Right Wing Nut House

It’s a good thing the ports deal issue will soon be fading into the background. I can’t tell you how uncomfortable I am when I have to show my anti-Arab bigotry in public. I feel much more at ease hiding behind code words and other devices that only my morally superior betters can divine as being truly “racist” in nature. Better that most people never suspect that, at heart, I’m just a wild eyed, goober chewing, slack-jawed mouth breather who fears the ayrab and all the rest of them fereners. The only good ferener is a dead ferener, that’s what I say. Especially when they dress up in funny clothes and don’t worship Jesus.

That said, I’m glad we can now get back to business as usual with the Saudis, the Pakistanis, and all those folks from the city-state sized feudal kingdoms that make up the Emirates, itself a form of government that’s an anachronistic throwback to a time when Islam was the light of the world and western Europeans were killing each other over who should be living in which drafty old castle.

Yes, it will be nice to get back to business as usual with people who are playing both ends against the middle in the terror game, hoping that modernity on the one hand and radical Islam on the other doesn’t intrude on their private preserves of debauchery and corruption. To guarantee that, they have the United States government to protect and shield them from both substantive change in their societies as well as the ravages of Islamic fundamentalism.

It must be nice for them to be able to be able to talk out of both sides of their mouths at the same time about terrorism. On the one hand, the Saudis, Pakistanis, and many of the smaller Gulf states are actually quite helpful in our fight against terrorism - up to a point. I haven’t seen the Saudi royal family disciplining any of its members lately for their ties to terror. Nor have I seen any purges of the Pakistani intelligence services, some members of which helped prop up the Taliban in Afghanistan and may to this day be supporting al Qaeda. The same goes for the Saudis except we are much too polite to be asking questions about that. We need the oil spigots kept wide open and insulting King Abdullah by pointing to probable disloyalty in his secret police may upset the monarch’s delicate sensibilities.

And our bestest friends in the UAE? Funny how Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum can welcome our carrier battle groups with open arms on the one hand and then send billions of dollars to fund radical Madrasses around the world that preach the only good American is a dead American. With friends like the Sheik…

Yes, I’m happy that the ports deal imbroglio is over. Now we can get back to laughing at Democrats who were so desperate to demonstrate their bona fides on national security, they didn’t realize they now leave themselves wide open to charges of hypocrisy regarding their curious resistance to protecting our southern borders.

But that’s another debate…

That thud you heard coming from the White House today was the sound of Karl Rove’s invincibility hitting the floor.

The UAE was either asked or decided on their own to nix the ports deal thus heading off a certain veto override by Congress and embarrassing the President more than he and his Administration have already embarrassed themselves:

The United Arab Emirates company that was attempting to take over management operations at six U.S. ports announced today that it will divest itself of all American interests.

The announcement appears to head off a major confrontation that was brewing between Congress and the Bush administration over the controversial deal.

Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) announced on the Senate floor shortly before 2 p.m. that Dubai Ports World would “transfer fully the operations of U.S. ports to a U.S. entity.” Warner, who had been trying to broker a compromise on the issue, said DP World would divest itself of U.S. interests “in an orderly fashion” so as not to suffer “economic loss.”

It was never about the security of the ports. It was never the fact that the UAE has a leader that has gone hunting with Bin Laden. It was never the fact that the UAE government has funded Wahabbist Madrasses all over the world to the tune of billions of dollars over the last 2 decades. It was never the fact that they don’t recognize Israel or that their banking system may be a financial way station for al Qaeda funds or that they were Muslims and I’m a bigoted fool.

It was always about the Bush Administration and their arrogant, cavalier attitude toward this deal and other aspects of homeland security including securing our borders. The committee set up to vet DPW was a bureaucratic rubber stamp made up of second and third tier assistant secretaries who didn’t even feel the need to brief the heads of their agencies about the deal. They never felt the need to brief the Joint Chiefs. The never felt the need to brief Congress.

Michelle Malkin:

Nervous nellies will argue that the House Republican “hotheads” should have waited for the 45-day review of the deal. But to many knowledgeable observers of the CFIUS process, the panel is the root of the problem–not the solution. As I made clear in my first post on this subject on Feb. 18 and consistently throughout the debate, we simply cannot afford the business-as-usual attitude of the rubber-stampers at CFIUS. And if that means the UAE retaliates by pulling out of business deals with Boeing, as it is threatening to do now, so be it.

You will recall that both DHS and the Coast Guard raised objections to the deal when it was first proposed. While both entities have come back and said their concerns were “addressed” what exactly does that mean? Were real concerns about security papered over with typical bureaucratic double-talk? Or were substantiative changes made to the deal that took into account the potential security problems pointed out by agencies whose job it is to protect us.

For that reason alone this deal needed to be examined. And I would still like to see hearings on other foreign owned companies who manage our ports and other transportation nexus. These are a particularly vulnerable part of our overall security profile and what this deal proved is that no one appears to be thinking very hard about them.

I sincerely hope that the UAE isn’t offended by the pressure that was put on them, although, when a country is owned by one man, it becomes very hard to separate the business from the personal. Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum may feel that he’s been double crossed but he shouldn’t blame the Congress or the American people. The blame is ultimately the Presidents’ to shoulder as are our other problems with border control and gaps in security at our airports.

If the killing of this deal has opened the eyes of the President and his people to the concerns of Congress and many conservatives, then it just may have a silver lining. They can go a long way toward proving that they’re listening by working with Congress on an immigration reform package that puts security over commerce and the safety of the American people over the wallets of the members of the Chambers of Commerce.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin also has an excellent “first reaction” round up of media. Check back to her site often for more updates to come,

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

When the history of our times are written a hundred years from now, it is probable that historians will be scratching their heads in puzzlement over contemporary reports regarding the challenges faced by the Bush Administration and how the President’s people managed them. They will take note of the super-charged partisan atmosphere that permeated Washington at the time and the extraordinary hostility of major opinion makers in the media to the President and his policies. And when all is said and done, they may very well conclude that the President’s contemporaries were suffering from some kind of mass delusion, a sickness of thought and reason that not only clouded their judgement but contributed to the deliberate formulation of a powerful myth: The myth that the Bush Administration was incompetent in its stewardship of the republic.

Historians being historians, there will be many who will posit the notion that this judgement of history is in fact, no myth at all. They will take the arguments of the President’s contemporaries at face value and point to the problems associated with winning the War in Iraq, hurricane preparedness, intelligence failures, and a host of domestic missteps in areas as diverse as Medicare reform and ports management.

But if historians took the reports of a great man’s contemporaries at face value, we would not be celebrating Washington, Jefferson, Adams, nor especially Lincoln who engendered as much hate and loathing as any past President in history. Lincoln’s contemporaries indulged in an orgy of name calling and criticism of his war policies to the point that his own party sought to throw him off the ticket in 1864.

As for Washington, a cursory examination of his military efforts during the revolution would elicit little more than contempt. The General lost more battles than any other general in American history. His amateurish New York campaign in 1776 almost lost the war before it started and only the luckiest of circumstances kept the Continental Army from being destroyed en masse .

And Washington’s stewardship of the young republic is replete with contemporary accounts of mismanagement, cronyism, and dark hints of the General’s monarchical tendencies. His second term was one long nightmare of criticism of his foreign policy, his close relationship with the bane of Jeffersonians Alexander Hamilton, and his handling of the “Whiskey Rebellion” where the President himself rode at the head of an army of 9,000 men into western Pennsylvania to put down a challenge to the primacy of the federal government. And yet, Washington is beloved to us today not because of what his contemporaries thought of him but because his record taken in its totality reveals a man of vision and steady leadership through some of the most turbulent times in American history.

The point isn’t that George Bush is like Washington or Lincoln. The point is that historians will be able to look back at this two term President and find a record on the economy, on foreign policy, and even on several domestic issues that will give the lie to charges of incompetence and instead, reveal a President who initiated strikingly bold initiatives that changed the course of both American and world history.

There is nothing new in Democrats and the media charging that a Republican President is incompetent. They’ve been doing it since the Eisenhower Administration. The ex-general was accused of sleeping through the 1950’s. Nixon’s incompetence was ieven highlighted in his administration’s scandals as his detractors were always fond of pointing out that Watergate was the result of “a second rate burglary” and that the White House plumbers resembled the Keystone Cops. His prosecution of the Viet Nam war and handling of the peace negotiations as well as his relationship with the Democratic Congress were also skewered by his critics as evidence of Nixon’s unworthiness for high office.

But these critics saved their most venomous invective for Ronald Reagan who was constantly called a “dunce,” a “stupid actor,” and much worse. It says something about Reagan that even when the White House press corp treated him with contempt, he never lost his sense of self-deprecating humor, making fun of his age, his work habits, even his own intelligence.

The way critics tried to draw the President’s father also degenerated into caricature as Bush #41 was belittled constantly for his optimism and enthusiasm. Trying to portray the President of the United States as a glorified cheerleader, his detractors succeeded in tarring George H. Bush as a shallow, substanceless rich man who never thought deeply about anything.

Why should it surprise us that Democrats and their allies in the press are seeking to apply the same broad brush to this President?

A more objective observer would note that the standards of competency being applied to this Administration by both the President’s opponents and now many erstwhile Republicans are impossibly high. In this media saturated age where perception is reality and the present merges seamlessly into the future, hindsight has been flipped on its head to become foresight. The President’s tormentors have twisted, mangled, and mutilated the truth and the facts so often that the legends they have created are now accepted as reality. In a truly Orwellian way, history is being written before events actually occur. And when something happens that in any other reality would be considered insignificant, it is pointed to as “proof” that the Administration’s actions, or policies, or plans are an abject failure.

A recent Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by Daniel Henninger noticed this very same phenomenon:

Rational problem-solving generally requires adhering to the rules of the game, and in politics those rules are often informal. One such rule in Washington is that a politician is as good as his word. Perhaps nothing has been more destructive to Washington’s current ability to function than the belief that “Bush lied” about WMD, most notably Joe Wilson’s foundational charge in the New York Times that Mr. Bush lied about Iraq’s attempts to buy uranium from Niger.

This persistent belief that George Bush committed a major moral crime, which was refuted by the Robb-Silberman Commission, had consequences. It has led many people in Washington’s standing institutions–Congress, the press, the intelligence and foreign-policy bureaucracies–to think they’ve been released from operating inside the normal boundaries that allow political Washington to function, that allow partisans to do business, whether on foreign policy, Social Security or homeland security.

Henninger specifically points to the Valerie Plame case as proof that the President’s detractors leap upon the most insignificant matters to prove Administration perfidy. The fact is, as Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald admitted in court last week, there was no “outing” of a covert agent and that he didn’t intend to offer “any proof of actual damage caused by the disclosure of Wilson’s identity.”

But it is the prosecution of the War in Iraq that the President’s critics have used their powers of hindsight to the fullest. There may be no human endeavor more fraught with uncertainty nor more open to the vagaries of chance than war. And yet, every setback in Iraq whether by our military or in the political arena is held up as “proof” of the incompetence of the Bush Administration. If these critics had been around in 1943-44 and had access to the same kind of information they have about the situation in Iraq, I can imagine the howls of protest against Roosevelt’s competency. The list of American missteps on both fronts - mistakes that cost many times more lives than those lost to date in Iraq - read like a military bad dream. The Italian campaign, the Tarawa landing, and a host of smaller catastrophes would have sapped the will of the American people and made prosecution of the war that much more difficult.

In Iraq, the President’s critics have had a field day dissecting both military and political strategy from the comfortable perch of hindsight, always able to come up with some report or leaked intelligence estimate that puts the Administration’s efforts in the worst possible light. The question is never broached about what other information the Administration had access to which would put any decisions made in context. I daresay that if such second guessing occurred during the slow progress made by American forces during World War II where there were numerous defeats and even political troubles with Charles DeGaulle of the Free French Forces, the American people may very well have thought Roosevelt an incompetent boob.

Critics of the President are using what engineers refer to as a “Six Sigma” model of critical analysis regarding Administration actions. “Sigma” is a Greek letter used as a statistical term that refers to a measurement of how far a given process deviates from perfection. The higher the Sigma number, the closer to perfection. The central idea behind “Six Sigma” is that if you can measure how many defects you have in a process, you can systematically figure out how to get rid of them.

But for Bush detractors, this kind of analysis becomes a convenient weapon. It ignores the thousands of variables that go into everything from war planning to hurricane preparedness and relief. It also has the virtue of of immediacy in that defects - both real and imagined - can be offered as proof of policy failure before the policy has a chance to work. We saw this with the Katrina relief effort as the Federal government pre-positioned millions of tons of supplies prior to the hurricane making landfall and within 24 hours Administration critics were already declaring the relief effort a failure, the result of the President’s disinterest in the plight of poor black people. With New Orleans 80% underwater, critics were wondering why supplies were not getting to people who needed them.

The fact is these critics weren’t asking President Clinton the same thing following Hurricane Floyd where flooding prevented FEMA from acting in anything approaching a timely manner. The Reverend Jesse Jackson interviewed FEMA Director James Lee Witt almost 30 days after Floyd devastated the east coast:

“It seemed there was preparation for Hurricane Floyd, but then came Flood Floyd,” Jackson began. “Bridges are overwhelmed, levees (my emphasis) are overwhelmed, whole town’s under water (my emphasis). . . [it's] an awesome scene of tragedy. So there’s a great misery index in North Carolina.”

When Jackson asked what was being done for the thousands of families left homeless by Floyd after nearly a month had passed since the storm first hit, Witt said Bill’s FEMA was “just beginning to address the problem.”

Sound familiar?

There is no better example of this Six Sigma mindset among the President’s critics than the recent sectarian violence in Iraq which had many in the press especially salivating for a civil war. The violence was serious and continues to the present at a reduced level. But the exaggerated reports of attacks and casualties - the result of both the inability of the press to see the big picture as well as the probability that reporters were getting much of their information from al Qaeda propaganda cadres - did not include any reports of the counterweight being applied to the prospects of a civil war by the Iraqi Army whose performance was generally praised in the aftermath of the Shrine bombing and the tens of thousands of ordinary citizens who marched in “Unity Demonstrations” across the country.

Despite all the provocations by the insurgents and al Qaeda terrorists, Iraqis from all walks of life, all sects, and all parts of the country are working together to keep civil war from happening. And while it is still an open question whether or not civil war can be avoided, this unity among so many Iraqis is a direct result of Administration efforts to promote democracy. The people of Iraq have been given a stake in their own future by the government of the United States. Whether they can take advantage of this is still open to question. But to call the policy a “failure” at this point is wrong. The Iraqis may be taking two steps forward and one back in their march to the future. But the fact is the only way for our policy to fail is if we pick up and go home. In this, both Administration critics and al Qaeda terrorists have something in common.

Criticizing the day to day ups and downs of progress in Iraq would be considered irrational in almost any other context except that which seeks to perpetrate the myth that the Administration is incompetent. The same holds true for Katrina relief efforts, the scope of which dwarfed any other similar effort in American history. But the Six Sigma group, having control of mass media and taking advantage of the Administration’s curious inability to defend itself, has been able to pick and choose the decisions and circumstances that best contribute to their skewed incompetence narrative while ignoring other efforts that have proved to be successful.

How much have we heard about the economy recently? Low inflation, historically low interest rates, low unemployment, rising incomes, high productivity, and the prospect of further, sustained growth is a spectacular record of achievement. Predictably, the Six Sigma group concentrates instead on the systemic unemployment of minorities and the rising cost of health care.

Similarly, the President’s bold initiatives in education reform and prescription drug assistance receive scant attention except to highlight the problems with the programs. No one mentions that millions of at risk students will finally have schools that must demonstrate that they are trying to raise standards or that seniors will have coverage for prescription drugs that they didn’t have before. Problems with both these programs can be fixed. But shepherding them through Congress in the first place along with tax cuts, faith based initiatives, and other issues that the President’s critics confidently predicted would never fly in the legislature bespeaks a level of competence not vouchsafed by the President’s critics who tend to forget their own incompetent powers of prognostication on these and other matters.

It is easy to pick out mistakes made by any President. And believe me when I say I wholeheartedly agree that this President has made his fair share of them. One could even point out the incompetence of the Administration to specific challenges like government spending, social security reform, and even some aspects of Iraq reconstruction and yes, hurricane relief. But generally speaking, President Bush has tackled some of the biggest challenges to face this country in more than a generation. He has done many things well. He has fallen down in other respects. But to have the President’s critics slap the label of incompetence on his Administration doesn’t stand up to any kind of objective scrutiny.

In the end, Bush will be judged by the totality of his Presidency not by the Six Sigma analyses that pass for serious critiques by the Presidents detractors. In fact, they are not serious at all. They represent a political tactic that seeks to undermine rather than improve. And for that, they should be ashamed of themselves.

UPDATE

I’d like to publicly thank long time House reader Fritz who sent me the idea for the “Six Sigma” Democrats. One wonders that if Bush were to bring unemployment to “0″ whether these critics would complain that government bureaucrats would have nothing to do!

Oh how the mighty have fallen!

At one time, the wire services - Associated Press and United Press International - were media Gods. Their reporters, stringers, and hangers-on were considered the creme de la creme of journalistic excellence. Presidents would defer to them by allowing them to ask the first question at White House press conferences. Newsrooms across the country relied on them to report on breaking news around the world. In a time when major dailies would publish 3 or 4 editions, that breaking news was vital in order to get the jump on the competition.

This is because when the AP and UPI ruled, people who lived in large cities had the option of getting their news from several daily newspapers. And the competition to be first out with breaking news (the fabled “extra” edition hawked by the newsboys) was extremely intense. A 15 minute difference in getting the edition to the streets could mean the gain or loss of 50,000 copies sold. Hence, the wire service boys were prized for their ability to get the story first and to get it right. And the competition between AP and UPI defined an age of journalism where minutes counted and reporters fought like wildcats to get the story “on the wires” first.

This was the newspaper business of the 40’s and 50’s. Editors and publishers relied on AP and UPI to make their newspapers profitable. No more. It wasn’t the advent of television that killed AP and UPI and made them virtually irrelevant. It was the changing technology of news gathering that sounded their death knell. Satellites, cable TV, and finally the internet all conspired to bring the mighty wires services to their knees.

Both AP and UPI survive today but their roles have changed dramatically. While speed is still prized by both, their profitability is dependent on the chains of smaller newspapers who rely on their national and international reporting to fill out the pages of the glorified “shoppers” that pass for local news today. Rather than hire reporters to write these stories, “small” newspapers, who themselves are owned by giant corporations like Paddock Publications and Gannett, use the wire services almost exclusively to fill up the white spaces wedged between ads for local goods and services.

This fall from the mountaintop has been accompanied by a curious phenomenon; a casual approach to facts and a creeping kind of advocacy journalism with a decidedly left wing slant. This is especially true of the Associated Press whose bias and disregard for honest journalism was recently put on display for all to see.

It is clear that the “Katrina Video” story was driven by big media and the lefty blogs. But the original story came to us via the good old AP. The only problem was that the accompanying articles written by the Associated Press were so full of inaccuracies, omissions, and, some would say, outright lies, that the AP was forced to admit (albeit on a Friday night when they hoped few were paying attention) that large portions of their “news” story simply weren’t true. Not only did they mischaracterize what was on the video, they falsified what was said, putting words into people’s mouths that didn’t jibe with what was said on the video. Couple that with the fact that they tried to pass the video off as an “exclusive” - despite most of the newsnets having the video in their own archives - and you have our Cluebat of the Week.

So for Cluelessness that reveals how far a once great and talented news service has fallen, the Associated Press is awarded the coveted Cluebat of the Week.

Why not check out the articles below for some more cluelessness that’ll make you smile. make you cry, and maybe even make you throw your diet vanilla coke at your monitor! Go ahead…you know you want to click it.

“When stupidity is a sufficient explanation, there is no need to have recourse to any other”
(Mitchell Ullman)

Hey Mitch! So that explains coverage of the Iraq war!
(Me)

***********************************************************
Those pesky pachyderms at Elephants in Academia have some interesting thoughts on the Rumsfeld v FAIR case where the Solomon Amendment allowing military recruiters on campus was upheld.

Pat Curley does a more than admirable job in taking down one of the left’s leading intellectuals, Lewis Lapham, who recently jumped aboard the impeachment bandwagon. Lapham is basing his critique on Rep. John Conyers nutty report that has every conspiracy theory ever dreamed up including, I believe, aliens landing at Roswell, NM.

Josh Cohen takes on Standardized Tests for children and makes some valid points on why they are probably a bad idea in some respects. I personally believe that the entire idea of testing has gotten out of control and that there have to be better ways to judge not only how well a child is doing but how good a job the school is doing in educating them.

Our Carnival pin-up girl Pamela got one of the blog interviews of the year with UN Ambassador John Bolton. Talk about someone who can identify cluelessness…

Holly Aho has the skinny on some real cluelessness at the DU. It seems one of our proud Marines who recently braved the jihadis in Iraq decided to brave the moonbats at the Democratic Underground in order to answer questions.

DL at Bacon Bits wonders “Can we Impeach an Ex-President?” Perhaps more to the point would be to ask if it’s still illegal to tar and feather Jimmy Carter and run him out of town on a rail.

NOTR at the blog ROFASIX has a good fisking of Barbara Streisand’s criticism of the anti-intellectualism in the Bush Administration. Now if the ditsy diva could ever learn to spell, as well as graduate from an accredited college, she may some points to make.

XYBA wonders about Catholics who don’t support the Vatican. Some excellent points made about an age old argument.

Kender sends along a piece by Heidi at Euphoric Reality who points us to an interview on al Jazeera with a secular Muslim who absolutely skewers the jihadis and non-violent moderate Muslims who don’t criticize them. The cluelessness of the reporter is breathtaking in its stupidity.

The scatological Scotsman himself has graced the Carnival yet again with his words of wisdom about religion. It seems that Kender has discovered a long lost “saint” from, of all places, France. Um…read the whole thing and be amused.

AJ Strata has the results from a recent poll that shows American are fed up with Washington - not just the government but everyone who makes a living writing, talking, and otherwise bloviating about politics.

Doug at Below the Beltway has the quote of the day. In taking apart columnist Eugene Robinson who complains that Washington, D.C. is out of touch with the “real America,” the cluebat wants us instead to look to Hollywood for what is really going on; “Ah yes, let’s move from Washington, D.C. to the capitol of Reality Nation —– Hollywood, California.” Ah, yes indeed.

Tom Bowler has the jaw-dropper of the day. A Kos diarist is celebrating “victory” in Iraq. Considering the source, it isn’t the kind of victory that you and I would think worth celebrating. Read it - but take your blood pressure meds first.

Mensa Barbie (irresistible combination, eh guys?) has some more idiocy from al Jazeera on how Saddam wasn’t really that bad. Yep. You heard me.

Fausta (whose hair looks lovely today) has the incredible story of the cluelessness of large corporations who are playing footsie with “The Laughing Goat” Hugo Chavez as the dictator tries out his socialist policies with the help of the crony capitalists.

Adam tries to calm the hysteria on the left who have their panties in a twist over legislation in Missouri that on its face appears to make Christianity the “official religion” of the state. A closer look reveals a different story.

On the lookout for good new blogs? Try One Man Bandwidth written by a professor in China. This post is about a person not being “dead enough” to harvest their organs.

A Different River brings us up to date on the global warming debate and how it is absolutely impossible - according to its adherents - that the theory could be incorrect. An eye opener.

Cao has a jaw dropper about the cluelessness of journalists who continue to deny Jack Idema’s claim of US government sanction for his actions.

Our favorite hippie chick Peace Moonbeam is fighting the good fight against hunting this week. Her solution; arm the animals! Anyone who has seen Crocodile Dundee with the gun toting kangaroos will get a laugh out of this one.

Those gentle homeschoolers at The Common Room are back in the Carnival! This time, the Deputy Headmistress picks up the paddle and spanks a clueless law professor who thinks it impossible for women to be “fulfilled” while staying home and taking care of children.

Jack Cluth has a laugh out loud piece on people who see religious icons in everything from grilled cheese sandwiches to a piece of sheet metal. Jack thinks it looks more like Val Kilmer.

Finally, here’s my piece on Cindy Sheehan and the hagiographic treatment given her by the media.

Being remiss in my responsibilities once again in posting the winners from our Watchers Council vote, I take the liberty now to rectify that mistake forthwith.

For the week of February 24, the winner in the Council category was yours truly for my heartfelt peaon to Hubert Humphrey “The Happy Warrior is weeping in his Grave.” Finishing second was Done with Mirrors “Team of Rivals.”

In the non Council category, the winner was “How Does the Modern World Look When You Have Done Nothing To Help Create It, and Innovation Is a Threat To Cherished Beliefs?” by Dinocrat.

For the week ending March 3, the winner in the Council category was Done with Mirrors for “Our George.” The runner up spot was held down by New Sisyphus for “The Breach.”

In the Non-Council category, first place went to Micheal Totten’s “The Beginning of the Universe.”

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

HENDERSON: Damnit Jack! I’m not trying to protect myself, I’m trying to protect the country.

HENDERSON: You don’t want to know what I know. You get me to talk and you’ll just be opening Pandora’s Box.

Like a finely woven tapestry, the plot threads on 24 are usually beautifully conceived and intricately sewn, a combination of subtle characterization and innocuous circumstance that has the writers trying to pull the wool over our eyes while at the same time placing nagging questions in the back of our minds that more often than not bear fruit later on in the show.

Sometimes, these questions go unanswered which can be enormously unsatisfying and forces us to curse the writers when they paint themselves into a corner and are forced to dead end the thread. But then there are times when the threads merge into a seamless whole and a large chunk of the plot is revealed.

Such was the case last night when Henderson warned Jack about opening Pandora’s Box by trying to elicit the truth of his involvement in the plot followed almost immediately by the introduction of Vice President Hal Gardener whose plan for preemptive martial law - unsanctioned by Congress and with no time limit - along with the past hints of Department of Defense perfidy could mean that the ultimate goal which had terrorists and American government officials working together may be an attempt to establish a military dictatorship in the United States.

This theme is nothing new in Hollywood. Ever since the excellent film Seven Days in May (based on the equally excellent novel by Fletcher Knebel & Charles W. Bailey II) was released in 1964, the takeover of the government by right wing militaristic fanatics has been a staple of Hollywood political pot boilers. Apparently, left wingers are much too warm and fuzzy (not to mention addle-brained and angst-ridden) to try anything like attempting to establish a dictatorship in our republic. Besides, a left-wing coup would be too boring to make into a film. First, it would take too long for them to explain why they’re doing it. Secondly, watching so many self-righteous, flatulent, bloviators would cause the audience to leave 15 minutes into the showing of the film.

Since a left-wing plot is out, that leaves the military and the shadowy “military-industrial complex.” While there actually is an MIC, it may surprise you to know there are just as many liberal Democrats in it as there are conservative Republicans. The people who make up the dozens of Committees and Boards that propose policy alternatives, recommend weapons systems, intelligence reforms, budget priorities, and a whole host of responsibilities at the Departments of State and Defense also sit on the Boards of Directors of major defense contractors as well as fill out the ranks of Presidential appointees - both Democrat and Republican - in the national security establishment.

They are a small group of mostly white men who are extremely influential in formulating our defense and foreign policy. But coup plotters? Please give me a break.

Of course, this doesn’t stop Hollywood from fantasizing and making their nightmares come to life. And in the case of 24, we also have current left wing fantasies about the Bush Administration and their attempt to destroy America. How the Bushies are going to do this requires your complete suspension of reality as well as a healthy dose of conspiracy nuttiness. But if a United States Congressman - Cynthia McKinney - can accuse the President of knowing in advance about the attacks on 9/11, anything is possible I suppose.

So if I were a conservative, I wouldn’t be too upset by all of this. After all, it’s just a TV show, isn’t it?

NOTE: This week, we start a new category in our updates. From here on out, every time Jack or CTU violates the Constitutional rights of someone, we will make a note of it. This was suggested to me by a an emailer who thought it might be educational to count up the number of times Jack threw the Constitution out the window to get the job done.

At least, it should start some debate in the comments section, no?

SUMMARY

Bill saunters down to the CTU clinic to see how Tony is doing. Being warned by the doctor not to reveal to Tony that his beloved Michelle is dead, Bill informs him that Palmer is dead and that Jack was set up to take the fall. Tony looks pretty good for having a car bomb go off 5 feet away from where he was cradling Michelle’s body - just a small facial bandage to hide some second degree burns on one side. I’m sure Tony was pleased when he realized he still had all his hair and that his Brooks Brothers button-down shirt was still intact despite the proximity of the explosion.

At the site of the assassination attempt, Nutzo Martha and the Suburovs are wandering around in the open, dazed but none the worse for wear. Maybe the Secret Service was using the three as bait to see if there were any more terrorists in the area who wanted to kill them. Martha mumbles to Aaron that Jellyfish knew about the attack and didn’t stop the motorcade. Since everyone thinks she’s crazy, Aaron looks at her like…well, like she’s crazy.

As we predicted, the boyfriend of Jenny, the Fat Hobbit’s sister, has called the terrorists and told them he has Lin’s CTU key card. We assume he found the number in the yellow pages under “Terrorists, Foreign and Domestic.” The Hobbit places a call to Jenny asking for the card back which she is more than willing to do until she learns that the boyfriend is going to get $20,000 for the little piece of plastic.

At the ranch, President Jellyfish has one of his frequent bouts of self recrimination that serves the purpose of making us hate him even more as well as causing us to come close to vomiting, so much the weasel that he is. Even Novik is getting sick of having to hold this guy’s hand. Maybe the terrorists can find a way to drop a little nerve gas in the President’s coffee or something.

After his lucky escape from certain death, Jack is on Buckaroo Banzai’s trail thanks to Chloe waving her magic geek wand and coming up with an address she hacked from Henderson’s office PC. As Jack heads over the turncoat’s house, Curtis finds some schematics on one of the dead would-be assassins that point to another attack within the hour. A computer search is initiated trying to match the plans to buildings in Los Angeles.

Tony, realizing that people are tip-toeing around the subject of Michelle’s condition, drinks from the grotto at Lourdes and, less than 8 hours after having a bomb go off on top of him and being on the critical list, makes a miraculous recovery and walks over to a computer to google up Michelle’s name on the CTU website. Finding out she is dead, Tony returns to bed but we’ve seen enough to know that he will be on his feet shortly and feeling well enough to help catch the terrorists. Maybe they’ll strap him to a board and stand him up in the conference room.

Logan lies through his teeth to the Russian President about what he knew about the nerve gas and when he knew it. President Suburov, only partially convinced that Jellyfish is innocent, agrees under the terms of the treaty to allow CTU access to Russian intel where the guys discover that Vlad Bierko is the name of the terrorist who is giving them so much trouble today. This thread bears watching as it would be very bad if Suburov discovered that Jellyfish is lying.

Back at CTU, Edgar gets a match on the schematics taken from the dead terrorist. It’s a hospital and while they begin an evacuation, Curtis races over with a TAC team. The hospital security chief assures Curtis he has everything covered except he forgets to mention that the terrorists have much better schematics of the hospital than he does - Bierko finds an “unguarded” secret entrance to the sub-basement. The terrorist is discovered but not before he places the cannister of nerve gas next to the ventilation system. Curtis corners him and takes him out while the hazmat crew races against time to defuse the cannister.

Meanwhile, Jack has reached Buckaroo’s house where his loyal wife, Mrs. Banzai is surprised to see Jack alive. Pulling a gun on the housewife, Jack tries to make the disbelieving Miriam believe that her husband is not only a rotten lover but a lying traitor as well. With Chloe’s help, he finds a “shadow hard drive” on Henderson’s computer that contains what appears to be telephone numbers used by the terrorists to communicate. Refusing to give him the password, Jack appears to be torn about the prospect of torturing the woman to get the information. Deciding against it for the moment, Miriam is placed in quite an awkward position when her husband comes home only to have Jack waylay him and start the interrogation.

Buckaroo won’t talk which gives Jack the opportunity to partake in a little target practice with Mrs. Banzai’s thigh. Perfect shot, dead center where he was aiming. Jack informs Buckaroo that the next round will put his former best friend’s wife in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Of course, Jack won’t do that even when Henderson refuses to cooperate. Jack asks CTU to set up the holding room and rig it for “medical interrogation.”

At the hospital, the CTU klutzes finally think of searching the dead terrorist after about five minutes and find the timer for the cannister on him. Realizing that THERE”S NO TIME(!), Curtis races to the containment truck and just in time deposits the load of nerve gas in the bin while the cannister goes off harmlessly.

And then the moment that many of us have been waiting for: Kim shows up at CTU.

All grown up (sleeping with your therapist is a sure sign of maturity). Kimmy has had a rough journey these last two years what with playing a porn star in The Girl Next Door and other forgettable roles. Now she’s back where she belongs. The only thing missing is the cougar.

Audrey’s telling the young woman that her father is still alive taxes Ms. Cuthbert’s acting abilities to the limit, the news eliciting both facial expressions she is able to make. Unfortunately, she does not bare her midriff in this scene which is a pity since her navel is more interesting to watch than her acting.

No matter. We’ll get to see plenty of Kimmy later I’m sure - both her bare midriff and her lack of emotional depth as an actress.

The other shoe of the conspiracy drops as Vice President Strangelove (Hal Gardener) enters the picture. Strangelove wants to declare martial law for the greater LA area despite the fact that no one knows anything about the nerve gas threat. The scene was interesting first because it showed the latent dictatorial tendencies in President Jellyfish and second, who’d ever think that Mike Novik was a civil libertarian?

In the Field Ops room at CTU, Jack and Kim come face to face.

JACK: The most painful thing I’ve ever been through was having to walk away from you. Even more painful than losing your mother. But it was the only way to make sure you’d be safe.

KIM: I buried you…

JACK: I know…

KIM: You know, there’s something wrong with people like you. You can’t hold on to anything. Chase couldn’t either. He tried for a while then he was gone just like you. And now you’re back. And I’m supposed to…(sniff, sniff). I’m happy you’re alive. I am. But I can’t give you what you want right now.

Kimmy has a lot of experience saying that last line. She tells the director that every day.

Jenny’s boyfriend meanwhile, discovers what happens when you negotiate with terrorists as he and the Fat Hobbit’s sister are killed. After expertly altering the key card, the terrorist calmly walks into CTU where the dumbest guards in Christendom man the outer doors.

In a case of life imitating art, recent revelations about security holes at the Homeland Security building are nothing compared to the nincompoops who are stationed to guard to CTU building. First, they don’t search the magic briefcase (which soon will double in size to accommodate the nerve gas cannister). Second, they don’t recognize the boss? Absolutely no Christmas bonuses for these idiots.

In a move that will prove interesting later, Bill pays another visit to Tony and informs him that Henderson is their only lead at this point. Since Tony and Buckaroo are moved into the same room when the nerve gas attack occurs, look for some interesting fireworks before that situation resolves itself.

Dr. Feelgood primes Henderson for interrogation but he refuses to talk. Jack has Richard administer the truth serum which it is assumed will either kill him or make him talk. As the serum begins to course its way through his body, every siren, horn and klaxon in the place goes off at once as the Fat Hobbit finally tells Bill about the missing key card after learning of his sister’s execution style death. Edgar, checking to see where Kerri is, finds her body in the basement which will prove to be his undoing.

The terrorist tries to make his escape. He kills a guard and takes his radio. Realizing this, Jack and Bill trick the terrorist into thinking the search is moving away from him. Confronting the cornered terrorist, Jack finally gets to use his gun on a bad guy but being out of practice, it takes him two shots to bring him down. When Jack discovers the schematics to CTU’s ventilation system on the terrorist, the gang realizes they better get the heck out of there quick. Too late! The cannister starts spewing, people start dying, and Chloe (who as we all know does not work well under pressure) finally figures out that the safest place to be for all is the conference room.

With colleagues collapsing and dying all around them, the little group that includes Bill, Jack, Chloe, Kimmy and her therapist, and Audrey seal themselves into the conference room. As they all watch in horror, Edgar staggers up from the basement and, with Chloe looking on, dies in front of all of us.

“Farewell and adieu, you sweet Spanish ladies…”

BODY COUNT

Curtis gets the hospital terrorist. Jenny and Boyfriend are executed. Kerri is knifed in the back. One CTU guard is retired. Jack is back in the kill column. Plus, I counted 12 CTU personnel going down including Edgar. That number may change (probably upward) if we get something more definitive.

JACK: 13

SHOW: 79

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS VIOLATED

1. Chloe hacks Henderson’s PC without a warrant.

2. Henderson was not read his rights.

3. He is being tortured (are you kidding?)

4. Jack broke in to the Henderson home illegally.

5. He searches the home without a warrant.

6. He shoots Miriam to get Henderson to talk.

If there are any more, I’d like to see them in the comments.

It’s been a while since I paid any attention to the “catalyst for the anti-war movement,” Cindy Sheehan. This is not because she has dropped below the radar of the mainstream press because she hasn’t. Her recent foray into international politics has guaranteed that her 15 minutes of fame usually vouchsafed by the media will keep being renewed like some horrible sitcom that refuses to die. Her trip to the socialist paradise of Venezuela last month where she played kissy-face with one of the most nauseating leaders on the planet is a case in point.

Hugo Chavez is not only an anti-American Latin lefty thug but also one of the weirdest dictators you’re likely to run into. His weekly four-hour rants are broadcast nationwide. The name of the show “Hello President,” features Chavez reading newspapers and commenting on the issues of the day. One recent show lasted 6 hours. Considering that Americans won’t even watch George Clooney for three hours, it tells you something about this guy’s ego that he actually believes the long-suffering people of Venezuela tune in to watch this comedian do his schtick. At least Cuba’s Fidel Castro has a captive audience during his weekly 3 hour ravings, as the Commandante appears on all broadcast and radio channels at the same time. Chavez has to compete with soccer, Latin music shows, and other more uplifting programs which probably mean that his ratings are as close to zero as can be imagined.

But that didn’t stop our peace mom from appearing with him at something called the “World Social Forum,” an annual gathering of anti-war and anti-globalization activists. During a live “Hello President” insomnia-curing show, Chavez showed why the CIA would be doing the world a huge favor if they deposed this fellow:

Chavez said Sheehan had invited him to join her April protest at Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch. Sheehan, whose 24-year-old soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004, held a vigil outside Bush’s ranch during the president’s vacation in August, attracting some 12,000 peace activists and reinvigorating the national anti-war movement.

“Maybe I’ll put up my tent also,” Chavez said, to applause from an audience invited to his weekly broadcast on the final day of the World Social Forum, an annual gathering of anti-war and anti-globalization activists.

Chavez said his government would help protest the war in Iraq by supporting a drive to gather petitions and delivering them to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. Chavez, who before the war in Iraq had friendly relations with Saddam Hussein, has been a frequent and strident critic of the war.

First, it is important to note that this story was written by the Associated Press, consistently one of Sheehan’s biggest boosters. The use of the figure “12,000″ protesters at Crawford is laughably over-inflated. Sheehan, by order of the local Sheriff, had about 200 people camping out with her at any one time during her 5 week stay in Crawford, Texas. That, plus the fact that no “event” conjured up by her handlers and PR gurus ever drew more than 2-3,000 people puts the lie to that AP figure. There were never anywhere near 12,000 anti-war activists at any one time within 50 miles of the President’s ranch.

It is just one more example of the media’s desire to portray Sheehan as the head of a massive grass roots movement to end the war. There is plenty of dissatisfaction by both the right and the left with the way that things are going in Iraq. But to date, that unease has not translated into the kind of massive protests seen during the Viet Nam War. But that hasn’t seemed to stop the media - and the AP especially from turning Sheehan into some kind of peace goddess. Check out this AP piece that appeared today and tell me if you don’t get the sense that there’s a halo surrounding Sheehan:

Still liable to tear up when talking about her son, she says her issue is right and wrong, not left and right. She points out that she has criticized Democrats, including Feinstein, for their war stance and has no problem supporting Republicans who oppose the war.

She is co-founder of the nonprofit Gold Star Families for Peace, wrote a book “Not One More Mother’s Child,” and is working on another.

She gets help from groups including CODEPINK, a national woman’s peace group, and Veterans for Peace. Her own operation is small - herself, her sister and someone who helps out from time to time answering e-mail.

First of all, CODEPINK is much, much more than just a “woman’s peace group.” It is one of the more radical anti-globalization, anti-war, and pro-Palestinian groups out there. The fact that there are precious few mentions of the stomach-turning anti-semitism spouted by Sheehan should tell you that for far too long, the press has protected Sheehan by leaving out her incredibly viral anti-Semitic and anti-American rants and, instead concentrated on this poor little suburban mom who only wanted to meet with the President to ask him why her son had to die. That the press would have the effrontery to actually think that anyone older than 5 years of age believed that shows how desperate some in the press are to have the fantasies they write about with regard to an anti-war movement come true.

In the end, there simply is no massive wave of unrest over the war. There isn’t even the beginnings of it. What we have are the very same people who opposed the Iraq war in the first place, making the same arguments and tossing about the same blood libels about the Jews, the “neocons,” big oil, and Bush “cronies.” It’s enough to make one sick except we’ve grown so used to it by now that it has simply faded into the background cacophony of media bile spilled over the President and the war.

Sheehan will continue to be trotted out now and again in the hopes that her presence will add “legitimacy” to the anti-war crowd. But until the American people themselves - who are at best ambivalent at the moment about our continuing presence in Iraq - become convinced that the troops should come home and back that up with the kind of outrage we saw 40 years ago, Sheehan will remain a curiosity, an afterthought created by the media and manipulated by radicals who would like nothing better than to see the United States humiliated and their own radical socialist agenda become the law of the land.

In some ways, I sympathize with the media and their efforts to try and cover the confusing twists, turns, ins and outs of the Iraq War. The political situation especially is so muddled that one literally needs a scorecard to tell who the players are.

The insurgency also has so many elements as to almost defy belief. Then there are the shadowy players - the militias - who at times seem to be playing both sides against the middle. Coalition forces have used some of the militias to help with local security while these same militias have carried out sectarian attacks that have contributed mightily to the instability in the country.

What’s a reporter/network/newspaper to do?

They can start by rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty. By that I mean if reporters are to do their jobs it is absolutely essential that they get beyond the body counts and simplistic summaries of which political parties (or insurgent groups) are doing what to whom and start giving context to what is going on in country. In order to carry out that mission, reporters are going to have to start doing a little of their own work and stop relying on stringers and hangers-on for information that turns out to be little better than rumor.

Never has the failings of the American media in Iraq been more obvious than the recent reporting on sectarian violence - strife that continues at fairly high level despite assurances by officials of the American military and Iraqi government that the situation is much better. But the wild, out of control rumor mongering by the western media during the worst of the violence highlighted the pathetically poor job being done by in-country reporters who evidently fell for al Qaeda in Iraq propaganda in a disinformation operation that was as carefully planned by the terrorists as the bombing of the Golden Shrine in Samarra itself.

Yes we should cut them plenty of slack given the horrible security conditions for Americans outside of the fortified Green Zone. A western face that would show itself at a demonstration or any other gathering of Iraqis belongs to a brave individual indeed. But the point I’m trying to make is that there is good reporting from Iraq - reporting that gives depth and understanding to the problems and personalities at play and goes beyond the gory details of terrorist attacks and body counts that make up so much of the “news” that filters down to the average American. The question is why there isn’t a good deal more of it.

Specifically, both the New York Times and Washington Post have had excellent backgrounders on Iraqi militias in the past month (both articles now behind pay archive walls). Both articles played the story fairly straight pointing out that both Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Militia and the much larger and more influential Badr Brigades (which is the armed wing of the major political party in Iraq the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq or SCIRI) have infiltrated the police and the army as well as being virtually independent of any government control. And while they have worked with American forces at times to take out al Qaeda in Iraq cells, these militias remain outside the law for the most part and have been accused (with some evidence) of dispensing a kind of vigilante justice to Sunni Muslims who they believe are part of the insurgency.

Also, CNN recently did a long (7 minute) piece on al-Sadr and his growing influence on the political landscape of Iraq. Sadr has gone from being a thorn in the side of the American military to being a thorn in the side of the government in that his call for an immediate American withdrawal as well as his poorly disguised fealty to Iran flies in the face of the more moderate Shia elements who are trying to form a government with the Kurds and Sunnis.

Then there are the tribal militias who tend to be little better than outlaw gangs. Practicing murder, rape, extortion, and outright thievery, many of these tribal militias carry out revenge killings for money and are considered a big part of the monumental law and order problem in Iraq today. That problem was hugely exacerbated by Saddam Hussein who, in the final days of his regime, flung open the doors of his prisons and let loose an army of common criminals estimated at up to 100,000 murderers, rapists, thieves, and kidnappers. These criminals have formed ill-organized gangs who prey upon Iraqi citizens of all religious stripes and are a security problem on top of the other miseries that the new government must deal with.

StrategyPage:

For the average Iraqi, the biggest complaint is crime. Murder, extortion, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, muggings and carjackings are things that every Iraqi, especially in Baghdad, have to worry about. There are thousands of criminal gangs in Iraq. Some of them are basically enforcers for tribal leadership or the local religious leader. These semi-legitimate gangs get “paid” by whatever they are given, or take, in return for their protective services. This is basically an extortion racket, and the police will often leave these guys alone as long as they don’t get greedy, and more violent.

But the most worrisome gangs are those that kidnap, murder (for hire, or as a side effect of some other crime), rape and barge into, and loot, peoples homes. Many of the violent gangs are very temporary, either because the cops, or local vigilantes catch them, or because members find less stressful, and dangerous, employment.

The most common crime fighting tactic is to put more gunmen on the street, particularly at night. For most of Iraq, the police have brought peace to the streets in daylight. But night is another matter. That’s when more of the criminals are about, and when they are harder to catch. Most police don’t like to operate at night. There are several thousand special police (SWAT and the like) who are trained and equipped to go gangster hunting at night, and some of these are being assigned to that task. But for the moment, the priority is still taking down terrorist gangs.

The ins and outs of the political situation is much easier to report but even here, most reporters simply fall back on tired, shallow analyses that reveal little of the major forces at work to unify the country on one hand and drive the factions apart on the other. For instance, the number one reason that the SCIRI is so dominant is a very simple one; it has been organizing and planning for regime change for nearly 30 years.

The party formed during the 1970’s and organized effectively through their offices in Damascus and Tehran. Then after the fall of Saddam, the SCIRI hit the ground running and were miles ahead of any other political party that had to start almost from scratch, although Ayad Allawi’s secular Iraqi National Accord party had been around since the early 1990’s. The fact is, while there were political organizations involving all the factions, the kind of nuts and bolts organizing done by SCIRI was far beyond the scope of any Kurdish or Sunni group. It goes without saying that this kind of advantage translated into success for the SCIRI at the polls.

Then there is the political tug of war within the umbrella group of Shia parties that is presently trying to form a coalition to run the government. Some Shia factions wish to cut out the Sunnis and Kurds entirely while others wish to include them. The situation is further muddied by the machinations of smaller Shia parties that are jostling for cabinet posts and other means of influence. And there are the Kurds and Sunnis with their own factions, particularly the Sunnis whose umbrella group includes those who are fighting the Americans and the government itself as well as more moderate Sunnis like Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer who served as interim President following the handover of sovereignty in June, 2004 and currently serves as one of three Vice Presidents.

Clearly, much of this information would be of little interest to the average reader. But that is no excuse for the kind of cynical, lazy, and incomplete reporting done by people whose job is to see that Americans are informed about what is going on in a place where their sons and daughters are helping to rebuild a country at great personal danger and sacrifice to themselves.

As Americans, we should demand that they do a better job.

This is disappointing but not unexpected:

All British and United States troops serving in Iraq will be withdrawn within a year in an effort to bring peace and stability to the country.

The news came as defence chiefs admitted privately that the British troop commitment in Afghanistan may last for up to 10 years.

The planned pull-out from Iraq follows the acceptance by London and Washington that the presence of the coalition, mainly composed of British and US troops, is now seen as the main obstacle to peace.

According to a senior defence source directly involved in planning the withdrawal, Britain is the driving force behind the scheme. The early spring of next year has been identified as the optimum time for the start of the complex and dangerous operation.

The italicized portion of that excerpt is not in quotes which indicates a bit of editorializing by the Telegraph. The only people in the American government who are making that claim are the leakers in the intelligence establishment who have been at war with the Bush Administration since before the liberation of Iraq. Even the recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate from 2003 on Iraq did not claim that the insurgency would be “driven by the occupation” but rather by sectarian and other factors unleashed by the downfall of Saddam.

The idea that Britain is the “driving force” behind this plan is a smokescreen. If true, the idea to float this trial balloon originated in Washington. I just can’t believe that the Brits would even talk to anyone in the press about this without clearing it with the Bush Administration. Junior coalition partners do no drive policy.

The real question we should be asking is has the situation on the ground materially changed in the past few weeks to justify the sudden and complete pullout of coalition forces?

The answer to that depends on who you talk to. American commanders have given the Iraqi security forces middling to high marks for the way they handled the sectarian violence following the destruction of the Shrine in Samarra. Would the 325,000 Iraqis - the projected force structure by the end of this year - be able to manage security for the country without the help of coalition forces by next spring? That seems an open question at the moment. And anyone who thinks they can project the course of political events in Iraq over the next year which would impact the answer to that question dramatically, please give me a call and handle my stock portfolio; someone so good at prognosticating an unknowable future would make me a millionaire in a couple of months.

Also, the idea that we would precipitously withdraw all of our forces willy nilly is a left wing fantasy. As much as liberals would like to re-live their greatest triumph of watching America humiliated a la the last helicopter lifting off the roof of our embassy in Saigon, it ain’t going to happen. There is going to be a residual American presence of perhaps 25,000 men - a tripwire force - to prevent Iran and Syria from getting any grandiose ideas about taking advantage of Iraq’s weakness vis a vis any outside threat. And drawing down to that number will probably be graduated process - unless Democrats seize control of Congress in November in which case look for a repeat of the Democratic Congressional “triumph” of the class of ‘74 (generally considered the most liberal Congress in recent memory) in yanking funding for the war.

And that brings us to the real reason for this trial balloon; the growing prospect that the Democrats will indeed take control of at least the Senate and perhaps the House as well in the upcoming midterm elections. As remote as that prospect seemed as recently as 3 months ago, the fact is that the numbers have been trending Democratic since early last summer. It has not reached the point yet that the big gun prognosticators have upped the number of at risk Republican House seats significantly, but that could change if a rush of Republican retirements - as reported here - come to pass:

“If you look at past experience, it would suggest that you tend not to get a last-minute rush” of retirements, said Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “But I don’t know if that’s going to be the case this time. I think that actually the scandals, the problems, the headaches may cause a number of people two or three months from now to decide that maybe it’s time for a change, maybe they need to spend more time with their families. … I think we could see up to 40.”

Forty open seats with Republicans probably defending the overwhelming majority of them could - could - spell disaster for the party in November.

For the moment (and as long as the redistricting plan in Texas remains in effect) the Republicans would appear to have the strength to be able to hang on to their House majority by the slimmest of margins. But if Texas is forced to alter its district lines, all bets would be off. From a nuts and bolts point of view, losing 4 or 5 seats in any Texas redistricting challenge could tip the balance in favor of the Democrats nationally.

This scenario doesn’t take into account an energized Democratic party and a depressed Republican one. Even in so-called “safe” GOP seats (margin of victory in 2002 at +55%) it doesn’t take a soothsayer to tell you that a switch of as little as 7-8 thousand votes in a few districts that are now considered “safe” could spell the difference in who controls the House in January, 2007.

And that, dear readers, would mean that George W. Bush would face at the very least impeachment proceedings in the Judiciary Committee. A Democratic Congress would have Representative John Conyers as Chairman of that Committee and the frothing-at-the-mouth conspiracy nut already has an impeachment report all written up and ready to present to the Committee. It will probably be the first order of business for that Committee come January.

Which brings us back to Iraq and this trial balloon. There is little doubt that Iraq is currently a drag on GOP electoral fortunes. If the numbers keep getting worse, Bush may feel that he has no choice but to withdraw in order to prevent the catastrophe of having to fight off an impeachment inquiry. And at the moment, there is nothing that energizes the Democratic base more than the delicious prospect of humiliating George Bush and the Republicans by holding impeachment hearings that would destroy the Bush presidency.

There is another, less likely factor driving this trial balloon; the belief that Iran will become such a problem over the next year that we would have little choice but to initiate some kind of large scale military action against the mullahs. If so, re-deploying our forces to facilitate such an attack would make sense. It is extremely doubtful the new Iraqi government would allow any such attack on Iran given their inability to fight off an external threat from such a large army so any military action against the mullahs would have to be launched from somewhere else.

The problem with this scenario is that it is unclear whether any large scale raid to take out Iranian nuclear capability could solve the twin problems of overthrowing the mullahs and destroying the Iranian nuclear program. Only a massive invasion involving hundreds of thousands of troops could accomplish both those goals Thus, it is not likely that any military action involving a significant number of American ground troops is probably in the cards.

I have little doubt that this is a serious proposal and that the Administration will be carefully looking at both reaction from the public and Congressional Republicans to see if such an action would be efficacious in the present circumstances. What worries me is that many Republicans would see such a proposal as a life preserver and grab onto it in hopes that it might save their political hides in November.

Before signing on, I would suggest they and the rest of us wait to hear from our military commanders on the ground in Iraq. From what they’ve said recently, there would be little justification for such a pullout. But given the bleak political realities facing the Administration, they may have little choice but to go along with such a proposal which, in my humble opinion, would betray the sacrifice of the men and women who have fought so long and hard in Iraq as well as the sacrifice of their families.

UPDATE

The US military command in Iraq is specifically denying these reports:

Meanwhile, the U.S. military in Iraq said on Sunday media reports that America and Britain planned to pull all troops out of Iraq by spring 2007 were “completely false,” reiterating that there was no timetable for withdrawal.

Two British newspapers reported on Sunday that the pull-out plan followed an acceptance by the two governments that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq was now an obstacle to securing peace.

But a spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq reiterated previous statements by U.S. and Iraqi officials that foreign troops would be gradually withdrawn from the country once Iraqi security forces were capable of guaranteeing security.

“This news report on a withdrawal of forces within a set timeframe is completely false,” Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said of the stories in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Mirror, which quoted unnamed senior defense ministry sources.

(HT: The Next Hurrah)

This is perfectly in keeping with a trial balloon. The military can safely deny such a report.

But watch the first comments on this report from a senior Administration official - Rumsfeld, Hadley, or Rice. Unless there is a categorical denial, this story will get legs over the next few days.

My post last Monday that dealt with exaggerated reporting by the MSM of the Iraq “civil war” turned out to be rather prescient if I do say so myself.

Yesterday, General George Casey, America’s top military commander in Iraq, gave a detailed analysis of what went on during the admittedly serious but hysterically over dramatized violence following the destruction of the golden dome on the Shia shrine in Samarra and came to the conclusion that both in numbers of incidents and severity of the violence, the MSM failed miserably in reporting accurately what was going on:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq yesterday declared an end to a 10-day wave of sectarian violence that killed an estimated 350 civilians, asserting that many reports of violence were “exaggerated.”

“It appears that the crisis has passed,” said Army Gen. George Casey, giving a detailed public report card. “But we all should be clear that Iraqis remain under threat of terrorist attacks by those who will stop at nothing to undermine the formation of this constitutionally elected government. … They tried to have this [be] the straw that broke the camel’s back, and it failed.”

(HT: Powerline)

As I wrote on Monday (my information coming from about a dozen Iraqi bloggers that any reporter could have read if they took the time), Al Qaeda in Iraq made it part of their strategy to have propaganda cadres fan out and spread false stories and rumors about the violence that our MSM, eager to finally have their three year old predictions of civil war in Iraq come true, fell for hook, line, and sinker: Here’s what I wrote about the media’s predictions about civil war on Monday:

The Iraq “civil war” theme almost immediately became media short hand for the failures of the Bush Administration. It has since become a yardstick to measure the incompetence of the authorities to deal with the daunting set of problems facing the country in the aftermath of the war and in trying to build a strong government based on democratic values. But has the expectation of civil war led to reporters in Iraq swallowing disinformation from al Qaeda cells about horrendous death and destruction across the country that simply doesn’t exist?

General Casey:

He also said the number of violent incidents turned out to be lower than press and security forces reported in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of the revered Shi’ite Askariya mosque in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Gen. Casey said that in a reported 30 attacks on mosques, only two were severely damaged. Of eight mosques that were reported damaged, inspections showed only one had damage — a broken window.

“The overall levels of violence did not increase substantially as a result of the bombing,” he said in a statement that seems at odds with the 10 days of television footage and commentary. “It took us a few days to sort our way through what we considered in a lot of cases to be exaggerated reports.”

John Hinderaker points out that this kind of biased reporting is impossible to counter:

Initial reports of deaths in violence that followed the mosque bombing turned out to be inflated by a factor of four. In this and other respects, reporting on sectarian violence in Iraq resembles the reporting on Hurricane Katrina. No doubt many in the press and on the left are disappointed that al Qaeda’s effort to provoke civil war in Iraq has failed. But, once again, misleading headlines do damage that subsequent corrections can’t repair.

By most credible reports - both from Iraq and the Pentagon - most of the the violence done by sectarian mobs was either non-existent or blown out of proportion. Par for the course when examining how the MSM continues to misinform the public about what is really going on in Iraq and how the Iraqi people are struggling to overcome the numerous problems associated with re-building a nation from scratch.