From The Loonatic Left

Re-Writing History - The Democrats Explore the Big Lie

The Democrats are trying awfully hard to convince the public that what the President said was the justification for war is all a lie.  What they have keyed upon, of course, is the Weapons of Mass Destruction.  Why?  Because they have nothing else...absolutely nothing.  Leaving aside the question of whether a mistake is the same thing as a lie, the Democrats deserve the election losses this ignorant strategy has earned them.

Given that I fall into that category of people who support the war but are extremely anxious about how it is going, I can tell you quite firmly that if the only justification you acknowledge is the WMDs you are behaving like the tool of a bunch of lying liberal Democrats.  I am as close to neutral and non-partisan as you can get on the issue and the Democrats are acting like lying weasels.

Lets discuss for the last time the Downing Street Memo...why is this a non-issue?  Simply put it only impacts one single justification for the war, WMDs.  For those who want to re-write history and claim it was the only justification here is your reality check (from the New Yorker):

"Has a war ever been as elaborately justified in advance as the coming war with Iraq? Because this war is not being undertaken in direct response to a single shattering event (it's been nearly a year and a half since the September 11th attacks), and because the possibility of military action against Saddam Hussein has been Washington's main preoccupation for the better part of a year, the case for war has grown so large and variegated that its very multiplicity has become a part of the case against it. In his State of the Union address, President Bush offered at least four justifications, none of them overlapping: the cruelty of Saddam against his own people; his flouting of treaties and United Nations Security Council resolutions; the military threat that he poses to his neighbors; and his ties to terrorists in general and to Al Qaeda in particular. In addition, Bush hinted at the possibility that Saddam might attack the United States or enable someone else to do so. There are so many reasons for going to war floating around—at least some of which, taken alone, either are nothing new or do not seem to point to Iraq specifically as the obvious place to wage it—that those inclined to suspect the motives of the Administration have plenty of material with which to argue that it is being disingenuous. So, along with all the stated reasons, there is a brisk secondary traffic in "real" reasons, which are similarly numerous and do not overlap: the country is going to war because of a desire to control Iraqi oil, or to help Israel, or to avenge Saddam's 1993 assassination attempt on President George H. W. Bush.

Yet another argument for war, which has emerged during the last few months, is that removing Saddam could help bring about a wholesale change for the better in the political, cultural, and economic climate of the Arab Middle East. To give one of many possible examples, Fouad Ajami, an expert on the Arab world who is highly respected inside the Bush Administration, proposes in the current issue of Foreign Affairs that the United States might lead "a reformist project that seeks to modernize and transform the Arab landscape. Iraq would be the starting point, and beyond Iraq lies an Arab political and economic tradition and a culture whose agonies have been on cruel display." The Administration's main public proponent of this view is Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, who often speaks about the possibility that war in Iraq could help bring democracy to the Arab Middle East. President Bush appeared to be making the same point in the State of the Union address when he remarked that "all people have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny—and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom."

Even those suffering from justification fatigue ought to pay special attention to this one, because it goes beyond the category of reasons offered in support of a course of action that has already been decided upon and set in motion. Unlike the other justifications, it is both a reason for war and a plan for the future. It also cries out for elaboration. Democracy is a wonderful idea, but none of the countries in the Middle East, except Israel and Turkey, resemble anything that would look like a democracy to Americans. Some Middle Eastern countries are now and have always been ruled by monarchs. Some are under the control of an ethnic or religious group that represents a minority of the population. Saudi Arabia and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan are the world's only major nations named after a single family, and in Saudi Arabia the royal family functions as, in effect, the country's owner. Most Middle Eastern countries don't even make the pretense of having freely elected parliaments; in Iran, for example, candidates have to be approved by the mullahs. And the very problem that democracy in the Middle East is meant to solve—rising Islamic radicalism, encouraged or tolerated by governments that see it as a way to propitiate their increasingly poorer and younger populations—makes the prospect of elections dangerous, because anti-American Islamists might win."

(see Hewitt for his take)

Now I'm not one to defend the WMD claims or the poor intelligence, but there definately is a difference between those who are being honest and those who are lying.  There is truth and there is falsehood and in this case the liars are clearly the Democrats.  There is no way to avoid that conclusion.  Even a cursory review of the political commentary leading up to the war...even the commentary coming from traditionally liberal media outlets like the New Yorker...clearly shows multiple justifications of which WMDs were just a part.  The largest emphasis, as this article so clearly points out, is the need to replace dictatorships with democracies.  The Downing Street Memo is therefor completely irrelevant and should be, and up until now has been, treated that way.

The Bush administration has not changed its tune, it is the liberal critics that have changed theirs.  That, is the truth.  You can't hide from truth, it finds you out every time.  The voting public punishes liars.  The Democrats are lying.  I think the public remembers far better than the Democrats think they do.  It helps explain the prior election losses...Democrats are liars and  Americans don't like liars.

I would remind the silly Democrats clapping their hands at the most recent poll numbers showing a weak Bush, that the polls were the entire reason they nominated John Kerry and we saw how well that worked out for them.  A person would have to be delusional to believe that the Democrats were going to be trusted with national security after the latest rash of self-inflicted wounds.  Not even a sympathetic media could prevent the public disgust.  Just because the public doesn't like how things are going in Iraq, doesn't mean that they are ready to allow Democrats the chance to run things.  One parties struggle is not another parties opportunity.

Even the weak poll numbers do not translate into a Democrat strength.  What kind of delusion has convinced Teddy Kennedy that withdrawing from Iraq is just what the public thinks we need to do now?  Personally I think it is the scotch talking and that even Teddy knows better than that!  Why do Democrats think that John Kerry's opinion is going to be helpful on this issue.  Mr. Waffle was rejected by the public on this very issue.  With his intelligence recently being questioned, I'm guessing many people are listening to his snobby Senatorial tone and snickering to themselves at what an empty suit he probably is.

I wish I didn't have to over-generalize, but I am getting tired of being patient.  If there is an honest Democrat who has acknowledged publicly anywhere the truth about the multiple justifications for the Iraq war, I can't find them.  I have to call them out on this.  If you can't even be bothered to remember or even simpler, research for twenty seconds, what was actually said by whom, I don't think you deserve much respect for your opinions. 

The Big Lie only works with an ignorant public...courting the votes of the ignorant, now there's something to be proud of!

Karl Rove and His Liberal Allies

Karl Rove must be smiling today...this is the New York Times:

"We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks." (emphasis added)

For a news organization that was positive before the war that Saddam had WMDs, this news organization is awfully sure of itself about al Qaeda and Iraq.  In fact, one might almost be tempted to ask this news organization to prove it...

Sure the intelligence services and newsrooms of the world screwed up big time with their over confident predictions of WMDs in Iraq.  It was considered well established...some have even used the term a 'slam dunk' (thanks George)...that Iraq had stockpiles of WMDs.  Now based upon that track record, why should I believe that these same organizations can prove that Saddam had no association/ties with al Qaeda?

I have just a few questions for the New York Times and their intelligence experts to answer (from the National Review):

"Ahmed Hikmat Shakir — the Iraqi Intelligence operative who facilitated a 9/11 hijacker into Malaysia and was in attendance at the Kuala Lampur meeting with two of the hijackers, and other conspirators, at what is roundly acknowledged to be the initial 9/11 planning session in January 2000? Who was arrested after the 9/11 attacks in possession of contact information for several known terrorists? Who managed to make his way out of Jordanian custody over our objections after the 9/11 attacks because of special pleading by Saddam’s regime?

Saddam's intelligence agency's efforts to recruit jihadists to bomb Radio Free Europe in Prague in the late 1990's?

Mohammed Atta's unexplained visits to Prague in 2000, and his alleged visit there in April 2001 which — notwithstanding the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of it (based on interviewing exactly zero relevant witnesses) — the Czechs have not retracted?

The Clinton Justice Department's allegation in a 1998 indictment (two months before the embassy bombings) against bin Laden, to wit: In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

Seized Iraq Intelligence Service records indicating that Saddam's henchmen regarded bin Laden as an asset as early as 1992?

Saddam's hosting of al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri beginning in the early 1990’s, and reports of a large payment of money to Zawahiri in 1998?

Saddam’s ten years of harboring of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Abdul Rahman Yasin?

Iraqi Intelligence Service operatives being dispatched to meet with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 (the year of bin Laden’s fatwa demanding the killing of all Americans, as well as the embassy bombings)?

Saddam’s official press lionizing bin Laden as “an Arab and Islamic hero” following the 1998 embassy bombing attacks?

The continued insistence of high-ranking Clinton administration officials to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 retaliatory strikes (after the embassy bombings) against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory were justified because the factory was a chemical weapons hub tied to Iraq and bin Laden?

Top Clinton administration counterterrorism official Richard Clarke’s assertions, based on intelligence reports in 1999, that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarke’s memo to then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence, and “[a]rmed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad”? (See 9/11 Commission Final Report, p. 134 & n.135.)

Terror master Abu Musab Zarqawi's choice to boogie to Baghdad of all places when he needed surgery after fighting American forces in Afghanistan in 2001?

Saddam's Intelligence Service running a training camp at Salman Pak, were terrorists were instructed in tactics for assassination, kidnapping and hijacking?

Former CIA Director George Tenet’s October 7, 2002 letter to Congress, which asserted:

Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.

Credible information indicates that Iraq and Al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression.

Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action."

If all of these questions can be answered by the New York Times, they are entitled to believe that their opinion is accurate.  If not, they are as unreliable as they usually are and have learned nothing from their erroneous WMD predictions.

For me the bottom line is not whether we had justification to go into Iraq and remove the regime there...that is a 'no brainer'.  Some days it feels as though the 'no brainer' category captures rather well Liberal opinion and definately describes the New York Times editorials...being that a pre-requisite for belief is a poorly functioning brain.  Simply put, regime change in Iraq has been our national policy since the mid 90's and has probably been a pretty damn good idea for much longer than that.  The fact that this administration actually implemented the policy is the only legitimate complaint that can be leveled, that and of course how well it is being done.  Any other insipid insight into whether the war was 'justified' merely exposes the ignorance of the purveyor.

The problem is of course far deeper than that.  The Democrats are now firmly boxed in as the party who is weak on national security.  They will now spend the entire lead up to election day trying futilely to explain to voters how they are not 'weak' on national defense.  Whether the voters buy into the claim will depend upon whether they have been listening to the rhetoric of the Democratic leadership in Congress over the past several months.  It is very hard to make much of a case for your strong national defense credentials when you spend all your media time arguing that we need to run away and hide, appease our national enemies, arguing for terrorist's rights, and comparing our soldiers to Nazis.

From a political standpoint this is like Karl Rove versus a chipmunk.  Maybe Democrats can capture the pity vote?

Heresy!

I am worried.  I am worried that I am about to be branded a heretic.  I will be kicked out of the vast right wing conspiracy and have to go hang out at the Democratic Underground with the loons.  In my defense I don't think I belong there and I'm pretty sure the loony left doesn't want me either but I am not just a small time heretic.  I have some heretical thinking that Cheney might describe as "Big Time".  You see I am not a heretic for a single idea...but for many ideas.  My heresy or heresies, if that can be pluralized, needed to be gathered together and displayed to appreciate how far from the conventional right-wing wisdom I have strayed.

My heresy number one...Social Security.

I believe rather fervently that the when something is broken it needs to be fixed.  Social Security is clearly broken.  Common sense dictates that it has never been anything more than a ponzi scheme designed not to solve a problem, but to pass on the costs of a problem to the next generation.  All ponzi schemes have one thing in common...to quote Dogbert, "The last guy tends to get in the shorts".  That is what is beginning to happen with Social Security.  Sadly, it is my generation that is about to get it in the shorts.

I am rather ambivalent about the private accounts proposal...primarily because it will rook me out of many years of my social security payments.  I am too old to benefit from the private accounts proposal, not having thirty years to generate a retirement account; and too young to have politicians feel like they have to promise that my benefits won't be cut.  Label my generation...'the screwed generation'.

While I acknowledge that things which are broken need to be fixed, I believe that you should fix the parts of things which are in fact broken.  To use an analogy...if I go in to have a flat tire fixed on my car, I'm not going to be happy if I have to pay for a brand new engine, even if I get one.  For me private accounts are a great improvement over the current ponzi scheme, but they have nothing to do with what is currently broken about Social Security.  Even after the Private Accounts are enacted...I'm still screwed by the current Social Security scheme.

So...I don't support the President's privatization plan for Social Security.  After reading that you might think that to be my primary heresy.  Sadly, it is not.

I am most worried about...the War in Iraq. 

"Heresy!" you cry, "The war is going well!"  Please excuse me while I wring my hands in worry. 

This does not mean that I do not support the war...I do, I do not think we had any realistic hope of Middle East peace but to conduct a war against Saddam's regime.  There has been too much Carter waffling, too much Reagan rigid anti-commie at all costs, and way too much Clinton incompetence in the past for any simple non-military solution to be successful for the current adminisration.  I also see the connection to an event on 9/11 which killed over 3,000 people and has caused millions of liberals to suffer from amnesia. 

I acknowledge the positive signs this war has begun to cause.  Democracy is breaking out all over the place...

BUT

and you knew that 'but' was coming...I'm a heretic.

Let me be frank here...I truly am a student of history.  I read constantly and one of the subjects I read about constantly is history.  Most of the justification for the study of history is that we can learn from our past mistakes.  What a hoot!  For this to work, the study must be approached with ideological indifference, an impossible standard.  Obviously that tends to be a very difficult task and as such, the best analysis of history is usually after passions about a subject have cooled.  In addition, the student of history must wait to see the ultimate causes and effects of events play out.  Until that cooling off period has past, any analysis of issues tends more toward a review of current events than a true analysis of history.  Basically the historian is far better at studying Ancient Egyptian events than anything after 1900.

This brings me to the war in Iraq.  The War in Iraq reminds me of something...something rather unpleasant.  I will not name it, but I can tell you that it starts with a 'V'.  The word that starts with a 'Q' is involved as well.  For me the only thing standing in the way of such a reality coming to pass is the current Secretary of Defense.  He is not looking at the conflict through rose colored glasses, and he does not appear to care what his reputation is in either the press or Congress, he wants to be a purveyor of the unvarnished truth.  When confronted with the claim by Dick Cheney that the insurgency was in its 'final throes', Rumsfeld dissented publicly.  Good for him!

Based upon my study of history, that is not the typical Secretary of Defense posture to take in any conflict.  I am comforted by his strength under a whithering political attack.  When politics enters the conduct of war, regardless of which side that political influence lands on, really bad things tend to happen.  Rumsfeld appears determined to avoid that outcome in Iraq...but how long will he stick it out?  A political person sitting in that seat would be softening rhetoric, Rumsfeld does not.  A political person would pick a side, either the cut and run or the escalation.  Rumsfeld has done neither.  Put an appeaser in that seat and he will either lie to Congress about the current situation or allow politicians in Congress to 'run the war'.  If you think things are bad now, ask yourself how bad they would be run by a Committee led by Ted Kennedy?

Perhaps Rumsfeld with his slow and steady improvements will ultimately win the day, or maybe, as I fear, we have been drawn into a conflict that will last decades.  The thought of a permanent state of warfare concerns me greatly.  While I do not know what other course of action was available to us, the one we chose, does not appear to be arriving very quickly at our destination of choice.  For those who counsel me to be patient and stay the course, I have but one question. Why was World War II over by 1945?  Answer, dedication of huge resources and PUBLIC SACRIFICE.  We are not being asked to scarifice anything...we live the life of luxury, while our military heros die.  I see a connection to 'V' in that the lack of any public sacrifice has created public indifference.  We are soooo there today.

Bush has not done a good job bringing the public along with him on this military solution.  The Democratic party politicizing the war has been substantially responsible for some of this, and I believe that history will judge them harshly; but Bush could have done better by asking for public sacrifice.  He has instead chosen to focus on both guns and butter, miltary and domestic spending.  What is worse, he is using deficit spending to accomplish this.  He thinks that the public wants to have it all...both domestic programs and a strong military response to 9/11.  I'm not sure that we do.  Not even a nation as powerful as the U.S. can simultaneously fight a war, cut taxes and increase social spending.  What do I think is needed?  You are not gonna believe it but...we need a massive tax increase.  Heresy!

Here is the bottom line for me.  I want to pay for this war, not leave it to my kids.  Let me make a sacrifice...since I'm too old to fight.  The one thing that I can do is help pay for what I think is a critical war.  If you are a war supporter you should be willing to put your money where your mouth is.  War requires sacrifice.  It should require sacrifice from all of us.  Not just the warriors and heros who are fighting for our freedom and the freedom of Iraqis.

Let me pause for a moment to pre-empt the hawks who want both tax cuts and military spending.  An easy response to my request is for this group of folks to suggest that I go ahead and do that, but leave them out of it.  Yes...I could certainly pay more taxes voluntarily but I know that I won't because I know that you won't.  My tiny contribution would be insufficient to make a real difference so I make no further contribution at all, and I do feel awful about it.  Whereas if my taxes were raised through withholding and we used them not for more pork, but for defense spending, I could scarcely complain and then I could feel like I was at least doing something to help...making some kind of sacrifice.  Use the taxes to support the families of dead soldiers...use them to help heal the soldiers who have been injured to protect me...use them well and I think the public will decide that freedom is indeed worth fighting for.

Why do I think this is necessary?  It stems from a truth about human nature...anything which is free is accorded no value.  What Bush has done is to make the war free of cost and therefore it is not be viewed as very valuable.  If he asked all of us to sacrifice, the war would probably garner greater support.

I will not list the numerous reasons why the analogy to 'V' is inappropriate; suffice it to say that I am not ignorant of the substantial differences.  I also freely recognize that history has not yet spoken regarding either the current conflict or even the 'V' conflict about which I refuse to write.  These distinctions aside, the similarities between the conduct of the administrations are worrisome to me.  Rumsfeld deserves enormous credit for refusing to behave as bad as his predecessors but he may be the only senior administration official who is.

Some pundits on the left see comparisons to Nixon's Presidency with his manic search for leaks and hyper sensitivity to the press.  These pundits are way wrong...it is the Lyndon Johnson administration which provides the greatest similarities to George W. Bush's administration.

And that, is my final troublesome heresy. 

I await your verdict.

Reading List

Periodically I like to review my reading and share it with the few folks who read my blog.  As many of you know I have been writing my first novel and struggling to trim it down to meet the publishing requirements.  While I was working on that novel, I spent a great deal of time reading similar genres.  Since I am writing a murder mystery, I read murder mysteries almost exclusively.  It was fun but not terribly 'nourishing' mentally.

Well, the bulk of the writing is now done and I'm at the tweaking stage which has freed me up to wade into other books.  This past week I read:

Bob Schieffer's memoir:  This Just In.  It is an execellent book which combines Bob Schieffer's work (and some of his life) stories with the history that he was a party too; and a part of in some cases.  His fascinating rise through the CBS News organization and his story/assignment recollections are written in a clear crisp style which was pure joy to read.  This one is so good, I will be reading it again!

I then read Jack Germond's: Fat Man Fed Up.  Another brilliantly written memoir which combines his recollections of the past with his disgust of the present.  After reading his insightful look at the W Bush, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon administrations, any reader can be forgiven if they despair at the quality of journalism today.  Jack Germond has spent a lifetime writing about politics, and in this book uses that huge base of experience to ponder where journalism and politics has gone wrong.  To me the book was both educational, entertaining and enlightening.

I also finished Dick Morris' Power Plays.  Another brilliant scholar of history who categorizes the political manuevers engaged in by politicians from Lincoln through George W. Bush.  You might not think that George W. Bush and Bill Clinton had much in common, however, politically they did the same thing, triangulation.  I especially found enlightening the detailed research into Tony Blair, Winston Churchill, FDR, and Woodrow Wilson.  This is an excellent book.

After finishing these three brilliantly written books, I hit my first stinker.  Anne Coulter's How to Talk to a Liberal if you Must.  The book is a collection of her essays loosely grouped by topic.  It has no clear theme, reads like recycled columns (basically because it is) and suffered greatly in comparison to the other political books I read.  I suspect that the educational level of the writing is lower than any of the prior political books I had read, and I felt Anne Coulter was using a grossly symplified vocabulary, dumbing it down, if you will.  I have listened to her speak and have read other books she has written and she is far more articulate than this book demonstrates.  I trudged gamely on through column after column, and even my slightly sympathetic ideological leanings could not resurrect this book.  It sits back on the shelf about three-quarters finished.

I just started Dick Morris' book Re-Writing History.  It is too early to tell for sure, but I'm not terribly impressed so far.  He is psychoanalyzing Hillary Clinton based upon having worked with her for, he claims, two decades.  His motive is to determine what kind of President she would make.  I think it is important for everyone to read this book, but I worry that the very closeness to his subject that provides him the data to write the book, has warped his opinion of her.  Certainly some of his conclusions early on in the book appear not too terribly well supported.  Before you claim that someone would be 'Nixon-like' as a President, I believe you first have to establish some understanding of what Nixon was actually like.  That is a very serious allegation to make and he has yet to convince me of it.  It is early but I think Dick Morris' Power Plays is a far superior book.

That is last weeks reading, I plan of finishing more of the political books that I have been ignoring this week.  Maybe I will post again about this week's books.

Scrappleface! Best of the Web!

Scott Ott is brilliant!  This little gem is dripping with sarcasm and completely skewers the righteous indignation of the Gitmo carpers.

Clinton: Gitmo Horror Could Spark Muslim Brutality

by Scott Ott

(2005-06-20) -- Former President Bill Clinton today said that if the scandal-plagued terrorist detention facility at Guantánamo Bay isn't "cleaned up or closed down" then insurgents in Iraq may resort to killing Iraqis, and could even begin attacking U.S. troops.

"If the United States gets a reputation in the Muslim world of mistreating terrorist prisoners," said Mr. Clinton, "It could unleash what sociologists call 'the righteous brutality of the oppressed' among the normally-peaceful followers of Islam."

The former president said the backlash could include, "bombings, kidnappings and even beheadings. That's the kind of future we may face unless we atone for the sins of Gitmo."

This would be hilarious if it were not so incredibly accurate.

Karl Rove Paints Democrats into a Corner

Again I have to wonder what the Democratic leadership is thinking...or if they are thinking at all.  Karl Rove gives a speech which contains almost nothing of news value.  Here is an excerpt as reproduced by the WashingtonPost:

"In his speech, Rove said no issue better illustrated the philosophical difference between liberals and conservatives than national security. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war," he said in a prepared text released by the White House. "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."

Rove went on to say that conservatives wanted to "unleash the might and power" of the military against the Taliban in Afghanistan, while liberals wanted to submit petitions. He cited a petition he said was backed by MoveOn.org that called for "moderation and restraint" in responding to the attacks.

"I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the twin towers crumble to the earth, a side of the Pentagon destroyed and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble," he said, according to the text. "Moderation and restraint is not what I felt -- and moderation and restraint is not what was called for. It was a moment to summon our national will -- and to brandish steel. MoveOn.org, Michael Moore and Howard Dean may not have agreed with this, but the American people did."

This is a real yawn...nothing that everyone who has been alive and alert in the past three years hasn't heard.  It would have disappeared without a trace.  In fact the only thing that could have kept it alive would be a reaction from Democrats.  Guess what the morons did?  No really...

Here they are tripping up again:

"The Democratic counterattack was led by the party's two top leaders in Congress. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said, "Karl Rove should immediately and fully apologize for his remarks, or he should resign." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said Rove "has decided to move to center stage in the theater of the absurd. He knows full well, as do all Americans, that our country came together after 9/11."

Dean accused Rove of trying to divide the country with "cynical political attacks," while Kerry said Bush should fire Rove if he believes his own calls for national unity.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) called Rove's remarks "appalling" and "saddening," while Sen. Jon S. Corzine (D-N.J.) said that, after the Sept. 11 attacks, "we weren't divided. There were no liberals, progressives . . . saying that we did not have a need to respond."

Corzine referred to the House and Senate votes after the terrorist attacks authorizing Bush to use "all necessary and appropriate force" to respond. The Senate approved the measure 98 to 0, and the House endorsed it 420 to 1.

Eli Pariser, executive director of the MoveOn political action committee, accused Rove of attempting to "change the subject away from their failed policy in Iraq" in advance of Bush's speech next week. He also disputed Rove's characterization of the petition calling for moderation and restraint, saying that the petition was a personal project before he was affiliated with MoveOn and that it was not on the group's Web site at the time of the Afghanistan war."

Of course what has been happening ever since the 'counter-attack' by the Democrats is that every news report, every blogger and everyone pretty much everywhere; has been unearthing quotes which appear to support everything that Karl Rove said.

This is not a 'controversy' or even a Democratic 'counter-attack'.  This is a Democratic self-inflicted wound.

After Dick 'Taliban' Durbin's characterization of the American military at Guatanamo behaving like Nazi's, the Gulag jailers and Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge...coupled with Senator Edward 'Chappaquiddick' Kennedy trying to dress down the joint chief's of staff and having his fat head handed to him on every prime time newscast...this latest madcap Democratic folly has convinced me that we may have no reason to worry about the filibuster after November 2006.  It is unlikely that the Democrats will be able to preserve enough seats in the Senate to garner the necessary 40 votes.

Although it sounds like it is, this is not the failure of the party...it is the failure of the Liberal ideology.  The entire liberal philosophy needs to be re-worked and made relevant.  For an ideology which supports:  government solutions to social issues, diplomatic solutions to terrorism, the economic and tax policy of income redistribution, the United Nations, etc... this has been an awful period.  The government solutions to social issues have been found not just inadequate but counter-productive, diplomacy has been revealed to be a farce (with UN Oil for Food as the first act), the liberal tax and economic policies of Europe have been miserable failures causing economic stagnation and unemployment and the United Nations has never been more irrelevant and useless.

Clinging stubbornly to the failed policies of the past, the current crop of Democratic leadership have a creativity gap in which they appear incapable of reinventing liberal solutions to existing policy issues.  The massive failures of every New Deal and Great Society program has crippled the ability to respond to anything without the liberal solution sounding like a recap of whatever didn't work the last time.

This is not a good time to be a liberal.

UPDATE:

Today is Friday and the Karl Rove controversy is just hitting it's stride.  Can you imagine what the Sunday Morning News talk shows are going to be full of?  That's right conservatives presenting a mountain of documentation which backs up exactly what Karl Rove just said.  What did Democrats think was going to happen?

I'm reminded of that famous Monty Python skit...Colin 'Bomber' Harris vs. himself:

"Emcee (Michael Palin):

Hello, good evening and welcome to the Ronald Reagan Memorial Bowl, here in the pretty little L.A. suburb of Hollywood, where we're about to go in all for wrestling, brought to you tonight, ladies and gentlemen, by the makers of Scum, the world's first ever combined hair oil, foot ointment, and salad dressing. And the makers of Titan, the novelty nuclear missile! You never know when it'll go off! Surprise your friends, amuse your enemies, start the party with a bang! Introducing, ladies and gentlemen, tonight, all the way from a mud-wrestling tour of the OPEC countries...in the red corner: Colin "Bomber" Harris!...and, ladies and gentlemen, in the blue corner...all the way from a mud-wrestling tour of the OPEC countries...Colin "Bomber" Harris!

Commentator (John Cleese):

Well, now, ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time that Colin "Bomber" Harris has met himself. A few formalities now, any moment now, we'll be ready for the start of Round One. There goes the bell! Colin moves to the middle of the ring there, he's looking for an opening, going for the handhold...

Colin "Bomber" Harris (Graham Chapman):

Augh!

Commentator:

He's got it! Into the headsqueeze...

Colin "Bomber" Harris:

Augh!

Commentator:

A headsqueeze there...

Colin "Bomber" Harris:

Augh!

Commentator:

A favorite...

Colin "Bomber" Harris:

Augh!

Commentator:

...a favorite move of Colin's at this opening stage...

Colin "Bomber" Harris:

Augh!

Commentator:

...flying there...

Colin "Bomber" Harris:

Augh!

Commentator:

...and already Colin is working on that weak left knee of his!"

It looks like the Congressional Democrats are determined to go to work on their weak left knee (terrorism) by reminding everyone at every chance that they can get that they are in favor of being really really nice to terrorists and think our military is full of Nazis. 

Karl Rove has the easiest job in the world...he just makes a speech where he recognizes that a bunch of liberal wackos exist and then the Democrats step forward and acknowledge that he was talking about them.

"Are you questioning our patriotism?" they fume.  "Well actually he said liberals and he can prove everything he said, but based on your reaction..."

Is there anyone dumber than a Democrat?

Downing Street Memo - Faked Documents?

After all that we have endured for the past year, what journalist would:

1. Copy memos onto plain paper;
2. Destroy or Return (accounts vary) the originals;
3. Re-type the copies using an old typewriter;
4. Destroy even the copies of the originals.

And then use these memos to level accusations against President Bush.

How seriously deranged would that jornalist have to be?

The journalist responsible for braking the story about the Downing Street Memo has admitted to doing just this!  To say that I'm amazed is putting it lightly. 

Why?

The only answer that I can come up with is that the journalist was concerned that someone would test the documents and determine that they were not authentic.  If there is another reason for engaging in these gyrations, someone please enlighten me.

RAW STORY claims that the justification was the protection of sources:

"Six additional UK Iraq documents, acquired by RAW STORY, reveal the depth and breadth of the plan to go to war and the extent of the deceit on the part of the President and his cabinet, in conjunction with the Blair government.

The documents are transcribed photocopies in PDF format and were acquired from a British source and corroborated by Michael Smith, the journalist who first received the original leaked memos. This site validated them through an independent source and with Smith.

“I was given them last September while still on the [Daily] Telegraph,” Smith, who now works for the London Sunday Times, told RAW STORY. “I was given very strict orders from the lawyers as to how to handle them.”

“I first photocopied them to ensure they were on our paper and returned the originals, which were on government paper and therefore government property, to the source,” he added.

The Butler Committee, a UK commission looking into WMD, has quoted the documents and accepted their authenticity, along with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Smith said all originals were destroyed in order to both protect the source and the journalist alike.

“It was these photocopies that I worked on, destroying them shortly before we went to press on Sept 17, 2004,” he added. “Before we destroyed them the legal desk secretary typed the text up on an old fashioned typewriter.”

The copying and re-typing were necessary because markings on the originals might have identified his source, Smith said. The documents below were leaked last September, prior to the US election. The document known as DSM was published after the below documents."

So did you destroy the originals, return the originals...sheesh.  Here we have documents, typed up by the journalist and the 'content' authenticated by an anonymous source, and we are suppose to believe that these documents are evidence of something?  I can certainly see why American media outlets were cautious about trying to make much of a story about these papers.

UPDATE:

I have just uncovered documents that indicate the President of France Jacques Chirac admits that he is a cheese eating surrender monkey!  I destroyed the originals to protect my source but re-typed them in English on an old typewriter.

I am planning on having them authenticated by a local Monkey expert.

Downing Street Memo - Smoking Gun? More Like a Ticking Bomb!

This is silly.  The Downing Street Memo (here it is) is not only NOT a smoking gun, it isn't even a gun!  If this is the best evidence that anyone can put together that the Bush administration screwed up in Iraq, we should just plan on carving his face on Mt. Rushmore now.  While we're at it, pass the Social Security reform, admit that the unemployment rate is only 5.1% and quit bitching about gas prices when you won't pass an energy bill that includes drilling in ANWR.

If you don't like todays gas prices, blame Clinton!  Everyone else is...

Meanwhile the left wing loons have decided that finally they have the perfect scandal that will prove to the public that they have been right all along.  I guess the Plame affair, the 9/11 Commission, the Bush Texas Air National Guard issue, etc... and so on...were all just warm ups or something.  If after producing a pile of crap like Farenheit 9/11, you can't convince the public of your point of view...maybe you don't have much of a view to point too.

That is what normal people would begin to realize...but we aren't dealing with normal people are we?  No.  We are dealing with lefty loons who mistake the high opinion they have of themselves for actual intelligence.  The fact that time after time they get stomped by over-reaching and trying to manufacture a scandal out of a 'ho-hum', still has yet to sink in.  In many ways politically, the Bush administration has been a one-trick pony.  They use 'rope-a-dope' and have never yet lost by underestimating the intelligence of their opponents.  It works something like this:

"Lets see if they fall for this again..." says Karl Rove, "You George...pretend that you are thinking about closing Gitmo, they'll hop all over it, then after a while we'll ask them where they want the terrorists to go!"  Sure enough, Democrats and the liberals who own them started whooping it up...as soon as they get tired and turned off the rest of the moderates in the entire country, someone will ask them what THEIR plan is...crickettes will chirp...they have no plan.

But back to the Downing Street Memo...

The Downing Street Memo has a single paragraph from an unknown politician in England which states:

"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

Lets break it down some:

1. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable.
2. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.
3. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
4. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record.
5. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

So what?  Military action was inevitable.  The lack of any alternative to military action is the real smoking gun as it relates to Iraq.  What would the critics have had us do?  Nothing.  What would Iraq look like if they had their way?  Same as it was before we kick Saddam the sadist around.  The lack of any acceptable answers to those two questions...dooms the loony left.  Amazingly...they do not see it.  Probably this helps explain why they control exactly none of the branches of government and are sinking like a rock!

The press isn't covering this memo because it is an irrelevant document, but the left really believes they should have.  I say...OK...Lets cover it.  It is going to hurt the left badly, as usual, but they think this is the club they need to beat up Bush and the press has been too easy on him all along.  Some delusional fools actually believe this!  I'm still snickering at all of the complaints about the lack of critical press coverage of the Bush administration.  What planet are these morons living on?  Beside Fox News what mainstream media outlet has ever run a positive story about Bush?  Some members of the loony left would not be satisfied with press coverage that persisted in calling him the President, we all know he is supposed to be called 'Chimpy McBush.'

It isn't the fault of the press that the loons on the left tried to make Valerie Plame their Joan D'Arc.  When THAT blew up in their face, it was Bush's National Guared service...BOOM again!  Incidentally that one just opened the door to politicize John Kerry's Vietnam record...big KaBOOM there huh?  The economy?  BOOM.

Because there are no intelligent people occupying the left wing loon faction, we are going to watch another BOOM as an issue blows up in their face again.

So lets look at this memo now...and not just that one paragraph, lets look at the whole thing!  I realize the attention span of some liberals is very short but the memo does carry on for a few more paragraphs after the one every lefty has been drooling over.

How about this one?

"The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change."

John Ashcroft?  He said what?  OOOOOOOoooooooo...  So given the three legal bases, what was the justification for Kosovo?  How about Rwanda?  What would the justification be in the Sudan today?  Given the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis we have found piled up in mass graves...the prisons for children...the torture chambers and rape rooms...explain to the American public clearly and succintly why the 'legal' justification was not met in Iraq for humanitarian intervention.  Speak slowly...the American public is going to be awfully interested in your explanation...I recommend that you run all of your Congressman on the resulting platform!

You could say something like:  "Vote for Democrats, We would have left Saddam in Power!"  or how about this one: "A Vote For Republicans is a Vote For Democracy and Freedom!"  Probably you don't want to be trying that second one...maybe this would work:  "The Party of the United Nations!"

BOOM...or did we already do that?

What Are They Thinking?

Lets assume for just a second that you are the member of a political party that just lost the most recent election.  Not just lost, but lost in the Senate, the House and lost the White House again and that you did this after spending more than you had ever spent before.  During the period immediately after the election you engaged in some soul searching over the fact that it was impossible for you to win an election without winning a red state.  The conventional wisdom was that Democrats needed to find a way to reach out to religious conservatives and that they needed to prove that they were tough on terrorism too.

Fast forward...what has it been half-a-year?  Lets look at the rhetoric of the Democrats and see if they have learned a damn thing.

1. Howard Dean talks about how much he 'hates' Republicans.  Howard Dean claims that Republicans are a 'white Christian party.'  Howard Dean claims that Republicans have 'never worked a day in their life.'
2. Dick Durbin states that the U.S. soldiers are like Nazis, Soviet gulags and a "mad regime" like Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's in Cambodia.
3. Joe Biden thinks that the U.S. is torturing prisoners when they are poked in the chest, shouted at, or made to stand for long periods of time.  His one good point is that having to listen to Christina Agiulera is pretty torturous.
4. Here is Dick Durbin showing off his 'brilliance': "This administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure," Durbin said in a statement Wednesday evening.

Maybe this is a brilliant strategy that I don't understand, but when you are accused of being soft on terrorism, weak on foreign policy and national defense and that you can't relate to religious conservatives...do any of these statements accomplish anything but further prove that you can not be trusted with national defense and can't understand religious conservatives?

The Democratic Party will defend your right to burn the flag, rip up a Bible and spit on our soldiers; but God help you if an infidel touches a Koran without wearing gloves!  That constitutes abuse of prisoners!

I'm not sure the Democrats are going to win ANY seats in a red state next election...just one terrorist attack from a person who they force the country to release from Gitmo, and they can kiss their party good-bye...forever.

Kaus on Dionne on Kerry

Can you follow that?  Let me break it down, Mickey Kaus, columnist/blogger for Slate is writing about E.J. Dionne, columnist for the Washington Post who is writing about John Kerry, professional Vietnam Veteran/Gigolo from Massachusetts who is also a Junior Senator from that State.  Whew...of course I, Mahatma non-professional blogger/pundit am writing about Mickey Kaus...well you get the picture I hope.  A discouse on the echo chamber...

Here is Mickey Kaus in Slate quoting E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post:

"...here are excerpts from E.J. Dionne's own writing in the run-up to the 2004 election:

Early boosting: "The potential presidential candidates can hit larger themes, and some of them--Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts comes to mind--are using this period to lay out some serious ideas and expand their reach." -- April 5, 2002

Pre-primary blindness: "Yet for the moment, it's Kerry--with his standing as a Vietnam veteran and by combining support and criticism of Bush on Iraq--who comes closest to the foreign policy balance a Democrat needs to strike to satisfy both his party and those outside it." -- Feb 25, 2003

Post-Iowa--Falling-in-line euphoria: "In the newly presidential Kerry, they found patriotism and a candidate who could go head-to-head with Bush on national security. 'Bring it on!' Kerry would shout about doing battle with the Bush who showed up on that aircraft carrier." -- Jan 21, 2004

"But a liberal with a uniform, a war record and a regiment of veterans marching with him is not what the GOP ordered up from central casting. The momentum is now with Kerry because Democrats have begun to consider the advantages of being led into battle this fall by a lieutenant who knows what battle is." -- Jan. 27, 2004

"Face it, Democrats: You have never gotten your message across the way you have in this presidential primary campaign. ... Howard Dean toughened you up--you all owe him a debt. Then the voters of Iowa decided the party needed a candidate, not a trainer, so they lifted up John Kerry and John Edwards. ... The prospect that the Democrats might nominate Kerry, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, reopened the issues surrounding the incumbent's Air National Guard service back in the 1970s."-- Feb. 17, 2004

Mid-Campaign--Wishful Thinking: "Here is the biggest surprise of the 2004 election so far: It is John Kerry who is eager to talk about terrorism and national security, and President Bush's campaign that is trying to quash a far-reaching debate on these issues." -- April 20, 2004

"The conventional wisdom on this presidential election is wrong. It's frequently said that John Kerry is the man in trouble. Yes, Kerry does have a gift for getting in his own way. But President Bush is the candidate with big problems. ... [O]n the current numbers, Kerry will win if he's simply good enough. Bush's task is harder: to seem a whole lot better than he does now to voters who already know him well."-- May 14, 2004

Pre-Convention--Utter Delusion:

"First Ripple of a Political Tidal Wave?

Rep. Jay Inslee knows about political tidal waves, because one of them almost sank his political career.

Inslee, who now represents a suburban Seattle district, was tossed out of Congress from another district in the 1994 Republican sweep. ...But he came back to the House in 1998, and now what he's seeing 'is the same tidal wave moving in the opposite direction. . . . There's a passion out there.' And the passion, Inslee says, is running against George W. Bush. ...

Even if the plural of anecdote is not data, the anecdotes are about citizens who avoided politics for years but are now devoting time to John Kerry's campaign out of hostility to Bush. Individuals who never before made a campaign contribution are opening their checkbooks to Kerry and the Democrats. ... And, perhaps most significant, moderate and moderately conservative Republicans are showing little enthusiasm for Bush, reflecting their worries about his Iraq policy and their qualms over large deficits." -- June 29, 2004

October--Looking for Friendly Faces in the Crowd: "In the torrent of polling information released over the weekend, the most significant finding was this one: John Kerry's supporters are more likely than George W. Bush's to believe that this year's election is the most important of their lifetimes." -- Oct. 26, 2004"

This type of writing looks like an indictment of E.J. Dionne's ability to prognosticate.  In reality though, this represents the 'conventional wisdom' type of thinking in Washington, D.C.  It isn't that unusual for the media self-deception and for liberal self-deception to cause this misreading of reality.  It happens that partisan individuals will assume that voters naturally see things the same way that they do.  When you live in a liberal cocoon and everyone you interact with has the same feelings and focuses on the same things, no one you talk too is going to offer up a solid alternative to your opinion. 

What is unusual about this phenomenon in the last election, is the hugely lopsided media preference for the liberal candidate.  Surveys indicated a preference of over 80% media support for Kerry.  In that environment, a prognosticator would have to actively seek out the rare opinion who would disagree with them, to get a reading on a particular candidate's flaws.  In a like manner a primary voter, would have to actively look for negative coverage to understand a candidate's flaws.  During the Democratic primaries, negative coverage which scrutinized Kerry's background was awfully hard to find on major media outlets.  In fact negative coverage of any Democratic primary candidates was pretty rare (unless you were Howard Dean - post scream).

Mickey Kaus is having some fun but E.J. Dionne was merely writing what every other liberal pundit was thinking, saying and writing...sadly outside of some partisan radio and Fox News pundits the counter-balance for the liberal echo-chamber is silent when it comes to Democratic candidates.

John Kerry is a deeply flawed candidate with more baggage than almost all of his Democratic primary competitors.  Even Howard Dean would have been a more effective candidate, but without a balanced media properly scrutinizing the candidates, Democrat primary voters never learned about the candidate's flaws until far too late in the election.  It is the universally liberal bias of major media outlets that causes this.  Kerry's Vietnam era activism was a fatal flaw, but not one that was identifiable to his ideological peers in the media.  Only a completely tone-deaf campaign would seek to emphasize the heroic military service of a controversial Vietnam-era protestor.  Of course some might argue that only a non-liberal would spot that issue as a potential flaw that could be exploited.

Before all the Republican gloating commences; it is just as risky for a Fox News watching, Rush Limbaugh listening conservative to miss a fatal flaw in a future Republican candidate.  All you have to do is ignore sources of information you don't agree with.  Given the preponderance of liberally biased media outlets it is a far more difficult task, but some folks that I know still manage to pull it off.

If the trend continues, look for there to be more candidates making it through the primaries without either their records or background receiving sufficient scrutiny...Kerry style.  In fact, the more our media outlets become partisanly slanted, the more the quality of our elected politicians could suffer.