Right Wing Nut House

My latest is up at FrontPage.com and it’s another update about what is going on with NATO’s mission in Libya.

A sample:

Pro-government forces have changed their tactics, says French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe. Gaddafi’s army is now using human shields, hiding their tanks and artillery in what appears to be heavily populated areas. “”We’ve formally requested that there be no collateral damage for the civilian population … That obviously makes operations more difficult.”

This hasn’t convinced the rebels whose NATO-recognized commander, General Abdel Fattah Younes, is accusing the alliance of dragging its feet. “No, it’s not convincing at all. NATO has other means. I requested there be combat helicopters like Apaches and Tigers. These damage tanks and armoured vehicles with exact precision without harming civilians.”

NATO has been reluctant so far to use combat helicopters because Gaddafi’s forces are known to possess shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons that proved to be very effective against Russian helicopters in Afghanistan. Such caution has been the hallmark of the air campaign as NATO governments not only want to avoid civilian casualties, but also coalition casualties as well. The war is not overly popular in Europe and national leaders are afraid that the people will turn against the conflict if their sons start to come home in coffins.

While it may be admirable to do everything possible to avoid killing innocent civilians, the rebels have other complaints about NATO’s air campaign as well. There has been a slowdown in support for rebel attacks outside of the key city of Brega, with no explanation coming from NATO. The opposition was routed from that key western oil city and driven back more than 40 miles as NATO planes did not make an appearance. NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said that “the pace of our operations continues unabated. The ambition and the position of our strikes has not changed.” But the problem appears not to be the number of sorties, but rather where NATO chooses to assist the rebels.

The confusion about the conflicting goals of the UN mandate to “protect civilians,” while being prevented from affecting “regime change” has given NATO military chiefs pause when it comes to offering benefits to the rebels such as close air support. Whether by design or simply as a consequence of NATO’s attempt to maintain an arm’s length relationship with the rebels, there is little or no coordination with the rebel troops on the ground when they attack, or while they are retreating. If NATO patrols circling Misrata catch site of Gaddafi’s forces in the open, they pulverize them. But they are refusing to attack targets inside the city, despite rebel claims that most of the population has left.

The rebels also complain that it sometimes takes hours - 8 hours in at least one instance - for NATO to respond to requests for air support. Could it be that the infamous “political committee” made up of all NATO countries, the Arab League, and a few other nations are gumming up the works? I haven’t heard anything about that committee since its formation, but 8 hours to decide to support a rebel operation? It really does sound as if NATO is fighting a war by committee.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative political talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, I welcome Aaron Gee of the American Thinker, Jazz Shaw of Hot Air, and Doug Mataconis of Below the Beltway for a Rapid Fire question and answer roundtable on news, issues, and current events.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

My latest is up at FrontPage.com where I examine the decision yesterday by the Justice Department to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed via a military tribunal rather than a civilian trial.

A sample:

This latest flip-flop by the Obama administration highlights the chasm between what presidential candidate Obama said about the detainee policies of George W. Bush in 2008, and the actions Obama has been forced to take when confronted with the same realities his predecessor faced. On every significant issue dealing with detainees and where they will be housed, the President has been forced by massive political opposition - at times, from his own party - to reverse himself and follow the same policies and procedures laid down by President Bush.

Former Vice President Cheney predicted as much when he said in 2009, “I think the president will find, upon reflection, that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come.”

In this case, it was Congress that put its foot down and prevented Eric Holder from going forward with his disastrous plan to bring Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed and the other conspirators to New York City and try them in the criminal justice system. At Monday’s press conference announcing his decision, Holder alluded to a rider attached to last year’s Defense Authorization Act that prevented any monies from being spent for a federal trial on US soil as the cause for his “reluctant” decision.

“Those unwise and unwarranted restrictions undermine our counterterrorism efforts and could undermine our national security,” said Holder. The Attorney General failed to elaborate on how keeping dangerous terrorists off American soil could “undermine” our national security. He also did not specifically address how a trial for Mohammed by military tribunal could adversely affect our counterterrorism efforts.

Holder was careful not to mention past administration reversals, including the president’s efforts to close Guantanamo, expand detainee rights, do away with “indefinite detention,” and stop military trials altogether. In each and every case, Congress - both Democrats and Republicans - have stymied this massively flawed ideology regarding the treatment and disposition of detainees.

The White House had little to say about Holder’s announcement. Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters, “I think that the president’s primary concern is that the perpetrators - the accused perpetrators - of that terrible attack on the American people be brought to justice as swiftly as possible and as fairly as possible.” He added that “congressional opposition has created obstacles that’s (sic) been very hard to overcome.”

It’s amazing to listen to Holder’s bitter tirade against Congress when it is his own blindness to circumstances that is at fault. KSM is not “just another terrorist.” When Holder defends the DoJ by saying they were perfectly capable of trying terrorists in a civilian court, I have little doubt that he is correct - in many cases. Whether most terrorists should be tried in civilian courts is another issue, but no one is deriding the competence of the Justice Department to carry out trials for small fry.

But is Holder stupid or is it that he just doesn’t recognize the fact that a KSM trial would be radically different than trying some al-Qaeda foot soldier? This is a guy whose picture is hanging on the walls of mud huts and hovels from the Red Sea to the Hindu-Kush. He is a hero to millions of Muslims around the world who sympathize with the terrorists. To imagine the security nightmare of a trial likely to take up to two years is only part of it. No doubt KSM would be represented by the most histrionic of lawyers who, like O.J. Simpson’s “dream team,” could very well turn such an extraordinarily complex trial into a muddled circus.

If that would be the case - a distinct possibility - all bets would be off and despite Holder’s confident assertions of conviction, we may very well be confronted with the nightmare of KSM or one or more of his confederates being acquitted. What then, Mr. General?

I understand the worry that the tribunals won’t pass muster on appeal. Fine. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. First things first - try KSM and his cronies in a secret military tribunal, convict the bastard, and execute him. He has received far more consideration by opponents of tribunals and others than he deserves.

He is a quiet, unassuming young man away from the basketball court — polite, respectful, humble, a genuinely nice guy. He’s the kind of young man you hope your daughter brings home some day to announce her engagement. He carries himself with a dignity and grace that you wish more professional athletes would emulate.

But when this nice kid gets on a basketball court, he becomes a gargoyle, a demon, a whirling blur of power, motion, and speed that makes opposing players appear that they are standing in quick drying cement as he streaks by them on his way to another jaw-dropping finish at the rim.

Derrick Rose is not the best NBA player. There are better shooters, better rebounders, better passers. There are better 3-point shooters, players better at dealing out assists or stealing the ball, and better shot blockers.

But only 2 or three players besides Rose feature the entire package. And none, in my estimation can match the burning intensity of his will to win by doing what ever it takes, including sacrificing his body, to carry his team to victory.

Lebron James is, at this point, the best all-around player in the NBA followed closely by his Miami teammate Dwyane Wade. Both of those superstars feature the same kind of speed, power, and leaping ability of Rose. And both may be slightly better defenders than Rose at this point in his career.

That’s because at the ripe old age of 22, Rose has only been in the Big Show for 2 years. But his willingness to accept the coaching of first year skipper Tom Thibideau — a defensive wiz who has turned the Bulls into legitimate contenders virtually overnight — presages future years where the native Chicagoan will no doubt be a perennial first team all-NBA defensive team selection.

A former “Mr. Basketball” in Illinois, Rose’s path to the NBA was a difficult one. Growing up on the mean streets of the South Side of Chicago in the drug and gang ingested Englewood neighborhood, Rose’s father walked out on the family when Derrrick was very young. His mother, a strong willed woman with a determined sense of family, raised the youngster with the help of his three brothers who kept Rose off the streets and away from gangs.

As Rose became a teenager, the brothers shielded the young man from the worst that the basketball culture has to offer. There are so many charlatans, shoe salesmen, scouts, and hangers on for a talented young kid like Rose to avoid on the way up and his brothers performed that function magnificently. Most of us are unaware of the pressures that many of these African American kids from the inner cities of America are under if they have even modest basketball talent. Rose not only avoided scandal and controversy, he thrived in the structured environment offered by both his brothers, and his high school coach.

Winning two state championships with Simeon Academy, Rose went on to win a national championship with Memphis where after only one year, he entered the NBA draft.

Becoming the improbable 1st pick of the Bulls in the 2008 draft (the Bulls, the last lottery team in, had only a 1.7% chance of getting the first pick), he was named Rookie of the Year and followed that season up with a solid second.

Determined to improve his jump shooting, Rose spent the summer of 2010 in the gym practicing. Results of his hard work became immediately apparent as teams that had once dropped off the young star and clogged the middle to prevent his drives to the basket now discovered that Rose would simply rise up and drain 15, 18, foot jumpers. He has even improved his shooting beyond the arc although he has had long dry spells when trying to shoot the three.

With a 40″ vertical leap and a solid 195 lbs on his 6′3″ frame, the strength of this kid is incredible. His body control while in the air is amazing and more than once he has dunked the ball over much taller competitors.

But it is when the game is on the line that Derrick Rose shows his worth. Every great team needs a closer — a guy who can take the ball and put the team on his back, willing it to win. Since most NBA games are close affairs, the last 3 minutes of a game usually determines the outcome. This season, Rose has made sure that if the Bulls are ahead, they stay ahead, and if they are down, they more often than not catch up and surpass the opposing team in those final, vital minutes. He’s not the best closer in the game - yet. But in a year or two, the Bulls will lose few close games with Derrick Rose on the court.

What Rose has meant to the Chicago Bulls this year is incalculable. With the team missing players like Carlos Boozer (21 games) and Joachim Noah (31 games), the Bulls nevertheless have the best record in the Eastern Conference and a shot at the number one seed for the playoffs and home court advantage throughout. It has been Rose who has kept the team together, urging it on to greater effort, and supplying that killer instinct that all great teams need in order to prevail.

The Bulls will probably not win an NBA championship this year. They may not even get to the Eastern Conference finals. But there is no doubt that the league must once again reckon with the Chicago Bulls. For the first time since the Michael Jordan era, Bulls fans are delirious with excitement over their team.

And most of all, they are delirious over the hometown kid with the shy smile and the heart of a lion.

I missed writing my annual paean to the change of seasons this year. In the past, this site has sung the praises of the return of the robin, the blooming of the dogwood, the eternal hope engendered by opening day at Wrigley Field, and the quiet joy that feeling the warmth of the sun on my face after months of bitter cold brings to my fatalistic Irish soul.

I just didn’t have it in me this year. I am restless, irritable, snarky, sneeringly condescending, and hopelessly cynical about the future.

Yeah - a real fricking joy to be around. Just asky my Zsu-Zsu.

Since this blog has always been an aid to self-examination, I thought I would put to words the utter helplessness I feel about the turn that conservatism has taken and how just now, at the very moment that the United States needs a rational, deliberate response to the radicalism of the Democrats and Obama, the right has flitted off into NeverNever Land on the wings of conspiracy and unreasoning hatred.

Andrew Sullivan a few days ago:

Conservatism cannot be defined as whatever is the most extreme right-wing narrative of the moment. Time matters. Conservatism needs to be flexible enough a governing philosophy to be able to correct for conservative ideology itself. When such an ideology threatens fiscal balance, a prudent foreign policy, and a thriving middle class, it has become the enemy of real conservatism, not its friend.

Sullivan still thinks that the National Journal’s #1 liberal senator of 2007 (he was #10 in 2006 and #16 in 2005) with a lifetime ADA rating of 95 is a moderate “pragmatist.” I want you to imagine that instead of Obama, the senator’s name was Jim DeMint and the ratings were for most conservative senator. Would Sullivan or anyone who agrees with him say that DeMint was a moderate pragmatist? Sullivan being so desperate to convince himself of Obama’s pragmatism is one of the great continuing public self-deceptions in the history of the internet.

But he’s right about conservatism. The radical ideologues who are pushing, crowding, and denouncing what they want to call “establishment” Republicans are compounding the inconsistencies and creating new hypocrisies that are destroying the right’s ability to adequately counter the expansion of government power that we have seen over the past decade - revved into high gear by the Obama administration.

EPA rules on CO2, health insurance “reform” that sets the stage for massive government interference in the health care of individuals, consumer “protection” from our own stupidity, rules, rules, and more rules on everything from what we can eat to narrowing choices in the marketplace - at the point of a gun for the most part. What is it about forcibly compelling Americans to do what is best for themselves that makes the left so happy about itself? God knows.

But the radical right has failed to stop any of it, and has, in fact, made it easier for the radical liberals to achieve their goals. The only thing that has saved us from total immolation is that the liberals have screwed up the economy so badly with slow growth/no growth policies deliberately designed to punish success and business creation, that the American voter threw them out of power in disgust. Mistaking voter rejection of Democrats with approval of their radical agenda, the right is now in the process of giving back to the Democrats in 2012 what they lost in 2010. It is rare when so many are so demonstrably self-deluded.

It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You see the torn up track ahead of the engine; you watch as the engine goes off the rails; you freeze as, car by car, the train rolls off the track, piling up into a tragic heap of twisted metal. And there is nothing whatsoever you can do to stop it.

The blind support for personalities like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman, the clutching at conspiracy theories ranging from Obama’s birth to the authorship of his autobiography, the incomprehensible incoherence of the right’s desire to govern as a one party dictatorship while claiming to want a “return” to constitutional principles - all of this and more has made conservatism (in the eyes of many) a “riot of conceits” as R. Emmett Tyrell referred to liberalism at one time.

Note on the “one party dictatorship” crack: If you refuse to accept anything less than 100% of your position on an issue, eschewing negotiations with the opposition, while openly talking about destroying them, one can only conclude that you favor the GOP as the sole party to run the government. This is especially true if you seek to punish those conservatives who wish to govern by getting things done - only accomplished by negotiating with the opposition. Calling that a “betrayal” is not only ignorant, but reveals an unlovely authoritarian streak that proves many on the right more concerned with gathering power to destroy their enemies than governing the United States.

If the desire for compulsion rules the left, resentment against change and the modern world appears to rule the right. Sarah Palin is a master at tapping into the resentment against a changing America whose demographics are getting less white, less rural, and relatively poorer. And more tolerant. In this, the right is being left behind as American society begins to accept those who, 50 years ago, would have been shunned - or worse. Not just homosexuals, but also women, the handicapped, immigrants, other religions - the struggle for acceptance by these and others is an American story; as American a tale as the Alamo or Gettysburg. At bottom, American history is a history of people and their struggle to realize the promise found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The telling of it reaffirms who we are and what values we should most hold dear.

But many on the right want the same verities that comforted their grandparents to somehow still be true today. Yes, there are timeless principles to be passed from generation to generation - and a few that should be left behind. Resenting the necessity and inevitability of change is irrational. As conservatives, our job is to manage that change, channeling it down constructive avenues that keep that valuable connection with the past while acknowledging a future that will be different that what came before.

It is up to the right to place limits on change so that though necessary, the alterations don’t obliterate the outline of America. Change with familiarity.

But the modern ideologues not only don’t want any change, they wish a “return” to some mythical time when everyone was self reliant and didn’t need government to survive. If they got in trouble, their local church would take care of them, or relatives, or neighbors. No welfare. No food stamps. No housing assistance. No job training. This 18th century view of government is silly and stupid but is a widely held construct of what government should be on the right.

As I’ve said before, this is not a “return” to constitutional principles, but rather a resurrection of the Articles of Confederation - on steroids. The other half of the equation for many conservatives - the 10th Amendment movement - would be fine if a realistic federalism was being advocated. But there is nothing realistic about turning EPA responsibilities over to the states, or all social welfare spending dumped on governors and state legislatures. The only thing that this kind of advocacy promises is chaos - something that would occur to anyone not enamored of their own excessive ideology in about 5 seconds.

I never thought I’d live to see the day when being called a “pragmatist” would become an epithet of denigration. It doesn’t matter where I stand on the issues - most of the time it is with the vast majority of the right. What matters is that I am significantly less hateful toward the opposition and wish to see both sides negotiate a way out of this monumental mess we find ourselves in. This is a no brainer. America is in crisis and conservatives can only think about hating and destroying liberals by seeking electoral advantage when their obstructionism succeeds in making it appear that Democrats have done nothing about the country’s problems. This is patriotism? This is proof that the right loves America more than the left? Spare me boys.

This is why the onset of spring has not had its usual uplifting effect on my spirits. America is headed for a terrible fall and the chaos that will follow the collapse will throw up the worst kind of leaders - knights on white horses who will ride to our rescue if only we would give them the power to make things right. It’s happened before elsewhere and there is no reason why it couldn’t happen here.

I will leave to your imagination what ideological form our shining knight will take.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative political talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, I welcome Monica Showalter of Investors Business Daily, Fausta Wertz of Fausta’s Blog, and Jeff Dunetz of Yid with a Lid for a discussion of the Obama Doctrine and its impact on US sovereignty.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

This was published yesterday at FrontPage.com. It’s my take on the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine (R2P)  and how it may become a threat to national sovereignty.

A sample:

The ICISS was chaired by Gareth Evans, former foreign minister for Australia, whose thoughts about the report and sovereignty in particular bear looking at in detail. Mr. Evans sought to turn the debate on sovereignty “on its head” by “characteriz[ing] it not as an argument about the ‘right’ of states to anything, but rather about their ‘responsibility’ — one to protect people at grave risk.”

That “responsibility” is to be defined by the United Nations. Mr. Evans envisions a world where sovereign nations are hardly “sovereign” as we understand the term. Indeed, Evans is seeking nothing less than a brand new definition of sovereignty — what he calls “a new way of talking about sovereignty itself.” The starting point, he says, is that sovereignty “should now be seen not as ‘control,’ as in the centuries-old Westphalian tradition, but, again, as ‘responsibility.’”

No “rights.” No “control.” At least Mr. Evans is willing to let nations keep their borders — for now — although that may also be under threat from R2P. One can imagine the United Nations taking the US to task for trying to keep millions of illegals from crossing our border: We have no “right” to keep hungry, desperate people from seeking a better life. Might our border policies also violate the R2P doctrine? Indeed, such an argument is already being made.

In 2004, the Secretary General Kofi Annan set up a blue ribbon committee to examine the ICISS findings and issue a report to the United Nations. The Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change swallowed the “new” definition of sovereignty while recommending R2P be adopted as a matter of policy and law. Their report, “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility,” recommended that it be the responsibility “of every State when it comes to people suffering from avoidable catastrophe, mass murder and rape, ethnic cleansing by forcible expulsion and terror, and deliberate starvation and exposure to disease.”

In other words, “responsibility” has morphed from the 1990s concept–which entailed that it is up to the world community or voluntary coalitions to intervene where necessary to protect innocents–to a set of rules that sovereign nations themselves must satisfy the United Nations or the hammer will fall.

Full disclosure: I am Blog Editor of The American Thinker

There’s a video of Bill Ayers making the rounds of conservative blogs where the radical extremist “admits” to writing Obama’s best selling autobiography Dreams of my Father.

The video originates on American Thinker, as does Cashill’s blog post claiming that Ayers owns up to writing the book. Cashill, a prolific writer, has published several pieces at AT and elsewhere that has advanced the theme that Obama - an unknown community organizer who couldn’t meet publisher’s deadlines for his book - handed off the writing of Dreams to his co-worker on the Annenburg Challenge and Hyde Park neighbor William Ayers.

I (and almost everyone who has commented on Cashill’s evidence) am not qualified to judge the relative merits of Mr. Cashill’s arguments. The critiques I have read of his thesis come up short in debunking the writer’s arguments entirely. However, while Cashill offers some compelling similarities between the writings of Ayers and Dreams, I am a skeptic of his conclusion that Ayers wrote the book. Whether he assisted Obama is an entirely different question and much more plausible considering Obama’s lies about how well he knew Ayers when he was running for president. But Cashill’s connective tissues are too weakly constructed, too pat to stand up to serious analysis.

What is perhaps even more bothersome than the wholesale acceptance of this theme by so many on the right is the embrace of the video linked in the AT blog post above by many who appear to have suspended critical analysis in lieu of wishful thinking. Ayers does indeed admit to writing Dreams but in such an obviously sarcastic manner that the question isn’t whether Ayers was serious but how in God’s name so many conservative bloggers failed to see the taunting sarcasm used in his “confession.”

John Hawkins isn’t one of these:

This story is starting to pick up steam across the blogosphere.

However, there’s one problem: Ayers appears to be joking.

It’s the last question of the evening; so Ayers has no chance to elaborate, but here are the words he deadpans,

“Did you know I wrote it, incidentally? I wrote that, Dreams from my Father (Voices in the crowd, “We know that.”). Yeah, if you could help me prove it, I’ll split the royalties with you.” (Crowd laughs)

Not only is Ayers making a joke, he’s making a joke at the expense of the people who claim he wrote the book. Granted, interpretations may differ, especially since Ayers’ delivery was very dry, but it’s a mistake to take that as some sort of confession.

This is not an isolated incident for many on the right. Wanting something to be true - Obama’s foreign birth, his Muslim religion, Obama as socialist, Marxist, communist conspirator - leads many conservatives into uncritical, unsound conclusions about the president. Julian Sanchez referred to this mindset as “epistemic closure” where themes and narratives - sometimes wildly exaggerated - are bounced back and forth among conservatives until they take on a life all their own and the truth of them cannot be challenged, even though common sense or even the record say otherwise.

There is plenty on which to oppose Obama right in front of us without stretching reason and logic to include claims such as Cashill’s. A good rule of thumb to follow is if you have to reach beyond the record and common sense in order to connect the dots, it’s probably a weak argument and should be discarded. Cashill believing that Obama didn’t write Dreams is a stretch beyond reason. Conservatives would do well to apply a similar standard to many of the shibboleths held regarding Barack Obama.

UPDATE: GOLDSTEIN AND INTERPRETATION

Goldstein responds in the comments to his own post:

Nice to see that Rick Moran is still counseling us on how to look refined while we allow the left to run roughshod over us. How’d that work out for McCain again?

As someone who knows a thing or two about interpretation, I don’t need John Hawkins or Rick Moran to point out Ayers’ tone of sarcasm. What I’m interested in is the rather pointed tone of the sarcasm - it’s too deliberate, and the question seems too staged - and suggesting that, while Ayers wants to joke it all away, he also very much wants credit. It’s who he is. It’s who they all are.

I can be as hard and as tough on the left as anyone - and I have about 3,000 blog posts to prove it. I’ve even resorted to polemics on occasion - just to show that I can be as unreasoned and illogical as Goldstein or any other right wing blogger out there.

This appears to be a definitional dispute. Goldstein seems to equate  writing exaggerated, over the top rhetorical stink bombs with being tough. I say it shows weakness. Barely better than school yard epithets, disguising horse’s ass opinions about “the Left” as intelligent analysis, Goldstein’s simple minded critiques - “It’s who he is. It’s who they all are” - fall far short of being tough and even shorter as reasoned argument. Proving that you can scream incoherently the loudest might get one links and readership but not much else.

If Goldstein is saying you can’t make logical arguments about the left without appearing weak, I have to disagree. There is still a well spring of common sense in America and a desire on the part of  many who troll the internet for thoughtful writing to choose reading fact based, reasoned dialectic. Goldstein knows this. His blog used to feature such writing.

Alas, writing in a “refined” or reasoned manner is not the path to fame and fortune on the internet. Goldstein combined rowdiness with penetrating insight and logic for the first few years of his very entertaining blog.  But he has, I believe, abandoned what made his blog unique and readable, and settled for a style that makes it virtually indistinguishable from the ranting, frothing, majority of right wing blogs that have eschewed objective reality in favor of  exaggeration and hatred.

If Goldstein actually believes that McCain lost because he wasn’t tough enough on Obama, he proves himself not much of a political analyst. Every time McCain went brutally negative - Ayers, socialist, Wright, etc. - his numbers dropped like a stone. Despite what many conservatives might believe, McCain’s team were not a bunch of dummies. They won the nomination for God’s sake. That puts them more than a leg up on the critics accusing them of not being tough enough on the opposition. It bears repeating - slowly for those with a reading comprehension deficit - McCain’s margin of defeat would have been larger if he had gotten “tough” on Obama.

I’ve been writing quite a bit about Libya for FrontPage.com lately. My latest is up this morning and I look at the NATO vote to take responsibility for the no fly zone and why that is only the first step in taking Obama off the hook for this misadventure.

A sample:

France wishes to aggressively attack Gaddafi and also backs regime change, while Turkey and the Arab League are reluctant to use coalition air power to help the rebels, and are currently opposed to removing Gaddafi. France was against the idea of NATO taking control, while Italy, Turkey, and the Arab League wouldn’t continue to support the action unless it did. Germany, who pulled naval assets out of the Mediterranean because of the offensive air campaign against Gaddafi’s forces, would also look in askance at any expansion of NATO’s role beyond enforcing the no-fly zone and arms embargo. And UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated flatly that “the primary aim [of coalition efforts] is to provide protection for civilians, to save lives. It’s not aiming to change any regime.”

The nightmare of a fractured body working at cross purposes with itself in making military command decisions is a reality that needs to be avoided. It would almost certainly lead to unnecessary casualties, as well as an ineffective prosecution of the war. In fact, it is hard to envision how such an alliance could survive the almost guaranteed misunderstandings that will arise. The differences appear too vast to simply be papered over. Either NATO will protect civilians by killing Gaddafi’s forces or they won’t. Unless there is movement from Turkey and Germany on this issue, it is difficult to imagine how any further agreement on NATO control of the military aspect of the campaign can be reached — even if some kind of “grand coalition council” can be cobbled together in the first place to decide such matters.

There also seems to be some confusion in the Obama administration over just where we are in handing control over to NATO. Secretary Clinton seems to believe, or at least she is saying publicly, that only a few details need to be worked out before America can step back from overall command of the mission. She also said that we are already cutting back on our participation in the operation, and that in the future, once the handover is complete, American participation will be limited to a “support role.”

But the military is contradicting that roseate scenario. Vice Admiral William E. Gortney, director of the joint staff, said that even after the handover to NATO is accomplished, it is likely that American air power will still be utilized by the coalition. He said that we will still fly combat missions when requested, and no-fly zone patrols, as well as conduct operations such as intelligence gathering, refueling, and other logistical support missions.

There is absolutely no guarantee - indeed, it is doubtful at this point - whether NATO will ever vote to take full command of combat operations in Libya. That means that this will probably end up being Obama’s war anyway - with all the attendant misfortune that will come when this thing refuses to end the way that anyone can rightfully say will be anything but a disaster.

I didn’t post this yesterday - incredibly busy day. It’s my latest article for PJ Media and in it, I look at why we yanks are so enamored with royalty - specifically the British monarchy.

A sample:

The current incarnation of royalty who reside at Buckingham Palace are a loathsome example of giving people who don’t deserve it a lot of money and nothing much to do. Charles is a perfect example of this. The poor sot has nothing whatsoever to do except sit around and wait for mummy to die. He’s tried his hand as cultural critic, railing against modern British architecture (it is horrid but his idea of good architecture isn’t much better). He tried jumping on the global warming bandwagon but didn’t attract much notice. There were so many other more interesting people like Sting and Posh Spice who beat him to it.

Then there is his weird flirtation with alternative medicines. His “Foundation for Integrated Health” published some guides for general practitioners on how to combine traditional (scientific) medicine with alternative (witchcraft) medicine. A prominent member of the “complementary” medical community wrote a letter to the Times asking that the guides be recalled, saying “the majority of alternative therapies appear to be clinically ineffective, and many are downright dangerous.”

His very public, very naughty affair with Camilla Parker Bowles destroyed his marriage and drove his wife to suicidal thoughts. This is the sum total of the life of Charles, Prince of Wales, for which he receives not only taxpayer subsidies, but the free use of several castles, palaces, retreats, cabins, and a retinue of servants of which the Empress Dowager would be envious.

His son William — the one getting married — doesn’t appear to be a bad sort. He passed flight school and became a helicopter pilot in a search and rescue outfit. He has various charitable causes which he supports by exposing his person to the media so they can take his picture with AIDS patients, inner city youth, and endangered elephants.