Instapundit links to Oxblog’s analysis of the Istanbul Summit, and publishes part of an email by reader Eric Bainter, who worked in NATO during the 80s and 90s. Bottom line: given NATO’s gaps in both capabilities and will, how real is the alliance? It’s an important question, and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer’s recent comments are sobering.

Patrick Belton’s summary of the key issues facing NATO is solid, and he also throws some worthwhile advice for both Bush and Kerry. In some ways, however, he begs the larger question about NATO and its future - and there was one item in particular that could be misleading. We’ll address both issues.

Patrick notes:

“What comes out of this is a capabilities gap. Of 1.4 million soldiers under Nato arms in October 2003, allies other than the US contributed all of 55,000.”

Read the Rest…

It couldn’t have happened at a better time. It couldn’t have been stage managed by Hollywood and come off with any more impact. And the expansion of the coverage into the broader subject of prisoner treatment by US Forces is exactly where the issue needed to evolve for maximum effect.

The photos and video from the treatment of the prisoners at Abu Graihb prison by a group of junior enlisted US Army reservists has presented to the US and to the World with an opportunity that would have been almost impossible by any other means. And it has, and is, playing out almost perfectly. What is the opportunity? To showcase exactly how the system of Western Democracy, conducted with openness and public involvement, really, really functions. No amount of manufactured advertising, consuming hundreds of millions of dollars, could have gotten the lessons on how a modern Western Democracy functions, with real issues, with as much impact as this one has.

We’ve witnessed a free press take information from a ‘whistleblower’, and grab hold of the issue with an almost seemingly single minded vengeance. It has elicited a continual stream of commentary from both the left and the right - in many ways resembling more of a bar room brawl than a reasoned discussion, but the opinions and viewpoints are flowing. The ‘opposition’ within the government itself is highly engaged, sometimes going to the point of almost absurdity for theatrical effect in the use of the issue for political purposes.

And the number of people that have been arrested, or hauled off to jail, or simply ‘disappeared’ for their part in these activities? Exactly zero. The number of articles that were pulled or heavily altered due to pressure from the government? Exactly zero. The number of newspapers or television outlets that have been shut down over their coverage of the events? Exactly zero. The number of minority political party members that have been harassed or imprisoned for challenging the majority party, and the members of the executive branch in power with scathing condemnation? Exactly zero. Actually, it is these very activities, integral parts to our way of life, that demonstrate what is different about democracy, the democratic process, and what kind of system we embrace.

What exactly have all these people been talking about? The inner workings of our government’s executive branch. And the executive branch has been remarkably forthcoming, releasing internal documentation of behind the scenes deliberations, discussions, and opinions formulated for our decision makers. The decision makers themselves have discussed openly the policies and decisions that were made, based upon those inputs. While much hullabaloo has resulted from the content of documentation that normally does not reach the light of day, this facet is of tremendous value, and highly instructive to observers looking at the American system from the outside. The discussion of prisoner treatment has started to approach the level of argument over fundamental principle - about US policy, and its interaction with the world community at large, and these discussions are being brought into the open, instead of being hidden away in back rooms.

The very existence of this trail of documentation, the results of meetings, discussions, and debate within the executive branch itself, demonstrates beyond any statement formulated for public release, that our government, and the people in it, had a genuine concern for where the boundaries were, and are. This documentation shows directly the effort put into making sure that what was being done in the name of our nation adhered to the rule of law - versus simply being the general application of the whim or will of a single person or small group of individuals regardless of what was right or wrong. Whatever may be said about the content of those discussions - they were free wheeling, encompassing a full exploration of the subject by serious, responsible people, with the goal of making sure we ‘got it right’. Also, while deliberations were made, and decisions formulated into policy on the topic, it is not yet a settled matter. It has not transformed into a monolithic entity immune from constant questioning and re-examination. Our officials have explained the process of how the decisions were reached, and detailed the policies that were implemented, but they have not become totally entrenched with the viewpoint that those decisions and policies are immutable. They recognize that the true nature of the discussion is about the ideals and policy itself - not simply a denunciation of the process itself, or their presence in it - despite the use of personal and ad hominem attacks by some that primarily object to the personalities with a hand on the lever of power, regardless of issue.

How does this relate to Abu Graihb? And how can what happened there be described as ‘getting it right’?

It relates to Abu Graihb in that what happened for a very short time in a single cell block of that prison was definitely not ‘getting it right’. When that happened, it was not swept under the rug. The participants were not praised, they were prosecuted. The mere occurrence itself triggered a sweeping re-examination of the issue of prisoner treatment, in a very public way. The wailings of scapegoatism are most certainly premature, as we are simply witnessing the opening moves of what will most likely be a rather lengthy examination of the events, and the participants, by our legal system. An examination that we will have a virtual ringside seat for. No secret trials. No ‘whatever happened to’ speculation. It will be known, to anyone with an interest in finding out.

That…that is the opportunity of Abu Graihb. It doesn’t demonstrate how we are magnanimous in victory, or charitable in times of need - it shows the world how our country, and our system, functions and deals with the unpleasant, as well. How we will willing inflict ourselves with a black eye, when the possibility that much worse than a black eye is happening.

The core story of Abu Graihb, while a favorite whipping post topic of the media for weeks, doesn’t play with regular people the same way it works for editorial types searching for a hot ticket item, or jihadi propagandists seeking low hanging fruit to justify their despicable acts. As Al Jahzeera reporter Hassan Ibrahim observed in a recent interview on the Charlie Rose show on PBS, people on the ‘Arab Street’ recognize that the acts committed by the soldiers at Abu Graihb was not true torture. It was humiliation, certainly, but it was obvious amateur hour shenanigans that lacked even the imagination displayed by American High School students in similar situations. And the Arab Street, or any other World ‘street’ can readily contrast the buffoonery of those reservists with the work of the pros on the payrolls of Saddam, the Nazis, the Checka, or the KGB. They can easily compare the reaction of the US government and media to the demonstrated performance of the regimes and media in Iran, or Syria, or even the relatively open Egypt. And they know instinctively that there is a difference. And no amount of hyperventilative Jihadi propagandizing about the matter can erase that fact.

The examination of these events, and the treatment of prisoners by US Forces in general, has by and large revealed the events at Abu Graihb as aberrant, outside the norm, salacious rumors and promises of ‘more shocking yet to come’ aside. So far, that promise has proved out to be not much more reliable than staple tele-drama teaser lines during sweeps weeks. And probably will consist of more of the same, with the ‘more shocking’ portion being over inflated hype. This is the most likely scenario, in that with the progress of the investigations and Congressional inquiries to date, if events absolutely more heinous than what we’ve seen already actually did occur, indictments would most probably have already been issued.

It has happened. And it shows in a way that opening schools, or restoring electricity, or standing up a ministry in Iraqi hands ever could about what America, and the Western Democratic system, is all about.

[Originally posted at Silent Running]

(Note: The author originally posted this on Dean’s World where he was Guest Blogger.)

Georgia Senator Zell Miller, the Republicans’ favorite Democrat, will be speaking at the GOP convention. And it’s being described in news stories (and on web logs) as something of a coup.

Miller has assumed a role in recent months akin to the late Governor John Connelly of Texas, who switched from being a Democrat to a Republican under President Richard Nixon. Only in this case Miller, who is retiring from the Senate, is not actually switching parties. In a larger sense, his status reflects the exodus over the years of many conservative Democrats to the GOP fold. Only in this case he hasn’t formally left.

According to news reports, Miller will give his speech on Wednesday night of the four-day August convention in NYC. The Bush campaign’s proud annoucement is expected Monday.

Needless to say, Democrats aren’t exactly pleased:

Bobby Kahn, the chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party, said he wasn’t surprised.

“Maybe I’ll switch to the Republican Party so I can speak at the Democratic Convention and bash Bush,” Kahn said. “It makes about as much sense.”

Kahn was a top aide to Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes, who appointed Miller to the Senate following the death of Miller’s predecessor, Republican Sen. Paul Coverdell.

“I advocated his appointment,” Kahn said of Miller. “He said he would be independent and he was for a while, but he hasn’t been lately. He’s been in lockstep with the Republicans and I don’t know what’s happened to him. It’s really kind of sad.”

Miller isn’t going to change significant poll numbers on this race, nor will any of his comments lambasting his party be a big revelation (but they will liven the convention up). He has had a high profile for a while now with his criticism of his party and various Democrats via his lively book, plus appearances on radio and cable talk shows.

HOWEVER, his appearance will underscrore how the Democratic party’s center has shifted over the years. That Joe Lieberman is considered by many to be a conservative Democrat shows how greatly the party’s center of gravity has changed.

More than anything, his speech will be a way for him and the GOP to irk the Democrats…but it won’t change whatever poll results are prevailing at the time, and won’t change the Bush-Kerry-Nader dynamics.

And, in the end, he’ll be overshadowed by the Convention’s real star — California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The signs don’t look good now for Ralph Nader in his drive to get on most state ballots: the Green Party has nixed giving him their endorsement, thus denying him access to 22 state ballots where the party he headed in 2000 will run.

This leaves as his biggest backers people on the Democratic far left and some conservative Republicans, who are working mightily (and openly) to try and get him on the ballot in states such as Washington.

Nader’s latest setback came at the Green Party’s national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the party, after two rounds of balloting, chose California lawyer David Cobb. The party is enmeshed in anti-war efforts in the US and Cobb wants to try to convert it from a splinter party into a party with wider appeal.

So it seems clear the Greens had to choose between continuity (Nader was their candidate last time but irked a lot of them) and someone with newer ideas who is not viewed as on the political descent.

So who supports Nader? In the past week he has gotten into a shouting match with African-American Congressmen (the screeching reportedly came from their side) who want him out of the race, continued denounciations from Democrats and Democrat-linked pundits and bloggers, etc. His clearest areas of support can been seen in:

—The Far Left. Liberals Howard Zinn, professor and author, and Noam Chomsky, author and linguist, indicated this week that they’ll vote for Nader in their home state of Massachusetts, figuring their votes will make a statement but won’t take away from John Kerry’s vote total. Their vehemently anti-war stance reflects the typical Nader voter, who feels Kerry is too much akin to Bush on the Iraq issue.

—Conservative Republicans. Various stories have surfaced about GOPers helping fund Nader and working diligently to get Nader on the ballot in various states. One of the most fascinating comes from the Seattle-P.I. which reports:

Two conservative groups have been phoning people around Oregon this week, urging them to attend Ralph Nader’s convention Saturday in hopes of putting Nader’s name on Oregon’s presidential ballot.

The groups make no bones about their goal - to draw votes away from Democrat John Kerry and help President Bush win this battleground state in November.

“We disagree with Ralph Nader’s politics, but we’d love to see him make the ballot,” said Russ Walker of Citizens for a Sound Economy, a group best known for its opposition to tax increases.

The Oregon Family Council also has been working the phones to boost attendance at Nader’s event - with the idea that it could help Bush this fall.

“We aren’t bashful about doing it,” said Mike White, the group’s director. “We are a conservative, pro-family organization, and Bush is our guy on virtually every issue.”

Even if it comes from an unusual source, Nader can probably use the help, given that this will be his second attempt to win a spot on Oregon’s ballot.

Apparently Nader could indeed use the help. The PI again:

In April, Nader held an evening rally in Portland that was intended to attract 1,000 people needed to sign petitions to put him on the ballot. Only 741 showed up.Nader placed some of the blame on supporters tuning in the NCAA basketball championship game, which occurred the same night, rather than attend the rally.

Earlier this week, Nader named Green Party activist Peter Camejo as his vice presidential candidate, in a bid for Green Party support. It was clearly a futile effort..

One of the more interesting aspects of the fuss over Nader is how both parties seemingly have incredibly short (and expedient) memories in the outrage department…

The Republicans want Nader to run, forgetting their howls of indignation over how Ross Perot helped tip the election to Bill Clinton. The Democrats had no problem with that…

The Democrats now howl with outrage over Nader as a spoiler, but not once decried Ross Perot’s role in helping Bill Clinton’s coalition get into power.

Nader has been consistent in his outrage over parties claiming he is a spoiler, correctly noting that third parties are indeed allowed to participate and represent other views under our constitution, although the system is clearly set up to make it nearly impossible for them. He then undermines his argument by claiming there’s no difference between the two parties (tell that to opponents and proponents on the various issues that bitterly divide the two parties).

Without the Green Party, the task of getting him on a competitive number of ballots will now be left to Nader’s most loyal supporters, the far left and their tacit allies on the right.

UPDATE:
—- Centerfield’s Todd Pearson: “Good for them. Anyway, I might still vote for Bush, but I wouldn’t want him to eke out a victory because of Nader. The country needs either Kerry or Bush to have some semblance of a mandate.”
—The Left Coaster: “One would think that if Ralph Nader had any decency or cared at all for real progressive values, he would denounce the efforts of the right wing groups working to put him on the Oregon ballot. Nader once had a reputation for consumer rights. Now he is shown to be an egoist and spoiler who doesn’t care that he doesn’t have sufficient backing to get on the ballot without the help of the right wing.”
—Preemptive Karma:” This forces Nader to wage a state by state battle to get on each state’s ballot for November.”
—James Joyner (on conservative efforts for Nader):”This is somewhat less sleazy than efforts by one party to influence the primaries of another party, although not by much.”
—Steven Taylor (headline):”Intriguing: Greens Reject Nader”

Most conservatives are absolutely baffled by the liberal perspective on foreign policy and defending America. That’s because many of the left’s positions seem totally counterintuitive….well, for Americans. Their views would make perfect sense if say an Iranian mullah or Iraqi insurgent held them. But, that’s neither here nor there, since the goal of this column is to explain how the left looks at foreign policy, not why.

So, imagine yourself to be a liberal. I know that’ll be quite difficult for many of you, but just pretend you’re wearing a tie-dye shirt and Birkenstocks, chant “no blood for oil” a few times, and then try to muster up some sympathy for the endangered Howling Dung Beetle and that should put you in the right frame of mind.

Now that you’re thinking like a liberal, like a Michael Moore or Ted Kennedy, perhaps it’ll be easier to understand why you…

…think that fighting back against terrorism is futile because it creates a cycle of violence. So you see killing terrorists only produces more terrorists? Just as killing Nazis in WW2 only produced more Nazis & bombing Hiroshima led to huge upsurges in Japanese recruiting.

…claim to favor deterrence to intimidate our enemies into leaving us alone…until we’re attacked, at which point you counsel not responding.

…simultaneously believe Iraq was a “war for oil” and blame George Bush personally for higher gas prices.

…claim that we’re acting “unilaterally” in Iraq despite the fact that there are currently more than 30 nations with men on the ground supporting us there.

…blame “neocons” for somehow manipulating the country into war in Iraq for shadowy and sinister purposes despite the fact you’re not even sure exactly what a neocon is.

…think it’s vitally important that we not only put our self-interest aside, but make great sacrifices, to gain the approval of nations like France, Russia, China, & Germany, that history has shown are going to nakedly pursue their own self-interest no matter what we do.

…believe that before 9/11, Bush should have started jailing suspicious characters, closed America’s airports, and warned all Americans of impending doom based on the flimsiest of non-specific information. But now, after we’ve been hit by terrorists and have much better intelligence, you laugh at the color coded alert system and consider it to be nothing more than a political ploy designed to perk up Bush’s poll ratings.

…say that only the United Nations can legitimize a military venture…well unless a Democrat is in office, in which case it’s fine to bypass the UN whenever it’s convenient like Bill Clinton did when we bombed Kosovo.

…are willing to do whatever it takes to defend the American public from terrorists…as long as the French and Germans say its OK.

…believe 9/11 was just a handy dandy excuse to get rid of the Taliban so we could run a vulnerable, fragile, oil pipeline that Unocal gave up on back in 1998 through a country teeming with warlords, jihadis, & Taliban dead-enders.

…incessantly trash patriotic Christians as dangerous extremists, but cry “bigotry” whenever someone criticizes radical Islamists who support terrorism and hate America.

…support spending tax dollars hand over fist on everything from free needle exchanges for addicts to water stations in the middle of the desert for illegal aliens, but become a fiscal conservative when anyone starts talking about funding the military, our intelligence services, or missile defense.

…only cared about the fate the Iraqi people when Bush was talking about going to war. When Saddam was torturing them you had nothing to say and now that they’re relying on our help to build a democracy, you believe we should pull out and leave to their fate. But of course, if we pulled out and things fell apart, you’d then again care about the Iraqi people…at least until the November elections.

…look at the Middle-East and think the primary problem there is Israel, a successful, pro-American democracy, not all of the corrupt, terrorist supporting dictators and fascists who hate America, oppress their own people, and want to drive the Israelis into the sea.

…spent the eighties claiming Reagan’s attempt to bring down the Soviet Union was futile and that it could never work, only to spend every day since the Berlin Wall fell saying that you knew all along that the Soviet Union was about to collapse and Reagan had nothing to do with it.

Congratulations! You now understand how the left looks at foreign policy and defending America. So, if you ever get caught in the middle of a peace rally or the Democratic National Convention, hopefully you’ll be able to bluff your way out without getting called a fascist or having a “no blood for oil” sign shoved in your face!

Gore’s Lunacy Deepens

From Hog on Ice.

Clarify something for me. Am I a “digital Brown Shirt”?

Al Gore gave a speech the other day, and here is a quote from a Town Hall story on same:

Gore accused the Bush administration of working closely “with a network of ‘rapid response’ digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for ‘undermining support for our troops.’”

Gore gave that speech before the American Constitution Society at Georgetown University’s law school. I don’t know if you understand what that means.

Every law school has clubs. I’ll explain why.

Practicing law isn’t that hard, so lawyers are a commodity. They’re fungible. There are a few stars, and there are some areas of law which require actual brains, but generally, as long as you hire someone bright and responsible, it probably won’t make much difference if it’s Lawyer A or Lawyer B.

So lawyers who aren’t particularly bright join a lot of clubs and societies in order to pad their resumes and try to make themselves seem special. They’re like the nerds who cluttered your high school’s chess club and student council.

These clubs are totally pointless and achieve absolutely nothing worthwhile. They are a complete waste of time, apart from the small boost they may give to the careers of their members. Presumably, the American Constitution Society fits this description.

In order to excuse their existence, law school clubs and organizations arrange for speakers. At the University of Miami, my alma mater, they bribed students to attend by ordering pizzas. So you go to these things and you try to keep your eyes open while some old ambulance-chaser prattles about the grand and noble practice of law, and then you rush the pizza table in hopes of arriving before the fat girls can get there.

This is the kind of appearance to which Al has been reduced. I just wanted to give you a little perspective.

Anyway, Al mumbled a bunch of lies and half-truths intended to convince the students that Bush had deliberately deceived us in order to justify invading Iraq, and that the world would be a warmer, fuzzier place if only we had had the good sense to vote for Al.

I don’t get the “digital brownshirts” remark at all. I don’t know if he means Matt Drudge or conservative bloggers or what. It may well be that Al thinks that somewhere out there, there are a bunch of androids with digital brains and brown shirts, following reporters and editors around while playing mp3’s of Bush speeches.

Perhaps from the podium at Georgetown, Al saw a wall of imaginary guys resembling Brent Spiner, standing behind the students, waiting for their opportunity to switch on their mind-control rays.

Al Gore is insane. We already knew he was a compulsive, shameless, artless liar. That has been proven beyond dispute. But he’s also batshit crazy.

I’ve been telling people this since 2000. I wish I could link to a video of the debate where he showed up dressed like President Reagan, with his hair done up in the Reagan style, and with Reagan-mimicking rouge applied to his cheeks. You may not remember. He even did Reagan’s signature head-bob while he talked. It was like a sketch from Saturday Night Live, only there was no punchline.

And what about that bizarre moment when he stomped over to George Bush’s side of the platform and stared at him with a broad Xanax grin on his face? What was that all about?

It should have been clear right there that not all of Al’s delegates were answering roll call, but people are reluctant to come out and say that a Presidential candidate isn’t firing on all cylinders. Even for his opponents, it’s a hard thing to believe.

According to the Town Hall piece, privately, political operatives in DC express concern about the Madness of King Al.

Here’s another quote:

In anticipation of Gore’s speech, the Republican National Committee on Thursday circulated an “Anger Management” brief, quoting various Washington insiders who recently described Gore as “out of control,” in need of psychiatric help, “in full hatred mode” and unstatesmanlike.

It’s sad that the press continues to cover this rapidly deteriorating wack job as he spirals into the mud of history. It’s even sadder that liberals can’t admit electing him would have been disastrous. Imagine him pulling this crap in the Oval Office.

PRESS SECRETARY NAOMI WOLF: Al, the Press Corps is waiting.

AL: Just a moment, Naomi. I’m receiving vital last-minute information.

NAOMI: From whom?

AL: From Zerdok the Master Penguin. Via my magical tinfoil codpiece, crafted by tiny elves who live in my pants.

NAOMI: You’re going to take that off before you go out, right?

I know liberals are going to defend Al, saying we conservatives call everyone who disagrees with us “crazy.” Well, we do, and they are. But we don’t do it with this degree of sincerity and tenacity. And when we say “crazy,” we generally mean “unwilling to confront the obvious truth.” When we say it about Al, we mean something more like “likely to demand press credentials for his imaginary friends or disrupt state funerals by exposing himself.”

If we had elected this nut, right now, Joe Lieberman would probably be President, and Al would be on a permanent vacation in a padded chamber at the renamed Camp David Berkowitz.

President Lieberman. It reads like “Pwesident Fudd.” Beside Joe Lieberman, Walter Mondale looks like Lyle Alzado in the throes of a steroid rage.

I don’t know who Al was dithering about in his speech, but in my defense, I would like to state that at the moment, I am wearing a yellow shirt. And unlike Al’s, it doesn’t have sleeves that tie in the back.

So now it turns out that Vice President Dick Cheney used the “f-word” in talking to a Democratic Senator.

We assume this will be a huge issue on Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, etc., all of whom made a monster issue over language John Kerry used when he apparently got mad at a Secret Service agent a few months ago and swore at him. Remember that big issue on the radio, cable t.v. shows and blogs?

It was suggested that it showed Kerry didn’t have the temperment to be in the White House. NOTE: We considered that B.S. — WHOOPS! — baloney then, given the language political officials generally use off camera (and kids use in their everyday lives) then…and we consider this horse….sheddings…now.

But here is the report. We ASSUME the talk show radio hosts — if they indeed have principles — will be making an issue of this, since they were so upset when a Democrat did it:

Typically a break from partisan warfare, this year’s Senate class photo turned smiles into snarls as Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly used profanity toward one senior Democrat, sources said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who was on the receiving end of Cheney’s ire, confirmed that the Vice President used profanity during Tuesday’s class photo.

A spokesman for Cheney confirmed there was a “frank exchange of views.”

Using profanity on the Senate floor while the Senate is session is against the rules. But the Senate was technically not in session at the time and the normal rules did not apply, a Senate official said.

The story, which was recounted by several sources, goes like this:

Cheney, who as president of the Senate was present for the picture day, turned to Leahy and scolded the senator over his recent criticism of the vice president for Halliburton’s alleged war profiteering.

Cheney is the former CEO of Halliburton, and Democrats have suggested that while serving in the Bush administration he helped win lucrative contracts for his former firm, including a no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq.

Cheney’s office has said repeatedly that the vice president has no role in government contracting and has severed all financial ties with the Texas-based oil services conglomerate.

Cheney was chief executive officer of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. He resigned when he became George Bush’s running mate.

Responding to Cheney’s comment, Leahy reminded him of an earlier statement the vice president had made about him. Cheney then replied with profanity.

Leahy would not comment on the specifics of the story Thursday, but did confirm that Cheney used profanity.

We are SURE we will hear that Leahy started it first, and all kinds of rationalizations like that, from the folks who so bitterly went after Kerry for his language. That’s because there are few principles in politics anymore — just blasting your foes (Democrats and Republicans do it) for expediency, then finding a way to make sure Your Candidate gets away with it if he does the same thing.

But it was a silly thing for Republicans to make a big deal over when Kerry did it, and it’s a silly thing for Demcrats to make a big thing over it when Cheney does it. And if you want to send me an angry email on this you can stick it up your.. assorted laundry hampers.

Get out your CD with the old Twilight Zone series’ theme song and put it on as you read this item that shows the objectivity and world view of a high (and he must be smoking something) Saudi Arabian official. This gem of a quote from the lively blog Fringe:

Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah blames Israel for Paul Johnson’s beheading: “Zionism is behind it. It has become clear now. It has become clear to us. I don’t say, I mean… It is not 100 percent, but 95 percent that the Zionist hands are behind what happened.” Talk about your classic case of denial and projection.

We bet if you asked Prince Abdullah “Do you know what denial is?” he’d say: “A river in Egypt?”

Former Vice President Al Gore (again) threw down the verbal gauntlet in super-blunt remarks aimed squarely at the Bush administration — and the question continues to be: is this a new-found Gore voice, a once-stilled Gore voice, or a surrogate-ventriloquist like voice using Al Gore like a wooden you-know-what?

It’s fascinating to watch Gore’s political performance these days since it is at stark varience with his bland-as-unsweetened-oatmeal performance during the 2000 campaign. And depending on where you sit on the political fence, we’re sure you can find other adjectives as well to describe (with revulsion or admiration) his latest pronouncements.

Some Reuters-reported highlights from his latest speech at the Georgetown University Law Center:

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Thursday accused President Bush of telling “an artful and important lie” soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to set the stage for war on Iraq.”

Using the word “lie” is about as blunt as you can get. Is it our imagination or does it seem like Gore is linking up with Howard Dean’s constituency?

“Beginning very soon after the attacks of 9/11, President Bush made a decision to start mentioning Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the same breath in a cynical mantra designed to fuse them together as one in the public’s mind,” Gore said in a speech at Georgetown University Law Center.

Gore……cited the recent report by the Sept. 11 commission saying no credible evidence existed of a link between the Iraqi leader and bin Laden. He said Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney continue to argue for a connection between bin Laden’s al Qaeda network and the deposed Iraqi regime because it supports their push for war in Iraq and justifies “some of the new power they’ve picked up from the Congress and the courts” since the 2001 hijack attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

“As a result, President Bush is now intentionally misleading the American people,” Gore said. “Indeed, Bush’s consistent and careful artifice is itself evidence that he knew full well that he was telling an artful and important lie — visibly circumnavigating the truth over and over again as if he had practiced how to avoid encountering the truth.”

So now you have “intentionally misleading” and “lie” out there as political charges — a notable escalation in political rhetoric (the validity or falseness of the charges are a separate issue) in our political culture.

But the biggest addition to “mainstream” political rhetoric is in the news story’s final paragraph:

In an hour-long address punctuated by polite laughter and applause, Gore also accused the Bush administration of working closely “with a network of ‘rapid response’ digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for ‘undermining support for our troops.”’

The phrase “digital Brown Shirts” combines computer imagery with Nazi imagery. So now we have some people on the right suggesting (or saying) people on the left who don’t agree with them are traitors or hate America — and people on the left (which is where Gore is clearly positioning himself) suggesting (but not quite saying) that some people on the right are akin to Nazis.

It’s going to be a looooong campaign. And there seems no prospect that polarization will decrease.

When my parents left Cuba in the late sixties, they were resigned to the fact that they would probably never set foot on the island ever again. They would never see their home again, or their town. They would never again walk the parks where they courted in their youth. They prayed that they wouldn’t be separated from their families for ever, yet knew that chances were they would never see some of them again. Their loved one’s voices had to be locked in memory because exiling would take them a world away.

For years after they arrived in the US they knew little, if anything, about the lives of the families left behind. Phone calls were non-existent, letters sent either never arrived or were censored by Castro government officials. It was the sad reality of the Cuban diaspora.

Back then Castro had the economic support of the Soviets. His regime didn’t need US dollars to keep its economy going. So once you exiled, once you left Cuba, that was it. You were no longer Cuban. You were a Gusano. A traitor to la Revolucion. Once you left, you were gone, and Fidel Castro did not allow you back, under any circumstances.

We were real, honest to goodness political refugees. Exiles.

Today’s Cuban “exile” really isnt an exile. Exile means banishment, and today’s Cubans that have come to the states are not banished from Cuba. On the contrary, they are welcome to visit the island. Encouraged even. It’s not just that their families need them, the government can’t survive without them. That’s why Castro wants them to come back, again and again and again.

There has been quite a lot of commentary and news recently regarding the Bush administration’s tightening of restrictions against the island. Critics say Bush is pandering to the Cuban-American vote in Florida. Other critics say the restrictions are dividing the Cuban community. Either of these critiques may be true. To which I submit a hardy SO WHAT?

Every four years, every presidential candidate comes to South Florida with a mouthful of promises and Viva Cuba Libres! Every single president since Kennedy has courted the Cuban-American vote. It’s nothing new. They come down, tell us they are going to fight to take down Castro, then when elected shuffle some papers around and make little adjustments to their Cuban foreign policy. It’s automatic. Move along folks, nothing to see here.

I do however, take exception to certain Cuban-Americans or Cuban “exiles” criticizing the new restrictions. Statements like: “Bush’s priority should first of all be to not keep Cuban families apart” are ridiculous to me. As if now it’s Bush’s fault that they left the island, sought political asylum, and can’t see their families agian. Guess what? That’s what being a political exile is. That is the hard reality of it.

If you could not have lived without your family you should not have left in the first place.

Every Cuban that exiled to the US up until the ‘80’s knew this and accepted it. Freedom isn’t free. You need to earn it. When you left Cuba the only hope of ever seeing the island again was when Castro’s regime was gone. History. The US government didn’t make you leave Cuba, the US government didn’t make you leave your family behind. There’s only two people responsible for that, you and Fidel Castro. Castro made the decision to screw your life up, you made the decision not to accept it so you left. It’s that simple.

This new generation of Cuban refugees are a product of Castro’s revolutionary ideology. Most are completely apolitical. They could care less who is Governor, Senator or President. Unless, of course, the Governor or Senator or President impedes their ability to forward dollars to their family in Cuba or to visit their family in Cuba. Then, all hell breaks loose.

And I feel for these people. I know what it’s like to leave family behind. I know what it’s like to have aunts and uncles die before ever even meeting them as an adult. I am a Cuban exile. I came here not to make money but to be a free human being. My family left Cuba when I was four years old and there is not a day that goes by where I don’t imagine what my life would have been had my family been able to stay.

My aunt, one of the first women to carry me as a baby died before I could ever meet her. She was my father’s sister. She died in the late seventies. My father lived with the fact that for the last ten years or so of her life, he was not there. He was not able to be a part of her life. I remember the day she died even though I was a child because I had never seen my father cry. I had never seen his spirit broken. I had never seen him on his knees.

Yet however painful it was, he knew he had done the right thing. It was a difficult choice but he stood by it. He knew that in order to save his family he would have to sacrifice.

Sacrifice.

That is the price of freedom.

By Val Prieto
Crossposted at Babalu Blog.

So now a 33-year-old South Korean whose only “crime” was that he was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time has been mercilessly beheaded by Al Qaeda militants. And we have a clear pattern — a new political modis operandi.

And what have we learned? A lot.

First, what have we seen over the past year? The beheadings of Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, Paul Johnson and now Kim Sun-il, the 33-year-old South Korean interpreter kidnapped in Baghdad Thursday by Islamist militants. Coincidence? Not at all. These beheadings reflect goals brutally pursued with possible political implications for various countries’ internal political scenes and for the international scene.

Here are some lessons and thoughts:

(1)The U.S. is now engaged in a four-fronted terrorist war: the U.S. homeland, Afghanistan (holding and pattern and nation building stage), Iraq (consolidation of the victory that Sadaam forces and Al Qaeda militants are trying to yank away before authority is handed over to Iraquis on June 30), and Saudi Arabia (opposing stepped up efforts to destabilize the Royal Family).

(2)The beheadings have little if anything to do with religion. They are about instilling blood-curdling fear to break the will of the populations of various countries. It is no longer just aimed at the U.S. but ANY coalition countries, companies or agencies (including the United Nations).

(3)It’s all about body count. The terrorists have shifted strategy from a quantitative body count (911; Madrid) to a qualitative body count (symbolic victims such as an American Jewish journalist, an American Jewish businessman, an American mechanic aiding the Saudi Arabian military, and a South Korean on the eve of his country sending more troops to the region).

(4)They will likely raise the bar of barbarity to get publicity and continue to shock with the same impact. So far the victims have been males in their 30s and 40s. Will they choose a woman — or a child? Or a group?

(5)Beheadings are not unusual in that part of the world as punishment — but they are swift. Yet the terrorists’ victims suffer a terrifying, humliating prelude, then a slow, excruciating death akin to the slaughter of screaming animals. There is a large degree of sadism in this that goes way beyond politics. The goal is to make non-fundamentalist societies feel impotent — to terrify beyond anything witnessed since Adolph Hitler’s time.

(6)The beheadings are political tools aimed to accentuate tensions within the societies or cultures at which they are aimed, much as the Madrid bombings were timed to impact the elections. The South Korean’s murder is just the latest blatant example. The goal is to have companies and countries yield to the fears of workers, investors, or their citizens and to flee the area.

(7)All of this is accelerating — not coincidentally — as we approach the June 30th turnover of authority to the new Iraqui government. It is likely to get worse in coming weeks, worse after June 30th and definitely worse the closer we get to elections here in the United States.

(8)The Saudi Arabian government’s moment of truth has arrived. They are being attacked full force now; the language of the killers is aimed at appealing to the lower-classes in Saudi Arabia and to the Arab street.

(9)Evidence of Saudi Arabian security force’s complicity with terrorists is now clear in the death of Paul Johnson. What other “parallel police/military” forces played roles in the abductions of the other men in Pakistan and Iraq? If the Saudi Arabian government does not purge its security forces it is in for even bloodier events — or its eventual erradication.

(10)If there is any religious significance, it’s in the use of the sword. But snatching someone off the streets, videotaping a terrified victim sweating or pleading for his life, setting a deadline with outrageous demands, then butchering him (or her) like a cow is cheap, not as hard to pull off as a 911 — and gets tons of international media and Internet publicity. It’s shockingly cost-effective for them.

So the bad news is that governments are going to have work to have well-prepared advance worst case scenarios ready for more — and even worse — outrages. Families will have to understand that when their loved onces are snatched and they see the video with the demands their relative is effectively dead.

The good news — in a round about way — is that as more horrifiying incidents occur, people (and governments) accept them and learn to live with them. It would have been unthinkable in 1954 to be searched at an airport or have to worry about hijacking or terrorism; now it’s a fact of life and people don’t like it, but they’re used to it. And the mixed news is this: more than ever governments are understanding they have to exterminate the terrorists before the terrorists exterminate them.

Meanwhile, given beheadings’ impacts, goals and — sadly — cost-effectiveness, it’s an outrage that is likely to continue….as once again the level of violence that becomes commonplace increases.

That Sounds so…Republican

From Hog on Ice.

I guess I need to go back to school, because I thought liberalism was all about sharing the wealth and helping the worker. Turns out I was totally wrong, as the situation at Air Amerika Radio shows. According to an AP article, the folks who started the “network” misrepresented their assets to investors and new executives, and then they threw a $70,000 opening bash, which they are now paying for by withholding salaries from their employees.

Kind of sounds like they’re into Castro’s brand of socialism. The big dogs get the meat, and the workers get the bone. Well, really, isn’t that the ONLY kind of socialism? From labor unions to the former USSR, socialism has always been a way to funnel wealth to the bosses.

Here’s a telling quote:

“When you believe you’re doing work for the greater good, you don’t question as much,” says Javier Saade, a former Air America executive vice president.

Hey, how shocking, coming from a liberal. “We started a business and didn’t think about whether it would actually make money (i.e. “work”), and now we’re amazed that it’s in trouble.”

Ayn Rand should rise from her grave and kick that guy right in the balls.

Compare that to Fox News. Murdoch sat down and asked himself what was the best way to make money in cable news. THEN he chose the ideology, or purported lack thereof.

As for the lies about the company’s capital, that’s consistent with liberal thought, too. “Truth” is an antiquated term. My truth isn’t necessarily your truth. And logic is a male-created, Eurocentric construct intended to enslave little brown people and people with tits.

Lenin would be proud. Well, except for the part about Air America heading for the drain. At least the USSR lasted seventy years before collapsing under the weight of its own internal contradictions.

Al Franken says it doesn’t matter, and he points out that Fox lost money early on. Al, that’s brilliant, until you note that while it lost money, Fox built market share. Air America’s stations have lower ratings now than they did when you idiots showed up. And Fox was adequately capitalized. They didn’t steal Lauren Green’s paycheck to keep the lights on. Fox had the money to keep going while it attracted viewers who would later support an income stream. Air America is losing viewers, and it has no financial cushion to rest on, and even if it did, what good is it to spend money on a company that shrinks every day?

Liberal economics at its best.

Look for Air America to disappear within three months, and don’t be surprised if criminal investigations ensue.

That’s what happens to lying liars.

That’s one of several questions posed by Donald Sensing, a former military man who is now a man of the cloth — and who has one of the most thoughtful conservative weblogs on the Internet. In a fascinating piece, Sensing dissects where we are in the terror war and suggests there are four possible outcomes:

1. Over time, the United States engenders deep-rooted reformist impulses in the Islamic lands, leading their societies away from the self- and other-destructive patterns they now exhibit. It is almost certainly too much to ask that the societies become principally democratic as we conceive democracy (at least not for a very long time), but we can (and must) work to help them remit radical Islamofascism from their religious and political cultures so that terrorism does not flourish.

2. The Islamofascists achieve their goals of Islamicization of the entire Middle East, the ejection of all non-Muslims from Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Persian Gulf, the destruction of Israel, and the deaths of countless numbers of Americans.

3. Absent achieving the goals stated just above, al Qaeda successfully unleashes a mass-destructive, mass-casualty attack against the United States and total war erupts between the US and several Islamic countries.

4. None of the above happen, so the conflict sputters along for decades more with no real changes: we send our troops into combat intermittently, suffer non-catastrophic attacks intermittently, and neither side possesses all of the will, the means and the opportunity to achieve decisive victory. The war becomes the Forever War.

Indeed, that is about as complete a realistic analysis as you can get — since no one seriously expects the Nader/Kucinich approach of just pulling the U.S. out of the area is going to happen (despite what some on the right may suggest about John Kerry he is almost on the same wavelength as GWB on the war, even though it can score campaign points to claim otherwise).

And Sensing, who constantly shows on his site that he can look at and deftly outline multiple scenarios, chillingly (and realistically) adds this:

“A terrible danger is that we could someday be well underway to achieving our long-term objectives and still get struck by a catastrophic attack inside the US. ….Which brings me back to my original questions: Does anyone doubt we must win this war? And does anyone still doubt that we really are at war?”

Not Ralph’s groceries…but third party candidate Ralph Nader, who apparently has concluded The People aren’t clamoring for him so he’s going to try a sideward snare of his former vehicle, the Green Party.

First the news report:

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader selected longtime Green Party activist Peter Camejo to be his running mate on Monday, a move sure to boost his chances of winning the Green Party’s endorsement this week and its access to ballot lines in 22 states and the District of Columbia.

Camejo, an investment adviser from Folsom, Calif., had been one of two leading contenders for the Green Party’s presidential nomination.

The announcement came in advance of the Green Party convention beginning Wednesday in Milwaukee. Nader, who ran as the Green Party candidate in 2000, is not seeking the party’s nomination but he has pursued an endorsement from the third party.

“Camejo shares my concerns for economic and social justice as well as the urgent need to protect our environment,” Nader said in a statement before introducing him at an afternoon news conference.

One Green Party leader said a Nader-Camejo ticket would have a very strong chance of winning the party’s endorsement.

Etc. etc. etc. Then there’s this:

Nader also has been endorsed by the national Reform Party, which gives him access to the ballot in at least seven states, including the battlegrounds of Florida and Michigan.

So he’ll be on the ballot — and there could indeed be a re-run of 2004, when the Democrats basically patronized Nader, tolerated him and didn’t bother to debate his ideas or his stupid claim that the two parties are the same (tell that to Republicans who didn’t like Democratic environmental policy; tell that to Democrats who are flabbergasted at Bush environmental policy; tell that to proponents and opponents of abortion who worry about who will be on the courts; tell that to proponents and opponents of stem cell research; tell that to those who believe in the new pre-emptive strike security or the more traditional collective security).

And his choice for Veep? Camejo has run unsuccessfully for California Governor and is as inspiring a stump speaker as Dan Quayle. Ezra Klein of Pandagon writes:

Ralph has chosen his running mate — Peter Camejo, the Green’s perennial failure for Governor in California. Politically, the reasoning is clear. The Greens are holding their convention in a couple of days, Ralph wants their ballot access but not their constraints, so his VP choice proves his (unstated) loyalty. He’ll get their endorsement and thus move up to orange on the “pain-in-the-ass advisory”.

The pick is kinda funny, though. Generally, VP’s have achieved something, often an electoral something. Camejo has failed badly, often by spectacular margins. He was the Socialist’s candidate for President in 1976 and lost that one, a streak that has continued to this day…. So congratulations Ralph, you did it. After looking high and low, you’ve found someone less successful electorally, and worse on the stump, than you. May voters flee from your oratorical path.

But voters won’t. Even though Democrats may ask them to “strike,” some of their constituency will shop at Ralph’s…….

Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens has reviewed Michael Moore’s new anti-Bush film Farenheight 911 in Slate and here’s part of what he says:

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.

Hey! It sounds like he’s writing about my blog!

He then launches into a painstaking examination of the film, it’s assumptions and contradictions.

Whether you’re a Moore fan or foe or just someone who feels they must see the movie before they can genuinely defend or denounce it, you need to read this whole piece. From the standpoint of writing, it’s brilliant (and whether you like Moore or not, it’s FUN to read). Here’s his final point:

If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

Those last two lines: HEY! He IS talking about my blog!

UPDATE: Michael Moore is being Michael Moored via a new book, as Greg Piper notes here.

Anti-semitic incidents are accelerating at such a rate in France that Jewish Agency officials believe tens of thousands of Jews may immigrate to Israel — and a top Nazi hunter is urging them to get out now.

The prominent French Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld bluntly told the Jerusalem Post this weekend that French Jews would be better off leaving their country.

“One of the lessons of the Holocaust is that even if you want to fight against a wave of anti-Semitism, the best [thing] is to leave if you can,” he said, and noting Arab-Jewish tensions he added:”“There will be an escalation of attacks [against Jews] in Europe, and especially in France.”

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Jewish Agency said a report compiled by the agency had found 30,000 out of France’s 575 000 Jews were considering leaving for Israel and he characterized French Jews’ situation as increasingly “difficult.” This comes on the heels of French Justice Minister Dominique Perben reporting that 180 anti-Jewish acts had been recorded so far this year.

Many Americans often seemed puzzled (and some enraged) by France’s attitude towards the war on terror and especially by the events leading up to the Iraq war. But there is a reason — internal domestic politics…and that’s why the Jewish community finds itself increasingly beset with blase, half-hearted or blatantly incompent government responses to accelerating hate crimes. Front Page magazine noted:

France is home to the largest Muslim community in Europe — estimated between 5 and 8 million, roughly over 10 percent of France’s total population. In the past few years, the radical element of these French citizens has grown quickly, and is quietly overpowering more moderate Muslim voices. Many French Muslims idolize Osama bin Laden and consider the destruction of synagogues and assault of Jews to be justified retribution. These worrisome phenomena are caused by a number of things: increasing influence of radical imams in French mosques, the penetration of Saudi Wahhabism and extremist satellite networks spreading their propaganda.

Nazi Hunter Klarsfeld offers a bleak verdict of the situation: he feels “things cannot improve” in France for Jews. And he attributes the growing number of attacks to the way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beamed into French Muslims’ homes by rabble-rousing Middle East Arab TV stations via satillite, plus France’s foreign policy which he calls “openly pro-Arab.” The final ingredient in the mix, he says, is “years and years” of French public and media support for the Palestinian cause.

This has implications for the United States because all this taken together makes it clear France will never support U.S. Middle East foreign policy, even if the Bush administration is replaced by a Kerry administration.

In the longrun, as the Arab population there increases in size and political clout, it also means less support for the United States in what will be a decades long war on terror. If France has been an ally but iffy at times, it’ll likely be more iffy more times in the future.

(The Real Dummy thanks Allah Is In The House for the tip.)

Dan Darling has an exhaustive pair of reports on the 9/11 commission and its findings (Part 1 | Part 2) over at winds of Change.NET. He is not impressed, and writes in an email:

“I’m not sure how interested you are in the nuts and bolts aspect of this kind of stuff, but I just figured I’d throw this your way to show you just how truly whacked-out the findings of this commission are entirely apart from the issue of Iraq and al-Qaeda. If this is the state of our intelligence agency, the whole WMD thing is starting to make a lot more sense now.”

One of the hardest thing for any politician is to try not to lose their cool. Sometimes it can work to their advantage, sometimes not.

In the case of former President Bill Clinton he is in a sense again a politician since he is on a massive media and bookstore tour to sell his new memoirs book. He’s trying to get people to be curious enough to buy his book but he needs more than core Democratic supporters to make the bucks to sell the huge number of books printed.

All politicians wear something of a happy face, even when they’re angry. Rage isn’t allowed to show…but it apparently did in an interview slated to air later this week with the BBC’s David Dimbleby. It apparently occured when the BBC interviewer pressed him about the Monica Lewinsky affair. The Telegraph story about Clinton’s purported loss of temper (CAUTION: how much of THIS STORY is hype to get ratings for their interview??) reads, in part:

His outrage at the line of questioning during the 50-minute interview, to be broadcast on Panorama on Tuesday night, lasts several minutes. It is the first time that the former President has been seen to lose his temper publicly over the issue of his sexual liaisons with Ms Lewinsky.

The President initially responds to Dimbleby’s questions by launching a general attack on media intrusion. When the broadcaster persists with the question of whether the politician was truly penitent, Clinton directs his anger towards Dimbleby.

The atmosphere, which was initially warm, then turns decidedly chilly. One BBC executive who has seen the interview, which took place in a New York hotel last Wednesday, said: “He is visibly angry with Dimbleby’s line of questioning and some of that anger gets directed at Dimbleby himself. As outbursts go, it is not just some flash that is over in an instant. It is something substantial and sustained.

“It is memorable television which will give the public a different insight into the President’s character. It will leave them wondering whether he is as contrite as he says he is about past events. Dimbleby manages to remain calm and order is eventually restored.”

QUESTION: When will politicos of all ideologies and parties learn that a dramatic confrontation with a reporter seldom can benefit them? It’s then hyped as reason to read/see/hear the interview to get readers/viewers. If this interview is as it is described (and it may NOT be since this news report is definitely written from a specific political viewpoint) seasoned political pro Bill Clinton did not act like a seasoned political pro.

But that could also help him sell more books. And that, folks, is how celebrity (and literacy) works in our 21st Century World……

UPDATE:
— NY Times says Clinton’s book is a ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
—Newsweek calls Clinton memoir ‘Hardly an Edge-of-Your-Seat Experience’
—Mathew Yglesias says Clinton’s appearance on Meet the Press shows Clinton foes will never get sex off their minds:”But so here we have it. Where was the Clinton legacy? Nowhere. It was just sex, sex, sex…Do we care about any of the things — the good things and the bad — that happened under Clinton’s watch? No. Sex. Scandal! It’s really and utterly moronic.”
—Wizbang’s Kevin Alyword on the Times’ pan:”Is the nations most influential newspaper part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy as well? No doubt Clinton supporters will be making such accusations. If the book is as bad as the Times says it is that’s a shame, because the subject matter held such promise. Love him or hate him, Clinton was interesting.”
—Poliblog’s Steven Taylor says he won’t be buying the book, and NOT because of ideological reasons. He doesn’t like bios, and: “As someone whose profession involves writing, I figured that a 900+ page book written in such a relatively short span of time by someone not writing full time and who wasn’t a writer by trade would almost certainly be poorly written and have a rushed feel to it.”
—Bill Clinton on 60 Minutes: I just saw him and he is still quite impressive on television. He makes his case quite well and it was the kind of interview that would intrigue viewers (unless they hate him) to buy the book.

And what about your truly, Joe Gandelman, aka The Moderate Voice? TMV LOVES bios…but the book is too long and so he’ll read the excerpts in the magazines and wait for the TV movie.)

Today’s Wall Street Journal online has an important opinion piece written by Michael Chertoff, a judge with the 3rd Circuit US Court of Appeals. In it, he notes some of the critical policy and legal issues we as a nation need to debate and decide if we are to effectively defend against terrorism in a coherent way while balancing security against civil liberties.

The positions we take on these matters will have a huge impact on our lives and on the tenor of US democracy over the next months, years and probably decades. Most of us here at Winds of Change aren’t lawyers, but we (especially those who are US citizens) have a responsibility to think these matters through carefully and make the difficult tradeoffs that must go into an effective response to the challenges of terrorism abroad in our time.

So … here are the judge’s comments. Your thoughts and responses solicited.

Read The Rest…

John Kerry today:

“This administration took its eye off of al-Qaeda, took its eye off of the real war on terror in Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan and transferred it for reasons of its own to Iraq,” Kerry said. “And the American people are paying billions of dollars now because of that decision. And most importantly, American families and American soldiers are paying the highest price of all.”

Asked what Bush’s true motivation was for attacking Saddam’s government, Kerry said that is a question for the administration.

“It is clear that the president owes the American people a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts,” Kerry said. “And that is the finding of this commission.”

Kerry’s grievance?

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said the commission’s report is evidence that Bush misled the nation in setting out the case for war against Iraq.

“The president and the vice president, on a number of occasions, have asserted very directly to the American people that the war against al-Qaeda, the war against terror, is the war against Iraq,” Kerry said after arriving at Detroit Metropolitan Airport this afternoon.

But what was Kerry saying when he had to vote on the war?

It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world. He has as much as promised it. . .

A brutal, oppressive dictator, guilty of personally murdering and condoning murder and torture, grotesque violence against women, execution of political opponents, a war criminal who used chemical weapons against another nation and, of course, as we know, against his own people, the Kurds. He has diverted funds from the Oil-for-Food program, intended by the international community to go to his own people. He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel.

I mention these not because they are a cause to go to war in and of themselves, as the President previously suggested, but because they tell a lot about the threat of the weapons of mass destruction and the nature of this man. We should not go to war because these things are in his past, but we should be prepared to go to war because of what they tell us about the future. It is the total of all of these acts that provided the foundation for the world’s determination in 1991 at the end of the gulf war that Saddam Hussein must: unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless underinternational supervision of his chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missile delivery systems… [and] unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear weapon-usable material.

Saddam Hussein signed that agreement. Saddam Hussein is in office today because of that agreement. It is the only reason he survived in 1991. In 1991, the world collectively made a judgment that this man should not have weapons of mass destruction. And we are here today in the year 2002 with an uninspected 4-year interval during which time we know through intelligence he not only has kept them, but he continues to grow them.

I believe the record of Saddam Hussein’s ruthless, reckless breach of international values and standards of behavior which is at the core of the cease-fire agreement, with no reach, no stretch, is cause enough for the world community to hold him accountable by use of force, if necessary. The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons.

I’ve read over their complete statement on the subject and am in the process of preparing a full point-by-point critique of it, but just based on what I’ve read so far, this reads like a media report rather than a serious piece of analysis.

There are so many omissions of rather important points of data, misleading statements, or claims that are demonstrably false, notably the claim that the al-Qaeda role in the Riyadh National Guard and Khobar Towers bombings was ambiguous or that there is uncertainty as to whether or not al-Qaeda was involved in either the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the proto-9/11 Oplan Bojinka. The frequent references to bin Laden’s public statements on subjects like the Riyadh bombing as providing insight into whether or not he actually ordered the attack is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the commission. The claim that the public signatories of bin Laden’s declaration of war did more for show than anything else is likewise more than enough to make anyone who has carried out a serious study of the Egyptian or Pakistani Islamists grit their teeth.

Read The Rest…

So what’s the real story about the coverage of what’s going on Iraq? We see the scary stories, the burned out cars, the bodies, etc. but is it telling the whole story? And if you raise that question does it mean you’re media-bashing and trying to purge negative news from newspapers and TV screens?

These issues are being raised thoughtfully on several fronts today. Most notably, by Greg Piper and by Fringe, both of whom use an article by Jay Rosen as a takeoff point. At issue is too biased versus what Rosen calls too “narrow” reporting.

And there is an issue to be addressed here: as someone who worked for the news media and in the news media for many years, many folks would be amazed how on major stories where there is indeed thoughtful planning regarding news mix, story selection, and staffing there may be a glitch: the story may become too compartmentalized, with too many parochial departments involved in too many aspects with poor coordination despite bigwig marching orders.

There is also the unmentionable issue of office politics — where one editor may want to get a piece of a story with one of “their” reporters and good-faith cooperation with another department or reporter suffers (careers are made by page one stories).

It’s also a fact of life that a positive story usually gets placed inside the paper (or at the end of a broadcast), or is done as a feature or, if it can really hold up, saved as canned product for a “slower” day. The stated reason for this is the size of the news hole (or amount of broadcast time sans commercials).

In other words, in many cases inept, incomplete, or seemingly biased coverage isn’t a matter of planning it that way. Like something we won’t spell out here, it happens.

Is former Senator Sam Nunn about to make a return to the national stage? And would that be a plus or actually a minus for someone whose initials are JFK?

Will Collier of Vodkha Pundit points to a newspaper item claiming that Nunn is a frontrunner in the John Kerry Veepstakes and writes:

Dubya should be so lucky.

Nunn might be the only potential VP mentioned thus far who’s even duller than Kerry on the stump, and while his accent definitely isn’t Boston Brahmin, he’s no less the patrician. He led the Senate fight against approving the first Gulf War, and hasn’t been a significant player in national politics since losing that vote. Nunn’s party is on its way to being shut out of power in his home state, and the last time he stood for election was nearly eight years ago.

As for those who think Nunn could help Kerry win Georgia, I have but one question: Did Lloyd Bentsen help Dukakis win Texas?

I’ve said it ‘afore, and I’ll say it again: I live in Atlanta, and Bush couldn’t lose Georgia even if he were caught in bed on live television with the proverbial dead girl or live boy, plus a shaved goat tied to the bedpost.

Hey: that would make a great new reality show!

President Reagan’s stand against Soviet communism resulted in the liberation of over 700 million people behind the Iron Curtain.

President Reagan did more to actually advance freedom across the globe than any other human being in the history of the world. Individual liberty has never had a greater champion than President Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Or as was much more eloquently put by Baroness Margaret Thatcher in her eulogy to President Reagan:

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With thanks to The Gipper-

President Ronald Reagan, the Great Liberator, and his Great Strength and Love, Nancy Reagan: White House grounds, 11/21/81

George W. Bush has liberated over 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has courageously carried Ronald Reagan’s torch of liberty into the 21st century.

I’ll vote for individual liberty every time. I’m voting for George W. Bush.

But Ronald Reagan will always be my favorite President. And his legacy as a champion of freedom (700 million people freed behind the Iron Curtain; economic freedom returned to the United States) will never be matched.

Photo via the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Here is the full text of Baroness Margaret Thatcher’s eulogy to President Reagan:

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Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause - what Arnold Bennett once called ‘the great cause of cheering us all up’.

His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation - and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire.