Right Wing Nut House

Question: Who would have the clout in the Clinton Administration to squelch an intelligence report that the military wanted to pass on to the FBI?

That’s got to be a pretty short list. First, it would have to be someone with the required security clearance. And second, it would have to be some kind of gatekeeper, someone who would liaise between both the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice.

Such an individual would almost have to work for the White House. Several bloggers are pointing to Jamie Gorelick as a possible culprit but I don’t think she would have had the authority to act on her own in such a sensitive matter. Her name may be on a memo somewhere but an interesting question is would the Justice Department have had the authority to act unilaterally in a matter of national security like this? I think not which brings us back to the White House and the possible involvement of Sandy Berger in preventing this intel from reaching the FBI.

Using timelines developed by AJ at The Strata-Sphere and Dr. Sanity two things jump out at you.

The first is the time that Berger was in the National Archives stealing documents compared to when staff members for the 9/11 Commission were interviewing Congressman Weldon’s source for Able Danger. Berger is accused of stealing the documents “during two visits to the National Archives in September and October 2003.” The 9/11 staff people visited the Afghan-Pakistan border in October of 2003 to interview the Able Danger team member.

Coincidence? Or Connection?

It would depend on what Berger knew about the Committee’s plans. Would Berger have known that they were going to interview the Able Danger team member? If so, who would have tipped him off? It would have to have been a partisan who was privy to the comings and goings of the investigative staff, many of whom were current and former Justice Department attorneys.

Curiouser and curiouser, no?

Try this on for size. Commission member Jamie Gorelick worked in the same high-powered Democratic party law firm as 9/11 Commission Staff General Counsel Daniel Marcus. The firm includes such luminaries as Lloyd Cutler, known as “the ultimate Washington power broker” who passed away in May. Gorelick joined the firm in 1997 while Marcus left in 1998. If Berger was tipped off by someone with specific knowledge of both the Able Danger operation and Commission staff travel plans to interview one of the AD team members, it would make sense for this someone to have had access to documents so that all traces that the Clinton administration knew of the operation’s warning but didn’t tell the FBI could be removed.

That someone could have been Berger himself.

Perhaps its time to reopen one of the really nagging questions surrounding the formation of the 9/11 Commission itself; why was Jamie Gorelick the only member of the Commission from either the former or current administration who had an axe to grind? In a March 5, 1995 memo to the FBI Director Louis Freeh, Gorelick reminded the director of the “wall” between foreign intelligence gathered and the FBI investigation into the first World Trade Center attack:

In the memo, Ms. Gorelick ordered Mr. Freeh and Ms. White to follow information-sharing procedures that “go beyond what is legally required,” in order to avoid “any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance” that the Justice Department was using Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants, instead of ordinary criminal investigative procedures, in an effort to undermine the civil liberties of terrorism suspects.

Could one of the reasons Gorelick was placed on the Commission be that she would have been perfectly positioned to give a heads up to some of her friends in the Clinton Administration when troubling questions were coming up? Remember the context here. This was an election year. It was one of the major Democratic themes that 9/11 happened because the Bush Administration ignored warnings given by their predecessors. It would certainly be inconvenient if it came out that the Clinton White House had known of Mohammed Atta almost a year before the attacks.

The other curious thing that jumps out at you when looking at the timeline was that the second meeting with the Able Danger team member took place on July 12, 2004. Berger resigned from the Kerry campaign on July 21 after the document story came out. The Commission released its Final Report the very next day. Can’t say for sure if it means anything. After all, the FBI had been investigating Berger since February. It’s just curious that the information about the investigation would have come out when it did. It was remarked at the time that a probable culprit for leaking the Berger investigation was the Bush Administration trying to distract attention from the release of the 9/11 Commission report due the next day. That makes sense. But how about a little different take.

However, let me ask this — when would people prefer to have the information that the 9/11 Commission was denied access to highly classified material relating to the Clinton Administration’s response to terrorism — after the report came out, or before? For that matter, when would the commission itself prefer to find this out? I’d say it’s better to have this information in the public eye now, especially since the commission made such a show about public testimony, including that of Sandy Berger. If they publish a report based on incomplete evidence, I want to have that information in hand before assessing its credibility.

In this scenario, the Commission itself (who had been informed of the Berger matter) leaked news of the investigation to bolster its credibility. Possible, but let’s try a “wag the dog” scenario.

Suppose you had a PR problem with a former Clinton national security official who was being mentioned as the probable next Secretary of State in a Kerry Administration. You know that once the investigation comes to light that this officials dream of heading up the State Department is finished. But in order to minimize PR damage, you leak news of the investigation into this official’s conduct the day before some other news is absolutely going to swamp it; say, the release of a much anticipated bi-partisan report on the 9/11 attacks?

Just thinking out loud…

“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” (Sir Walter Scott)

It appears that the “non-partisan” 9/11 Commission has some explaining to do. For the last 48 hours, they’ve tried to deny knowledge of the fact that a secret military intelligence unit known as Able Danger, had information on a terrorist cell headed up by 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. The unit, that pieced together the information using data mining techniques, subsequently tried to share the information on Atta with the FBI only to be rebuffed by the Justice Department due to the artificial “wall” put in place by the Clinton White House between the CIA and FBI.

At first, the Commission denied they had been briefed on the matter. But as this New York Times article makes clear, that’s not entirely accurate:

The Sept. 11 commission was warned by a uniformed military officer 10 days before issuing its final report that the account would be incomplete without reference to what he described as a secret military operation that by the summer of 2000 had identified as a potential threat the member of Al Qaeda who would lead the attacks more than a year later, commission officials said on Wednesday.

The officials said that the information had not been included in the report because aspects of the officer’s account had sounded inconsistent with what the commission knew about that Qaeda member, Mohamed Atta, the plot’s leader.

But aides to the Republican congressman who has sought to call attention to the military unit that conducted the secret operation said such a conclusion relied too much on specific dates involving Mr. Atta’s travels and not nearly enough on the operation’s broader determination that he was a threat.

The briefing by the military officer is the second known instance in which people on the commission’s staff were told by members of the military team about the secret program, called Able Danger.

The meeting, on July 12, 2004, has not been previously disclosed. That it occurred, and that the officer identified Mr. Atta there, were acknowledged by officials of the commission after the congressman, Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, provided information about it.

The Captain sums up the significance of the Commission’s apparent cover-up of the briefing:

Why didn’t the Commission press harder for military intelligence, and if the Times’ source has told the truth, why did they ignore the Able Danger operation in their deliberations? It would emphasize that the problem was not primarily operational, as the Commission made it seem, but primarily political — and that the biggest problem was the enforced separation between law enforcement and intelligence operations upon which the Clinton Department of Justice insisted. The hatchet person for that policy sat on the Commission itself: Jamie S. Gorelick.

Again, this begs the question of what else the Commission ignored, especially in terms of military and civilian intelligence, in order to reach its conclusions. It also undermines their recommendations to create two new levels of bureaucracy for the intelligence services. Instead, if the Able Danger development pans out, it means that the best fix is the Patriot Act and a reduction in bureaucratic drag on intelligence, not an increase in it. Congress needs to start from scratch and completely re investigate 9/11, this time outside the heat of a partisan presidential election cycle.

First, it may be interesting to examine why so many were skeptical when this story first came out. Reason number one is Congressman Curt Weldon himself.

Weldon wrote a book that was published a few months ago in which he claimed the CIA was ignoring a growing nuclear threat from Iran. He also claims that Iran “is hiding Osama bin Laden, is preparing terrorist attacks against the United States, has a crash program to build an atomic bomb and, as a Shiite country, is the chief sponsor of what is a largely Sunni-directed insurgency in Iraq.”

Weldon used what the CIA has termed “fabricators” as sources for information in the book. He is also known for stunts such as carrying around what he laughably claimed was a replica of a suitcase nuclear bomb. Weapons specialists have debunked the claim that a nuclear weapon could be carried around in a suitcase although small devices such as nuclear artillery shells could probably be rigged to fit inside a good sized steamer trunk.

So Weldon’s credibility was pretty low to begin with. And then when the first denials from the Commission regarding Able Danger came in, the thinking was that Weldon had screwed the pooch again.

Apparently, not this time:

In a letter sent Wednesday to members of the commission, Mr. Weldon criticized the panel in scathing terms, saying that its “refusal to investigate Able Danger after being notified of its existence, and its recent efforts to feign ignorance of the project while blaming others for supposedly withholding information on it, brings shame on the commissioners, and is evocative of the worst tendencies in the federal government that the commission worked to expose.”

Those “worst tendencies” are as old as government itself - the perceived necessity to cover up mistakes. It would have been so much easier if the Commission staff members, instead of denying contact with the member of Able Danger who was Mr. Weldon’s source for the information on the data mining project at the Pentagon, had just told the truth and said that yes, we met with the gentleman and he briefed us on what his unit had come up with regarding Mr. Atta but at the time, we didn’t think it was important enough to include in the final report.

Instead, now they look like they’re really hiding something that may or may not be important enough to affect the Commission’s final conclusions. Because even if domestic law enforcement had known of Mr. Atta and his cell, given the pre-9/11 mindset of the FBI, it’s doubtful whether it would have made a whit of difference.

John P. O’Neill was the FBI’s Counterterrorism Chief until his resignation in the summer of 2001. For several years prior to that, O’Neill had tried without success to get the FBI off the mark and make a concerted effort to counter what he rightly saw as a build up of terrorist assets here in the United States. FBI Chief Louis Freeh would have none of it. And O’Neill himself, by all accounts a flamboyant and somewhat abrasive man, didn’t help his case any by criticizing superiors for their lack of action. Despite his correct interpretation of al Qaeda’s goal of striking the United States, the pre-9/11 FBI was institutionally incapable of doing anything about it. This, along with the artificial “wall” put up by civil libertarians in the Clinton Justice Department, was cited as the main reasons why the 9/11 plot succeeded.

Could one more warning from one more source made a difference in preventing 9/11? Perhaps. But given the dysfunction of our intelligence agencies prior to that horrible day, I find the idea less than compelling that anything would have changed.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin is tracking the blogswarm and has her usual great link roundup. See especially The Anchoress regarding a possible Sandy Berger connection. Was Able Danger the reason Berger purloined the documents at the National Archives? Also AJ at The Strata-Sphere (who posted on this speculation two days ago) has a neat timeline.

Now wouldn’t that take the cake? Sandy Berger covering up for his old boss to shift blame to the current Administration in an election year? Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Also, Tom Maguire takes time out from the Plame-Wilson-Rove controversey and posts some excellent thoughts somewhat along the line that I took:

As to how significant an error this was - obviously, after the fact Mohammed Atta was very important. Although I assume Able Danger did not offer any specific projections about hijacking planes, if Atta had been put under closer surveillance, the 9/11 plot might have been disrupted. Still, a point to ponder - was Atta noted by Able Danger as a key Al Qaeda figure even in 2001, or was he just one name among fifty, or five hundred?

In a further update, Ed Morrisey links to his Daily Standard column in which he details the strange case of Mohammed Afroze and his plots to carry out terrorist attacks in India and Australia in conjunction with the 9/11 attacks. Afroze was convicted in an Indian Court - a fact that seems not to have made the cut when the MSM was doling out news about al Qaeda terrorists.

UPDATE II

Take a whiff. Do you smell what I smell? I smell a blog feeding frenzy about this story. And it’s just getting started.

Beth at MVRWC:

It looks to me so far that this is in no way some bullshit Valerie Plame story, though; and even so, the significance of 9/11 makes the Plame Game look positively LAUGHABLE. No freaking way am I going to go blind looking at their meltdown at the DUh or Kos, though. I saw enough with a quick Technorati search.

I’d have to agree. The Plame Game looks like it’s stalled anyway. Also, Beth links to a post by the smartest Doctor around Dr. Sanity who has more on the possible Berger connection. Now THAT would be a story for the new millenium!

I want a new drug
One that won’t make me sick
One that won’t make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick

I want a new drug
One that won’t hurt my head
One that won’t make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red
(Huey Lewis and the News)

God I miss getting high.

And drunk. And stoned. And wired. And Buzzed.

I miss getting wired and playing quarter poker for 36 hours straight.

I miss getting stoned at 8:00 AM on Sunday morning and watching cartoons.

I miss getting high and watching hockey on TV.

I miss doing a few lines and walking into a bar feeling like I was goddamn Richard Gere, Tom Cruise, and Superman all rolled into one.

I’ve done ‘em all. Anything I could swallow, smoke, snort, eat, or wear.

And there’s no way I’d still be doing them because if I kept doing what I was doing, I’d be the very first pajamahadeen live blogging the afterlife. (Might do wonders for my ecosystem rankings).

What brought this on was a pretty wild rant by Jeff Harrell at Shape of Days who was responding to a laughably naive NY Times Op-Ed by John Tierney on how interesting it would be to legalize drugs. And fun. And how much better off we’d be because the war on drugs isn’t working besides most drugs aren’t that bad for you they just seem that way and even if they are bad for you what the hell business of it is the government’s and just think we could go after all the murderers and rapists if they weren’t too busy busting teenagers for having a roach in the ashtray and yadayadayada…

In an over the top reaction, Bill Ardolino takes a few pounds of flesh off of Mr. Harrell:

What extra-special brand of scribal Tourette’s is required to author a screed like this?

I may have to go back on my declaration that the lefties exclusively dominate the blogosphere’s nasty discourse, as avowed righty Harrell’s piece - in both its rhetorical style and illogical, absolutist, moonbat reasoning - is one of the most oddly harsh things I’ve read in quite some time.

The Tourette crack was uncalled for. Ardolino was correct in pointing out it was absolutist, illogical and nasty. But I think even Bill would recognize in that searing rant an emotionalism so irrational that Mr. Harrell would have been better off if he had not hit the “publish” button so soon. I know I’ve done something similar in the past. Thank God it passed under the blogosphere radar at the time. Jeff wasn’t as lucky.

As for Tierney’s column, it could have been worse. He could have said something really stupid like marijuana isn’t bad for you.

As someone clinically diagnosed as addicted to marijuana (Cannabis Dependent Syndrome or CDS) , I beg to differ. Anyone who says that marijuana isn’t a dangerous drug doesn’t know jack about it. It’s only been the last 25 years that serious scientific work has been done on marijuana and what they’re finding shows that people who say marijuana is harmless are idiots. The value of these studies is that they’ve disproved much of the early research that showed marijuana was as addictive as heroin, or caused irreversible brain damage, as well as studies that showed it to be harmless to the cognitive centers of the brain and completely non-addictive.

Marijuana can be a contributing factor to clinical depression, schizophrenia, and over production of serotonin, a brain chemical that regulates mood. Addiction can cause anxiety attacks, withdrawal symptoms, and loss of long term memory. To sum up, given the short and long term effects observed in the laboratory, heavy use of marijuana is about as bad as heavy use of alcohol, or amphetamines, or just about any other drug.

I describe the effects of marijuana because this is the drug that most of my libertarian friends throw in my face when talking about decriminalizing drug use. And while there may be some merit to the idea, as usual the libertarians are walking in the clouds while the rest of us have to exist here on planet earth.

Decriminalization would not rid us of the scourge of gang warfare over lucrative drug turf nor will it eliminate meth labs. It won’t stop the narco terrorists from funding Bin Laden or the Shining Path. And it won’t necessarily empty out the jails or unclog the courts because law enforcement will be free to go after anyone and everyone who deals the stuff.

All would be true unless you just want to go ahead and legalize the whole shebang. This would be absolutely fascinating to watch someone try and put into practice in the real world. In fact, it would be of such entertainment value that I would start a new humor blog just to write about the effort.

Because legalization would bring government into the previously illegal drug industry with both feet. And that’s something I would pay to watch.

Can you see the Feds negotiating with Peruvian drug lords for the best price on this year’s coca harvest? Or Afghan warlords for access to their poppy fields? Of course, there are limited supplies of both drugs grown for medicinal purposes but the expansion of fields and factories dedicated to satisfying market demand would be far bey0nd our present capability to meet. We’d have to deal with the thugs.

And the bidding war among the suits at Smith-Kline, Pfizer, Lilly, Baxter, and a whole host of pharmaceutical companies would be great theater.

It will never happen, of course. Most people have more sense than your average libertarian. Where the RINO’s are correct is in their critique of what the war on drugs has done to civil liberties and the madness in our criminal justice system. For that, the solution may in fact involve some form of decriminalization. Hell, if Bill Buckley can come out for decriminalization, how bad can it be?

The real problem with drug addiction is how to cure it. Currently, only some variation of the 12-step program initially used with alcoholics has proven even partially effective. There are some promising drugs in testing as I write this but even such a “magic bullet” does not address the underlying psychological issues that lead to addiction in the first place. Recidivism rates are astronomical for cocaine and heroin - approaching 95% after two years. That means that 95% of patients going through a treatment program will be using the drug 2 years later.

And part of that is a statistical problem. About 60% of the people receiving in-patient treatment aren’t there because they want to be, they’re in treatment because they had a choice to make between going into a hospital or going to jail. Crimes as various as domestic violence to attempted murder are taken off the court dockets by shuffling the perp off to a drug treatment center for a month. The only thing the perp is interested in is doing his time at the center, playing nice and trying to fool the counselors. I know because I’ve seen it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

This leaves no empty beds for the people who really do want to quit, who are personally motivated to get the monkey off their back. People who have hit bottom are ready to turn their lives around. If there are no beds available, the chances are next to nothing that the addict will succeed on their own.

The answer here is obvious; stop court ordered drug treatment. A much better place for an addict to quit is in jail - as long as we spend gobs of money on facilities that are combination treatment centers and prisons. As it stands now, drug treatment in prison is a national disgrace. Prison treatment centers are for the most part ineffective because they don’t segregate the patient from the general population. And clinical progress is not tied to the length of a prisoners sentence, a motivational aspect of prison drug treatment most professional advocate.

Then there’s the personal liberty issue. Here’s a good summation of the libertarian position:

Let me tell you where I stand. Drugs are bad, mmmkay. The biggest problem with drugs are not their long-term effects, but their near term effects. That is, people do things under the influence of drugs that they normally wouldn’t do. I have a problem with that.

But, just because drugs are bad does not mean that they should be illegal. Stupid things that harm others ought to be illegal, not stupid things that harm yourself. And if the worst bads associated with drugs are when you do stupid things to others, then, well, we already have laws to cover those.

DUI, child abuse, etc.–all presently illegal, and rightly so.

The most common bads associated with drug use are not illegal nor should they be. Work absenteeism, poor relationship skills, and the most common one–stupid judgement in sexual relations–are all rightfully legal.

It’s an emotionally satisfying argument albeit one shot full of ethical loopholes and intellectual solipsism. The potential for harm to another human being as a result of drug abuse and addiction is not addressed satisfactorily. By saying that killing someone under the influence of crack cocaine is already covered under the criminal justice system - the extreme of what Dr. Shackleford is saying - and then say that society has no business taking the cocaine away from the murderer or keeping him from getting the drug in the first place is wrong.

Yes people who take drugs are only hurting themselves physically. But when they take a few other people down to the sewer with them - people who are completely innocent and wouldn’t ordinarily take the same fall as the druggie - then we have a problem. I can’t believe Dr. Shakleford and other libertarians are simply throwing up their hands and saying “tough luck” to those who find themselves in a situation where they’re dependent on an addict. That’s why I think there is a role for government in both interdiction and enforcement. A reduced role, yes. One cognizant of civil liberties yes. But a role nonetheless.

I tend to favor a more local solution. If someone is going to harm themselves by taking drugs, clearly we must get innocent bystanders out of the way. The problems associated with government taking away children from crack-addled parents are too numerous to go into here. Suffice it to say that the system is so broke that any additional stress could cause it to collapse altogether. The only way to fix it is to spend massive amounts of tax dollars as Children and Family Service Departments are woefully underfunded and understaffed nationwide. In a city like Chicago, it’s a disgrace.

Speaking from personal experience, taking drugs feels too good to stop for no reason. This is why we’re never going to “solve” the drug problem in any meaningful way. Decriminalizing drugs is not the answer. In fact, in my opinion it would be worse than what we have now because it simply doesn’t address the ancillary problems that drug addiction causes. It merely gives us the illusion that something is being done. From a civil libertarian standpoint, I buy the argument on a psychic level. But it’s a pointless intellectual exercise when children are starving to death because their mother spends money to feed her drug habit rather than her children.

I agree with Ann Althouse on this one: Is this for real?

IN THE presidential campaign, a new threshold in church-state relations was crossed when Catholic bishops threatened to exclude Senator John Kerry from the Eucharist because of his support for Roe v. Wade. The Senate Judiciary Committee is now fully justified in asking these bishops whether the same threats would apply to Supreme Court nominee Judge Roberts, if he were to vote to uphold Roe v. Wade.

The bishops have made this question legitimate because Americans no longer know whether a Catholic judge can hear abortion cases without an automatic conflict of interest.

Asking the bishops to testify would be healthy. If they rescinded the threats made against Kerry, then Roberts would feel free to make his decision without the appearance of a conflict of interest, and Catholic politicians who support Roe v. Wade would gain renewed confidence in their advocacy. If the bishops repeated or confirmed their threats, the Senate Judiciary Committee should draft legislation calling for the automatic recusal of Catholic judges from cases citing Roe v. Wade as a precedent.

That’s right. The author of the article Christopher Morris is advocating a law be passed to automatically mandate the recusal of a judge based solely on his religious beliefs.

Actually, this opens up some marvelous opportunities for legislative mischief aimed at miscreant judges. Imagine being able to bar minority judges from ruling on civil rights cases. Or white judges from ruling on reverse discrimination cases. Or women judges from ruling on gender equality cases. Or Quaker judges from ruling on death penalty cases.

While we’re at it, why don’t we make Catholic judges sew a great big red “C” on their cloak and make them clean the Supreme Court bathrooms?

A little too much hyperbole for you this early in the morning? Try not to choke on your danish when reading this:

One would think Catholic judges would want such a measure in place as a means of honoring their own convictions. That this proposal will no doubt be controversial should not be a reason for failing to pursue it: Political advocacy by religious organizations is on the rise and will only become stronger. If the subject is ducked this time by the Senate Judiciary Committee, it will only come up later in a more aggravated form.

It’s time to have this dialog. Without it, the decisions of our highest court, already tainted by the Bush-Gore election, will increasingly be perceived as self-serving, political, and illegitimate.

I like Dale Frank’s take on this:

Why, you know I hadn’t thought about that before. But, while we’re on the subject, maybe Jews could be forced to wear yellow stars, so they can more easily identify their fellow co-religionists in public. I mean, you know, they’d feel so much more secure if they could look around in a crowd and see a fellow landsmann, wouldn’t they?

Please note that all decisions of the Court have been “tainted” for their defiance of the Democratic party in upholding state election law in Florida which was passed by state legislators who were voted in by the people of the State of Florida. It’s amazing that to this day, liberal partisans like Mr. Morris are still grumpy over the fact that the Supreme Court refused to nullify state law and dictate to the state of Florida how the people’s representatives should conduct the business of elections.

But, hey! Why let a little thing like, you know, the law stand in the way when there are Christians to be publicly gored:

In theory, the same Holy Spirit that made evangelicals born again could also move them to change a social or political view at any time. (In drafting mandatory recusal legislation, senators should probe the foundations of these beliefs and persuade themselves that evangelicals retained a meaningful, not just a technical, choice.) Inquiry into Judaism, Islam, and other religions should also focus on whether any of them make threats against members who hold particular views about abortion.

In other words, in order to see if our Christian judge “retained a meaningful, not just technical choice” in their ability to change their minds about Roe V Wade, we should delve deeply into their religious convictions by asking them all sorts of personal questions not related to their ability to carry out their duties as impartial jurists.

Mr. Morris is not a serious man. He is instead, in need of attention. I recommend his mommy come to his home in Vermont and deliver a few well aimed whaps to his backside and give him the love and consideration he so obviously missed out on as a child.

If it’s attention he seeks, Mr. Morris has got it. And perhaps a little history lesson is in order for Mr. Morris and anyone else who seeks to revive religious litmus tests for any issue and for any public servant whose personal beliefs may conflict with the law.

The anti-Catholic bigotry that roiled this country’s politics for more than 300 years reached a zenith of sorts in the election of 1928 which saw Democrat Al Smith, a Catholic, face off against Herbert Hoover. The nauseating display of ant-Catholic bigotry which directly led to Smith’s defeat convinced both parties that nominating a Catholic for high office was the kiss of death.

This all changed in the election of 1960. Historians have long pondered the reason for the dissipation of anti-Catholic sentiment in the electorate that finally allowed for a Catholic to be elected President. At first, as historian Thomas Carty points out, there was even a high level of anti-Catholic bigotry among liberals:

Author James A. Michener recalled feeling quite startled when guests at publisher Bennett Cerf’s early 1960 dinner party challenged John F. Kennedy’s presidential candidacy on religious grounds. In an educated, professional crowd, Michener encountered “American liberals [who] … had the most serious and deep-seated fears of a Catholic in the Presidency.” One individual called the Vatican “dictatorial, savage[,] … reactionary … [and] brutal in its lust for power.” Others feared that clerical pressures would determine Kennedy’s political decisions. One colleague declared that “Irish priests” would manipulate a Catholic president “as if he were their toy.” A Catholic at Michener’s table characterized her church as antidemocratic and incompatible with church-state separation and religious liberty. According to Michener, these individuals claimed to know many other ideological liberals who mistrusted Catholic presidential candidates.

Kennedy had to prove to Kingmakers - even Catholic ones like Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago - that his Catholicism would not be a liability in a general election. The first test of his viability was in the West Virginia primary where his main rival, Hubert Humphrey, tried to play the old “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion” card with elliptical references to Kennedy’s faith.

Kennedy fought back with both political savvy and a few dirty tricks of his own, trying to tar Humphrey as a draft dodger during WW II (he served variously as state director of war production training and reemployment and State chief of Minnesota war service program in 1942 and assistant director of the War Manpower Commission in 1943) while addressing the issue of his Catholicism head on.

In what author Theodor H. White pointed to as a public appearance almost as important as JFK’s speech at the Ministerial Association of Greater Houston, Kennedy was asked point blank at a press conference about his religion. Rather than remain silent on the issue as he had in Wisconsin two weeks before, Kennedy framed the issue as one of fairness. He said “I do not believe that forty million Americans should lose the right to run for president on the day they were baptized.” In short, Kennedy challenged voters to prove they were not bigots by voting for him. It was a brilliant political stroke and Kennedy’s subsequent win effectively ended Humphrey’s challenge.

Later that fall in Houston, Kennedy buried the issue before one of the most conservative Protestant organizations in the country, the aforementioned Ministers group. In one of the more memorable lines, Kennedy once again, gives people a reason not to use anti-Catholicism as a reason to vote against him:

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish — where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source — where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials — and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

On election day, the American people made a conscious choice to elect a Catholic President not because of his religion, but in spite of it. Now Mr. Morris would have us choose judges for exactly the opposite reason. In Mr. Morris’ world, either Catholic judges need not apply or they should be hamstrung with litmus tests and background checks and God knows what else. Once you let loose the dogs of legislation on judicial qualifications, we’ll have litmus tests for all sorts of issues; gay marriage, school prayer, eminent domain, and on and on.

For a country founded both because of religious freedom and in spite of religious differences, we’ve done remarkably well in tolerating one another’s religious viewpoints. But politics is another matter. There are still barriers to high office for people of certain faiths that need to come down.

Mr. Morris isn’t helping matters any.

We have a record!

This week’s Carnival features 32 posts that skewer the most outrageously clueless numbskulls of the week. And let me tell ya, there’s a passel of them:

1. Our very own President George Bush and his ideas on Intelligent Design.
2. The Democratic Party and their joy at losing the special election in Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District.
3. Cluebat Hall of Famer John Kerry
4. The ACLU
5. The left
6. The right
7. What? No libertarians? (We can fix that!)

And on and on.

If variety is the spice of life, have a tall glass of water handy because you’re gonna need a drink to cool your tongue after tasting this superb collection of fiskings of the follies of the foolish. Some will make you laugh. Some will make you think. All will entertain and enlighten.

So kick back and relax and browse to your heart’s content. You won’t be disappointed.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
(Gustave Flaubert )

Yo,Gus! How’d you get Hillary Clinton’s talking points on National Health Care?
(Me)

Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy put on her liberal disguise and ventured into the fever swamps of the Democratic Underground and the dungeons at Daily Kos and came up with some of the weirdest conspiracy theories regarding John Bolton, George Bush, and…well, you just can’t make this stuff up - unless you’re a moonbat. It took Beth not one but two posts to tell the whole story.

Jay at Stop the ACLU wants to stop the ACLU from taking away our Second Amendment rights. Some good points made on the ACLU’s selective interpretation of Constitutional rights that, if you’ve been paying attention the last few years, has become more and more a part of their political agenda.

Pstupidonymous (yes…that’s how it’s spelled. Don’t ya love creative names for blogs?) has an amazing tale of the Nanny State gone wild. As AlexC says: “These are the kind of nanny-state nonsensical ideas that we laugh at over-taxed and under-gunned New Jersey over.” Uh-huh.

Mark Coffey at Decision ‘08 has an explanation why British terror apologist George Galloway has made his “Jackass of the Week:” Some jackasses are more intrinsicially jackassical than others. Hard to argue with that.

Mr. Right is again spot on in a spoof of the Democrats and their laughable joy at finishing second in the Ohio Special Election last week. Says Karl Rove of Kos’ perfect 0 for 16 record in supporting Democratic campaigns: “I think the idea of someone with Markos Moulitsas Zúniga’s track record running as many Democrat political campaigns as humanly possible is absolutely marvelous!” Rove said. “When can he get started?”

Charleston Daily Mail columnist Don Surber submits a post from his “Ooops” department. The West Virginia state government gives us a sterling example of the people’s tax dollars at work…or not.

Elephants in Academia (more bloggy creativity!) talks about the “happy convergence” pointed out by the LA Times in the Administration’s Central Asian strategy. What the Times chalks up to mere chance, the Academic Elephant sees as the Bush Doctrine at work. Let’s see…Lebanon, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain,…sounds like coincidence to me but what do I know? I’m a Republican.

Someone please wake Harvey at Bad Example up from a bad dream. He’s dreaming that the United Nations is talking about controlling the internet. This from an organization that can’t take a collective piss without sending the idea to a Blue Ribbon Commission? What do you think download times of your favorite movies would be if the UN ran the net?

Beatrix at Multiple Mentality gives all you unattached men some excellent advice on How not to Pick Up a Girl in a Bar. ” For instance: “Are those real?” is not a good opening line” I dunno…it worked for me once. Maybe she thought I was talking about the snakes around her neck…

The Carnival goes international this week with this post from Angry in the Great White North who turns his gaze southward to discover some judicial idiocy right here in the good ole USA. How do some of these people get to be judges?

Bergbikr, subbing for The Maryhunter at TMH Bacon Bits illustrates the equivication of so-called “Moderate” Muslims and their attitudes toward the War on Terror. Is he overreacting? “Perhaps my reaction was heightened by the fact that a cell of ‘peaceful Muslims’ - some of their youths recently Jihadist trained in Pakistan - was just exposed in Lodi, CA a few dozen miles east of my home.” I think not.

Cao of Cao’s Blog (pronounced “key”) gives us an excellent history lesson on some of the less than honorable activities of some prominent leftists over the years. Every time I think how close John Kerry came to being elected President of the United States, I shudder.

Raven at And Rightly So wonders what happened to all those Democrats who were going to leave the country and move to Canada following the President’s victory last November. Darnit! All those “Bon Voyage” signs I made and I did it for nothin’.

Ogre at Ogre’s Politics and Views has a post highlighting some cluelessness of his local utility Duke Power and their “Fixed Payment Plan.” Maybe they think their customers are too stupid to add.

Hypnyx at Global Democratic Revolution brings to our attention a story that’s starting to get some legs in the sports media. A San Francisco radio host made some disparging comments about Latin American baseball players that have some prominent Latin personalities up in arms and playing the “victim” card. San Francisco Giants manager Felipe Alou goes off the deep end regarding the comments and refuses an apology from the radio host. Uncalled for cluelessness perhaps on both their parts.

Blog Pin-Up grrrllll Pamela (Ooooh! Check out them gams!) of Atlas Shrugs has an intelligent post on environ-mentalism (deliberate hyphenation) as religion. What are the consequences of listening to these nutcases? “It would be one thing if it were like Scientology and created small brushfires between vapid celebritites, it is quite another when we are clubbed to death with it like baby seals. Yep.

More galling stuff from George Galloway brought to us by Van Helsing of Moonbattery. Mr. Helsing asks the $64,000 question: “Where do we draw the line between the pernicious and irresponsible ravings typical of liberal politicians on both sides of the Atlantic and punishable treason?” My answer would be…it depends who draws the line, n’est pas?

My favorite fallen angel Feisty Republican Whore stops her street walking long enough to show us what life would be like with National Health Insurance - Canadian style. Un. Be. Lievable. Says the Whore: “I thought I’d kicked the Quaalude habit, but s**t like this is keeping the tranquilizer distributors in business.” Um…’kay.

From the “Believe It Or Not” file…Left Noose brings us a story of a 12 year old, local police, and gunshots. Oh yeah…and a mother that makes Joan Crawford look like Mother Teresa.

Elisa at Boxer Watch (No…not a voyeur site) has an interview with the Silly Senator from La-La Land facing off against the Senator from Virginia and potential President George Allen. If you compare and contrast the two, guess which one comes off as a grown-up, reasonable human being and who appears to be an infantile, clueless klutz?

Northstar at the People’s Republic of Seabrook takes President Bush to the woodshed for his excusing baseball player Rafeal Palmeiro his use of steroids. The President is speaking out of both sides of his mouth on this one as northstar rightly points out.

Blue State Republican of Mike Huckabee for President Blog gives us a link to a Paul Begala article at Huffington’s Post the contains possibly the stupidest prediction I’ve seen this summer. Bush Pardons Rove? BSR says: “Bush will pardon Rove when Rove did nothing wrong and will not be indicted, much less convicted of any crime??? Idiot.” That just about covers it.

Mr. Satire is back! Even though his blog is NOT SAFE FOR WORK, it would be worth getting fired to read his hilarious take on the Special Election in Ohio last week. What kind of a man was this fellow Hackett? “I am also an avid hunter and, unlike that sissy Kerry, I don’t shoot dead ducks. I go for the real thing - the RINOS and the yellow-belly elephants,” said Hackett, a gun-slinging NRA member. ”

Ferdy the Cat is on the prowl and has cornered Alan Dershowitz who thinks he has the solution to terrorism. After being reminded by Bruce to swallow the cheeseball in his mouth before talking, Ferdy says: “A satirical piece in the Huffington Post is hardly going to make religious fanatics wake up.” Who says cats are not the smartest animals on earth?

Dan Melson at Searchlight Parade has some off the wall reaction by Democrats to the recess appointment of John Bolton. Opines Dan: “After all the failures of the accomodationists to make the UN into a better organization, it’s time to give someone with a different philosophy a chance. It’s not like they can do much worse. Past time, I’d say.

Orac at Respectful Insolence has a very funny, must read post on the the use and misuse of that feller’s name who ran Germany a while back. He introduces us to the Hitler Zombie: “The creature doesn’t discriminate between left and right! Political activists of every stripe are dropping like flies, their brains eaten, and then making fools of themselves,” Truly spoken.

Mean ole Meany has a response to a request for funds from Hall of Fame cluebat John Kerry. Writing to the Splodeydope, MoM says: “The only thing missing from this e-mail is the mind-controlling subliminal sounds that you would have to play to get thinking people to believe one thing that you have said here.” Heh.

Minh-Duc of State of Flux Blog has a very serious, very sobering look at torture and who’s responsible. Is the military responsible for systematic, institutionalized torture committed against prisonoers? Read Mr. Minh’s entire post.

Jimmy K of But that’s Just My Opinion Blog has a short and to the point article about Israel’s handover of Gaza to the thugs of Hamas. I’m forced to reluctantly agree with Jimmy that this is a very bad move on Israel’s part probably done at the urging of Washington.

AJ at The Strata Sphere is looking in askance at the press and wondering where their heads are at. One would think copies of Who’s Who can be found on the desks of most reporters. Do you suppose it’s because they’re lazy? Naw!

Bill Teach of Pirates Cove has the story of a truly clueless candidate for Mayor of Durham, North Carolina. One more caveat to her candidacy; she’s a racist: Wagstaff is also a major race baiter, and, to put it correctly, a racist…If the roles were reversed, the local media would have coniption fits. Yup.

Finally, my own entry goes after President Bush for encouraging the ID movement who doesn’t just want ID studied…they want it studied in science class along side evolution. While the President didn’t say that, his comments gave the Luddites a boost. Next time, Mr. President; Shut Your Yap!

Part of the TTLB Uber Carnival

Like most of you, I found the news about audio tapes from Marilyn Monroe’s psychiatrist revealing some pretty sordid stuff about Robert Kennedy and Joan Crawford to be titillating, if not earth shattering news. After all, Monroe, by all accounts, was a Hollywood hedonist of the first order so any alleged sexual affairs with other celebrities would not be shocking in and of itself. Perhaps it says more about our celebrity driven culture that 40 years after her death, her life should still captivate a world that views Marilyn’s overt sexuality as tame and even innocent compared to the vixens and harlots who strut and prance across the media landscape today, flaunting their sexual escapades in tell-all books and TV interviews.

If you’re like me and thought that this “new” information was based on tape recordings made by Marilyn in the days before her suicide, you’ll probably be as surprised as I was to find out that there are, in fact, no tapes at all. And reading further into this story, I’ll bet you’d be further surprised that a book containing “excerpts” from these non-existent tapes is scheduled to hit the book stores soon.

All in a days work for the celebrity obsessed media.

The story would be compelling - if it could be verified.

John W. Miner, who investigated Monroe’s death as a Los Angeles County prosecutor, claims Monroe’s psychologist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, played him secret audio tapes made by the star during one of her therapy sessions shortly before her death. A key revelation of the alleged tapes, according to Miner, is that Monroe was not depressed and was actively planning for to become a serious, Shakespearean actress.

Miner says he took careful, hand-written notes of the tapes and later produced a near-exact transcript.There is no proof Miner’s claims are true, since Dr. Greenson is now dead and no one else claims to have heard the tape.

“You are the only person who will ever know the most private, the most secret thoughts of Marilyn Monroe,” she allegedly told her doctor.

What in the wide, wide, world of sports is this story doing on the websites of respectable news organizations or on the pages of supposedly mainstream media outlets?

There are no tapes to verify these “quotes” from Monroe. No one has even hinted at their existence before. All we have is the word of someone who was paid a fee by an author of a forthcoming book to use “quotes” from non-verbatim transcripts gleaned from tapes that no one else has heard and that no one has even independently verified being in existence.

Matthew Smith paid an undisclosed fee to Miner to use the Monroe transcript in his book, “Marilyn’s Last Words: Her Secret Tapes and Mysterious Death.”

“The important thing about it was that she wasn’t suicidal,” Smith said.

Smith found Marilyn’s talk of the future very compelling, calling her “level-headed.”

“She wasn’t up and down,” he said. “She was on a plane that marked her out as a smart lady. She knew where she was going. It was definite.”

And where was Marilyn going with her career? Why, she was going to play Shakespeare’s Juliet!

“I’ve read all of Shakespeare and practiced a lot of lines. … I am going to do Juliet first,” Marilyn Monroe allegedly said on the tape. “Don’t laugh. What, with what makeup, costume and camera can do, my acting will create a Juliet who is 14, an innocent virgin.”

Monroe’s comic genius (when she was sober) was a joy. Anyone who’s ever seen Some Like it Hot knows that Monroe was could carry off light comedy better than almost any other actress at the time in Hollywood. But she was 36 years old, on the downside of a career in shambles because of her drinking and pill popping. It was pure fantasy to believe that she could play Juliet, or Ophelia, or any other Shakespearean tragedienne.

The realization that her acting options were going to be limited due to her age could have been a catalyst for suicide so any speculation to the contrary is specious. That didn’t stop Mr. Miner from throwing his two cents in regarding the bogus “Who killed Marilyn” fantasies:

Some people believe the Kennedys had to with it; I don’t at all,” he said. “I believe it was the disenchanted survivors of the Bay of Pigs, the CIA agents.”

Smith believes the CIA was angry at President John Kennedy about the botched Bay of Pigs operation a year before. The CIA, according to Smith, was hoping Robert Kennedy would be blamed for Monroe’s murder, and that the investigation would reveal her affair with both the president and his brother. This would force them to resign.

“This was a ploy,” Smith said. “By killing Marilyn, they expected Robert Kennedy, who was in the house twice the day before she died, would be interrogated.”

Now that’s what I call convoluted reasoning. Using Marilyn Monroe to bring down the Kennedy’s? If our CIA had been half as imaginative in fighting the commies, the Russkies would have been brought down decades before the final collapse in 1990.

How this claptrap made it into mainstream publications is a case study in how the confluence of media, celebrities, culture, and politics has changed the way we get our information and what kind news is fed to us. Are the MSM simply making themselves more irrelevant by carrying “news” stories like this one?

Judging by how many Google hits there are of this story, probably not irrelevant enough.

It was just supposed to be a “throw away” post. Honest.

On Thursday August 4th, I was cruising through Duncan Black’s cesspool of a blog, on the lookout for something I could use to illustrate the usual liberal looniness, when I came across a two day old, one line blurb headed simply “Conservative Blog Taxonomy.” Clicking the link, I was directed to Fables of Reconstruction and a post written 3 days prior on August 1st by some moonbat named Mithras.

It looked like a fun idea for the blog so I banged out a post using 10 liberal sites I read on an occasional or regular basis and added a “reality quotient” for a touch of originality. I didn’t finish it until early Friday morning so I simply hit “publish” and forgot about it.

Imagine my surprise 24 hours later when I woke up on Saturday morning to find the post linked to by Michelle Malkin. Now, who wouldn’t be pleased to get a link from the 4th largest blogger on the planet? That said, I was actually kind of embarrassed because it was one of those times that, instead of being recognized for working your ass off on a crisp, insightful piece that you spent a couple of days sweating over, Michelle was kind enough to link what I pretty much considered a throw away post, something I did for fun more than anything.

Having been through something like this before, I knew pretty much what to expect. In the first 24 hours, conservatives follow the link from a big blog and shower you with praise and link like bats out of hell.

It’s the second 24 hours that make you wish you hadna done it.

Since my post got kind of personal with those lefty bloggers, I really don’t have the right to complain about the personal attacks on me made by the moonbats. The only good thing was their lack of imagination. I grew up with friends whose epithets would make Howard Stern blush so the bric-a-brats hurled my way by the trolls never quite reached a level that affected my appetite.

That said, the debate has now made an interesting turn as some pretty heavy hitters discovered Mr. Mithras’ post and have taken off after him for this piggish comment about Michelle Malkin:

Far-right affirmative action hire who is so bigoted she’d arrest herself for trying to cross a border. Famously published a book praising internment of Japanese-Americans that was (a) incoherent and (b) probably not written by her. If she didn’t have tits, she’d be stuck writing at Townhall.com.

I’m glad I don’t have David Bernstein, Bill Ardolino, Jeff Goldstein,, or Jeralyn Merritt fisking my tail for being a sexist pig. (Note: I received a very civil email from Ms. Merritt pointing out that she was in fact a woman even though I had described her using the term “Mr.” I did that with Pat Curley when he was blogging at Kerryhaters last fall, calling him a woman in a post. Pat sent me an email that was also civil, although a little more abrupt than Ms. Merritt’s bemused note.)

Dean Esmay was also featured in Mr. Mithras screed and was described as a “dry drunk” - a blow low enough that he would have been disqualified in a bar fight for delivering it. Mr. Esmay’s response was more dignified than the moonbat deserved:

I didn’t grow up in a union household. Also I am not a “proud dry drunk,” I am a much-more-often sober, less-self-indulgent drunk, not proud of it at all, and I only talk about it because I want to help other people.

As a “Friend of Bill” myself, I know exactly what he’s talking about.

Suffice it to say, none of this would have come to light if I had left well enough alone - probably. Who’s to say some other conservative blogger wouldn’t have found Mr. Mithras pithy rant? At any rate, even though I’m not sorry for most of what I wrote in that piece (a little too hard on Wonkette’s physical appearance?) I wonder how sorry Mr. Mithras is right now?

The death last night of long time ABC anchor Peter Jennings brings to a close an era of journalism that witnessed the power of the press at its zenith in American history. From historic highs in 1969 that saw 85% of televisions in use at the time tune into one of the three major network newscasts every night, that number has now dropped to below 20%. And Peter Jennings was there for both the rise and fall of the network news phenomena as a well traveled foreign correspondent and then as news anchor for “The World Tonight.”

Actually, when Mr. Jennings took over the anchor chair in 1983 following the death of Frank Reynolds, it was his second stint as newsreader for the ABC news broadcast. Joining ABC in 1963, he was elevated to the anchor chair in 1964 at the age of 26. This was at a time when ABC was not considered a serious news contender, finishing a distant third to broadcasts headed up by CBS’s Walter Cronkite and NBC’s Huntely-Brinkley tandem. Despite the fact that both CBS and NBC had gone from a 15 minute format to a 30 minute show for the news in 1963, ABC couldn’t get clearance from local stations for the extra 15 minutes of network news until 1967 by which time Jennings had been eased out of the anchor chair and assigned the foreign beat for the network.

It was his overseas assignment where I first became aware of Mr. Jennings. In an age when it was hugely expensive to transmit via satellite, many of Jennings early reports were on film that was shot on location and then rushed to ABC studios in New York for developing and editing. By the late 1960’s, this had changed and the golden age of news broadcasting had begun. Maintaining enormously expensive foreign bureaus in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, Central America, and Australia as well as desks in several American cities, the network news shows became the primary source of news for the first time, surpassing newspaper readership for good in 1980.

Jennings reports always seemed calm, measured and balanced when overseas. Whether he was reporting on the Viet Nam war or Oktoberfest in West Germany, he was usually interesting to watch. When ABC went to a 3 anchor format in 1978, Jennings joined the team from London reporting foreign news. His elevation to the anchor chair in 1983 was seen by most as a move by ABC to finally attempt to compete head to head with news giants NBC and CBS.

For whatever reason, it worked. ABC first caught and surpassed CBS and finally NBC. Much of the credit was given to Mr. Jennings calm and deliberate presence as well as ABC’s faster paced and more interesting format. But it’s ironic that just when Mr. Jennings success was reaching its apogee, audience for all network news started to decline. From 1980 to 2003, network news audience declined a staggering 44%. Much of that decline was attributed to the rise of CNN but other factors played a role as well. Expanded local news broadcasts that included national and foreign news - usually with some local angle - pulled viewers away from the nets. And the rise of cable broadcasting in general meant that there was that much more competition for the attention of the American people during the 6:00 - 7:00 PM time slot.

It’s very hard for anyone under 30 to realize the enormous power wielded by the press, especially the major networks, in the period from 1970 to 1980. Their relentless coverage of the Viet Nam war helped end that conflict. Their investigative reports on the Watergate scandal assisted in bringing down President Nixon. And their wall to wall coverage of the Iranian hostage crisis with nightly pictures of American humiliation helped make Jimmy Carter an irrelevancy.

Then came Ronald Reagan and his media savvy advisor’s who changed the entire dynamic of the relationship between the Presidency and the press. Seeing what had happened to the last three Presidents, the Reagan’s advisor’s decided to go over the heads of the media and speak directly to the American people. Partly through prime time addresses from the oval office but mostly through the manipulation of images on the nightly news, Reagan’s counterspin was able to get through the media’s hostility and enable the President to achieve success in both domestic and foreign policy.

Further erosion of the power of the press occurred during the Bush 41 and Clinton years as both White House spin and declining audience due to the explosion of cable news fractured the ability of the media to set the agenda for the nation. Through it all, however, Jennings and ABC news maintained, in my opinion, the least biased reporting - with notable exceptions - of any of the three “major” networks.

Then came 9/11. Jennings coverage of the attack was extraordinary. Showing off both the technical wizardry that makes the immediacy of network news so compelling as well as a personal stamina that saw the anchor on the air for more than 12 hours straight, Jennings and his counterparts - Brokaw and Rather - played a vital role during those dark hours in calming the nation and helping it begin the grieving process.

With the passing of Mr. Jennings, the end of what could be termed the post World War II media is at hand. It was peopled with individuals whose worldview was shaped by the events during the war years. The current crop of media denizens has had their worldview shaped by Viet Nam and Watergate.

Somehow, I think we’re a lot poorer today.

Calling all bloggers!

You have until Monday night at 10:00 PM to get your entries in for this week’s Carnival of the Clueless.

Last week was the best yet with 26 entries from both the right and left side of the political spectrum hammering those individuals and groups among us who are truly clueless.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

Each week, I’ll be calling for posts that highlight the total stupidity of a public figure or organization – either left or right – that demonstrates that special kind of cluelessness that only someone’s mother could defend…and maybe not even their mothers!

Everyone knows what I’m talking about. Whether it’s the latest from Bill Maher or the Reverend Dobson, it doesn’t matter. I will post ALL ENTRIES REGARDLESS OF WHETHER I AGREE WITH THE SENTIMENTS EXPRESSED OR NOT..

You can enter by emailing me, leaving a link in the comments section, or by using the handy, easy to use form at Conservative Cat.

When J. Robert Oppenheimer walked out of the hearing room on that beautiful spring day in May 1954 he was, by all accounts, a broken man. The United States government had been looking into the question of whether or not to renew his access to classified material, a question made pertinent by Oppenheimer’s past associations with communists. The dangling cigarette - as much a part of his public face as the hooded eyes and sharp, aquiline features - seemed to hang from the corner of his thin, expressionless mouth and a look of rueful sadness was on his face, as if he didn’t quite believe what had befallen him.

Later that summer, The Atomic Energy Commission revoked his security clearance because of “[c]oncern for the defense and security of the United States.” His loyalty to the United States an open question, Oppenheimer withdrew from public life to spend the remainder of his years teaching, lecturing, and writing about science and man’s place in the universe.

It could be said that the years following his humiliation were an anti-climax to one of the most remarkable scientific careers in history. For despite taking over Albert Einstein’s old job at Princeton as Chair of the Institute for Advanced Study as well as being a respected and well traveled writer and lecturer, nothing could compare to what Oppenheimer accomplished in the war years when he headed up the scientific team that built the atomic bomb. And, more importantly, his post war fall from grace was a far cry from the heady days following World War II when for a brief instant, it seemed as if Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists who unlocked the secrets of the atom and allowed mankind to control the lightening, would achieve what politicians and diplomats could not - international control of nuclear power.

Born in 1904 to wealthy, immigrant parents, Oppenheimer’s early years were marked by astounding academic achievement. A delayed entrance to Harvard due to a bout with colitis didn’t slow him down as he graduated in three years with a degree in Chemistry. After a very brief and unsatisfying stint with Ernest Rutherford’s famous Cavendish Laboratory of Experimental Physics, Oppenheimer realized his ability tended more to the theoretical aspect of the science and proceeded to study with the brilliant Max Born at the University of Cottingen in Germany where he received his PHD in Theoretical Physics in 1927.

The history of physics from the turn of the century to the early 1930’s will be remembered as one of the most remarkable periods of discovery in human history. Oppenheimer’s contributions to this explosion of knowledge has been generally dismissed as inconsequential, although some have pointed to his seminal work regarding the relationship between protons and electrons - the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation - as extremely important to the ultimate understanding of sub-atomic particles. He also predicted both the existence of one of those particles, the positron, as well as the existence of black holes.

But Oppenheimer’s was a restless mind. He migrated to Berkeley to teach and advise the brilliant Ernest O. Lawrence with his cyclotron experiments. Lawrence’s experiments needed a theoretician to explain what the experimentalists were seeing with their cyclotron work and Oppenheimer’s collaboration with with University of California scientist turned out to be both intellectually satisfying and profoundly relevant to advancing scientific knowledge of the atom.

Oppenheimer’s brilliance could be overwhelming. He had an extraordinary knack for grasping a concept immediately and cutting to the heart of a problem. His memory was legendary. In addition, the broad reach of Oppenheimer’s intellect was startling. This probably contributed to his lack of recognition as a top level theoretical physicist. His long time friend Isidor Rabi:

Oppenheimer was overeducated in those fields which lie outside the scientific tradition, such as his interest in religion, in the Hindu religion in particular, which resulted in a feeling of mystery of the universe that surrounded him like a fog. He saw physics clearly, looking toward what had already been done, but at the border he tended to feel there was much more of the mysterious and novel than there actually was…he turned away from the hard, crude methods of theoretical physics into a mystical realm of broad intuition.

All the while, Oppenheimer maintained relationships with communists. As most intellectuals during the 1930’s, Oppenheimer saw the depression as a failure of capitalism and communism as the wave of the future. Using his vast inheritance, he bankrolled many left wing causes while marrying a former communist Kitty Harrison. It was these associations that would come back to haunt him later although it appears Oppenheimer himself was never that interested in politics. In fact, once Stalin’s horrors started to become known, Oppenheimer began to cut his ties with most left wing organizations and individuals. Cynics also point to the fact that it was at this time that the federal government was getting interested in the potential for building the atom bomb and that Oppenheimer’s associations would have precluded his participation.

Whatever the reason, Oppenheimer threw himself into the early atom bomb work with enthusiasm. He assembled a theoretical team in California that included future Nobel Prize winners Hans Bethe and Edward Teller who dealt with some of the early problems of bomb design. And later, when looking for someone to head up the scientific enterprise that became the Manhattan Project, the Project’s director General Leslie Groves found in Oppenheimer someone who was familiar with the many scientific disciplines that would be required to build a successful bomb as well as a driven personality that would see the project through to completion.

In September of 1942, Oppenheimer accepted the position as Scientific Director of the Manhattan Project. Starting from scratch in the New Mexico desert, Los Alamos became a magnet for the best minds in physics, chemistry and engineering. Oppenheimer rode herd on this diverse group, amazing his colleagues with his grasp of the problems associated with turning the theoretical into the practical. Victor Weisskopf , a brilliant theoretical physicist in his own right, gives us a sense of what it was like at Los Alamos working under Oppenheimer:

“He did not direct from the head office. He was intellectually and even physically present at each decisive step. He was present in the laboratory or in the seminar rooms, when a new effect was measured, when a new idea was conceived. It was not that he contributed so many ideas or suggestions; he did so sometimes, but his main influence came from something else. It was his continuous and intense presence, which produced a sense of direct participation in all of us; it created that unique atmosphere of enthusiasm and challenge that pervaded the place throughout its time.”

The closer the bomb got to becoming a reality, the more unease was demonstrated by scientists working on the project. This was especially true after it became clear in early 1945 that Germany was nowhere near completing a bomb and in fact had never really started. This fractured the scientific consensus that was responsible for the idea of building the bomb in the first place. The fear that Germany would construct an atomic b0mb is what gave impetus to the entire effort and once that threat was gone, many of the scientists began to have second thoughts.

Notable among them was Leo Szilard, the diminutive Hungarian immigrant who first conceived the idea of a nuclear chain reaction (he actually patented the process, later giving it to the British government to maintain secrecy) and who was present at the creation of the first nuclear chain reaction in Chicago in 1942. Szilard was horrified at the prospect of actually using the bomb, believing the threat would be enough to deter either Japan or Germany and cause them to surrender. Szilard’s naivete regarding Hitler and Japan carried over into a belief after the war that only a committee of scientists from all over the world should be entrusted with nuclear secrets.

Szilard drafted a letter as a cover to a report that came to be known as The Franck Report and circulated it among scientists not only in Chicago, but also at Los Alamos and at Berkley where Ernest Lawrence was busy working on uranium isotope separation. The Franck report not only opposed the use of the bomb on Japan but called for atomic secrets to be shared openly with all nations after the war. Groves was livid with Szilard believing that the scientist had not only violated security, but that he was undermining the dedication of his scientists at Los Alamos.

While the debates over whether or not to use the bomb raged in the laboratories and dormitories at Los Alamos, Oppenheimer remained committed to at the very least, testing the weapon. In that respect, Oppenheimer convinced almost all the scientists that they should view the project as a physics experiment which needed to have the main hypothesis tested. And he promised some of the more outspoken advocates for not using the bomb that as member of the scientific advisory group to the Interim Committee on using the bomb, he would make their views known to both military and civilian authorities.

By May of 1945 with Germany out of the war, The members of the Committee came up with three options on what to do with the bomb:

1. Inform the Japanese of the existence of the bomb and threaten to use it unless they immediately surrendered.

2. A demonstration of the bombs destructive power at a remote location.

3. Drop the bombs on Japanese cities with no warning.

Oppenheimer was part of a group of scientists who contributed to the report that advocated using the bomb on Japanese cities without warning. The reasoning was that any warning given would allow the Japanese to move thousands of American POW’s into the area where the bomb would be dropped. Plus, it was felt that the psychological effect of the bomb would be lost if any advance notice was given the Japanese. The report stated that since “we can purpose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use.”

Oppenheimer was always torn on taking this position. On the one hand, he sympathized intellectually with his colleagues from Chicago who didn’t want to use the bomb. On the other hand, Oppenheimer was privy to intelligence that indicated unless the Japanese were shocked by using the bomb without warning on one or two of their cities, they would not surrender without a massive invasion. To the end of his days, his public statements reflected this dichotomy as he alternately would justify his support for using the bomb and curse himself for not taking a stronger stand against the post-war plans for nuclear power that, for the most part, shut scientists out of the decision making process.

Oppenheimer did oppose the quick use of the second bomb on Nagasaki reasoning that the Japanese government should have time to evaluate the bomb’s effects. In this, he may have been correct in that the Japanese at first disbelieved President Truman’s announcement that one, lone bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and secondly, the Japanese government was unable to get to the city and evaluate the damage until August 8th, less than 24 hours before the second bomb was used on Nagasaki.

Following Japan’s surrender, a tug of war ensued between the scientists and the government on who would best control the awesome power of the atom. It is perhaps instructive that at this time, scientists believed that anything short of international controls on nuclear secrets would result in an arms race. Intellectually they were right. But in the practical world of post war domestic and international politics, there was never a chance for any such plan to succeed. The Soviets had proved themselves duplicitous in eastern Europe and the cold war was well underway. Oppenheimer was made an adviser to the newly minted Atomic Energy Commission which oversaw America’s efforts to both build weapons of mass destruction and use the knowledge gained from the Manhattan Project for peaceful purposes. He correctly predicted that the Soviets would have a weapon much faster than the military’s estimate of 10 years (1955). This was born out when the Soviet’s exploded their first atomic bomb in September of 1949. What the scientists had feared became a reality; an arms race was underway that was to divert massive amounts of both money and scientific expertise to bomb making.

The dilemma faced by Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists echoes down to this day as more and more scientists are opting out of weapons building even with the promise of exciting, breakthrough work as part of the bargain. But perhaps Oppenheimer and his fellows should be remembered as much for their patriotism as they are for the work they did. For it was the belief that their nation’s survival was at stake that drove them to achieve the breakthroughs necessary to bring the Manhattan Project to fruition. Because of that, and even with their doubts and feelings of guilt about how it was used, we should be eternally grateful for their work.