In the end, the fact that it happened in Saddam’s birthplace and his clan’s stronghold makes me very wary of believing all the details put out by the town “investigators.” That said, I hope the military looks into the story if only to debunk it.

UPDATE

The Associated Press is reporting the story but with decidedly different details:

Police Capt. Laith Mohammed, in nearby Samarra, said American warplanes and armor flattened the house and killed the 11 people inside.

An AP reporter in the area said the roof collapsed. Eleven bodies, wrapped in blankets, were taken to the Tikrit General Hospital, relatives said.

Associated Press photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures at the hospital accompanied by grieving relatives. The victims were covered in dust and bits of rubble.

Riyadh Majid, who said he was the nephew of the killed head of the family — Faez Khalaf — told AP that U.S. forces landed in helicopters and raided the home. Khalaf’s brother, Ahmed, said nine dead were residents of the house and two were visitors.

“The killed family was not part of the resistance, they were women and children,” Ahmed Khalaf said. “The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death.”

The U.S. military said it was targeting and captured an individual suspected of supporting foreign fighters for the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist network.

“Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building,” said Tech. Sgt. Stacy Simon. “Coalition forces returned fire utilizing both air and ground assets.”

No mention of family members being shot in the back of the head or their hands being bound behind them. There is also no reports of the house being blown up only that the “roof collapsed.”

The incident does sound like a tragic repeat of other actions where insurgents or terrorists take cover in houses either sympathetic to them or where they simply barge in and use for shelter, guns being a fairly persuasive argument that they should be invited to stay. And as we’ve also seen in urban warfare, when someone is shooting at you, it becomes an impossibility to be very selective about targets.

The fact that the military evidently got the terrorist and are questioning him lends a little more credence to the story being told by CENCOM. Let us now see how big a deal this becomes on the left over the next 24 hours.

Via Michelle Malkin, we find out that what the Anti-War Movement really needs is a…a…CATALYST!

With new polls showing that more than half of Americans believe the war in Iraq is going badly and that Iraq will never become a stable democracy, you might think that anti-war groups in the U.S. would be trumpeting their influence.
Instead, the groups appear to be caught in their own brand of civil war, criticizing each other for management styles, sympathizing with Communist dictators and pandering to the media. They have bickered over alleged racism and even over issues like who would get more microphone time and pay for the portable toilets at anti-war rallies.

The feuding appears to have precluded any kind of nationally coordinated anti-war rallies from happening on March 19, the third-year anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Now, I’m not one to say “I told ya so,” but way back last summer, I pointed out that despite all the publicity Mother Sheehan was getting about her “vigil” in Crawford, Texas outside of the President’s ranch and all the breathless, prayerful, homage being directed her way by lefty blogs, that St. Cindy being a catalyst for the anti-war movement was in fact a myth. She and her crusade were as manufactured a “phenomena” as last year’s American Idol winner Carrie Underwood.

The failure of the anti-war movement to be anything except a formless, shapeless mass of 60’s holdovers, New Age dingbats, Hollywood air heads, drug-addled dropouts, and netroot nincompoops is a direct result of a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the vast majority of the American people to align themselves with groups who see Haliburton behind every tree, dicatorship behind every Presidential smirk, and theocrats under every bed.

A couple of days ago, the moonbat who was behind the original “Storm the White House” protest left a comment on this site. Darrow Boggiano was, if nothing else, predictable:

Thanks for all the publicity. I was even invited on the radio. Sorry, I don’t state my case against legalized torture and theft of other people’s oil and poppy for heroin distribution and corporate profit, more eloquently. I actually get so freaked out about what has become of our government, that I don’t know what to say sometimes. But believe me, I’m not the one who’s nuts – it’s those of you who can sit around pretending that we have the right to allow our corporations to kill thousands, and what is even more stupid, is that you don’t even get any of that money – it all goes to a few on the top, and you idiots back them up. We could be saving lives and doing so many smart things. At least you can proud that you never had to say “I made a mistake, I voted for a stupid redneck, who thinks that killing is fun, especially when you can steal stuff”. I many not have figured out the perfect solution, but I do know the first step – putting bush, his daddy, cheney, rumsfeld, and rice behind bars where they belong. Too bad we couldn’t see the milosevich trial – it would have been a perfect practice for what is coming.

People are pretty upset with President Bush and the way the Iraq War has been prosecuted. But criticizing Bush for his handling of the war and being against the war are two different things. And as I pointed out a couple of days ago, with American casualties dropping, terrorist attacks going down, and the Iraq government about ready to take some very important steps toward organizing a democratic government, there is reason to believe that we are finally on the right track to victory. The only people in America who are anxious for a defeat in Iraq are the far left moonbats who wanted to “storm the White House” today but never quite got around to it. Their disorganization is indicative of a group of people with superior egos and inferior minds.

My buddy Jay over at Stop the ACLU has more.

This has been a good week for cluelessness as the cluebats have been literally crawling out from under the woodwork.

Since many of our cluebats resemble cockroaches, the metaphor is more than just a figure of speech.

There was Jay Bennish, the Colorado teacher/proselytizer whose anti-Bush rants (and anti-American tirades as well) were foisted upon his charges in the form of lectures. This creature achieved a modicum of notoriety when he appeared with apple-cheeked Katy Couric on The Today Show for which the 60’s throwback took a shower, cut his hair, and got dressed up in his best Sunday go to mom’s house for dinner clothes. Just yesterday, the cluebat was allowed back in the classroom, no doubt with some admonishment from the clueless local school administration who evidently thinks more of the Nutty Professor’s right to teach political fantasies than giving students what they go to school for: Knowledge.

Then there’s the left. I know, I know…It’s no fair of me to pick such a huge target. But try as I might, I could not find one single liberal voice in the MSM, in blogs, in academia, who had one positive thing to say about the situation in Iraq. Why is this important? Because despite the bloodshed and the dangerous tilt toward civil war, the forces of democracy are proving themselves much more resilient than we could ever dare hope to believe. Instead of dissolving into a puddle of despair and defeatism, the Iraqi government, army, and most of its people still have hope. The problems are monumental. But it appears that this has not dissuaded the majority of people from continuing to work toward a better future. The question has been asked before and will be asked again; how come we on the right can tick off what’s going wrong in Iraq as well as what’s going right while the left can’t? Are they preternaturally disposed to be to ignore the facts? Or are they just clueless? (Update: Please see comment #1 below for an example of what I mean.)

But without a doubt, the hands-down winner of Cluebat of the Week has to go to Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Feingold, author of the First Amendment busting Campaign Finance Reform bill now fancies himself a candidate for President in ‘08 as well as a leader of his party. The problem, as you and I know, with leading is that…well, in order to lead you have to, like, have someone following you. And when Feingold offered his Censure Resolution this week, his erstwhile followers decided it wasn’t a good idea to trail behind someone who was leading them over a cliff. Democratic Senators did not just tiptoe away from Senator Cheesehead - they ran like hell for the exits as if someone had yelled “fire!” in a crowded theater.

So for not only being clueless in offering a resolution that made the President of the United States an enemy in time of war but for not having the smarts to see that no one would be following him in his quest to kill the White Whale, Russ Feingold is the winner of our Carnival’s Cluebat of the Week.

Why not check out the rest of our entries this week? I can guarantee a few cluebats who will make you laugh as well as raise your blood pressure. Click me, baby!

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
(Martin Luther King)

“Hey Rev! You been readin’ the New York Times Iraq coverage?”
(Me)

***************************************************************

A Different River brings us the sad story of Carnival contributor Betya of Shiloh Musings who is being evicted from her home by the Israeli government. There are many, myself included, who feel that the Israelis are incomprehensibly sleepwalking their way to disaster in giving away their land with no guarantee of peace. I believe the current leadership is going to live to regret their actions.

Betya herself talks about the cluelessness of the Israeli government in her post on eminent domain and how it relates to the process of disengagement.

Jack Cluth is on a rampage against South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds who recently signed the abortion ban bill.

The lovely and talented Mensa Barbie points out that it appears Cluebat Hall of Famer John Kerry has begun his 2008 Presidential campaign in earnest.

Josh Cohen offers some uplifting music for our Carnival goers pleasure. The lyrics in this song will live for a thousand years, a towering example of the genius of western culture. Then again, mebbe not…

Mark Coffey is back in the Carnival this week with an entry that either reveals that the left is not as clever than they think themselves or that we are correct in evaluating how truly clueless they really are. (Read: No matter how you look at it, they’re fools).

Here’s your weekly dose of satire from William F. Buckley: Top 9 Suggested Jay Bennish Book Titles. Number eight is “Superanticapitalisticjewsarequiteatrocious.”

Me-Ander has some fascinating information about the general cluelessness of men. I am biting my pen to keep it from scribbling some mean, nasty, degrading anti-woman tirade in response. Instead, I’ll only write one word: Blonds.

Are Sheik Mo and George Bush going to pull a fast one on us with regards to the ports deal? Iris Blog has the skinny on what may be a switcheroo in the works.

Those pachyderms prácticos at Elephants in Academia pick on Hugo Chavez and his totally clueless redesign of the Venezuelan flag.

Pat Curley has the low-down on the curious way that the MSM treated the arsonists who torched those churches in Alabama.

Our Carnival Pin-Up girl Pamela has one of her semi-regular features giving us what happened during the week in Iran and what happened during the same time in Israel. Let’s just say that if the Iranians keep this up, they’re going to run out of rope.

Fred Fry gives us a learned and interesting exposition on the ports deal from the perspective of someone in the maritime industry. A fascinating read.

XYBA has a story from Colorado about a man who put up a sign about being a “proud, English speaking American” is being accused of racism.

Philomathean has an interesting post about the cluelessness of a Colorado Congressman who may have acted stupidly but in a round about way is probably right. Read it and you’ll understand.

Here’s the jaw-dropper of the day: Accountability International has the story of a man whose false claim of diplomatic immunity cost him a pretty penny.

Gullyborg at Resistance is Futile has a comprehensive look at the issue of illegal immigrants and the public schools. He also highlights the cluelessness of an emailer who doesn’t quite get it.

From Common Folk Using Common Sense, we get the real story of the decision by the Canadian publication to publish the obscene Jesus cartoon but not the Mohammed ones.

Silent in the Morning has a post entitled “Naomi Wolf is a Nutjob.” I don’t think I can improve on that.

The Canadian blog Centrerion is disappointed that the Harper government is exhibiting some cluelessness by funding Hamas despite laws on the books preventing the government from supporting terrorism.

Finally, here’s my take on the cluelessness of the MSM and their Iraq coverage.

“The irony is that he comes back to life, and everyone around him dies.”
(Howard Gordon, Executive Producer of 24)

Oh how the classical literary giants of the past would have loved the show this year!

The Greek playwright Sophocles would have especially enjoyed the irony mentioned above by Mr. Gordon. After all, in Sophocles’ case, how much more ironic can you get than having your main character be abandoned as an infant, later meet his own father in combat and kill him, and then marry his wife, your own mother?

Oedipus put out his own eyes as penance for his sins. In the case of our doomed CTU comrades, they paid the ultimate price for angering the Gods. Edgar and the Fat Hobbit were guilty of transgressing against their friends. Edgar not only dismissed the signs of a threat but sent Kerri to her death. And Lin’s sins were best summed up by the CTU guard Harry who had to share in the Fat Hobbit’s fate, representing as he did the failures of CTU security to keep the terrorist out of the building in the first place:

We’re all going to die because you were embarrassed?

In Tony’s case, his will to live had been sucked out of him by the death of Michelle thus making his death a sure sign that fate rules the affairs of men. The Greeks, a practical and thoughtful people, were absolutely convinced of this, going so far as to give the fates names - Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos - and assigning each a specific role in determining the outcomes of our lives. Clotho was the spinner of fate and hung around a person’s entire lifetime constantly spinning the threads of one’s existence., Lachesis was the drawer of lots and Atropos represented the inevitable end to life. One can see immediately where our three heroes were influenced by one or more of these goddesses.

Tony also chose the path of vengeance which, as the Greeks teach us, inevitably leads to one’s own destruction.

There is also the entirely Christian theme of redemption in the death of Lin which made his passing a more heroic and uplifting event than if say, Kim’s boyfriend Barry had made that sacrifice.

Of course I’m reading way too much into this. But I still find it fascinating that almost 3000 years after Homer’s death, writers are still using the dramatic devices in storytelling that proved so successful even back then. It’s a part of our western tradition and should be celebrated whenever possible.

SUMMARY

The sit-rep is grim. CTU headquarters is a vast, silent morgue as dozens of friends and colleagues lie dead from the nerve gas attack. The small pockets of survivors are in a state of shock, especially Chloe who can’t take her eyes off her dead friend Edgar. She moans about how she “treated him like crap - all day.”

No one has the heart to tell her that she treated Edgar like crap every day - but we knew that, didn’t we?

When Jack fails to snap Chloe out of it, Barry volunteers his services as a clinical psychologist to give it a shot, telling Chloe to ” find her breath.” Jack allows the shrink to make the attempt to bring Chloe back so that she can help a situation that is getting worse by the minute.

That’s because Tony continues his miraculous recovery from death’s door and, after applying a choke hold to the Doctor that saved his life, makes his way into the room where Dr. Feelgood, Agent Richard Burke, is still shooting Henderson up with truth serum in order to get the ex-CTU agent to divulge where the terrorist mastermind Bierko is with those cannisters of nerve gas. Grabbing Burke’s gun, Tony seems beyond reason - until Jack gets on the intercom pleading with Tony to forgo his vengeance at least until they have a chance to interrogate Henderson. Tony, in one of the greatest lines he’s ever delivered, says to Jack through clenched teeth, “Hurry up.”

At the ranch, the President, who is apparently under some kind of spell cast by Vice President Strangelove, agrees to go ahead with martial law after talking to Karen Hayes, an apparently turf conscious bureaucrat at the Department of Homeland Security. Grandma Hayes informs the President that most of CTU is down and that she is going over there to take charge. This elicits another argument between Strangelove and Jellyfish with the Veep convincing the President once again that martial law is necessary.

We find Bierko the terrorist planning his masterpiece as the “new target” is going to be a big one. He orders all the rest of the cannisters moved to the site. In the teaser for next week’s episode we learn that “200,000 people” are at risk which means they’re not going hit a Lakers game. And it’s past rush hour so hitting the subway system is out. I wonder if Centex is water soluble? Can they put it in the water supply?

Back at CTU, Barry is making no progress with Chloe who is still a basket case. In a move sure to endear him to Porn Star Kimmy, Jack informs the shrink that THERE’S NO TIME for the rather clinical way the Clinical Psychologist is working with Chloe. To prove his point, he applies the Jack Bauer Death Grip to Barry’s throat which seems to wake Chloe out of her stupor.

While difficult to ascertain, I believe I saw Kim’s eyebrow twitch when Jack was choking her lover which means that Ms. Cuthbert has added a third facial expression to her acting repertoire, the other two being a come hither smile and her famous teenage pout face that she used to such great effect when trying to get Chase to quit CTU in season 3.

Things start going from bad, to worse, to “Jack Bauer Time” when the seals on the doors start to degrade thanks to a corrosive agent in the nerve gas. Chloe, back on the job and fully engaged, informs Jack that she can clear the nerve gas if only she could get the air conditioners to work, the unit being blocked by an insidious program we saw the terrorist setting up before he released the nerve gas last week. Since it would take too long to get an HVAC repairman out to headquarters, Jack takes it upon himself to squirm his way through the air ducts to a place where he can break into the room where the computer running the program is and disable it. Alas, incompetent bureaucrats are everywhere as a grate that was not on Chloe’s schematics due to a clerical error, prevents Jack from reaching the computer. He is forced to retreat back to his make-shift airlock and breathe uncontaminated air.

We also heard the first mention this entire season that the gas is deadly if absorbed by the skin but Jack assures us that he won’t be exposed long enough for that to happen.

Wha? Oh…never mind.

Meanwhile, Chloe is back to her old self:

KIM: Is there anything we can do from here?

CHLOE: No. We just have to wait. There’s nothing we can do to get your dad out any faster.

KIM: Don’t talk down to me Chloe.

BARRY: Listen. We’re in a crisis situation here, OK? Tempers are bound to flare. Let’s just everybody breathe.

CHLOE: What’s with you and breathing? Is that your answer to everything?

A few moments later, after Jack has gotten back into his airlock, Chloe recognizes that he should have taken longer to dump the threatening computer program:

BARRY: What’s it mean that he finished so quickly?

CHLOE: I don’t know.

BARRY: Well, it could be a good thing, right?

CHLOE: Could be a good thing. Could be a bad thing. That’s what “I - Don’t - Know” means.

Gotta love her!

After Chloe explains to Jack how the only way they can now be saved is if the Fat Hobbit sacrifices himself by opening his sanctuary to the contaminated air and racing up the stairs to the room where the computer is, Jack realizes he must ask Lin to die.

The Hobbit takes the news like a good little soldier but Harry, his companion in the holding room, is just a low-paid security guard and balks a bit. Harry should know by now that security guards at CTU have a life expectancy of about 3 weeks as they always seem to get whacked by moles or infiltrators when all they’re doing is going about their business of being totally oblivious to what’s going on.

With the seals on the doors minutes from disappearing, Harry has an affecting scene as he says goodbye to his little girl. Bravely, Lin takes a deep breath and sprints up the stairs to the computer room, disables the program, and runs back to his now contaminated room where both he and Harry can do nothing but hold their breath as long as possible.

Jack assures them both that he will inform their families of their heroism, says goodbye, and thanks them. Harry takes a breath first and starts to celebrate when nothing immediately happens. We know better. After he keels over, Lin takes the fatal breath and dies horribly.

Television doesn’t get much better than that.

This may be something of a transformational moment for Jack as he appears now to have taken on the role of avenging angel rather than superpatriot. Look for Bauer to start exacting revenge on the terrorists for everything they’ve done this day starting with Henderson.

Saying goodbye awkwardly to Kim who still wants nothing to do with him, Jack orders Barry to drive out of the city without stopping for anything. We know what that means. With the city about to erupt in panic thanks to the coming declaration of martial law, Kim will once again find herself in mortal peril.

Maybe the writers can find a coyote or perhaps even a wolf to threaten Kimmy. My own preference would be a mutant grey squirrel that eats human flesh and has a taste for clinical psychologists.

Meanwhile, President Jellyfish, like an Alka-Seltzer in hot water, begins to dissolve right before our eyes. Discussing with Martha the reasons he agrees with Vice President Strangelove’s martial law scenario, the Spineless One begins to melt like the wicked witch of the west after having water thrown on her:

MARTHA: He is not the President…YOU ARE!

LOGAN: I am doing this because it’s the right thing to do. (The shot of Logan’s hands on the desk betray the fact that he is not at all convinced it is the correct course of action).

I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I really don’t. David’s assassination, the nerve gas, the murder of those hostages….Walt Cumming’s betrayal (begins to cry) and you…I almost lost you. I didn’t lose you, did I?

MARTHA: No, Charles…

So much for talking the wimp out of turning the country over to the military industrial complex.

We are then introduced to a gorgeous terrorist woman trying to get more schematics for Bierko, this time on their new target. Don’t know much about her except she is one hot mama and will definitely get any man, anywhere to do anything she asks.

Grandma Hayes of DHS is on her way over to CTU with a shadowy figure who may prove to be Jack’s next bureaucratic foil. He may also be associated with the terrorists although it’s too soon to tell. But it would not be surprising to have someone at Homeland Security on the payroll of international terrorists.

Hell…I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case in real life.

For Tony, the end of the road has been reached. Seeing that Henderson won’t wake up before Jack can reach him, Tony loads up a syringe with an extra lethal dose of truth serum and prepares to stab Henderson in the heart with the drug (”as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.”.) But being at heart a nice guy, he realizes he cannot do it.

Being a bad guy, Henderson has no such qualms. He grapples with Tony and ends up stabbing the taciturn series regular in the chest. As Henderson makes his escape, Jack bursts in just in time to find Tony on the floor and cradle his friend in his arms, feeling the life ebb out of him. And Bauer weeps. One by one, his friends are being taken from him. It is no longer his duty and responsibility to capture the terrorists. It is now his quest. Will it consume him like Ahab’s quest consumed the Captain of the Pequod?

This year…nothing is impossible.

BODY COUNT

Lin and Harry are heroes. Bill updates us with his estimate of 55 dead CTU employees. Since we already counted 12, that means we add 43 to the show’s total.

And since Jack asked Lin and Harry to die, we are going to credit Mr. Bauer with two more kills.

JACK: 15

SHOW: 142

PIE-IN-THE-SKY SPECULATION

Could this be the last year for Jack Bauer? With all of his friends dying off, the speculation on whether or not Jack will be killed off this year was ratcheted up a notch with this eye opening quote from Executive Producer Howard Gordon in today’s New York Times:

The actual death of Jack is where Mr. Gordon said he would like the series to end, whenever that may be. “He’s a tragic character, and tragedy ends in death,” he said.

UPDATE

Blogs4Bauer readers had the dead pool for this week spot on with McGill and Tony finishing one, two. Make sure you check out the site for some great summaries too.

From Strategypage:

The violence has shifted away from American troops, who are suffering 60 percent fewer casualties this month than in the past year. and more towards Iraqi security forces and civilians. Part of this is because there are simply more Iraqi police and soldiers patrolling the streets and policing the neighborhoods. Where there are about two American advisors for every hundred Iraqi security troops, these Americans are there to advise, not fight. And the Iraqis are doing the fighting, and taking the casualties. American troops are still making raids and patrols, but there has also been a sharp decline in terrorist attacks. Some six months of sweeps and battles in western Iraq has shut down many of the Sunni terrorist sanctuaries. Indeed, many al Qaeda terrorists have fled western Iraq for towns and villages on the Iranian border. Iranians don’t like to advertise the fact, but they do provide support to al Qaeda, despite al Qaeda’s attacks on Shias (for being heretics.) Iran would also like to see a civil war (ethnic cleansing of Sunni Arabs) in Iraq. If that were to happen, Shia Arabs would be 75 percent of the Iraqi population, and likely to side with Iran on many issues.

A “sharp decline in terrorist attacks” along with a “60% reduction in American casualties” adds up to one thing: The President’s policy is working.

Yes, there is still a level of sectarian violence that threatens to erupt into full scale battles in the streets al la Lebanon of the 1970’s. And foreign interference, especially from Iran, may yet derail the careful, agonizing steps the Iraqis are making toward forming a unity government.

But in reality, the only people who seem to be wringing their hands in despair (or rubbing them together in glee) are the mainstream media and the left who dote lovingly on every reported attack, even if no one knows whether it is related to sectarian strife or not. This fact is not lost on the Sunni insurgents, Shia hot heads, and bloodthirsty jihadists who somehow manage to blow people up in close proximity to western reporters at every opportunity, hoping that their strategy of weakening America’s resolve through the prism of media bias will work. It’s all they’ve got at this point, given how badly the war is going for them elsewhere.

There have been many, many missteps by the Bush Administration in Iraq; political, military, and in the reconstruction effort that still lags to this day. But a more objective observer, looking at the slow, but steady progress being made in all three areas, could only come to the conclusion that after many false starts and serious errors, we are now finally on the right track in Iraq.

More and more over the next few months, the destiny of Iraq will be in the hands of the Iraqis themselves. This includes prospects for a civil war as well as any progress made in addressing the thorny problems involving the numerous militias, Shiite control of the security services, Kurdish desires for more autonomy, and perhaps most importantly, coming to terms with the Saddam era. Part of what is driving this sectarian strife are old hatreds engendered by the minority Sunni control over much of the economic and religious life of the country. Before real peace can be achieved, there must be a full accounting of the cost from that period.

Such a process - whether it is achieved by convening a special commission or some other political device - will go a long way to tamping down the violence that currently roils some parts of the country and threatens to undo any gains made by the progress made by all Iraqis in inching toward a civil, democratic society.

UPDATE

Got linked by a site where a commenter asked if I worked “for the CIA.”

Look, people. And liberals too. Saying something positive about Iraq does not automatically make someone a slavish Bush automaton. The fact is, what is being reported as “sectarian violence” is a crock. Yes, there are some scattered incidents. But most of the death and destruction is being caused by the same cast and crew that have been carrying on the war for the last three years - Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda in Iraq.

Case in point: Car bombs. Most of the 80 people killed over the weekend were murdered by car bombs in Shia neighborhoods designed specifically to foment civil war. Is that sectarian violence? Or is it a case of people trying to incite it?

I put it to you. Iraq may yet slide into civil war with running gun battles in the streets, militias battling building to building, and hundreds dying every day.

And, it may not.

The point is, that with American casualties way down and even terrorist car bombs becoming less frequent coupled with the Iraqi Parliament about ready to meet (and where a coalition of Sunnis, Kurds, and secularists will toss out the Muqtada al-Sadr’s choice for Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jafari) the facts are undeniable; the policy of building up the Iraqi armed forces and guiding the factions toward a “unity government” is working. And it is the policy formulated by the President. Hence, the President’s policy is working.

To not acknowledge this is to practice the same kind of delusion you are accusing me of being held captive by with one glaring difference; my “delusion” is supported by the facts on the ground. Yours is supported by wishful thinking and biased reporting.

Read this piece by Ralph Peters in Real Clear Politics for more of the same “delusions.” (HT: Michelle Malkin)

This review originally appears in The American Thinker

NOTE: Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation was kind enough to send me a free copy of Edwin Feulner and Doug Wilson’s new book Getting America Right in exchange for reviewing it on my site. It should go without saying (although given all the criticism of blogs lately from several mainstream media sources I’ll say it anyway) Mr. Tapscott had no input into this review whatsoever. The words and sentiments are my own.

When it comes to diagnosing what’s wrong with America and offering solutions on how to cure what ails us, there is no shortage of thoughtful, sincere opinions on both the right and the left that offer specific courses of action to address the nation’s problems. In fact, an entire literary industry is devoted to this peculiarly American genre of government improvement manuals. Ideas on repairing American democracy run the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime. Books by radio talk show hosts, comedians, celebrities, and self-improvement gurus can be found alongside the learned tomes of intellectuals, university faculty, and the baker’s dozen of major think tanks whose prescriptions for solving our problems are usually a combination of wishful thinking and mind-numbing complexity.

This drive to improve government is a clear offshoot of our drive for self-improvement, a trait that has piqued the curiosity of American observers from de Tocqueville to Churchill. De Tocqueville especially was fascinated with this aspect of the American mind, saying ” The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” The Frenchman marveled at our obsession with self improvement and attributed much of the vitality of American society to this singular characteristic.

Perhaps that’s why I liked Getting America Right so much. At bottom, the book is a joyous recognition of American exceptionalism; the fierce belief that despite seemingly insurmountable problems, the individual genius of American citizens can be brought to bear with results that have always astonished.

The idea of America as a wholly unique national entity has taken enormous hits in recent years from leftists in academia and liberal political pundits who have sought to superimpose a veneer of European ideas over the American experiment in self-government on everything from law to health care. Of course, this would have come as a shock to our Founders who did everything they could when writing the Constitution and forming our government to distance themselves from what they saw as the corruptive influences of nobility and the European traditions of monarchical tyranny. Coupled with similar attacks on the ideas of “natural rights” and “higher law,” American exceptionalism as a driving intellectual force has been in danger of being relegated to the dusty, disorganized national attic where we are storing other quaint, 19th century American peculiarities like self-reliance and self-restraint.

Authors Edwin Feulner who is President of the the Heritage Foundation and Doug Wilson, Chairman of Townhall.com have written a good book, perhaps an important book that is both eminently readable and thought provoking in diagnosing America’s problems and offering common sense, “bottom up” solutions. Using a combination of jaw clenching examples of the most horrific government waste imaginable and the inspiring stories of average citizens and local governments addressing some of our seemingly intractable problems in education, dependency, and federal overreach, the authors have succeeded in correctly identifying key areas where conservative values could be applied most efficaciously.

The problem however is not necessarily in the specific solutions being offered by Messrs. Feulner and Wilson but in what is at the core of their critique of America and their refutation of the welfare state: That in order to affect the kind of changes envisioned by the authors, nothing less than a revolutionary revision of the American people’s relationship with government would have to take place.

Can this be achieved? Considering that Americans are as susceptible to the natural proclivity of the human species to take the easy course when offered a choice between the hard slog of self-reliance and the soothing path of letting others make difficult personal decisions, it would seem a daunting task to make the kind of changes that would be necessary to enact most of the solutions offered in the book.

As the authors correctly point out, the American people have become addicted to government solutions for problems that their grandparents and even their parents would have solved themselves or with the help of their friends and neighbors. And lest anyone think that our major problems only involve welfare cheats and Medicare defrauders, Feulner and Wilson offer many eye opening examples of multinational corporations and other rich entities feeding unabashedly at the federal trough. The fact that we allow Congress to get away with this kind of tomfoolery goes to the very heart of what’s wrong with America today. We are sleepwalking our way to disaster. In this respect, the book is a wake-up call as much as it is a blueprint for change.

While not totally responsible for the kinds of budgetary shenanigans described by the authors, there is nevertheless a great conundrum in conservative governance that I wish the authors would have addressed more directly. Modern conservatism was an ideology born in a politically inferior position to liberalism. It’s strengths have always been in the logical way it is dismantled the intellectual underpinnings of the welfare state. But knocking the chocks from underneath the left’s cherished beliefs is one thing; actually governing a 21st century industrialized democracy is another.

The fact is, conservatism is suffering from the transition to majority status in that it is hard to be anti-government when you are, in fact, the government. The corrupting influence of Capitol Hill and the sybaritic culture inside the Beltway have led many erstwhile conservatives to abandon long held principles in order to fit in with the “get along, go along” culture of Washington. That, and the pragmatic realization that the American people may talk a good conservative game, but when it comes to improving the quality of their own lives or protecting their own benefits, they look to their Congressman to do the job. In short, many conservatives in Congress appear to have decided that fighting the system does not lead to longevity in politics. Better to go with the flow and become a careerist rather than rock the boat and risk losing what you have.

This is a cynicism that Messrs. Feulner and Wilson dance around throughout the book but never quite address. And that’s because they have opted instead to advocate for solutions that involve we the people rather than the Congress (in most cases). But as the authors point out, “[S]ocial power is a zero sum game: When governments take it, individuals lose it.” Wresting power from the powers that be is a dispiriting task. It remains to be seen whether or not the kind of reforms being offered by the authors are amendable to the real world struggles that would ensue between citizens and their government over who controls.

That said, the book does very well on a variety of levels. The authors have done a remarkable job in annunciating conservative values and principles and how they relate to American society. Defining the core beliefs of conservatism as “a set of beliefs that prize moderation, reflective tradition and reason; it cherishes the old and valued even as it produces new solutions,” is not only a classical recitation of conservative values but a recognition that modern conservatism, despite all, is still a churning cauldron that spews out a great many ideas and solutions to any number of challenges facing America today.

The authors also speak of conservatism as a “shared moral order” that “respects human dignity, inculcates decency, overcomes fear, and inspires people to help each other in times of trouble.” This is a side of conservatism I wish more people would see in that the mostly successful war waged against this “moral order” by the left has had so many deleterious consequences - dependency, a loss of civility in discourse at all levels of society, and a general decline in both manners and morals - that getting back to some level of sanity with regard to a reasoned and sober civil society will be a revolution in and of itself.

The book also succeeds in clearly delineating what constitutes good government. The authors accomplish this by applying a test involving 6 questions that should be asked of every law, every government program and regulation that is being considered:

1. Is it the government’s business?
2. Does it promote self-reliance?
3. Is it responsible?
4. Does it make us prosperous?
5. Does it make us safer?
6. Does it unify us?

Each question has a chapter devoted to discussion, examples, and solutions. This format succeeds as both a logical place to start a discussion of such intractable problems and as a way to measure the potential success or failure of many of the common sense solutions offered.

The book does not succeed as well in recognizing the systemic problems with the federal budget and Congress itself, although promoting the idea of a line item veto is mentioned. The problem there is the almost certain challenge to its constitutionality in Congress. What would our reborn Supreme Court think of a law that the Founders would probably have thought a usurpation of power granted specifically to the People’s House? That’s a question that will probably not be answered any time soon.

All told, Feulner and Wilson have written a timely, thoughtful, and intellectually satisfying book that offers a wealth of solutions to problems many conservatives have either thrown up their hands in dismay at ever solving or simply brushed off with the empty critique that such challenges would go away if only we “reduced the size of government.” I am very glad that the authors offered much more specificity than the hollow, generalized rants that pass for critiques of the welfare state by less serious lights in the conservative movement. If nothing else, the book proves that conservatism is alive and well and is still seeking answers to the basic question of how people in a free society can best govern themselves.

UPDATE

Getting America Right is such a finely written and richly textured book that I am going to write a series of 6 more articles over the next 6 days that address each of the 6 questions asked by the authors about whether or not a specific law meets the standards set by conservatives for good government.

I invite serious discussion on both the book and my take on it from both the left and right but be warned; troll droppings will be deleted mercilessly.

Ken McCracken at WILLisms hosts a Pundit Roundtable every Sunday where he asks several bloggers to comment on the same question.

I’ve participated a couple of times and found it enjoyable. Ken’s questions are always topical and elicit a variety of responses, all well thought out and interesting.

This week’s question was especially thought provoking:

Now that the Dubai ports deal has fallen through, and with all the rancor these days over pork, immigration, policy failures such as Social Security reform, and a backlash over the Iraq War, is the Republican party cracking up as some have suggested?

What does Karl Rove need to do?

Here’s my response:

The ports deal will be seen in retrospect as an hysterical interlude and not much more. The ineptness demonstrated by the White House in handling first, the vetting of the transaction and then the backlash against it was troubling but hardly a reason to think that it had any broad implications for the Republican party.

That said, the party’s problems are systemic and will not go away. This is the result of modern conservatism, an ideology born in minority opposition, making a poor transition to majority status. Part of that is the tension engendered by conservatism having to adjust to being a governing philosophy while its primary tenets rest on an anti-government foundation. This tension has resulted in a split between ideologues and pragmatists.

The pragmatists - call them National Conservatives - recognize that in order to govern a 21st century industrialized democracy, some compromises are necessary with the welfare state. They are also the most concerned with maintaining Republicans as a majority party and are unabashed at using the federal spigot to “earmark” their way to re-election. They maintain a conservative outlook on social issues like abortion and they support tax cuts and a robust foreign policy. Watch over the next 6 months as some of the more politically vulnerable among them abandon the President on Iraq.

The ideologues - call them True Blue Conservatives - are found mostly in the netroots and the hinterlands of red state America. Their numbers in Congress are relatively small and only recently have they begun to seriously rebel against the National Conservatives’ control of Congress. The contest for Majority Leader surprised the TB Conservatives as they may not have realized how influential they could be. The recent budget proposal coming from the House Republican Study Committee reflects a newfound confidence by the TB conservatives to at the very least have more of a say in Congressional budget matters.

There is little chance that these two camps will suffer some irrevocable split any time soon. The glue that holds the two parts together - tax cuts, social issues, and to a large extent the War in Iraq and a general agreement on the nature of the War on Terror - guarantee that at least through the 2008 elections, the Republican party will be united. This is not to say that other fissures that exist between libertarians and social conservatives as well as isolationists and neo-cons are going to go away. In fact, in the long run the conservative crack-up is more likely to occur as a result of these internecine battles rather than any fight between the National and True Blue Conservatives. That is because at bottom, it’s about maintaining power. And in that regard, even the TB Conservatives can force themselves to be pragmatic enough to maintain the status quo.

As for what Rove can do about it, I daresay the Evil One is less engaged on matters of Republican unity these days except as it relates to legacy building by the President. In that, I fully expect Rove to work dutifully to help get out the vote in ‘06 and perhaps even try and swing the ‘08 Republican nomination to someone who would build upon Bush’s legacy. I have no idea who that would be but I’m pretty sure it won’t be anyone named McCain.

By the way, if you aren’t a daily reader of Willisms, you’re missing out on one of the finest political sites around. Will and Ken blog on some of the real nuts and bolts stuff that makes politics so fascinating. And make sure to check out Ken’s weekly post on Social Security reform every Thursday.

A truly unique and valuable resource. Bookmark it.

CUBAN BORN PROTESTOR IDENTIFIED ONLY AS “ENRIQUE” HOLDS UP A SIGN THAT SAYS “DOWN WITH FIDEL” AT THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC IN PUERTO RICO

And he held his crude, hand-written sign up to the cameras and the entire Cuban government trembled.

He has been identified only as Enrique, a baseball fan who attended a game being played between Puerto Rico and Cuba at the World Baseball Classic tournament in San Juan. Enrique is a non-descript sort of fellow, middle aged, bit of a paunch, smiling eyes behind wire rimmed glasses. He also has a clear sense of mission as well as a keen eye for history. He arrived 3 hours before the game with his little sign and a lot of chutzpah. Standing behind home plate near the field, he flashed part of his message to Cuban players as they warmed up:

A few moments later , Tony Castro (Castro’s son) walked by and I told him Tony , Tony , he looked around and saw directly my open sign Baseball Players YES Tyrants No , he looked down and kept walking and I shouted Eso es para tu papa (That is for your dad)…… I know he heard that…”

The whole world would hear what Enrique would be saying a little later.

During the game, Enrique and his friend Mercado left their seats behind home plate and made their way to where the sign would be visible to the TV cameras. Unfolding the other part of his sign that read “Down with Fidel” in Spanish, the image, being carried live in Cuba, flashed across TV screens and set off what in baseball is known as a “rhubarb” and in diplomacy as “an international incident.” Within seconds, the Vice President of the Cuban Sports Federation was frantically making his way toward where Enrique and Mercado were sitting with the still unfurled sign apparently intent on acting like he was on the imprisoned Isle of Cuba rather than free and democratic Puerto Rico. He was joined by another Cuban government thug who approached Enrique demanding that he stop what he was doing:

The authorities intercepted Castro’s lackeys and hustled them out of the stadium. While not under arrest, the authorities took them to a nearby police station:

Puerto Rican police quickly intervened and took the Cuban official _ Angel Iglesias, vice president of Cuba’s National Institute of Sports _ to a nearby police station where they lectured him about free speech.

“We explained to him that here the constitutional right to free expression exists and that it is not a crime,” police Col. Adalberto Mercado was quoted as saying in El Nuevo Dia, a San Juan daily.

Tell that to the Cuban government who almost immediately had their minions in the streets of Havana demonstrating against not little Enrique but the United States government and President Bush who they believe concocted this “plot” to discredit the Castro regime. The Cuban team (whose dugout resembles an armed camp with more police and security people than baseball players) protested the sign waving by not attending the post game press conference and Castro even threatened to send the team home because of a “lack of security and respect.”

Perhaps the dictator should have recalled his players anyway because they lost to Puerto Rico 12-2 the next day.

Castro is terrified of the prospect that several of his talented ballplayers will take the opportunity to defect while playing in the free countries of Central America and the United States. The hotel where the Cubans are staying in San Juan is a virtual prison:

Why are the Cuban baseball players being held as virtual prisoners?

Why aren’t they allowed to roam the hotel lobby, talk with the Puerto Rican people, drink a beer if they feel like it, dance with a Puerto Rican girl?

Why are they being held as virtual prisoners and not allowed the freedom that players from every other country are enjoying?

Why are so many security agents keeping track of the players movements all the time?

It didn’t used to be this way. There was a time when Cuban ballplayers were welcomed with open arms into the Major Leagues here in America - just as long as they were white enough.

In the cuckoo land of racist professional baseball during much of the last century, Cuban players were allowed to play for Major League teams as long as they weren’t too black. This posed some problems for those Cuban players who either were of mixed race or even if some of the darker skinned Hispanic players got too much of a tan playing in the sun. The lengths to which some teams would go to hide the racial make-up of some Cuban players was ludicrous. From changing their names, thus making them sound less Hispanic to requiring darker skinned players to play with long sleeve shirts during the entire season, the attempts to circumvent baseball’s unwritten racial purity rules would have been almost laughable in any other context.

During the 1950’s, there were dozens of Cuban players playing on Major League teams. And there was something else; protests at World Series games against the Batista regime:

More than one time in the 1950s, members of the 26th. of July movement directed by Fidel Castro, jumped into the playing field during the World Series games carrying protest signs against the Batista government. They did it because they knew that the games were being broadcasted in Cuba.

In addition to displaying their signs, the members of the 26th. of July interrupted the games by running all over the baseball field with their signs. Then, those Cubans were considered ‘heroes’ by Castro.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot and free Cubans are simply exercising their right to free speech in a free country by holding signs WHILE SITTING AT THEIR SEATS THAT THEY PAID WITH THEIR OWN MONEY, the Cuban dictator is whining and crying and threatening to pull out his slave players from the World Baseball Classic and order them to return to his island prison.

What a hypocrite this brutal dictator is!

I guess in Castro’s Cuba “What’s good for the Goose” isn’t necessarily good for the gander - especially since the Cuban people rarely see either a goose or a gander on the dinner table. The average daily intake of calories in Cuba is about 2400. Compare that to even the poorer countries in Central American whose average is 7% higher at more than 2800. More tellingly, their caloric intake from domestic animal products (348) is more than 20% less than their neighbors (460).

It will be interesting to see what Enrique’s little protest will do to the internal politics of Cuba. With Castro rumored to be in failing health, the struggle for power following his inevitable death will pit his military-security cronies against more reform minded politicians. In a struggle like that, having the people on your side will be critical. The goons may have the guns. But as long as there are people like Enrique who are willing to stand up for freedom, the forces who support liberty and democracy in Cuba will have a chance.

UPDATE

I’m surprised there isn’t more play on this story, especially from the right. There are quite a few other stories making news but this incident occurred Thursday night and we’ve had nary a peep from the blogosphere.

Dr. Sanity has a great write up on the story as does Brian Preston at Junkyard Blog who dubs Enrique “Hero of the Day.”

That, and more.

We bloggers are known for taking a few liberties with the truth in order to get a laugh, or a rise out of our readers, or just because some of us are idiots and don’t know any better. Now that doesn’t mean we lie. It means we sort of stretch reality so that it fits around whatever point we’re trying to make. Hence, when lefty bloggers call right wing bloggers “fascists” they really don’t mean that we all walk around in brown shirts with swastikas on the sleeve giving the stiff-armed salute in slavish devotion to George Bush.

Well, then again…

Regardless, when I saw this on one of the major left wing sites, I first thought that it was a joke. I said to myself “This can’t be serious! Can anyone be so determined to be dense that they would actually believe what they’re writing here is true?”

You decide:

The new site Fancy Ford, built by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and with the blessing of Elizabeth Dole, is an interesting new web tactic. Racism online and mainstreamed.

The “Ford” refers to Representative Harold Ford, a good and decent man who is running for the Senate from Tennessee. But what, pray tell is this “Racism online and mainstreamed?”

What’s the message behind this site? The line of white women on the front page, the fact that it highlights his attendance at NBA All Star events featuring Biz Markie, the emphasis on opulence all combine to portray Ford as a pimp. The site tries to be subtle in its racism, but it fails.

Please excuse me while I pick my mandible up off the floor before it starts digging.

Methinks this fellow is a couple of shakes short of a finished martini.

The “line of white women” is a picture of some Playboy Bunnies, which refers to a Super Bowl party sponsored by the men’s magazine that the Congressman attended. That’s right. He is accusing the designer of the website of poring through thousands of photographs of Playboy Bunnies in order to find one picture that only features white women.

But wait! Here is more of the “subtle racism” our friend has sniffed out like McGruff the crime dog.

The goofball says that the site “highlights his attendance at NBA All Star events featuring Biz Markie.” Weeeellll…in the immortal words of Secretary of Defense Nimzicki from Independence Day “That’s not entirely accurate.” It seems that the good Congressman connected himself to Mr. Markie because all the website does is quote an invitation to a Ford fundraiser held during the NBA All-Star game. The site does not mention more than one “event” so the use of the plural in that charge is false and misleading.

Now that’s subtle. Taking something written by the Congressman’s own campaign and putting it on website. That’s never been done before. Sure smacks of racism to me.

But what of the charge that there is an “emphasis on opulence.”

Are you kidding me? From a party that constantly portrays Republicans as rich and out of touch with regular folk I have to listen to that kind of crap? Besides, the web site is making the point that all of these extravagant extras are enjoyed at his contributor’s expense. If I was going to give money to a candidate, don’t you think it might matter to me if the guy is pissing it away with $20,000 weekend stays at the Biltmore hotel?

Finally, and I know this was the most difficult part to follow, we come to the charge that the site is portraying Ford as a pimp.

Lemme get this straight: White women + NBA + Biz Markie + opulence = PIMP!

The guy is a goddamned Sherlock effing Holmes. That’s not only subtle. It’s damn near invisible.