Right Wing Nut House

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

I serve with the memory and pride of those who have gone before me for they loved to fight, fought to win and would rather die than quit.
(From the Creed of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment-Airborne: “The Night Stalkers”)

It’s been called the worst day in the history of the Navy SEALs. It was also a tragic day for “The Night Stalkers,” an elite force of Special Operations soldiers whose grit and courage is legendary even among men where grit and courage are commonplace - our nation’s special forces community. A total of 19 of America’s bravest and best were killed during an operation in Afghanistan that, although shrouded in secrecy, could have been connected to the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar.

The story is one of tragedy for the families of the 19 dead but is also a tale highlighting the remarkable skills and otherwordly courage of America’s secret warriors.

The fact that we hear so little about these men suits them just fine. Carrying out the most secretive and vital missions in the War on Terror, the SEALs and Nightstalkers are just two of the many Special Operations units operating in Afghanistan and Iraq. Others include the Green Berets, Army Rangers, 1st Special Forces Operational Detatchment (Delta Force), and units from the Air Force Special Operations Command and anti-terrorism units from the Marines. The men in all of these units are the most highly trained and lethally effective warriors in the military.

The story begins with the insertion of 4 Navy SEALs from Delivery Vehicle (SDV) Team One into some of the most rugged and hostile terrain imaginable. Part of “Operation Red Wing,” a deployment aimed at an apparent concentration of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in the northern Kunar province of Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan, the SEALs, for reasons not revealed, got into trouble on June 28 and radioed Bagram Air Base for help. Whatever trouble they were in it must have been very bad given that Special Operations warriors take intense pride in not radioing for help except in the most dire of circumstances.

Whatever their mission, whatever the crisis they were in, three SEALs were killed in the ensuing action. One member of the 4 man team escaped and for five days, eluded capture in the mountains until, totally exhausted, he was found by a friendly Afghan villager who got word to Bagram.

In the meantime, after the distress call several MH47E helicopters belonging to the Night Stalkers embarked on an extraordinarily dangerous daylight mission to resuce the SEALs. The MH47E is an all-weather, high flying vehicle capable of both insertion and extraction missions and is armed to the teeth. It’s believed that when close to landing near the SEAL team, the helicopter was the recipient of an unlucky hit from either an RPG or some other weapon, lost control and crashed into a mountain. All sixteen aboard - including 5 SEALs from SEAL Team Ten and 1 from SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two as well as 8 flight crew members of the Night Stalkers were killed.

What drives men to volunteer for these elite units? What manner of man survives the hell of a training regimen with such brutal physical challenges and agonizing psychological pressures that it would make the detainees at Gitmo and their ACLU lawyers scream bloody murder? And who in their right mind would eagerly seek out the most dangerous assignments imaginable with no chance of recieving the public honors and rewards so richly deserved unless you make the ultlimate sacrifice for your comrades and country?

We may have known these kind of men when they were children and young boys. They always seemed to have a group of admirers trailing them around, trying to keep up with their adventurous and audacious spirit. They would have had an easy way with grownups who also liked and admired them. They were good at sports but rarely bragged about their accomplishments. They were fiercely loyal to their friends and were always there if they needed defending.

Later in life, you would probably see a quiet confidence in the young man that was striking in that it made him seem older than his years. He would have a small circle of friends who were fiercely loyal to him. A natural leader, you would have found it easy to take orders from him and delighted when he gave out praise and cresfallen when he would criticize.

At bottom, the young man would have a calling, a desire to serve. It would manifest itself most noticeably by the serious way in which he would approach planning his life. Goal oriented to a fault, you would be hard pressed to remember a goal that he set for himself that he didn’t achieve.

The special forces then takes this raw material and in the crucible of a torturous training program that tests both the physical stamina and mental toughness of the volunteer, they forge a warrior who lives to fight, fights to win, and never quits.

For 11 of the SEALs and 8 of the Night Stalkers, the fight is now over. In a loving tribute to the SEAL’s, Mark Divine of NavySEALs.com and a former SEAL himself, wishes them all Godspeed:

Soon…17 warrior souls are seeing each other for the first time – with questioning eyes…whoa. What now? They see their physical bodies in the wreckage – but they are still here. Is this what death is? They are motionless, unsure, seeking answers. A light shines above them, and an angel comes down to them – beckoning them to come. The angel is dressed in a WWI style infantryman’s uniform. He tells them, without words, not to worry. Warriors take care of their own in Heaven, he says. They have been expected, and there is a big reception planned. He asks if they would like to visit their loved one’s before going to Heaven. They all say yes. The angel takes them instantly to their homes – where word of the tragedy has not yet reached. They see their wives and children sleeping, playing. They see their parents, friends, and teammates. They tell them not to worry, for they are going to a safe place. They pray that their loved ones will understand that life is fleeting, and that death is part of the warrior’s path. Do not grieve us they say…we died an honorable death. Honor our memory. Tell our story. Teach our children how to live with dignity and honor. Teach our teammates how to live well, and die honorably. Mourn us for a time, but then celebrate our lives.

And oh what lives they had to celebrate. For instance, Petty Officer Second Class James Suh, 28, the son of Korean immigrants, who competed on swim and tennis teams in high school, studied statistics in college and dreamed of being in the special forces from the time he was a teenager. Although slight of build, Mr. Suh trained intensely for months prior to taking the qualification course for SEALs. His sister Claudia says that James was surprised when he passed the course while other, stronger candidates washed out.

“He was not ever prepared to be second best. Not just out of a competitive nature. It was all about bettering himself,” she said.

Then there’s the tragic story of Nightstalker SFC Marcus V. Muralles of Shelbyville, IN. Muralles, a medic, was packed and ready to come home to his wife, Diana, and their two children — Anna Elise, 10, and Marcus Dominic, 4 — when he was sent on what would be his last mission. He had hoped to celebrate his daughter’s 10th birthday with her on the Fourth of July. His family left a message on the Night Stalkers website:

“Marcus was a proud soldier, a first-class medic and most of all, a loving husband and devoted father,” the family’s message said. “His family was his life.”

And now that life, along with the lives of 18 other secret warriors, is ended. To a man, each knew the risks of their chosen profession. And each of them died doing exactly what they wanted to be doing.

That’s what they want us to remember. While we sympathize and grieve with the families of the fallen, we should also remember the zest they had for living, for leading a life in their chosen profession where the hazards and challenges of deadly combat were not shirked, but welcomed. It’s what they were trained for. It’s what they lived for.

And God, how they lived.

Here are the names of the fallen SEALs who lost their lives in Operation Red Wing:

Senior Chief Petty Officer Daniel R. Healy, 36, of Exeter, N.H.
Petty Officer 2nd Class James Suh, 28, of Deerfield Beach, Fla.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Eric S. Patton, 22, of Boulder City, Nev.
LT Michael P. Murphy, 29, of Medford, New York.
Lt. Cmdr. Erik S. Kristensen, 33, of San Diego, Calif.
Lt. Michael M. McGreevy, Jr., 30, of Portville, N.Y.
Chief Petty Officer Jacques J. Fontan, 36, of New Orleans, La.
Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffery A. Lucas, 33, of Corbett, Ore.
Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffrey S. Taylor, 30, of Midway, W.Va.
Petty Office 2nd Class Danny P. Dietz, 25, of Littleton, Colorado.

Here are the names of the Night Stalkers:

Maj. Stephen C. Reich, 34, of Washington Depot, Conn
Chief Warrant Officer Chris J. Scherkenbach, 40, of Jacksonville, Fla.
Chief Warrant Officer Corey J. Goodnature, 35, of Clarks Grove, Minn.
MSgt James W. Ponder III, 36, of Franklin, Tenn.
Sgt. 1st Class Marcus V. Muralles, 33, of Shelbyville, Ind.
Sgt. 1st Class Michael L. Russell, 31, of Stafford, Va.
SSgt. Shamus O. Goare, 29, of Danville, Ohio
Sgt. Kip A. Jacoby, 21, of Pompano Beach, Fla.

One member of Seal Delivery Vehicle Team One has not as yet been identified pending family notification.

Cluelessness is not a mortal sin. For those of you who are Catholic, both practicing and of the fallen variety, you may recall from your catechism lessons the difference between a mortal sin - a sin in which your soul was in danger of falling into the pit of hell, never to emerge - and a “venal” sin, the commission of which would only rate a rap across your knuckles by God’s ruler. So, like thinking impure thoughts about Rene Pignataro during 8th grade geography class, cluelessness does not put you in danger of descending into Dante’s 9th level of hell.

Displaying cluelessness however, does leave you wide open to ridicule and disgust, which given today’s media driven society, can cause you as much suffering as if you had been cast into the outer darkness. For instance, the cable networks this week displayed an inordinate amount of cluelessness during it’s hurricane coverage that saw reporters breathlessly reporting that it was raining outside and really, really windy! Then there was Chuck Schumer who demonstrated a special level of cluelessness by opposing a Supreme Court nominee. The only trouble was that Senator Chuck was opposing someone who hadn’t been named yet.

On the right, there’s Karl Rove. The “architect” may in fact be on his way out the door for letting this Plame business churn out of control when all he had to do was walk into the White House press room at midnight and whisper “it was me” and then run back inside his office. At present, it’s unclear whether Karl is a criminal or whether or not he’s just clueless. Time will tell.

Let’s see what our group of Cluebat Detectors have come up with this week.

“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself…”
(Mark Twain)
“Suppose you were to say that to Hillary…DUCK!”
(Me)

Jack Cluth of the People’s Republic of Seabrook takes the Minutemen to task for “making the world safer for good, God-fearing, Christian white Republicans.” He may have a point, although if we could separate the yahoos from the serious minded immigration reformers who are just trying to make a point, I don’t think Mr. Cluth would be so quick to condemn people who want to see the law enforced.

Jay at Stop the ACLU has a great new site design and continues his quest to, well, stop the ACLU. In this post, he shows how the usually clueless ACLU is gumming up the immigration reform works in California.

Harvey at Bad Example is up in arms over what’s going on in the cluebat capitol of the world, Madison, Wisconsin. It’s bad enough we smokers have been banished outside to do our dirty deed. Apparently even that isn’t punishment enough for the anti-smoking crowd.

Mr. Right at The Right Place has a picture just begging for a caption. Go help him out. Check out the look on Howard Dean’s face.

On a much more serious note, the Headmistress, Zookeeper at the Common Room has some cluelessness by the British government that may have cost lives in the 7/7 attack. While I don’t generally approve of these “might have been” scenarios, in this case I think she has a point.

Cao of Caos Blog, my blogmama, takes on the owners of Preemptive Karma and their “Slaughterhouse 5″ award. My advice to Kevin and Carla is that they pick on someone their own size.

GM Roper of GM’s Corner dusts off a foreign troll who thinks America is too “tribal.” . This is typical Euro-bull for unanimity of thought. Well, she’s wrong of course but read GM’s takedown. It’s priceless.

The Maryhunter of TMH’s Bacon Bits shows some real cluelessness on the part of Time Magazine, especially their “Ideological Identification Department.” Un. Be. Lievable.

Submitted by Kender, this post by The Daisy Cutter on Ron Reagan getting bitchslapped by Christopher Hitchens is priceless. I really wish that guy would change his name.

Mark Coffey of Decision ‘08 has “The Worst Piece of Poetry - Ever!” While stomach churning in its own right, Mark has evidently never sat down for an hour with Sylvia Plath.

From the better late than never department, Josh Cohen of Multiple Mentality gives us…um, Better Late than Never.” I don’t think some of our leaders are taking this terrorism thing very seriously.

Holly of Soldier’s Angel has some thoughts on the cluelessness of Live8, G8, and the whole narcissistic culture of celebrity that says “Something must be done, even if it doesn’t work.” Spot on, Angel.

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs and Jackson’s Junction (Atlas Junction) has some rage-inducing news about a Department of Justice grant to a bunch of apologists for terrorists. Something like FDR giving The German American Bund a helping hand during its heydey in the 1930’s.

Ferdy the Cat at Conservative Cat trains his keen eye (and sharp claws) on Bill Scher whose piece in the Huffington Post raised the fur on his back. Calm down Ferdy and have yourself a cheese ball.

Neddy at Kerfuffles has a post on another true-blue cluebat Senator Harry Reid whose interview in the Reno Gazette shows Hapless Harry to be unaware of the term “irony.”

Is there a more clueless bunch on the planet than anarchists? Will Franklin of Willisms doubts it. BTW, check out Will’s own Carnival of Classiness

AJ of The Strata-Sphere has a great post on the cluelessness of Indymedia. An arsonist that can’t figure out why he’s in trouble for destroying someone’s property? You get the picture.

Check out Nickie Goomba. His take on the Mexican Stamp dance done by Vincente Fox and the Mexican government is priceless.

Van Helsing at Moonbattery wonders how Brian Williams of NBC still has a job after comparing our founding fathers to terrorists. It would be clueless to have done this anytime of the year but special points awarded for doing it around the 4th of July.

Anyone who says we Republicans are a stuffy lot should be reading Fiesty Republican Whore. FRW has a jawdropping post on one of our Cluebat Hall of Fame recipients Al (the pal) Sharpton whose call for a march in Howard Beach to protest the beating of some admitted car thieves defines cluelessness for this week. Note to Whore: What do I have to do to get on your “Want to do” list?

Dan of Searchlight Crusade has some suggestions for Kos and his minions about holding Bush and Rumsfeld “accountable” for the war. How about holding them accountable for 8 million purple stained fingers?

Finally, my entry is a fisking of E. J. Dionne and his ideas on democracy in The Politics of 50.7%.

Looks like the New York Times is a bit miffed at Karl Rove and the Bush Administration:

WASHINGTON, July 11 - Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer would be fired, and assuring that Karl Rove and other senior aides to President Bush had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House refused on Monday to answer any questions about new evidence of Mr. Rove’s role in the matter.

And that’s just the lead.

The Times senior editorial staff are obviously upset that one of their reporters, Judith Miller, sits rotting in a jail cell because she refuses to name her source or sources to Special Prosecutor Richard Fitzgerald in the “outing” of Valerie Plame, the CIA employee who sent her husband Joe Wilson to Nigeria in order to hobnob with government representatives poolside and “investigate” whether Saddam’s Iraq was trying to buy yellow cake uranium. Wilson received assurances from the Nigerians that this was not the case and subsequently accused the Bush Administration of lying about the transaction.

Wilson himself turned out to be the liar as it was discovered that, despite his repeated denials, his wife did indeed strongly recommend that he be the official to make the Nigeria trip. Wilson also was never able to ascertain whether or not the Nigerians were in fact supplying Iraq with yellow cake, despite repeatedly saying so in the Op-Ed pages of the Times and elsewhere.

In March of last year, the US removed 500 tons of yellow cake uranium from facilities in Iraq, enough to make more than 20 Hiroshima sized bombs.

Does it surprise you that those little nuggets of information are not in this New York Times story?

Make no mistake. The New York Times has declared all out war on the White House with this “news” report.” And they’re putting the White House on notice that they consider this “scandal” every bit as important as Watergate, Iran-Contra, or Clinton’s impeachment:

“The lesson of history for George Bush and Karl Rove is that the best way to help themselves is to bring out all the facts, on their own, quickly,” Mr. Schumer said, citing the second-term scandals that have beset previous administrations.

In two contentious news briefings, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, would not directly address any of a barrage of questions about Mr. Rove’s involvement, a day after new evidence suggested that Mr. Rove had discussed the C.I.A. officer with a Time magazine reporter in July 2003 without identifying her by name.

Under often hostile questioning, Mr. McClellan repeatedly declined to say whether he stood behind his previous statements that Mr. Rove had played no role in the matter, saying he could not comment while a criminal investigation was under way. He brushed aside questions about whether the president would follow through on his pledge, repeated just over a year ago, to fire anyone in his administration found to have played a role in disclosing the officer’s identity. And he declined to say when Mr. Bush learned that Mr. Rove had mentioned the C.I.A. officer in his conversation with the Time reporter.

Ironically, what might save Mr. Rove from prosecution (although his resignation may be in the cards) could be the liberal’s own hatred of the CIA and the how that hate translated into drawing up the legislation covering any crime Mr. Rove may have committed.

In the late 1970’s, CIA whistle blower Phillip Agee, in his book Inside the Company: CIA Diary, published the names of some covert operatives in Europe who ended up being assassinated. While it was impossible to tie Mr. Agee’s revelations to the killings, Congress, or at least the Republicans, was worried enough to pass a law against outing intelligence officials.

The debate on passage of the bill was rancorous with liberals screaming that such a law would discourage other whistle blowers from coming forward, thus depriving the left of any knowledge regarding sensitive intelligence operations. This debate was occurring a little more than 5 years after the infamous Church Committee hearings during which time morale at the CIA plummeted to an all time low and several of the more stupid and disastrous CIA operations were disclosed for the first time. It was during this time that Agee became a hero to the left, almost on par with the patron saint of whistle blowers Daniel Ellsberg, he of the Pentagon Papers fame.

The opposition to this law by the left back then has their protestations against Rove ringing hollow today.

The Times outlines the difficulties facing those who are salivating at the prospect of Rove doing the “perp walk”:

A prosecutor seeking to establish a violation of the law has to establish an intentional disclosure by someone with authorized access to classified information. That person must know that the disclosure identifies a covert agent “and that the United States was taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States.” A covert agent is defined as someone whose identity is classified and who has served outside the United States within the last five years.

“We made it exceedingly difficult to violate,” Victoria Toensing, who was chief counsel to the Senate intelligence committee when the law was enacted, said of the law.

The e-mail message from Mr. Cooper to his bureau chief describing a brief conversation with Mr. Rove, first reported in Newsweek, does not by itself establish that Mr. Rove knew Ms. Wilson’s covert status or that the government was taking measures to protect her.

Based on the e-mail message, Mr. Rove’s disclosures are not criminal, said Bruce S. Sanford, a Washington lawyer who helped write the law and submitted a brief on behalf of several news organizations concerning it to the appeals court hearing the case of Mr. Cooper and Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times. Ms. Miller has gone to jail rather than disclose her source.

“It is clear that Karl Rove’s conversation with Matt Cooper does not fall into that category” of criminal conduct, Mr. Sanford said. “That’s not ‘knowing.’ It doesn’t even come close.”

Since, as the Times story makes clear, Rove is not a target of Fitzgerald’s probe I would have one word of caution for the Times and all you lefties out there who are preparing to charge up the hill and take no prisoners in this affair.

Tread carefully. When it comes out how many reporters actually knew that Valerie Plame was both Wilson’s wife and a CIA operative, this scandal could disappear overnight:

There has been some dispute, moreover, about just how secret a secret agent Ms. Wilson was.

“She had a desk job in Langley,” said Ms. Toensing, who also signed the supporting brief in the appeals court, referring to the C.I.A.’s headquarters. “When you want someone in deep cover, they don’t go back and forth to Langley.”

Maybe a reporter mistook her super-secret authentic CIA decoder ring for evidence she was a spook.

UPDATE

I’ll have updates throughout the day as the blogswarm grows.

Captain Ed:

The New York Times plays the Rove card to the hilt today, putting their martyrdom of Judith Miller front and center while extending a mystery that the media created and the Times could immediately resolve. Instead, we get breathless accounts of non-comments from the White House that prompt 2,000-word front-page articles that wind up telling us nothing:

Why solve the mystery when there’s a feeding frenzy to feed?

Michelle Malkin points to the agressiveness of the White House Press Corps:

I actually have no problem with McClellan getting justifiably barked at during his daily briefings (if only we had more Les Kinsolvings to press the White House from the right, especially on illegal immigration). But isn’t it funny how Beltway reporters who get all prissy and whiny about one Fox News Channel reporter asking the DNC chairman one mildly aggressive question have no problem turning pack-rabid on McClellan?

Ah! But as you well know, Michelle, Fox doesn’t employ real journalists…only shills for the White House.

National Journal’s Beltway Blogroll has a great roundup of links mostly from the salivating left but also a few from the right.

Betsy Newmark makes a great point:

So the media can rant all they want, but days when we are at war in Iraq, terrorists are bombing Londoners on the way to work, North Korea and Iran are inches away from getting nuclear bombs, and it’s summer and vacation time, I don’t think most people outside the Beltway and the political blogosphere care one jot about Karl Rove.

One of the very things that’s giving life to this story - a news slowdown during the summer - could spell its doom for a long haul, wall to wall, feeding frenzy.

The Commissar believes (as I do) that Rove’s days are numbered - or at least they should be:

The problem is that Rove is more than just a key advisor, more than a member of the C-i-C’s inner circle. Rove and Bush go way back. Some might say that Rove “made” Bush. I don’t know if Bush can fire Rove. Not in a “skeletons in the closet” sense, but in a loyalty sense. Bush is famous for his loyalty; his loyalty to Rove has must be very, very strong. This will have to build to a typhoon-level storm that threatens to bring down Bush himself before Rove gets the axe.

Like Michelle, Lorie Byrd at Polipundit is focusing on the disgraceful exhibition yesterday by the White House Press Corps during their daily briefing with Scott McClellan. And she adds this:

I think that when the White House made their biggest mistake, though, was by not attacking Joe Wilson’s and Democrats’ lies earlier on. This was the beginning of the “Bush lied” mantra by the Democrats and it never should have been allowed. Democrats want to cry that Wilson was attacked by the White House, but by simply saying the guy misrepresented what was in his report and saying that he was not qualified in the first place and was only sent on the mission because his wife got him the job is not exactly hardball. If the Republicans ever grew a spine and decided to play hardball with the Democrats, even their buddies in the media could not save them from themselves.

I’m not sure the “Bush lied” meme started with the Joe Wilson imbroglio but Lorie is right that the White House too often ignored partisan attacks by the media which would later become urban legends. Like Bush saying that Saddam was involved directly in 9/11. Once its out there, a lie is a hard thing to knock down. And the vaunted Bush PR machine has done a piss poor job of handling issues like that.

In this relative calm before the storm of media frenzy hits the Rove-Wilson-Plame story, it’s well to remember two things:

1. It’s going to get worse before (if) it gets better for Rove
2. There’s no “there” there

If I were to hazard a guess, Rove will be forced to resign within a month. The reason won’t be due to any pending indictment or arrest, although I’ve seen several lefty blogs writing about one of their wet dreams that involves Rove doing the “perp walk.” It will happen because the coming feeding frenzy by the media will be enormously distracting to the Administration and Rove, like the good soldier he’s proven himself to be over the last 4 1/2 years, will realize it’s time to go.

The only thing that would stand in the way of a Rove resignation is the President himself. And on personnel matters, Bush at times has proven himself his own worst enemy. This is especially true in the national security sphere as he allowed George Tenet, the most spectacularly incompetent DCIA in history, to leave gracefully as well as allowing Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to remain a stone around his neck for far too long.

As for the scandal itself, I’m sorry to disappoint you liberals out there but there really isn’t much to hang your hat on. The legal issues involved are something of a muddle . Here’s a good analysis from the left from Jeralyn Merritt of Talkleft:

I don’t think Karl Rove is looking at a perjury charge or a charge of unlawful disclosure of an undercover agent. I suspect that was made clear to Rove’s lawyer during discussions that took place between Cooper’s lawyer, Rove’s lawyer and Fitzgerald in the 24 hours before Rove let Cooper off the confidentiality hook. Otherwise, Luskin would never have allowed Rove to release Cooper from his confidentiality pledge.

I think if Fitzgerald has a target in sight it is Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby and possibly other members of the White House Iraq Group. Of course, since Rove attended most of the Group’s weekly meetings, he may have some exposure there on a conspiracy charge - or on a false statement or perjury charge if he told investigators or the grand jury something different on an earlier occasion.

For a more strident lefty take, here’s a posting at Daily Kos that tortuously dissects a Walter Pincus article on what Rove knew and when he knew it:

Novak simply said that Plame allegedly “suggested” Wilson for the Niger investigation. That’s it. But it doesn’t say the White House knew that at the time; doesn’t say they found out later; doesn’t say they found out in the week prior to Novak’s column. Nothing. But Pincus’ source has a timeline. What Pincus’ source is saying is not merely relaying Plame’s status according to Novak’s column, but giving the additional information that “the White House had not paid attention to the 2002 trip” because of Plame’s known status at the time.

Why might that be important? Simply because, two days before Novak’s column was published, we have an administration official leaking subtle details of the Plame/Wilson/Niger/CIA connection that even Novak hadn’t written. That’s not consistent with the assertion by administration officials that they only “found out” Plame’s status from Novak’s column. This is someone citing knowledge of Plame’s CIA status inside the White House contemporaneous to the trip itself, and leaking that knowledge to Pincus on the 12th.

While Mr. Merritt’s take has a grasp of the significance of this Newsweek piece on Time reporter Matt Cooper’s source, the Kossak screed dances around the facts to arrive at a totally different conclusion.

What are the facts? Here’s the relevant passage from Michael Isikoff’s investigation:

In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson’s criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time’s editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine’s corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a “big warning” not to “get too far out on Wilson.” Rove told Cooper that Wilson’s trip had not been authorized by “DCIA”—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, “it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.” Wilson’s wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: “not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there’s still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger … “

The two things to note are that Rove never used Plame’s name (useful legal parsing of language that will drive the moonbats batty) and that Rove was not disclosing classified information. The email, which Cooper could never have imagined in his worst nightmare becoming public knowledge, also cuts the legs from underneath the political scandal that Rove was trying to get revenge on liar Wilson by outing his wife as a CIA agent. It’s clear that Rove was warning Cooper off a story that was wrong, something journalists are usually grateful for because it keeps them from looking as idiotic as Dan Rather did last September.

Given that Joe Wilson has been totally discredited and even the substance of his charges proved wrong, one would have to ask the obvious question: What are we all getting so excited about?

Arianna Huffington fantasizes about conspiracy:

According to the players, the key to whether this story has real legs — and whether it will spell the end of Rove — is determining intent. And a key to that is whether there was a meeting at the White House where Rove and Scooter Libby discussed what to do with the information they had gotten from the State Department about Valerie Plame being Joe Wilson’s wife, and her involvement in his being sent on the Niger/yellowcake mission. If it can be proven that such a meeting occurred, then Rove will be in deep trouble — especially if it is established that Rove made three phone calls leaking the info about Plame and her CIA gig… one to Matt Cooper, one to Walter Pincus, and one to Robert Novak.

Ms. Huffington’s fantasy “meeting” where Rove and Libby plotted to out Plame would make a good movie script but since there isn’t one scintilla of evidence that such a meeting occurred, such a conspiracy will have to remain as another liberal wet dream. Conspiracy to committ a crime would be something both the media and the public could get their minds around, unlike the kind of language parsing and mind reading that would be involved in trying to pin something on Rove as it stands now.

And that’s the nub of the problem for the left and, in the end, for the MSM who will be driving this story. Nixon’s crimes were simple to understand. “Obstruction of justice” fits very nicely as a banner headline on the front page of a newspaper. And the one word scandal that the Clinton impeachment became - sex - was an easy sell for obvious reasons. But where’s the “hook” for this scandal? What does the media have to hang its hat on with a story involving the President’s Chief of Staff warning off reporters from a story from a lying, self-important bureaucrat whose wife was trying to help his career by exaggerating his qualifications for a trip to discern Saddam Hussien’s nuclear intentions?

The churning of the story in the Shadow Media has already started on both the right and left. And one of the things that I’m anxious to discover (from a purely academic point of view) is the power of the new media to affect the coverage given the scandal in the MSM. Since liberal talk radio is non-existent, the only real connection the left has to the larger megaphone of the MSM are mega-blogs like Daily Kos and Talkleft. Smaller lefty blogs have never been able to receive much of a hearing because of the linking policies of the larger lefty blogs which bestow such favors grudgingly, it at all. If the left half of the Shadow Media wants to drive this story, I would suggest a change in that policy. One of the strengths of the righty blogs is our ability to saturate the sphere because of linking policies by blogs both large and small that guarantee the widest possible exposure of opinion and news in an extraordinarily short period of time. And in the 24 hour news cycle of cable news, this has proven to be useful in driving the debate.

Of course, it’s always easier to be on the attack in politics. And given the facts of this case versus the spin, it should be interesting to see where we are a week from now.

UPDATE

And now…from the right:

Powerline covers the legal issues with their usual clarity and thoroughness.

Dafydd ab Hugh guest blogging while the Captain enjoys his DC vacation has an excellent political-legal analysis that’s truly a must read.

Michelle Malkin has a great roundup with plenty of links covering all the angles.

Lorie Byrd skewers media coverage of the scandal to date.

Betsy Newmark offers some interesting opinions and prescient analysis.

And Hugh Hewitt gives the story a little perspective. The military has just recovered the body of the last Navy SEAL missing in Afghanistan:

This incredible sacrifice, coupled with the carnage in London and in Baghdad, provides the backdrop for my comments on the media frenzy surrounding what Karl Rove said or didn’t say to a reporter about the cheeseball’s wife.

Amen to that.

UPDATE II

Tom Maguire has been all over this story for weeks. Read his entire piece to gain some much needed political perspective on the motivations of both sides.

One thing Maguire highlights is the timeline being used by the left to try and prove Rove and Novak may have been in cahoots in outing Plame. Tom’s own timeline is a useful debunking tool as well as proof that Time’s Matt Cooper may in fact be shielding other journalists as his source for the leak.

Basil is having lunch. See what’s on the menu.

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’s Carnival was the best yet with 22 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.

Evidently, this report yesterday that the bombs used by the London terrorists were “crude” and not very sophisticated was incorrect.

The report came from someone identified as an explosives expert who “consults” for Jane’s Defense Weekly. The “expert,” Andy Oppenheimer, is a distant relative of brilliant physicist and Father of the atomic bomb Robert Oppenheimer, and is more often identified with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons threat assessment at Jane’s rather than “homeade” explosives analysis. It’s only interesting in light of this statement today by police spokesman Brian Paddock:

Each device is said by the police to have contained less than 10 pounds of “high explosives.” He also said the devices were “not homemade.” He added, “But whether it was military, commercial, plastic, we don’t want to say at this stage.”

Other reports also indicate a degree of sophistication that was previously dismissed:

The new details match the leading theory that is emerging among investigators, analysts said: that the bombings were a technically competent and well-coordinated attack planned and overseen by at least one experienced and well-trained operative using commercially manufactured explosives, and carried out by local people.

Such a pattern would fit previous bomb attacks in Casablanca in May 2003 and Madrid in March 2004. In each case, an operative from outside the country trained in Islamic extremist camps in Afghanistan or Pakistan used local people with no known links to terrorism to carry bombs to their targets. Irish Republican Army guerrillas used similar local helpers — known here as “lily whites” because they had no police record — in their decades-long bombing campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland.

Much has been written in the last few days about the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in Britain and how radical jihadis are operating with impunity in British society. In fact, London has come to be known as “Londonistan” for the wave of Muslim immigration that is changing the politics of not only England but nations on the continent as well:

Radical Muslims soon learned to ask for asylum for political persecution, to guarantee a long, taxpayer-supported vacation in Britain. London became “Londonistan,” the biggest European haven for Islamist indoctrination and recruitment. The terrorist enablers are the hard Left and its propaganda organs, notably the hallowed British Broadcasting Corporation. British ratepayers recently paid for the BBC to produce a “documentary” to peddle the bug-eyed notion that the terrorist threat was just a right-wing plot to scare people. That was pure disinformation, just one piece of a daily BBC propaganda stream that nurtures, protects, and rationalizes yesterday’s murders.

The question is what, if anything can be done about it. The howls of rage that would result in a crackdown on either immigration or radical Islamists from both Muslim “civil rights” groups and their left wing enablers in the media would seem to make any solution to the problem of inviting terrorists to take up residence in Britain - or the US for that matter - problematic. Richard Fernandez points out the dangers of doing nothing:

A politically correct policy that requires Europe not to know who is in the 5th column will will inevitably force it to assume guilt in those of a certain persuasion in a moment of mortal danger. Internment and mass deportation is what governments resort to when they don’t know who the real spies are. Political correctness is the practice of requiring ignorance indefinitely against the calculation that the moment of moral danger will never come because nobody knows what the hell they are going to do then. It’s at that moment, as Steyn observes, that farce, farce and farce becomes tragedy.

As western Muslims continue their campaign to portray our War on Terror as a war against Islam, it will become more and more difficult to crack down on the radical Imams who are not only actively recruiting for al Qaeda but also poisoning the minds of other Muslims to America and the west. And until the MSM wakes up to the danger and begins to broadcast the truth about these terror apologists and fellow travelers, we’ll continue to experience more numerical nightmares like 9/11, 3/11/ and 7/7.

The blogger known as Wretchard from the Belmont Club, whose incisive commentary on war and international politics makes him one of the most widely read sites in the sphere has decided to “out” himself:

The Belmont Club, or Wretchard rather, was cited in the Times of London in connection with “Downed US Seals may have got too close to Bin Laden”. It’s pretty strange since I’ve neither met Bin Laden nor ever been in Afghanistan, and makes me feel something of a fraud at being cited in connection with something I have no direct knowledge of. (Though the analysis is probably correct). It also reopens the question of whether Wretchard should continue to blog anonymously. Anonymous blogging has proved a good buffer against the petty vanities of authorship. The deal is you don’t do radio interviews, signed articles etc. The upside is that you have no ego to protect. The ideas you articulate are separated from your own personality.

This model is only partially functional now. People who knew me in the past, as well as my colleagues at Pajamas Media, know perfectly well “who” I am, although I think that information is totally irrelevant. Since the model of anonymity is failing, I’ll disclose the boring details. My name is Richard Fernandez, of Filipino birth and Australian citizenship. My interest in history probably began at Harvard, from which I graduated with a Masters in Public Policy. Wretchard is the name of an imaginary cat, the symbol of that entire race of stoic, yet somewhat foolish creatures. Belmont is the name of a suburb I roomed in while at Cambridge, Mass.

I know how it feels to lose that cloak of anonymity. It’s like losing a good friend. And it leaves one feeling exposed and vulnerable.

I would give one piece of advice to Mr. Fernandez. Resist the temptation to pull your punches now that your name is associated with your writing. I was surprised at how my attitude toward criticizing others changed drastically once my name was attached to what I was writing. It took me a while to get over the feeling that someone might not think well of me if I castigated them for something they wrote or said.

I also find it interesting that he chose the name of an imaginary cat for his nom de guerre. I would, however, protest his use of the adjective “foolish” to describe them. I’d like to see Mr. Fernandez jump off the kitchen counter 3 times higher than his height, land on his paws, and walk away as if he didn’t do anything wrong. I submit that takes a modicum of quick-wittedness not often seen in the animal kingdom.

Anyway…one more mystery in the sphere is cleared up. Now if we could only get Ace to out himself….

E.J. Dionne is a weeny.

Not very grown up of me, I’ll admit. But what else do you call someone who, when it comes to elections and governance, decides to make up the rules as we go along instead of adhering to to time honored traditions and history?

Should a temporary majority of 50.7 percent have control over the entire United States government? Should 49.3 percent of Americans have no influence over the nation’s trajectory for the next generation?

Like a spoiled brat of a child, Dionne is throwing a tantrum because the Republicans are seeking to (gasp!) control all three branches of government by putting a conservative or two on the Supreme Court. Evidently, Mr. Dionne has a novel view about elections: The Republican majority isn’t large enough to justify governing the country.

Many Republicans are already saying that since Bush won the last election and since Republicans control the Senate, the president’s choice should be confirmed with dispatch. But as former judge Robert Bork wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, the Supreme Court “is the most powerful branch of government in domestic policy.” Today’s Republican majority, based on Bush’s 50.7 percent of the vote in 2004, has no inherent right to exercise near-total control over that “most powerful branch.”

Of course, Mr. Dionne’s thesis begs the question - um, just how large a majority would justify Republican governance? Since Mr. Dionne doesn’t answer the question, I’ll do it for him.

Exactly one more vote than your guy got.

We call this democracy. If your guy had gotten one more vote than our guy, then he would be the one sitting in the Big Chair making the selection that would have a minority party controlling two thirds of the federal government.

See how this thing cuts both ways?

Of course, if the situation were reversed I doubt whether we’d hear you caterwauling about “consultation” or other Democratic code words for obstructionism. Then again, if the confirmation shoe was on your foot, I have no doubt that you would use these numbers to justify nominating the most far left judges imaginable:

Consider that since 1992 the Republican presidential vote has averaged only 44 percent and the vote for Republican House candidates has averaged roughly 48 percent. In 2004, with large margins in some of the largest states, Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate received nearly 5 million more votes than their Republican opponents.

Those numbers don’t change the fact that the GOP controls both the White House and the Senate. But they do suggest that the Republicans owe a decent respect to the opinions of the Democratic minority and have no mandate for pushing the court far to the right. Yes, this is a “political” assertion. But debates over Supreme Court nominations have been political throughout our history.

Mr. Dionne now refuses to reveal what his threshold for “mandate” would be. I recall following President Reagan’s electoral slaughter of Walter Mondale in the 1984 election, Democrats refused to acknowledge any mandate for the winner of 58% of ballots cast and 525 out of 538 electoral votes. After all (their logic went) , if one were to include every American eligible to vote (along with every dog, cat, and bunny rabbit) Mr. Reagan received less than 50% support of the American people. This was a time when Americans still took the Democratic party seriously unlike today where Democrats have become the punchline to a national joke.

A “mandate” in a democracy is when your guy gets one more vote than the other guy. This is based on the simple idea that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. If one more of the governed gives their consent to be governed by the winner of an election, that’s as big a mandate as any landslide in political history. Any other formulation will not work. To try and make up new rules simply because your ideas and candidates have been rejected by 50% plus 1 of the electorate may be emotionally necessary but hardly a sound basis to conduct the business of the republic.

Yes, the minority has “rights” - or rather the minority view is “protected.” This protection takes the form of procedural rules like the filibuster in the Senate and (formerly) a strong federalist bent that gave certain powers to states that didn’t vote for the majority candidate. I find it interesting that Democrats are talking about “checks and balances” in the Senate as “Constitutional.” As every 12th grader in my day had to know before they could graduate high school, the “checks and balances” in the Constitution referred to the 3 separate but equal branches of government and had no relationship whatsoever to the transient nature of political power in one branch or another. This seems to have escaped the attention of the clueless Mr. Dionne.

Finally, Mr. Dionne advocates the Borking of any nominee as a last resort to keep the dastardly Republicans from seizing control of the government altogether and exercising the power granted them by the electorate in the last election:

Those who say that politics, philosophy and “issues” shouldn’t be part of the confirmation argument typically bemoan the prospect of a mean and dirty fight. But if the only legitimate way to stop a nominee is to discover or allege some personal shortcoming, all the incentives are in favor of nasty ad hominem attacks. If senators disagree profoundly with the philosophy of a nominee who happens to be a perfectly decent human being, isn’t it far better that they wage their battle openly on philosophical and political grounds? Why force them to dig up bad stuff on a good person? Paradoxically, denying that politics matter in confirmation battles makes for uglier politics.

A “legitimate” way to stop a nominee is to “discover or allege” (lie) some personal foible? One would hope that shooting the nominee would at least fall under Mr. Dionne’s definition of “illegitimate” because throwing crap against the wall to see if anything sticks is a helluva way to fight the nomination of a Justice to the United States Supreme Court. This tactic is not only beneath contempt, it reveals how desperately the Democrats and their gaggle of interest groups need to stop a conservative from being confirmed. The apocalyptic rhetoric of NOW, ANSWER, and the alphabet soup of special pleaders who call the Democratic party home makes a little more sense when placed in the context that it would be perfectly legitimate to make something up about a nominee in order to defeat them.

Mr. Dionne has given us fair warning that the coming fight over the next Justice to the United States Supreme Court is going to be a bloody one. And it also appears that the Democrats may be perfectly willing to filibuster any nominee who would reflect even a moderate conservative philosophy - especially if that philosophy was disagreeable to the interest groups whose hold on the elected officials in that party is now total and complete.

UPDATE

Polipundit also takes Dionne to task for his curious ideas regarding democracy:

So I guess we should all just forget about that election thingy. I’m sure Dionne would say the same thing if Kerry had won, and if Democrats - rather than Republicans - had gained four seats in the US Senate in 2004. Right? Right?

Not to belabor the point, but Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff also sees the hypocrisy dripping from this aricle. It says something revealing about the MSM that liberal columnists still feel secure enough that they can write this drivel with impunity.

UPDATE 7/12

David Limbaugh makes many of the same points that I do in his royal reaming of Mr. Dionne and adds this:

The answers to E.J.’s questions are these: No, a relatively narrow majority (nor an overwhelming majority, for that matter) does not have an inherent right to exercise near-total control over the “entire U.S. government” or “that ‘most powerful branch.’” It is entitled to precisely that amount of influence it is able to muster under the Constitution. Under the Constitution, the president is entitled to appoint judges, and the Senate has the advice and consent power.

Senators of the majority party are not required to push their agenda with only 50.7 percent intensity. It’s an adversary system — they may promote their views with 100 percent of their energy, and it is up to the minority party to advocate their dissenting views.

Elections have consequences E.J. - except when Republicans win, eh?

There are times I truly feel sorry for Markos Moulitsas Zúniga AKA “Kos.” His fans and worshipers number in the millions. He has the top political weblog in the country. He gets thousands of dollars a month in advertising.

Well, okay. I don’t feel that sorry for him. After all, his nickname, “Screw ‘em” Kos, was given for the curious epitaph Mr. Zúniga’ directed at those unfortunate souls in Fallujah two years ago who were murdered and then hung from a bridge while a crowd danced a jig in celebration. I’m told the offending post has mysteriously disappeared from his archives. Too bad he didn’t go ahead and delete most of what he wrote during the last election cycle.

But let’s give credit where credit is due. Kos has had it with the tin foil hat crowd:

Today I did something I’ve never done before (not even during the Fraudster mess), and wish I’d never had to do.

I made a mass banning of people perpetuating a series of bizarre, off-the-wall, unsupported and frankly embarrassing conspiracy theories.

I have a high tolerance level for material I deem appropriate for this site, but one thing I REFUSE to allow is bullshit conspiracy theories. You know the ones — Bush and Blair conspired to bomb London in order to take the heat off their respective political problems. I can’t imagine what fucking world these people live in, but it sure ain’t the Reality Based Community.

So I banned these people, and those that have been recommending diaries like it. And I will continue to do so until the purge is complete, and make no mistake — this is a purge.

A purge! A purge! Oh, really?

Update: I’ve been reinstating some of the banned accounts as they email me. Some people wondered why there wasn’t any warning. There have been warnings from others — repeated pleadings for people to ground themselves in reality.

It’s telling that I have NEVER done something like this before. Because this has been an extreme situation. This isn’t about disagreeing with what people are saying. If that was the case, everyone would’ve been banned by now. The myth of the “echo chamber” is just that. A myth.

But as for warnings, well, this has been my warning. I wanted it clear that I was serious, and I think that has come through. I am reinstating those who ask to be reinstated. But the message has been sent.

The message has been sent…but has it been received? Here’s one of the first commenters on this “Purge Post”:

Who decides which conspiracy theories are acceptable?

The American people were lied to repeatedly in order to go to war against Iraq. Conspiracy theory? Nope, fact.

Don’t know enough about either of the last two to decide either way. That’s up to the individual.

This “Emily Litella” moment is predictable and, as Kevin at Wizbang points out, it “makes one wonder how many Kossites will be left?”

Because once you get down to it, the modern Democratic Party is little better than a third world conspiracy mill that constantly feeds its wild eyed members ever more bizarre and outlandish intrigues in order to assuage all the slights - both real and imagined - received at the hands of their political opponents.

This flight from reality would be amusing if we weren’t fighting a war for our survival and trying to overturn centuries of oppression in the middle east. The sad fact is, as I’ve stated many times on this site, we need the left in order to win this war and succeed in the middle east. But like Tom Cruise in Top Gun following his crash that killed his best friend, the left simply is incapable of engaging the enemy. They are standing on the sidelines like a bunch of old men at a shuffleboard tournament, kibitzing and criticizing while not lifting a finger to help.

To say that they were obstructionists would be incorrect because they’ve made themselves totally irrelevant in the national security debate. The harm they do is that their conspiracy theories and overinflated rhetoric about Nazis and death camps are used as propaganda by our enemies to provoke and inflame the passions of the Arab street. In short, while they hate it when I say it, their rhetoric gives aid and comfort to the people we’re fighting. It gives them the only thing they have at this point - hope. Hope that the people who really want to fight this war and win will be thrown out of office and people who have no stomach for the fight are put in. It’s the only chance they have and like a drowning man hanging on to a piece of driftwood, the terrorists have latched on to it and are hanging on until help arrives…

The Democrats and their apologists who make up the community of Kos.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin:

Wouldn’t it be something if the Democrat Party took a hint and tried draining its own fever swamps, too?

Now that would be a public works project that I could support enthusiastically. The only drawback would be the size and scope of the endeavor. Maybe we should start with something a little more manageable.

Like draining the Everglades.

Charles Johnson is also noticing and has a thought about Kos’ deliberate use of the word “purge”:

Once this revelation dawned upon him, in true reactionary fashion he carried out a “purge” to get rid of some of the nuts—and then had to un-purge and let them back in.

You ever hear a conservative use the word “purge” to describe an ideological cleansing? Hitler “purged” the S.A. and had his buddy Ernst Roehm murdered after dragging him out of the bed he was sharing with his male lover. Stalin “purged” the Red Army by having tens of thousands of officers executed, many of whom committed no crime whatsoever. It seems that the word has meaning and usage for only the most despicable tyrants in history.

That would place Kos in familiar territory.

Charmaine Yoest has been “Janey on the Spot” this week, first blogging the G8 Summit and then becoming an eyewitness to history as she arrived in London immediately after the bombs had gone off. Her nose for a story had her interviewing young Brits about the bombing. What she found was both depressing and expected:

Directly outside I saw Davy D, a hip-hop DJ from Oakland. Together we went over to interview a group of young men standing together by the barricades. After they recognized Davey, they were happy to speak right up. We asked them why everyone seemed to be reacting so calmly and they all just shrugged. One said: “I was expecting this — sooner or later it was going to happen. I knew something was going to happen.” Then he continued: “Everyone thinks they know why it happened. . .”

Why?

Well, because George Bush and Tony Blair need to make it easier to go to war.

Davey and I glanced at each other. The interview moved on to other topics. Finally, as we wrapped up, I stopped the young man, just to clarify his comment. Did he mean, I asked, to imply that there was some sort of conspiracy by the government involved in today’s attacks? Just to generate support for the war?

“Definitely,” he said. “Definitely.”

Charmaine and her companion moved on and interviewed two young women:

It’s Tony Blair’s fault! They’ve killed 100,000 people — it’s like a boomerang.” Later she repeated this, talking about “killing innocent people” and “invading other peoples’ country . . .”

When we asked her the question about the calm, she shrugged too. “We’re used to it,” she replied. “Americans get patriotic over anything silly.”

We were starting to see a pattern

After another “Blame Blair-Bush” interview, Charmaine approached the “quintessential” British businessman and asked similar questions:

Spied him talking on the phone near the barricade and moved in. Warily, he agreed to talk.

No, he wasn’t surprised. “It’s been due to happen. Sooner or later.” He got the talking points, too.

Bu then he pointed out something very interesting that I had noticed only on a subconscious level. “This is the heart of Little Beirut” he said. We were indeed surrounded by people, like the young men, who appeared to be Arab. A strange and exceptionally cold-blooded choice of targets for Al Quaida, even by terrorist standards.

Finally, I asked him the Tony Blair question. He looked at me puzzled: “How can you blame Tony Blair?”

Those young Brits were mouthing the slogans and regurgitating the tripe they hear everyday from pop culture icons, left wing politicians and media, and a host of personalities whose ever escalating rhetorical flights of fancy with regards to the War on Terror have evidently done enormous damage to the spirit and ability to resist the Islamists among the young.

Too small a sample? Here’s more:

Four young British Muslims in their twenties - a social worker, an IT specialist, a security guard and a financial adviser - occupy a table at a fast-food chicken restaurant in Luton. Perched on their plastic chairs, wolfing down their dinner, they seem just ordinary young men. Yet out of their mouths pour heated words of revolution.

“As far as I’m concerned, when they bomb London, the bigger the better,” says Abdul Haq, the social worker. “I know it’s going to happen because Sheikh bin Laden said so. Like Bali, like Turkey, like Madrid -I pray for it, I look forward to the day.”

“I agree with you, brother,” says Abu Yusuf, the earnest-looking financial adviser sitting opposite. “I would like to see the Mujahideen coming into London and killing thousands, whether with nuclear weapons or germ warfare. And if they need a safehouse, they can stay in mine - and if they need some fertiliser [for a bomb], I’ll tell them where to get it.”

(HT: Junkyard Blog)

All day long on Sky News, the refrain was repeated over and over. The attacks were Bush-Blair’s fault. If we weren’t in Iraq this wouldn’t have happened. Charmaine noticed something else; a curious lack of outrage and sorrow:

As our group re-assembled and walked back toward the hospital in a sudden grey London rain, we compared notes. We all agreed that we were observing a striking difference between English and American reactions to this kind of disaster. Perhaps later the impromptu teddy-bear memorials that characterize our American communal grief in the wake of tragedy will appear.

But, for now, the English we met were putting on the stiff upper lip.

I certainly hope so. From much of the reaction I’ve seen, with the exception of most politicians (who will probably wait until after the funerals to begin their Bush-Blair bashing) the reaction of the average Brit has underwhelmed me and left me with a sense that the Great Britain of today is a far cry from the Great Britain of my father’s day.

Would the British population of today stood up to Hitler? Would they have stuck with Churchill? Or would they have accepted Hitler’s “peace” offer that the Nazi dictator gave prior to the start of the Battle of Britain which guaranteed British sovereignty?

The Brits back then didn’t even bother to respond. In fact, the BBC gave an eloquent response rejecting Hitler’s offer without even consulting the government. Now that was a spirit of resistance.

Blair’s government won’t fall as a result of this tragedy. Nor will British troops be pulled from Iraq. But unless we see some signs over the next few days that the British people are beginning to wake up to the fact that George Bush didn’t bomb them but rather implacable, bloodthirsty Islamists, it may be time to start worrying about our best and closest ally in the War on Terror.

UPDATE

The quotes from the four Muslim youths wishing for nuclear armageddon in London were NOT given in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombing. As I just discovered, the quotes appeared in NRO’s The Corner on 7/7 and were taken from an Evening Standard article from April, 2004.

I regret the error and apologize for the confusion.