UPDATE FROM MY ORIGINAL POST BELOW

I see where some on the right disagree with my take on Limbaugh’s comment. Some suggested I watch the video where Rush explains his meaning in the context of bringing up phony soldier Jesse Macbeth.

I watched the video and am more convinced than ever that Limbaugh knew he had goofed when he said “phony soldiers” (plural) and in the context of the moment the comment was made, Limbaugh was clearly referencing and agreeing with the caller’s sentiment that all soldiers who come forward and make known their opposition to the war are not “real soldiers” (caller’s words).

We can parse this thing from here to doomsday and not agree because at bottom, we are arguing about Limbaugh’s intent – an admittedly doomed excursion into the realm of mind reading.

Thankfully, Rush rescued me by going even further on his show yesterday. Not only did he include Jesse Macbeth and Scott Beauchamp in his “phony soldier” meme, he also included Jack Murtha in that notorious group for the Congressman’s execrable comments condemning the Haditha Marines before the official report on the incident had even been released.

Why is Murtha’s military career – a career that all can agree was distinguished and honorable – at issue as a result of his statements about Haditha? How can you refer to Murtha as a “phony soldier” when those comments were made long after he left the military?

Call him a “phony politician” if you wish. But Murtha’s service was genuine. Would Limbaugh refer to virulent anti-war Senator Daniel Inouye as a “phony soldier” based on what the Senator has said about our involvement in Iraq? Inouye, a genuine war hero who fought for this country while Japanese Americans were languishing in detention camps, lost an arm in combat and was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Murtha is a pandering, corrupt lout of a Congressman – a man who should be kicked out of Congress for stinking up the institution with sweetheart deals and earmarks targeted to his family and cronies. His taking the lead in trying to outdo his Democratic colleagues in opposition to the war was almost certainly at least partly animated by his desire to attain a leadership position following the 2006 elections. I have nothing but contempt for him today, although in the past I admired his political courage as he went against his party in the 1980’s to support the Reagan defense buildup.

But Limbaugh’s inclusion of Murtha in his little gang of “phony soldiers” is telling. If the talk show host was only talking about “phony soldiers” why include someone whose only sin appears to be opposition to the war in Iraq – an opposition that led the Congressman to jump the gun on the Pentagon and condemn Marines – some of them entirely innocent – for the Haditha incident?

Limbaugh’s explanation just doesn’t hold water. It is entirely plausible that the polarizing Mr. Limbaugh issued a blanket condemnation of military people who are opposed to the war rather than singling out individuals like Jesse Macbeth when he uttered the words “phony soldiers.”

I admit that gleaning intent is tricky. But which is more plausible? Limbaugh lumping people who disagree with him into one, overarching, insulting rubric or Rush carefully delineating between some soldiers who oppose the war and the Jesse Macbeths of the world?

Given Limbaugh’s clear and well documented past, I think it is logical to assume the former.

First of all, I would say to my lefty friends that anyone who tries to draw some kind of equivalence with Rush Limbaugh referring to anti-war military people as “phony soldiers” and Moveon’s “Betray-us” ad is an idiot.

There is no comparison between the two. None. To make a comparison, is to stretch the point to breaking – a sure sign that any equivalence is manufactured out of whole cloth.

Having said that, Limbaugh is a goose for saying it. And he owes an apology not just to anti-war military people (and ex-military) but to the entirety of the United States Armed Forces.

Here is the context in which Limbaugh made his scurrilous remark:

CALLER: I have a retort to Mike in Chicago, because I am serving in the American military, in the Army. I’ve been serving for 14 years, very proudly.

CALLER: Phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they’re proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they’re willing to sacrifice for the country.

This is why I don’t buy Brian Faughnan’s “explanation” in The Weekly Standard blog:

Limbaugh’s offhand comment was poorly chosen. It’s clear that there are ‘real soldiers’—real by anyone’s criteria—who oppose the war in Iraq and they’re entitled to their views. But much like the recently manufactured controversies over Bill O’Reilly’s comments, and President Bush’s comment about Saddam having killed “all the Mandelas,” the left is trying to pull a fast-one by taking Rush’s statement out of context.

It’s also clear and undeniable that the political left has eagerly stood behind fakers who spout tales about Iraq that are at times false, or ridiculous, or both. From Jesse MacBeth to Scott Thomas Beauchamp, liberals and anti-war moonbats have suspended logic and reason to embrace people because they liked what they had to say, regardless of whether the tales made sense, or their credentials were as they claimed.

This is, quite simply, changing the subject in order to place the onus of the comment on the other side – an intellectually dishonest tactic. Of course the left has manufactured controversies recently. The Bush-Mandela incident was a jaw dropping example of pure idiocy – a two year old knew what Bush was saying in that context.

But Limbaugh’s utterance was truly despicable. And no amount of spinning can shake the fact that on its own merits, without reference to anything Moveon or any other lefty group has done to slime the troops (Code Pink razzing wounded soldiers out in front of Walter Reed, anyone?), the slur should make not just anti-war soldiers angry but all of our military upset. Limbaugh, quite simply, has intruded. And he should butt out. If one soldier wants to call out another for being “phony,” that’s one thing. But Limbaugh is an outsider and has no business sliming people for beliefs that are just as heartfelt as those who believe in the mission.

Now, no one who is serious and sane believes that Rush Limbaugh hates the troops. And because he does so obviously care about them, he must publicly apologize on the air for his remark. And, as I mentioned, he should apologize to the entire US Military. These last four years have been tough on these guys – tougher than on any other group of American soldiers since World War II. And despite claims to the contrary on the left, the military doesn’t train automatons. The secret to American success on the battlefield has always been the ability of our people to think independently, to act decisively, to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. Non thinking robots cannot function in our military.

And because of that, you are going to have your fair share of people who disagree with public policy or see things differently than the majority. These men and women serve just as honorably. They perform just as courageously. And they are just as patriotic as any other soldier who serves. To denigrate their service cheapens their right as Americans to disagree.

So Rush, we’re waiting for that apology. And I hope I’m joined by many on the right in calling for Limbaugh to own up to his mistake and do the right thing by our military.

UPDATE

I’m not really surprised that out of all the center right blogs who have covered this incident, only James Joyner and Michael van der Galiën come anywhere near my position. Ed Morrissey gives Limbaugh points for his “clarifying remarks” that were made after the segment was long over where he says that he was really talking about the Jesse MacBeths and Scott Beauchamps of the world and not anti-war soldiers in general.

Sorry, but I’m not buying that for the simple reason that Limbaugh was agreeing with a caller who was, in fact, lumping all anti-war soldiers together, in turn agreeing with Limbaugh’s designation of them as “phony soldiers.” If he wanted to clarify his point he could have done so immediately.

I think what happened is that Limbaugh realized the hot water he was in and tried to backtrack later. He wouldn’t be the first radio host who tried the tactic and he won’t be the last.

Of course I agree that Media Matters blew this thing way out proportion and tried to massage the remarks into an example of equivalency with the Petreaus Moveon ad. As I mentioned, there is zero equivalence between the two. None. Zilch. The remark is bad enough standing on its own. We don’t need some kind of childish “gotchya” game that the left never tires of playing in order to see what needs to be done; Limbaugh apologizing.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Judging by the answers given by Democratic presidential candidates last night to the question of whether there will still be troops in Iraq in 2013 following the first term of a Democratic president, it seems certain that the mission will continue in one form or another Bush or no Bush.

The enormity of the military conflict in Iraq was spelled out in the simplest of all admissions tonight:

Among all of the leading Democratic candidates for president, none was willing to commit to a promise in a campaign debate that all of the U.S. combat forces deployed in Iraq will be gone by 2013, the end of the next president’s term in office.

“It’s hard to project four years from now,” said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, at the start of a debate of the Democratic candidates in Hanover, N.H.

“”It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting,” said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who has vowed that if President Bush has not ended the war in Iraq by the time the next president takes office, “I will.’’

“”I cannot make that commitment,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, answering the question posed in a televised debate in the state that will hold the first of the presidential primary elections in January.

A.B. Stoddard writing for The Hill’s Pundit’s Blog sums up the Dem dilemma nicely:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.) made the promise Clinton, Edwards and Obama — with all their nuance — could not: to pull out all troops in his first term as president. But we know not what “counterterrorism activities” will consist of in six months, let alone six years. How do we define what is a continuation of this war? We simply cannot know what sectarian violence, al Qaeda-perpetrated violence or other Iranian-influenced violence will be consuming Iraq at that point, so none of the likely Democratic nominees can say for certain — not Clinton, not Obama, not Edwards — that they would have ended our war in Iraq by 2013.

I am not saying I disagree with anything Obama, Clinton and Edwards are saying. It’s just been a bit tiring to hear them beat that “end the war” drum all across the country when even they don’t know what that means.

When pressed to the wall, the Democratic candidates demonstrated that despite all the tough talk about withdrawing from Iraq, they are as much a hostage to events there as the President. Like the Republicans, they are well and truly stuck with Bush’s policies, the Maliki government, al-Sadr’s plotting, and the rest of the crummy situation that will continue to exist for the foreseeable future in Iraq.

There is no going back or getting out quickly. And the Democratic candidates, at the risk of riling up their rabid, anti-war base (and recognizing the facts of life on Iraq all along despite rhetoric to the contrary) are responsible enough and practical enough to see that there is no briar patch nearby where this tar baby can be shed.

The frustration of the base with the Democratic performance in Congress on the war is now boiling over. This piece in Politico today gives voice to many who simply can’t understand the reluctance of Democrats to take on a wildly unpopular President and a very unpopular war:

But it’s a simple truth, whether you support the war or not: There is a lot more Democrats could do to change, or at least challenge, the politics of the war in Washington, even if they do not have the numbers to impose new policies on President Bush.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could force a vote a day over Iraq. She could keep the House in session all night, over weekends and through planned vacations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could let filibusters run from now till Christmas rather than yield to pro-war Republicans.

Such tactics might or might not be politically sensible, but in their absence, anti-war lawmakers can hardly say they have done everything possible to challenge the war and bring attention to their cause.

This is the voice of frustration, not rationality. For all the Democrats bluster about ending the war and bringing the troops home, there is a very good practical political reason why holding their colleague’s feet to the fire simply won’t work; the public’s own ambivilence about how they view the war and how they want it to end.

The latest Gallup Poll on Iraq shows about what you’d expect: By a large plurality the people think we should establish a timetable to bring the troops home. A large majority believes that Bush has made a hash of the war and that things are not going well – although the number of Americans now believing that the United States will accomplish its goals in Iraq in the long run has been inching up since early in the year to where it is now at 35%,.

But the real ambivalence of the public shows up in the numbers regarding troop reduction and the timetable for withdrawal. Only 18% want the troops to come home immediately, the de facto position of the netroots and Moveon.Org while 38% want the troops to stay “until the situation gets better.” A plurality (41%) wish to see a timetable for gradual withdrawal – which now mirrors the Bush-Petreaus goal of removing troops slowly although the poll indicates a plurality wishing to see this occur over the course of a year’s time.

What about Petreaus’s plan for pulling troops out of Iraq? Again, a plurality is with the President with 43% believing the number proposed by Petreaus is the “Right Amount” while 36% feel that too few troops are being withdrawn.

I thought that Gallup’s summary of this poll was particularly apt:

The war is an extremely high-priority issue for Americans and is likely to be one of the top issues in next year’s election. Americans are divided on the war, along partisan lines, but on most measures a majority say that the war was a mistake and not worth the costs. Despite sentiment that the war is not going well for the United States, only about one in five favors an immediate withdrawal of troops. Most do support a gradual withdrawal of troops, preferably within a year, and a majority supports a congressionally mandated timetable.

What the poll doesn’t show but what Democratic politicians have always known is that the “timetable” for withdrawal has been a sham from the beginning. A close look at most of the timetable plans would show a long list of caveats and exceptions that would allow Petreaus or Bush to toss the timetable in the garbage in the event that the situation in Iraq didn’t warrant the troop reductions.

This, of course, was the plan all along; trap the President into making it appear that the Democrats wanted to end the war while Republicans were for continuing it. This is the true significance of the admissions made by the top Democratic candidates on Wednesday night. In the event a timetable was imposed on them, they too would be forced to deal with the situation as it is on the ground in Iraq rather than give in to the wishes of their base and bring the troops home without regard to the interests of Iraq or the United States.

It is not too early to say that unless there are truly dramatic changes in Iraq by election day, the war will be an albatross around the neck of GOP incumbents, likely to drag many of them down to defeat in November, 2008. But for the Democratic candidate for President whoever he or she will be, that will be cold comfort if, after winning the election, they are forced to stand in President Bush’s shoes and deal with the situation in Iraq as it is and not as their anti-war base wishes it would be.

The votes are in from this weeks Watcher’s Council and the winner in the Council category was yours truly for my post “Is War With Iran Now Just a Matter of Time?” Finishing a close second was “Freedom, But From What?” by Bookworm Room.

Coming out on top in the Non Council category was “Dead Eyes” by Acute Politics.

If you would like to participate in this week’s Watchers vote, go here and follow instructions.

I don’t know what’s funnier. This speech by Daniel Ellsberg given a few days ago at American University or the gushing reaction to the idiocy by some of the netnuts.

Ellsberg you may recall, leaked the Pentagon Papers back in the day when such things were actually taken seriously. While it seems pretty clear that national security was not severely damaged by the publishing of the history of our involvement in Southeast Asia, the docs were considered “classified” and Ellsberg took it upon himself to remove that designation.

Since then, Ellsberg has flitted from one radical conclave to another, apparently making a living basically by being a gadfly. Hardly anyone listens to his off the wall diatribes against American policy and the American government – except like minded fools who see Ellsberg as some kind of hero.

How anyone can take this loony bird seriously after he says something like this is beyond understanding:

If there’s another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.

Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? … They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they’re not now they will be after another 9/11.

And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran – an escalation – which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps.

Paranoid blather.

Detention camps? 9/11 trutherism? I know that the Nixon thugs broke into this guy’s psychiatrist’s office. I wonder what they found?

Besides that, Ellsberg evidently does his best thinking while unconscious:

Let me simplify this and not just to be rhetorical: A coup has occurred. I woke up the other day realizing, coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It’s not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the next 9/11. That’s the next coup, that completes the first.

The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of our Constitution, … what the rest of the world looked at for the last 200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world – in checks and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual rights protected from majority infringement by the Congress, an independent judiciary, the possibility of impeachment.

Two coups in less than 8 years? Whatever sleeping pill Ellsberg is taking, gimme some. Those kind of delusions are more entertaining than most of my dreams which usually involve my boss, Editor in Chief of AT Tom Lifson, my cats, and very large bowl of double chocolate fudge ice cream.

This kind of exaggerated, ridiculous, outrageous thinking should get Mr. Ellsberg right back up on top of the radical lefty pyramid. I have no doubt he will be even more in demand now that he’s joined the ranks of the truly unhinged.

For three years I have been writing about this kind of hysterical, over the top, insanely exaggerated rhetoric. Why? Why do liberals feel it necessary to throw reality out the window and paint a picture of the government, of Bush, of Republicans, of the United States in such dark, apocalyptic terms?

I know the far right offers similar rhetoric about the government – even goofier if that’s possible. But most of them are inbred crackers, militia freaks, racist skin heads, and Hitler worshippers. These liberals are supposed to be educated, urbane, rational people. What causes such unhinged rhetoric to spew from their lips on a regular basis?

I am not insensate to some of the excesses of the Administration’s anti-terror efforts. Nor do I trust Bush/Cheney farther than I can throw them when it comes to some civil liberties issues. But I also consider myself educated, urbane, and rational and I don’t see the Constitution being torn up or some kind of evil trend toward unlimited executive authority. Nor do I see anything except the usual corruption that power brings when it comes to the GOP in Congress. These same kind of excesses plagued the Democrats in the latter years of their control of Congress. It is the nature of our system that power will corrupt some people. And whether they have a “D” or an “R” after their name doesn’t matter in the long run.

My working theory on why liberals say the things they do is that when they eventually triumph, they can claim to have saved the country from absolute disaster. It may surprise you to know that this has happened several times in our history. What won’t surprise you is that Democrats have been the ones claiming to rescue the rest of us from tyranny.

The most glaring example was the election of 1800 where Jefferson’s “democratic republicans” swept into power, throwing the Federalists out. Their entire campaign was based on hysteria, exaggerated hyperbolic rhetoric, and predictions of doom; that electing the Federalists would mean that the country would degenerate into a monarchy with a full blown aristocracy plus dominance by Great Britain to boot.

President Adams was livid with Jefferson – especially after newspapers in Jefferson’s corner printed slanderous stories about Adams and his plans to make himself king, closely ally the country with England, and set up his friends as dukes and earls to rule over the populace. The campaign was so bitter that the two founders didn’t speak or communicate for 15 years. When they finally sealed the breach in their friendship, the letters they exchanged the last years of their lives left a remarkable record of the thoughts of two great Americans on life, liberty, and the nature of man.

But this isn’t 1800. And the effect of this kind of rhetorical nonsense not only makes public discourse impossible but truly endangers the republic. The vast majority of Americans don’t believe this idiocy either. All it does is turn them off to politics further as the level of political argument descends further and further into the gutter.

The Democrats may very well sweep the elections next year. But the question is; just what kind of country will they have won? Their contribution to the terrible apathy and disenchantment with government comes at a time when we should be uniting against a common, deadly enemy. Instead, the left will ascend to power and stand atop the hill and survey a charred political wasteland, made worse by their unhinged opposition to the policies of the administration and their end of the world rhetoric directed against the GOP.

There is responsible opposition to your political foes. There is even irresponsible opposition that has long been part of the American political scene. But the opposition shown by the left over the last few years is beyond irresponsible. It is destructive. And for that, they should be royally ashamed of themselves.

Back door amnesty was dealt a blow yesterday. Not a deadly thrust but rather a flesh wound.

Still, we should be grateful there were enough Republicans in the Senate willing to stand up against this travesty:

The prospects for immediate Senate action on the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants, disappeared Wednesday amid Republican opposition.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pledged that senators would vote on the the measure, which is strongly opposed by anti-illegal immigration groups, before the Senate finishes its work for the year in mid-November.

“All who care about this matter should know that we will move to proceed to this matter before we leave here,” he said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., had sought to attach the DREAM Act to the defense authorization bill. But Reid announced Wednesday night that Democrats were shelving the effort because of difficulties getting past legislative roadblocks.

“Unfortunately, some Republicans are opposed to this proposal and are unwilling to let us move forward on this bill,” Reid said.

It really was pathetic that proponents of the DREAM Act would try and sneak this amendment through using the very popular Military Construction bill as a vehicle. This kind of legislative subterfuge has become all too common these days after the GOP spent a decade tirelessly using the tactic to attach questionably germane amendments to a variety of legislative initiatives.

But as many predicted once the Democrats became the majority, many of the same parliamentary and legislative tactics abused by Republicans over their decade in power would be snapped up by the Democrats and used even more underhandedly.

While you can get away with this tactic easier in the Senate whose rules aren’t quite as strict regarding the germaneness of amendments, it still troubled some Senators:

Some Senate Republicans, including Texans Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, objected to the measure being brought up on a defense bill.

“Putting extraneous things on this bill isn’t helpful,” Hutchison said.

Other Republicans aren’t ready to revisit a debate that imploded in June when the Senate scuttled an overhaul endorsed by the White House that would have given most illegal immigrants a chance for legal status.

“People, I think, want to let the immigration thing cool off a bit before we jump back in,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican who helped derail the comprehensive immigration bill.

Reid will now look for another legislative vehicle to push this amendment. He will want to find something that Republicans want to vote for and can’t afford to kill off entirely.

Meanwhile, at the state level, it appears that enforcing the law actually works the way it was intended; it sends immigration scofflaws home or off to find greener pastures:

Illegal immigrants living in states and cities that have adopted strict immigration policies are packing up and moving back to their home countries or to neighboring states.
The exodus has been fueled by a wave of laws targeting illegal immigrants in Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and elsewhere. Many were passed after congressional efforts to overhaul the immigration system collapsed in June.

Immigrants say the laws have raised fears of workplace raids and deportation.

“People now are really frightened and scared because they don’t know what’s going to happen,” says Juliana Stout, an editor at the newspaper El Nacional de Oklahoma. “They’re selling houses. They’re leaving the country.”

Supporters of the laws cheer the departure of illegal immigrants and say the laws are working as intended.

Can you imagine a country where every state actually enforced the immigration laws equally for all? Those who break the law by coming here illegally wouldn’t go “underground” as we’re constantly told by the open borders crowd. With no place to work, most of them would quietly go home, free to get in line and work to come to this country legally. That is sanity. And that is fairness.

Of course, for all of these state initiatives to work, we must have a federal government that is dead serious about patrolling the border. As long as we have a Homeland Security Department that continues to place a low priority on protecting the borders, not only will we be at a greater risk of suffering a terrorist attack, but the illegal immigrant problem will continue to be a source of concern far into the future.

I didn’t think it was possible but I’m beginning to feel sorry for Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. His speech of introduction on Monday for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has created a vicious backlash on the left over his use of some rather colorful metaphors to describe Ahmadinejad’s anti-intellectual, anti-humanist ideas.

A backlash against the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, who on Monday delivered a harsh rebuke to President Ahmadinejad, is coming from faculty members and students who said he struck an “insulting tone” and that his remarks amounted to “schoolyard taunts.” The fierceness of Mr. Bollinger’s critique bought the Iranian some sympathy on campus that he didn’t deserve, the critics said, and amounted to a squandered opportunity to provide a lesson in diplomacy.

What this is really all about is that the left can’t stand it when one of their own is being praised by the right for doing anything. In their universe, Bollinger could have hung Ahmadinejad in effigy and as long as no one on the right took notice, it would have been perfectly acceptable.

For you see, Bollinger did nothing and said nothing that wasn’t absolutely, 100% true and documented. He threw the tyrant’s words back in his face and challenged him to justify them. He highlighted documented incidents in the Islamic “Republic” of Iran where homosexuals were executed. He quoted Ahmadinejad’s thoughts on the Holocaust and called him a dunce – which describes exactly the intellectual acumen of someone who believes the murder of 6 million Jews “needs further study.”

His manners? I’m not sure here what the left is criticizing. I thought “manners” were superfluous when speaking truth to power. Isn’t that what Bollinger was doing? Who cares about superficialities when the important thing is to be authentically outraged?

And does the supreme irony of criticizing someone for the way they confront the opposition totally escape these clueless buffoons?

It’s odd to invite someone and then deal with the objections to inviting him by insulting him before he gets to talk,” a professor of political science at Columbia, Richard Betts, said during an interview in his office yesterday. “He’s having it both ways in a sense, honoring the principle of free speech by not choosing speakers on the basis of how nice they are, but being sharp to him before he speaks.”

Mr. Betts said a more appropriate introduction would have been to make clear that an invitation to speak at Columbia did not qualify as approval of the content of the speech. He said the message should have been delivered as a “less in-your-face assault.”

Jesus Lord! How many times have we heard the left praising those who get “in the face” of people like George Bush or Rumsefeld or any number of conservative pundits like Ann Coulter or Jonah Goldberg? Stephen Colbert ring a bell? Or war protestors who shout like maniacs wherever Bush shows up to speak? Or on college campuses where conservative pundits are regularly confronted in the most insulting, vulgar manner?

I guess “manners” and avoiding “in your face” confrontations only count when you’re trying to spare the feelings of a terrorist supporting scumbag like Ahmadinejad.

And then there’s this bit of obtuseness that I would guess to be a widely held belief on the left:

The professor of history and Iranian expert who had a role in bringing Mr. Ahmadinejad to campus, Richard Bulliet, said that if Mr. Bollinger led a mission of faculty and students to Iran, which he has expressed interest in doing, he would likely receive a more courteous welcome than was provided to Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Yes, I have no doubt that is true. The Iranians are a polite people and follow all the normal customs of civilized humanity. Except the left largely rejects those customs as either representative of bourgeois thinking or artificial cultural constructs created by white males to oppress freedom loving lefties. Rejecting polite behavior allows one to justify getting up in the middle of someone’s speech and trying to shout them down – a favorite tactic of the left for 40 years.

How about practicing what you preach here, fellows? How about criticizing Code Pink every time the witches interrupt Congressional hearings or speeches from people they disagree with? How about wagging a disapproving finger at Mama Sheehan when she tries to disrupt the State of the Union?

Instead, all we hear is praise for such rude, boorish behavior. “Speaking truth to power” is great – as long as the right people are doing the speaking and the wrong people are in power.

Bollinger has little about which to feel proud. Not because of what he said but because of the moral blinkers he put on in order to accede to Ahmadinejad’s visit in the first place. Academic freedom is a fine and noble concept, one I support wholeheartedly. But judging by the worldwide reaction to Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia, it appears that Bollinger and the University were nothing more than props in the Iranian president’s propaganda performance. He was warned that this would happen and indeed it did.

In that sense, academic freedom is meaningless when it is used in the cause of promoting the agenda of America’s enemies.

UPDATE

Malkin picks up where I left off yesterday with the bedwetting meme by linking to this idiotic post from a lefty who accuses conservatives of destroying the American “character” and wonders if we’ll ever “recover:”

Here’s a big question that I want to start addressing in upcoming posts: what is conservative rule doing to our nation’s soul? How is it rewiring our hearts and minds? What kind of damage are they doing to the American character? And can we ever recover?

So: what is the American character? Hard to say, of course. But I daresay we know it when we see it. Let me put before you an illustrative example: one week in September of 1959, when, much like one week in September of 2007, American soil supported a visit by what many, if not most Americans agreed was the most evil and dangerous man on the planet.

Nikita Khrushchev disembarked from his plane at Andrews Air Force Base to a 21-gun salute and a receiving line of 63 officials and bureaucrats, ending with President Eisenhower. He rode 13 miles with Ike in an open limousine to his guest quarters across from the White House. Then he met for two hours with Ike and his foreign policy team. Then came a white-tie state dinner. (The Soviets then put one on at the embassy for Ike.) He joshed with the CIA chief about pooling their intelligence data, since it probably all came from the same people—then was ushered upstairs to the East Wing for a leisurely gander at the Eisenhowers’ family quarters.

This guy is accusing conservatives of being bedwetters while wringing his hands like an old woman over whether or not we can “recover” from conservatism?

What an idiot.

And I’d like to briefly address this idea that Iran and Ahmadinejad should be seen as no more of a challenge – even less of one – that the old Soviet Union.

It isn’t that the Iranians are suicidal (I am not entirely convinced that they aren’t but I think there are enough rational heads in the Iranian government to prevent anyone from going off the deep end) and it isn’t the fact that we are dealing with mystics and religious fanatics. There were some pretty fanatical communists we had to deal with over the years – including Kruschev himself who firmly believed in the “science” of Marxism which posited the theory that capitalism, like feudalism, was destined to fail and be replaced by Soviet Style “scientific” socialism. It was his religion and he truly believed that he would see this collapse in his lifetime.

Later Soviet leaders were much more cynical about Marxism, having no illusions about its ability to compete with capitalism in any real way. Their concern was simply to maintain their positions of privilege in a rotting system.

But the real danger in trying to deal with Iran lies in the fact that we have literally no common frame of reference when it comes to history, or culture, or a way to view the world. Ahmadinejad made that quite plain in his speech before the UN General Assembly. At least the Soviets and the west had a common history stretching back a thousand years. We had familiar touchstones that allowed a dialogue where both sides were reasonably certain that misunderstandings about intent could be kept to a minimum.

But where do you find commonality with someone who denies something so elemental as the Holocaust ever took place? How do you find reasonable accomodation when the person across the table believes in a history that never happened (or has twisted the facts to the point that history is unrecognizable)? How do you avoid misunderstanding when the very basis of your opponent’s worldview is derived from a 1500 year old holy book?

I suppose (I hope) there are ways to overcome these monumental difficulties but I trust my point is clear; using our relationship with the Soviet Union as a template for dealing with Iran is idiotic. There is no basis in fact to believe that. And using examples of how we dealt with the Soviets to “prove” that conservatives are a bunch of bedwetters is absurd.

Ezra Klein, saying it nicely:

I genuinely don’t understand the quaking fear over Ahmadinejad’s interview at Columbia. When did America become so weak, so insecure, that we mistrust our capacity to converse with potentially hostile world leaders? Do we really believe the president of Columbia is so doltish as to be outsmarted by a former traffic engineer from Tehran? Do we really see no utility in publicly grilling prominent liars in such a way that their denials lose credibility? What do we have to lose from a foreign leader, even a hostile one, somberly laying a wreath at the site of a tragedy? When did we become so afraid?

Others on the left are not so nice in making the same point; that the right are a bunch of bedwetters and cowards, quaking in fear at Ahmadinejad which is why we want to go to war with Iran.

Of course, this “bedwetter” meme is brought out many times. We see it when the right sees fit to report on the latest foiled terrorist attack, or when authorities smash a terrorist cell, or any other time that the left feels that the right is taking the issue of terrorism too seriously.

Daniel Larson has a few thoughts on this phenomena:

There’s a curious idea, one popularised earlier this year by Obama, that a refusal to negotiate or to dialogue with this or that dreadful government and/or individual is an expression of fear. This follows the usual drill: everyone else embraces the politics of fear, but Obama and those like him embrace the politics of hope, blah, blah, blah.

Evidently, it takes courage to stand up and, just like everyone else, denounce the president of another country under the guise of “conversation” and “debate.” After all, what is the point of letting Ahmadinejad onto your stage so that you can tell him that he’s a “cruel dictator”? Are we trying to hurt his feelings? Obviously persuasion isn’t the goal, since calling someone a dictator in front of an audience of students is not going to make him break down and have a conversion experience: “Thank you for showing me the light, Mr. Bollinger! I will do better!”

Similarly, there’s no point in holding talks simply for the symbolism of holding talks and showing that We Are Not Afraid To Talk. How impressive. All of this attempted appropriation of the rhetoric of toughness and fearlessness is an attempt to steal a page from the (stupid) foreign policy book of militarists. Instead of “showing resolve” by not talking to someone, we show resolve by talking to someone.

I must confess to being puzzled by this line of attack from the left. If I didn’t know any better, I would believe that the left was projecting their own fears about terrorism, about Ahmadinejad by referring to “bedwetters” on the right. But of course, that’s not true, is it? It’s just that the left wants to discuss terrorism and these other issues on their own terms – root causes, sins of America, post colonial insecurities, resource raiding, etc. – and find it inconvenient that someone wants to get up and shout “They’re trying to kill us, you ninny!”

I don’t feel any fear whatsoever when talking about Ahmadinejad and the threat Iran poses to American interests and ultimately, America herself. It is a completely rational, objective response to a nation that seeks the ability to enrich uranium beyond the level needed to fuel power plants. This is the basis for the concern expressed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – that some of Iran’s program is of a “dual use” nature; that it can be used to both build fuel rods for power plants and enrich uranium to the 85% level necessary to build a bomb. When nations as diverse as France, Belgium, and Russia have expressed their firm opposition to Iran becoming a nuclear power, surely opposition to their plans cannot be construed as “fear” but rather common sense.

The visit of Ahmadinejad has illuminated a great difference between right and left. Kevin Drum senses it:

Still, I guess I’m curious about something. Am I the only liberal who believes all that stuff but is still pretty queasy about letting this lunatic engage in some wreath-laying crocodile tears at Ground Zero? There’s a difference between being unafraid to let someone speak and being unwilling to let him use the most venerated site in the country for a crass PR stunt, isn’t there? Hell, a lot of us complain when Rudy Giuliani does this, let alone a guy who denies the Holocaust and has made a career out of chanting “Death to America.” Am I off base here?

Kevin is getting skewered in the comments for saying what some on the right have been angry (not scared) about Ahmadinejad’s visit here. This is a man who leads “Death to America” chants after Friday prayers. And we already know that his public utterances about peace, love, and harmony, fly in the face of his nation’s actions in Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and other places Iranian money and supplies funds the enemies of the west.

I happened to agree that he should be allowed to speak at Columbia for the simple reason I was sure he would convict himself out of his own mouth. While this is exactly what happened, I didn’t count on the use Iran would make of his visit as a vehicle for international propaganda:

On second day of his entry in New York, and amid standing ovation of the audience that had attended the hall where the Iranian President was to give his lecture as of early hours of the day, Ahmadinejad said that Iran is not going to attack any country in the world.

Before President Ahamadinejad’s address, Colombia University Chancellor in a brief address told the audience that they would have the chance to hear Iran’s stands as the Iranian President would put them forth.

He said that the Iranians are a peace loving nation, they hate war, and all types of aggression.

Referring to the technological achievements of the Iranian nation in the course of recent years, the president considered them as a sign for the Iranians’ resolute will for achieving sustainable development and rapid advancement.

This is how the event was reported in Iran. Not a word about Bollinger’s hectoring opening remarks – something that many on the left criticized heatedly and caused many in the audience at Columbia to applaud vigorously when Ahmadinejad complained about the “insults.” It would seem then that being “brave” enough to give the tyrant a public forum at a prestigious educational institution didn’t do anything except make liberals feel good about themselves. It sure didn’t minimize Ahmadinejad’s stature anywhere in the world.

It would seem then that bedwetting is not the problem but rather fear on the left that their own prescriptions for dealing with terrorism might not be the best way to deal with the problem.

Of course, the advantage they have is if they are wrong, we probably won’t realize it until it’s too late.

The Great Munchkin has spoken.

As far as I can tell the world is still rotating on its axis. The sun is still in the sky. There are still 6 million dead Jews as a result of Hitler’s Holocaust although the refugee from the Lollipop Guild tried to wipe that little historical detail from memory and the record by pleading for “more research” – as if digging deeper into the historical record (help yourself, no one is stopping you) will erase the meticulously kept records at Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Dachau, and other death camps that carefully listed the numbers of Jews who were shoved into “showers,” gassed, and then cremated in gigantic ovens.

And Columbia is still a school that features the most nauseating double standards in Christendom when it comes to free speech, denying many speakers the opportunity to address students whose ideological bent is deemed too…what? They can’t use the excuse that conservative speakers are spouting “hate” anymore. They just hosted the world’s most celebrated anti-Semite.

Despite President Bollinger’s spot on indictment of the little shit’s nation and rulers, I found it depressing when American citizens actually cheered what this man had to say – cheered when he answered Bollinger with an harangue about academic freedom when the ruling clique of Iran dismisses and jails teachers for looking sideways at the government.

Maybe those idiot leftists missed this report from Human Rights Watch:

The same pattern of persecuting academics in order to curb their intellectual activity recurred around the world. In Iran, a number of prominent academics were arrested in March and April as part of a broader campaign of stifling dissent apparently aimed at countering the widespread support for reform of Iran’s political system. In the weeks immediately preceding Iran’s presidential elections, authorities arrested at least ten scholars among a group of forty-two figures associated with the liberal Iran Freedom Movement, a banned but previously tolerated political party. Among the scholars arrested were Gholam-Abbas Tavassoli, a sociologist at Tehran University and formerly chancellor of Isfahan University, Hadi Hadizadeh, a prominent physicist, Ghaffar Farzadi, Mohammad Mehdi-Jafari, Habibollah Peyman, Reza Raisdoosti, and Mohammad Maleki. Tavassoli was released two days after his arrest, but several other academics remained in jail.

In response, more than one hundred faculty members from Iran’s universities signed an appeal to the government requesting the release of their colleagues. Widespread student protests in support of the detained academics also occurred at universities in Tehran and other cities, and were met by heavy handed police reaction.

These attacks on academic freedom formed the backdrop to a critical rise in the “brain drain” phenomenon among Iran’s academics and university graduates. According to a report issued by the Iranian government in May 2001, tens of thousands of academics and professionals left Iran for Western countries in the preceding twelve months. Commenting on this report, chancellors from several Iranian universities blamed the mass exodus of educated Iranians on the “continual psychological insecurity on the campuses.”

There are other, more recent reports of repression in the Iranian academy. Ahmadinejad himself has led this effort to purge universities of what passes for liberal professors and academics, just as he has purged most of the ministries of educated technocrats and replaced them with incompetent true believers.

For the idiots at Columbia who cheered anything this man had to say in the context of academic freedom shows a depressing ignorance of the true state of affairs in Iran not to mention a derangement that should have sent them for a night of observation at Bellvue.

But why shouldn’t they be captivated by the visitor from Oz? His surface histrionics merged easily with their own warped view of history and current events. Ahmadinejad may not be a classic determinist but his bottom-up teleological belief in the return of the Mahdi – something he mentioned once again, right off the bat during his introductory remarks and colored every utterance he made during his appearance – should chill the knickers off those kids like nothing Bush or America has ever done or said.

Beyond that, the Iranian president showed himself to be something of a coward, failing to address many questions directly and substituting platitudes and religious double talk instead. He even got off the best laugh line (unintentional) of the afternoon when he denied there were any homosexuals in Iran. What wasn’t very funny is that he actually believes it. Such obliviousness to reality from a man whose nation is about to acquire the capability to enrich uranium beyond that which is necessary for the operation of power plants should give us pause.

All in all, a revealing appearance by Ahmadinejad, convicting himself out of his own mouth as I predicted here. What I didn’t anticipate was that there would be a few on the left who found what he had to say appealing.

Even I didn’t think anyone could be so dense.

Today marks the third anniversary of Right Wing Nuthouse. Looking back on my humble, fumbling beginnings (and my even more humbling present) makes me realize how much and how little has changed in my life as well as the wide, wide world of blogs.

I am a little wiser today, a lot better informed and more circumspect in my language (believe it or not). I’m a little more cynical about some things, less so about others.

Things I’d like to improve upon as they relate to this site: more patience with critics, more posting, a little more fearlessness on issues I know I’m going to get slammed on by everybody.

The blogosphere has changed considerably since I began. There is still much punditry but also efforts to use blogs in ways not foreseen three years ago. Cooperative efforts in covering stories and the use of video are huge changes. Podcasting is also an innovation. And blog radio although I’m not sure where that last is going.

There are several new voices and some who quit for one reason or another. I myself read fewer blogs every day than I did three years ago – no time. And that’s the biggest change of all; I’m making a living writing. Not a good one, but a living nonetheless.

I’ve made many friends over the last three years – and lost many as well. I regard both as my greatest success and my worst failure. Any blogger who writes for any length of time is going to experience the same. There will always come a point where you choose writing what you feel or not. I always seem to choose the former which has gotten me in trouble with friends, enemies, right, left, center, and the janitor down the hall. I’ve riled everyone at one point or another – occupational hazard I suppose.

I am not going to name all those who have so generously supported this site through thick and through thin. There are literally dozens of people, blogs big and small, people both famous and obscure, who I could thank by name and who have lent their assistance by linking often or sending along words of encouragement and advice, or simply reading and commenting intelligently. I can’t begin to express the gratitude I feel. Nor will I be able to repay the many kindnesses extended to me by so many of you.

Enough looking back. Time to move forward. I hope you continue the journey with me.