Pollsters Performing Spine Surgery

The Washington Post has a new poll demonstrating that, if you want to, you can ask poll questions to advance an agenda. In this case, the obvious agenda is to artificially embolden timid Democrats to do what they really want to do -- which is to force an end to America's involvement in the war in Iraq. Here are some results designed to implant a political backbone into Democrats who are supposed read these numbers and then become bold enough to finally confront Bush on the issue of Iraq:

Opposition to Bush's plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq remained strong. Two in three Americans registered their disapproval, with 56 percent saying they strongly object.
...
The Post-ABC poll found that 53 percent of Americans favored setting a deadline for troop withdrawals. Among those who favored a deadline, 24 percent said they would like to see U.S. forces out within six months and 21 percent called for the withdrawals to be completed within a year. The rest of those who supported a timetable said they do not support withdrawing all troops until at least a year from now.

This is the first time a Post-ABC News poll has found that a majority of Americans supported establishing such a timetable for withdrawal, which has long been resisted by the president and even some Democrats.

Growing numbers of Americans also favored withdrawing U.S. forces even if civil order in Iraq has not been restored. The poll found that 42 percent favored keeping troops there until order is reestablished, while 56 percent said the troops should be redeployed to avoid further U.S. casualties, even if the sectarian violence is continuing.

Questions like this last one reveal why it is essential for Democrats to maintain an eerie code of silence about the critical role of al Qaeda in Iraq. If that role were better appreciated, the relevant poll question would be this:

Should American troops surrender to al Qaeda in Iraq because that terrorist organization successfully provoked sectarian violence by attacking innocent Shiites and bombing their holy sites?

That's the question that should be asked. Why? Because that's the only question. I wish more Democrats would give their answer, but they won't (of course). Instead, they will steadfastly maintain an eerie code of silence on the issue of al Qaeda in Iraq and will instead say dopey things like "our troops shouldn't be in the middle of a big ol' civil war" (or words to that effect).

Not readily apparent in the article reporting these agenda-pushing poll results is the fact that if you ask questions a different way, you get different results (see this poll, for example). Although readers might not realize this (that's how agenda journal journalism works, after all), Democrats in congress appear to appreciate the fact that Americans do not actually crave defeat:

Democrats back away from Iraq plan

WASHINGTON - Democratic leaders backed away from aggressive plans to limit President Bush's war authority, the latest sign of divisions within their ranks over how to proceed.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., said Monday he wanted to delay votes on a measure that would repeal the 2002 war authorization and narrow the mission in Iraq.
...
"Iraq is going to be there — it's just a question of when we get back to it," Reid said, predicting it would be "days, not weeks" before the Senate returned to the issue. The war reauthorization legislation also appears to lack the 60 votes it would need to pass the Senate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., meanwhile, said she doesn't support tying war funding to strict training and readiness targets for U.S. troops.

The comments distanced her from Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., who has said he wants to use Congress' spending power to force a change in policy in Iraq, by setting strict conditions on war funding.
...
The developments on both sides of the Capitol reflected a new level of disarray in Democratic ranks on Iraq. Swept into power by voters clamoring for an end to the war, Democrats have seen their efforts falter under a reality more complicated than they found on the campaign trail.

While the public is fed up with Iraq, there is little consensus over what to do.

Isn't it amazing how little things change? Well before the election it was clear that the American public was quite aware of the fact that the Democrats had no coherent plan for Iraq. We elected them anyway, and, several months down the line, the Democrats still have no coherent plan for Iraq. That's why the Washington Post is conducting polls that are designed to push them in the right direction.

Meanwhile, Democratic columnists remain in a truly bizarre state of denial over the role of al Qaeda in Iraq. Here is E. J. Dionne's latest:

Yet Cheney has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. His latest demon is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom he accuses of validating al-Qaeda's objectives.

"Al-Qaeda functions on the basis that they think they can break our will,'' Cheney told ABC News on Friday by way of explaining his earlier attack on the House speaker. "That's their fundamental underlying strategy: that if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we'll quit and go home.''

Cheney added: "And my statement was that if we adopt the Pelosi policy, that then we will validate the strategy of al-Qaeda. I said it, and I meant it.''

No doubt he did, and those words illustrate the administration's political methodology from the very beginning of its public campaign against Iraq. Back in 2002 and early 2003, it browbeat a reluctant country into this war by making assertions about an Iraqi nuclear program that proved to be groundless and by inventing ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda that didn't exist.

Then, once our troops were committed, anyone who had second thoughts could be trashed and driven back as a pro-terrorist weakling. The quagmire would be self-perpetuating: Once you checked in, you could never leave.

Cheney is, of course, dead right, and no one would have the audacity to claim otherwise. Nancy Pelosi didn't. She just squealed about being called unpatriotic (which was bizarre) and said she was going to call the President to complain about it. Even E.J. Dionne must agree with Cheney. If not, he'd -- well -- disagree. But Dionne does no such thing (of course). Instead of disagreeing, he pulls a Pelosi by apparently implying that current assertions about al Qaeda in Iraq have something to do with pre-war assertions about the association between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. That's exactly how Nancy Pelosi once responded when Bush mentioned a role for al Qaeda in Iraq.

Is Dionne, like Pelosi, really suggesting that al Qaeda did not bomb the Golden Mosque 1 year ago to intentionally incite the sectarian violence we see today? Is he really suggesting that al Qaeda is not seeking to establish a base of operations in the Anbar Province by continuing to provoke sectarian violence via suicide bombings that target innocent Shiites? Of course not. Like all Democrats save for Joe Lieberman, he is just avoiding the issue, this despite the fact that it is the only issue.

When it comes to the issue of Iraq, Democrats are simply not serious. It's time for liberal politicians and liberal columnists to break the eerie code of silence that pervades their ranks and say exactly what should be done to confront al Qaeda in Iraq. Their dilemma, of course, is that if they say anything about that, they'll be perceived as supporting Bush (because only a Bush-like strategy will do anything to set back the cause of al Qaeda in Iraq). Hence, the eerie code of silence.

UPDATE: Perfect, pithy summary of the overall situation by Glenn Reynolds at instapundit.com:

THE LONELINESS OF JOE LIEBERMAN. But at least he's not struggling to come up with a position. I guess that's the difference between knowing what you believe, and trying to figure out what will sell.

I put in bold Glenn's succinct, hall-of-fame, hit-the-nail-on-the-head analysis of the difference between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership (plus Joe Lieberman) on the issue of Iraq.

Wish I'd said that.

Conflicting Views on the Baghdad Security Crackdown

Muqtada al Sadr seems pessimistic about the unfolding security crackdown:

Al-Sadr: Baghdad Security Plan Is Doomed
Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr says U.S. security plan for Baghdad is doomed to failure

(AP) The leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite militia complained Sunday that bombs "continue to explode" in Baghdad and that U.S.-led security crackdown is doomed to fail, issuing a statement the same day a suicide attacker struck outside a college campus, killing at least 41 people.

The US Military seems more optimistic in its assessment:

Baghdad sectarian killings at year low-US military
Reuters ^ | 26 Feb 2007

A U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in Baghdad has reduced sectarian killings to their lowest level in nearly a year and is hindering the movement of al Qaeda in the city, the U.S. military said on Monday.

In a statement, the U.S. military said roadside bomb attacks had also fallen.

Commanders said the plan was still in its early days and would take time to have a major impact on halting violence that many fear could tip Iraq into all-out civil war between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

Before the security plan began, 40 to 50 bodies were found on Baghdad's streets every day, many bearing signs of torture. Those killings have dropped, sometimes to as low as five a day.

A check of the data at icasualties.org suggests a slight improvement in February compared to earlier months. I'll have a detailed analysis in a few days, but my initial take is that Muqtada has it about right: his Mahdi Army pulled back a bit in anticipation of the sweep by US and Iraqi forces. In response, al Qaeda was able to set off more bombs directed at killing innocent men, women and children.

Meanwhile, Democrat Joe Lieberman exhibits a clear grasp of the reality on the ground in Iraq in an opinion piece today:

Congress thus faces a choice in the weeks and months ahead. Will we allow our actions to be driven by the changing conditions on the ground in Iraq--or by the unchanging political and ideological positions long ago staked out in Washington? What ultimately matters more to us: the real fight over there, or the political fight over here?

If we stopped the legislative maneuvering and looked to Baghdad, we would see what the new security strategy actually entails and how dramatically it differs from previous efforts. For the first time in the Iraqi capital, the focus of the U.S. military is not just training indigenous forces or chasing down insurgents, but ensuring basic security--meaning an end, at last, to the large-scale sectarian slaughter and ethnic cleansing that has paralyzed Iraq for the past year.

Tamping down this violence is more than a moral imperative. Al Qaeda's stated strategy in Iraq has been to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war, precisely because they recognize that it is their best chance to radicalize the country's politics, derail any hope of democracy in the Middle East, and drive the U.S. to despair and retreat. It also takes advantage of what has been the single greatest American weakness in Iraq: the absence of sufficient troops to protect ordinary Iraqis from violence and terrorism.

Why is it that whenever someone who supports Bush's policy writes an article, he exhibits a clear grasp of al Qaeda's plan for Iraq, but whenever a liberal opponent of Bush's policy writes an article on the same topic, al Qaeda is not even mentioned? It is a downright bizarre phenomenon. Someday, more people are going to wake up to this curious state of affairs. When they do, it will not place the John Murtha's of the world in a very favorable light.

Air America and the Lunatic Fringe

Air America is now without it's one star, Al Franken, who quit to run for a US Senate seat, but I still listen to the show anyway. While doing so the other night, I heard a commercial that I felt sure was a joke. It was all about a conference in Arizona on the topic of 9/11 and how the US government was complicit in the attack. The commercial even said that you could get a special discount if you said "9/11 was an inside job" when you sign up to attend the conference. It seemed like some sort of spoof, so I was astonished to realize that it is no joke:

We are seeking strategies and solutions to demand accountability for the crimes of 9/11. It is now time to utilize the overwhelming evidence of government complicity, as we move forward and direct our focus on actions that further the cause of accountability. We aim for unity within our movement to accomplish these goals.

Air America is the only national liberal talk show, it is bankrupt, and now it is airing commercials --as if they had something serious to say -- for the lunatic fringe. That's how low the network has sunk.

The night before, I was listening to host on Air America who repeatedly expressed his open hatred of President Bush and who referred to Bush on more than one occasion as "an evil son of a Bitch." It is well known that some of the liberal blogs resort to profanity at the drop of a hat (e.g., Daily Kos), whereas you almost never see that happen on conservative blogs. Now the same distinction is beginning to characterize liberal vs. conservative talk radio. Why do liberals think that profanity is the mark of serious intellectual analysis?

More to the point, why does conservative talk radio thrive while liberal talk radio is a disaster? The best theory I have heard is that Air America is destined to fail because we are already saturated with liberal outlets (namely, the mainstream media). Conservative talk radio presents a novel point of view, but liberal talk radio is what we already get (essentially) when we watch CBS News or ABC News or NBC News or CNN or MSNBC.

I'm still hoping that Air America finds its way, but I'm not overly optimistic that it will.

The Cheney-Pelosi Feud Continues

If you find your self thinking along the lines of a typical Democrat in congress (e.g., Iraq is just a big ol' civil war now, thanks to Bush, so we need to get our troops out while we still can), it can't be heartening to watch your like-minded representatives defend their views on the subject. Yesterday, Cheney basically said that the Democrats have a plan that coincides perfect with al Qaeda's plan for Iraq (a point that I have been hammering on for months). The Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, could have used the opportunity to challenge that characterization, but she instead bizarrely complained that Cheney was questioning her patriotism and then called the President to whine about it. The fact that she did not respond to the charge speaks volumes to me. It should to you, too.

Today, Cheney stated the obvious:

“I’m not sure what part of it is that Nancy disagreed with. She accused me of questioning her patriotism. I didn’t question her patriotism. I questioned her judgment.”

Just so. At some point, Pelosi is going to have to explain her views on al Qaeda in Iraq. The last time she did, so far as I know, she made a fool of herself, as this transcript of the relevant videotape shows:

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place fomented, in my opinion, because of these attacks by uh -- by al Qaeda, causing people to seek reprisal.

THOMAS FERRARO, REUTERS: (INAUDIBLE) blame the surging violence in Iraq on al Qaeda deny the country is in the midst of a civil war?

NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE: My response on the president's representations are well known. But the 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the president is resorting to it again.

The reporter from Reuters thinks he detects an attempt by Bush to escape blame for the big ol' civil war in Iraq by preposterously trying to blame it on al Qaeda (even though there is 100% agreement that the bombing of the Golden Mosque by al Qaeda and their continued attacks against innocent Shiite civilians are largely responsible for the sectarian strife we see today). But Nancy Pelosi illustrates her impressive command of the facts by bizarrely noting that the 9/11 commission dismissed a role for al Qaeda in pre-war Iraq (as if the conversation has to do with pre-war Iraq).

To me, that's scary. This exchange occurred back in November, which was only a few months ago. At that time, the leader of the House Democrats appeared to be utterly unaware of the basic facts on the ground in Iraq.

For some odd reason, if you are a Democrat, you probably cheered out loud when this reporter and the top House Democrat responded this way. The fact that an uninformed liberal reporter would completely miss the basics is simply par for the course, but the fact that Pelosi would chime right in is a real cause for concern. She has actual power now, but that power is not backed by knowledge of the most basic facts about the conflict in Iraq. That is a truly frightening combination.

I can only hope that Cheney's goading will finally prompt Pelosi to stop squealing about people questioning her patriotism and stop referring to an irrelevant report by the 9/11 Commission and to instead start educating herself about the conflict in Iraq and to finally state her actual position on confronting al Qaeda in Iraq. The problem, of course, is that you cannot articulate a workable plan for confronting al Qaeda and advocate a plan that corresponds precisely to what al Qaeda has in mind (namely, a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq). That fact explains the eerie code of silence that Democrats have adopted when it comes to the subject of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Nancy Pelosi and the Eerie Code of Silence

Dick Cheney has a way of telling it like it is:

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday phoned President Bush to air her complaints over Vice President Dick Cheney's comments that the Congressional Democrats' plan for Iraq would "validate the Al Qaeda strategy."

"You cannot say as the president of the United States, 'I welcome disagreement in a time of war,' and then have the vice president of the United States go out of the country and mischaracterize a position of the speaker of the House and in a manner that says that person in that position of authority is acting against the national security of our country," the speaker said.

Say what? The Democrats have for years said that our lying commander-in-chief is jeopardizing our national security by creating more terrorists with his "misbegotten adventure" in Iraq. But when Cheney points out that it is actually the Democrats who are playing into the hands of al Qaeda, suddenly that kind of criticism is out of bounds. I wonder how she'd react if Cheney implied that she was, in addition, a liar?

Here's what Cheney actually said:

"I think if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we will do is validate the Al Qaeda strategy," the vice president told ABC News. "The Al Qaeda strategy is to break the will of the American people ... try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit."

In response to Cheney's criticism, Pelosi had two choices:

1. explain exactly how the Democrats were not playing into the hands of al Qaeda but were instead offering a plan that would lead directly to the defeat of that terrorist organization

--or--

2. throw a hissy fit that completely ignores the substance of the charge

I was really interested to see if Pelosi would break the eerie code of silence of silence that typically pervades liberal analyses of Iraq. I could not possibly imagine how she could seriously dispute Cheney's charge, but I have an open mind about that, and I genuinely wanted to learn exactly how Cheney got it wrong.

But she maintained the eerie code of silence ("must--not--mention--al Qaeda") and opted to throw a hissy fit instead:

Pelosi, at a news conference in San Francisco, said Cheney's criticism of Democrats was "beneath the dignity of the debate we're engaged in and a disservice to our men and women in uniform, whom we all support."

"And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to call the president and tell him I disapprove of what the vice president said," Pelosi said. "It has no place in our debate."

No, throwing a hissy fit like that is beneath the dignity of the debate we're engaged in. Al Qaeda has a plan for Iraq. It's a simple plan that almost no Democrat ever acknowledges (which is why no Democrat can be taken seriously on the issue of Iraq). In a nutshell, the plan is to relentlessly bomb Shiite civilians so they become enraged and attack Sunnis (which is precisely what has happened over the last year). According to the plan, the Americans will become demoralized -- right on cue -- and then leave Iraq. When that happens, the Sunnis will need to ally with al Qaeda to protect themselves from the Shiites, and that will provide al Qaeda with a base of operations in the Anbar province from which they can launch their global jihad.

That's the plan. It's not a secret, and it's not disputed by anyone. And it's working, which means that -- like it or not --- something must be done about it. Cheney says (and I agree) that the Democrats are cooperating fully with al Qaeda's plan. I cannot detect a flaw in Cheney's argument, and the fact that Pelosi opted to throw a hissy fit instead of explaining how the Democrats will confront al Qaeda in Iraq suggests to me that she cannot detect a flaw in Cheney's argument either.

Finally, contrary to what Pelosi implies, no one is questioning the patriotism of Democrats. Well, no one except for me, that is. I question the patriotism of the 50% of Democrats who are either openly cheering for the other side or who are not sure if they want America to prevail in Iraq (even if our success would mean a more stable Iraq). Does that seem like an unfair charge? It doesn't to me. A patriot would hope for America's (and Iraq's) success despite being convinced that it will not happen and wanting to bring the troops home now. If cheering for the success of al Qaeda in Iraq is not unpatriotic, what is? And it might be worth noting that Democrats themselves report being less patriotic than Republicans. According to a poll that you can find here -- which shows what has become known as "the patriotism gap" -- the two parties differ in the percentage who strongly agree with the statement "I am very patriotic":

So, although Nancy Pelosi's hissy fit responded to a charge that Cheney did not make (and failed to respond to the charge that he did make), there is a discussion to be had about the patriotism of some Democrats. Many Democrats are patriotic, but a substantial fraction is not, and even they will tell you that.

"Let Them Eat Plutonium"

The Iraq Study Group turned out to be even more irrelevant than I ever imagined they would, but it is still worth evaluating one of their main recommendations because it keeps coming up. Specifically, among other things, they thought it would be a really good idea to negotiate with Iran. I don't.

I can understand why some might think it would be worthwhile to talk to the Iranians. After all, we are talking to the North Koreans, and some progress has been made on that front. Why not try for a similar outcome with Iran? What possible harm could come from taking the diplomatic approach?

The harm seems obvious to me. If you enter into negotiations with the Iranians, they will agree to abandon their efforts to build a nuclear bomb and will further agree to help stabilize Iraq in response to certain concessions from us. Those agreements will be promptly ignored by the Iranians, but will be wildly celebrated in the Western media (as if the agreements are meaningful), and that will serve to reduce tensions between Iran and the rest of the world. In response to these reduced tensions, other nations might be more willing to make the infrastructure investments in Iran that are sorely needed to stave off economic disaster in that country. That would be bad because, in that case, they could have their cake and eat it, too.

Iran is an economic catastrophe in the making. We should do nothing to stop that trend and should instead do everything in our power to accelerate it. Refusing to negotiate with the Iranians and sending naval battle groups to the Persian Gulf help to keep tensions alive, thereby ensuring that Western investment in that country remains negligible. As the Iranians sink deeper into poverty, they may finally come to appreciate the folly of their current approach. That's the only sensible approach to take with them.

Note that this way of thinking does not apply to North Korea, which is why negotiating with them makes more sense. North Korea is already as destitute as a country can be, so there is no harm in getting them to make agreements that they will never keep. But Iran is not that way (i.e., they have a lot to lose, economically speaking), and our approach should involve helping them along the path to North-Korea-like deprivation. In other words, if they want to build their nuclear bomb, then let them eat plutonium (as someone once said in reference to the North Koreans).

Fortunately, President Bush seems to be taking just this approach to Iran:

Talking With the President
Excerpts from George W. Bush's conversation with the Journal editorial board.

GWB: My theory all along has been to isolate the Iranian regime to determine whether or not there are people in their country who will worry about financial isolation, isolation from trade opportunities. One of the interesting things that we do know about Iran is that there is a large diaspora that is communicating inside Tehran, for example. There are rational people in that country who believe that isolation is not in their interests. And there is enough commerce that if it can be affected through international cooperation, it may cause people to say, 'Wait a minute. We'd better take a look to see who's running this deal.'

And I can only tell you that I'm encouraged by the fact that others are beginning to question whether Ahmadinejad is capable of leading the country. . . .

That makes a lot of sense to me. Keep the tension high enough to prevent Western investment in Iran and low enough to prevent oil prices from spiraling out of control -- and then watch Iran slowly self destruct.

"Militants" in the Mainstream Media

I object to the way that the media willingly plays into the hands of al Qaeda by portraying them in a much more favorable light than they deserve. A few days ago, car bombs were set off in a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 60 innocent people at an open air market. Any normal news agency would present this development as an instance of terrorists indiscriminately slaughtering innocent civilians in response to US and Iraqi troops trying to restore order to Baghdad. Here is how it is covered instead:

BAGHDAD - Militants struck back yesterday in a first major blow against a U.S.-led security clampdown in Baghdad with car bombings that killed more than 60 people, left scores injured and sent a grim message to officials boasting that extremist factions were on the run.

Militants? What would you call them if they attacked US and Iraqi troops instead of civilians? You'd all them militants, and that's what they'd be (and there actually are militants in Iraq). Instead, these particular killers intentionally targeted -- and slaughtered -- scores of unarmed, unsuspecting, and completely innocent men, women and children. Is it too judgmental for a reporter to refer to such killers as terrorists? Apparently so.

Also, the phrase "militants struck back" sounds like insurgents attacking troops in response to the latest Baghdad offensive. A vastly more accurate news story would begin like this:

"Terrorists struck back yesterday by killing scores of unarmed civilians -- including men, women and children -- in a first major blow against a U.S.-led security clampdown in Baghdad."

In response to a much more accurate story like this, readers might wonder who those terrorists are. That's step 1 on the path to appreciating the fact that al Qaeda is creating the civil war that so many Americans lament. Once that fact is appreciated, the next question would be what to do about it. Not many people in that frame of mind would leap to the conclusion that the important thing to do is to pass a resolution complaining about Bush's plan for a troop surge in Baghdad. Something else must be done to stop al Qaeda from continuing its so-far successful mission to foment sectarian strife in Iraq. Bush's plan involves surging troops into Baghdad. Al Qaeda is resisting that plan, and so are the Democrats. The Democrats could do so nobly by explaining exactly how they would deal with al Qaeda in Iraq. But that would mean breaking the eerie code of silence about al Qaeda that pervades liberal analyses of Iraq, and not many Democrats are prepared to do that (Senator Joe Biden notwithstanding).

Senator Joe Biden and the Eerie Code of Silence

I'm always intrigued when a prominent Democrats breaks the eerie code of silence that has characterized their "analysis" of Iraq for many months. According to a secret pact (I assume), they all got together and decided never to mention the key role played by al Qaeda when discussing the big ol' civil war that was caused because of Bush's misbegotten adventure in Iraq. However, on Face the Nation\ this past Sunday, Senator Joseph Biden briefly hinted that he actually does have a slight concept of what is happening in Iraq:

Sen. BIDEN: Yes, it is. I've been working with some of my colleagues to try to convince them that's the way to go, to repeal and restate the president's authority. Make it clear that the purpose that he has troops in there is to in fact protect against al-Qaeda gaining chunks of territory, training the Iraqi forces, force protection and for our forces. It's not to get in the midst of a civil war. And Bob, as you know, I've been on your program many times, I still believe that there is a need for a political solution, and that is based in a federal system for Iraq.

There you have it. I have spotted an actual Democrat referring to al Qaeda in Iraq. He even appears to understand that al Qaeda's plan is to acquire territory in Iraq to use a base of operations for its global jihad. If only more Democrats would demonstrate that they, too, have graduated from Iraq 101, I'd be more inclined to listen to their plan of action.

Unfortunately, Biden seems to have earned a C+ in that class because he shows no understanding at all of the intimate connection between Iraq's "civil war" and al Qaeda's role in making it happen and their continuing role in making it worse by relentlessly bombing innocent Shiite civilians. I'd be more interested in his proposed solution if he did.

Even more unfortunately, Biden's proposed solution to the problems we face in Iraq amounts to nothing at all:

Sen. BIDEN: Well, I think it would be a helpful thing. As Dick Lugar knows I've asked, I've literally suggested that to the president. I suggested back around Christmastime, what we should do is just get a dozen of us, the people who are most involved in this in both parties and take us to Camp David or take us down to the White House and put our cell phones away and actually have a full-blown, open discussion about a way forward here. Look, there is no circumstance I can think of, Bob, where you have a country where there's a cycle of sectarian violence that gets stopped by other than one of three ways: either an occupying power, which we're now about to be; two, a return of a strong man, a dictator; or three, a federal system, giving the--giving the parties breathing room, like we did in Bosnia, like the Dayton Accords. And I believe there is a basis upon which we could move forward without embarrassing the president and with, in fact, really protecting our troops by getting them out, begin to get them out in a way that leaves behind something that's stable.

Sit down, roll up our sleeves and talk. That's the ticket. Well, at least there is the kernal of an idea when he says we should work towards establishing "...a federal system, giving the--giving the parties breathing room." Is that Biden's plan for defeating al Qaeda in Iraq? That's the plan we need to hear, but I'm not holding my breath. Biden wants to limit the president's authority to confront al Qaeda as that terrorist organization works to foment civil war in Iraq. If Democratic senators would put half as much energy into confronting al Qaeda as they do into confronting their own president in a time of war, we'd all be better off.

Back in a few days

I'm off on vacation for about 4 days, and I may not have access to the internet (though if I do, I'll post). For now, in honor of the soon-to-be-over Scooter Libby trial, I thought I'd just re-post some thoughts from a few months ago. It's mostly about New York Times columns and articles that were written before we knew that Richard Armitage accidentally outed Valerie Plame.

==========================

Do My Eyes Deceive Me?

The New York Times just published an article about "new questions" concerning the Valerie Plame affair (via RealClearPolitics). My first thought was that the Times was going to desperately attempt to breath new life into the rapidly disintegrating conspiracy theory that they have pushing for years (according to which the diabolical Bush administration vindictively "outed" Valerie Plame as "payback" for Joseph Wilson "blowing the whistle" on the administration's "lies" about Iraq's WMDs). Imagine my surprise when I saw that one of the new questions was this:

Now, the question of whether Mr. Fitzgerald properly exercised his prosecutorial discretion in continuing to pursue possible wrongdoing in the case has become the subject of rich debate on editorial pages and in legal and political circles.

Say what?

Isn't this the same New York Times that published Joe Wilson's original fabrication entitled "What I didn't find in Africa"? With these now infamous words, Wilson single-handedly launched the misguided but nevertheless surpassingly successful "Bush Lied!" insurgency:

Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

Subsequent editorials published in the New York Times robotically marched to the beat of Joe Wilson's drum, like this absolutely classic column by Paul Krugman exquisitely entitled "Ending the Fraudulance:"

So is the nightmare finally coming to an end? Yes, I think so. I have no idea whether Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, will bring more indictments in the Plame affair. In any case, I don't share fantasies that Dick Cheney will be forced to resign; even Karl Rove may keep his post. One way or another, the Bush administration will stagger on for three more years. But its essential fraudulence stands exposed, and it's hard to see how that exposure can be undone.

Meanwhile, the Plame inquiry, however it winds up, has ended the myth of the administration's monopoly on patriotism, which was also fading in the face of the war.

Apologists can shout all they like that no laws were broken, that hardball politics is nothing new, or whatever. The fact remains that officials close to both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush leaked the identity of an undercover operative for political reasons. Whether or not that act was illegal, it was clearly unpatriotic.

And the Plame affair has also solidified the public's growing doubts about the administration's morals. By a three-to-one margin, according to a Washington Post poll, the public now believes that the level of ethics and honesty in the government has declined rather than risen under Mr. Bush.

Well, yes, the New York Times did manage to tarnish the president's reputation over this affair. I wonder if, in retrospect, the editors believe that was a good thing?

In any case, not to be outdone, Maureen Dowd stoked the maniacal rage of Bush-haters everywhere with these words (also in the New York Times):

The Bush hawks presented themselves as protectors and exporters of American values. But they were so feverish about projecting the alternate reality they had constructed to link Saddam and Al Qaeda - and fulfilling their idée fixe about invading Iraq - they perverted American values.

Whether or not it turns out to be illegal, outing a C.I.A. agent - undercover or not - simply to undermine her husband's story is Rove-ishly sleazy. This no-leak administration was perfectly willing to leak to hurt anyone who got in its way.

That last sentence perfectly summarizes the widely shared delusion that has animated this whole sordid affair for years (i.e., Bush is scum, end of story). Everything would be so much simpler if liberal critics would just (a) present actual arguments against the policies Bush favors while (b) accepting that he genuinely believes that his policies are best for America. But they can't. To them, the issue is always Bush himself. The discussion they want to have is this: "Is Bush evil? Let me count the ways."

Then there is Nicholas Krisof who, in one of his, New York Times editorials, asked "What Did Cheney Know, and When Did He Know It?" Here are some of his words that no doubt helped to get his readers' blood boiling:

Was Mr. Libby fearful of disclosing something about your behavior in the summer of 2003? Mr. Libby is renowned for his caution, yet he is alleged to have suddenly embarked upon a high-risk campaign of leaks and lies. If he did do that, was it a misguided attempt to protect you? The alleged lies shielded you by indicating that the information you gave him about Mrs. Wilson instead came from reporters.

Would the truth have been so potentially damaging to your position that Mr. Libby chose perjury instead?
...
So, Mr. Cheney, tell us what happened. If you're afraid to say what you knew, and when you knew it, then you should resign.

So, Mr. Kristof, tell us how and when you went off the deep end, exactly. If you're afraid to say why you helped to nurture preposterous conspiracy theories that served no other purpose than to damage your own president in a time of war, then you should resign.

But it wasn't just columnists. Here is a front-page news story in the New York Times ominously entitled "Cover-Up Issue Is Seen as Focus in Leak Inquiry:"

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the C.I.A. leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, is focusing on whether Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.

Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement - counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.

Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has Mr. Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges. The prosecutor has said he will not make up his mind about any charges until next week, government officials say.
...
But Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby may not be the only people at risk. There may be others in the government who could be charged for violations of the disclosure law or of other statutes, like the espionage act, which makes it a crime to transmit classified information to people not authorized to receive it.

And here is a front page story about the real enemy entitled "Republicans Testing Ways to Blunt Leak Charges:"

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 - With a decision expected this week on possible indictments in the C.I.A. leak case, allies of the White House suggested Sunday that they intended to pursue a strategy of attacking any criminal charges as a disagreement over legal technicalities or the product of an overzealous prosecutor.

I could go on. The stories were endless, and they were no doubt gobbled up by readers who love to hate Bush. All of this was, of course, made possible by the editors of the New York Times, whose views were not exactly top secret. For example, here is a quote from one of their own editorials entitled "Remember that Mushroom Cloud?"

The indictment of Lewis Libby on charges of lying to a grand jury about the outing of Valerie Wilson has focused attention on the lengths to which the Bush administration went in 2003 to try to distract the public from this central fact: American soldiers found a lot of things in Iraq, including a well-armed insurgency their bosses never anticipated, but they did not find weapons of mass destruction.

Finally, in this recent gem of ironic indignation, the editors of the New York Times endorsed Ned Lamont, in part because of what Joe Lieberman didn't do:

He has shown no interest in prodding his Republican friends into investigating how the administration misled the nation about Iraq’s weapons.

You mean like Joe Wilson did? And like YOU did? Over and over again?

Yet, now that the fantasy has gone up in a puff of smoke, the latest article in the New York Times can think of new questions only for Patrick Fitzgerald. Well, I have a new question for the editors:

In light of your apparent eagerness to maliciously and fallaciously savage the reputation of your own president during a time of war, what does this whole sordid affair say about you?

It seems like a fair question to me, and I am sure that an honest answer will shed light on the paper's eagerness to expose other administration "scandals" (like the NSA wiretapping program and the CIA's program to monitor the financial transactions of terrorists).

The "cutting edge of poverty"

I hate to be overly critical, but the people at UNICEF obviously need help thinking their way out of a paper bag. Even so, they are taken quite seriously by a mainstream media this is suffering from the same problem. UNICEF's latest report is earnestly covered by MSNBC like this:

U.S., Britain ranked last in child welfare
U.N. study of wealthy nations cites economic inequality, poor family support

BERLIN - The United States and Britain ranked at the bottom of a U.N. survey of child welfare in 21 wealthy countries that assessed everything from infant mortality to whether children ate dinner with their parents or were bullied at school.
...
One of the study’s researchers, Jonathan Bradshaw, said children fared worse in the U.S. and Britain — despite high overall levels of national wealth — because of greater economic inequality and poor levels of public support for families.

Behold the horrid news (you can find the pdf of this report here):


How awful. When faced with information like this, you have only 2 choices:

1. Exercise your reasoning abilities

--or--

2. Abandon your reasoning abilities and agitate for more government programs to help the poor children who are being left behind by affluent societies

UNICEF made their choice, and it is this:

"Higher government spending on family and social benefits is associated with lower child poverty rates."

Actually (and ironically), it seems likely that it is the other way around. How, then, does UNICEF manage to make the truth stand on its head? Easy. One of their measures of child welfare is "Material Well-Being" (reasonably enough), and one aspect of that is relative poverty. What is relative poverty? It's this:

The European Union offered its definition of poverty in 1984: “the poor are those whose resources (material, cultural, and social) are so limited as to exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life in the Member States in which they live”. For practical and statistical purposes, this has usually meant drawing national poverty lines at a certain percentage of national median income.

Figure 1.1 shows the percentage of children growing up in relative poverty – defined as living in a household where the equivalent income is less than 50% of the national median – for 24 OECD countries.

And here is Figure 1.1:


Good heavens. In the affluent US, more than 20% of children live in poverty! It's enough to make your blood boil!! Until, that is, you realize that this graph really reflects the high median income of the US, not the state of deprivation of its children. To illustrate this point, imagine that the national median income were 100 million dollars per year. By the relative poverty measure, any child living in a family making less than 50 million dollars per year would be living in poverty. Obviously, this measure makes no sense. But it does to UNICEF:

Critics have argued that relative poverty is not ‘real’ poverty, pointing out that many of those who fall below relative poverty lines enjoy a standard of living higher than at any time in the past or than most of the world’s children in the present. But this fails to acknowledge that in today’s OECD nations the cutting edge of poverty is the contrast, daily perceived, between the lives of the poor and the lives of those around them.

In other words, UNICEF is a joke, and jokes (by definition) are not to be taken seriously. The "cutting edge of poverty" has everything to do with envy and nothing at all to do with deprivation. That's bizarre.

To their credit, UNICEF tries to deal with that problem by also obtaining an absolute measure of deprivation. They should follow methods like those described here, but they instead simply interview children and ask them these questions:

Does your family own a car, van or truck?

Do you have your own bedroom for yourself?

During the past 12 months, how many times did you travel away on holiday with your family?

How many computers does your family own?

Interviewing children and asking them these questions -- which were just thought up by the researchers without being otherwise validated -- is an extremely weak methodology. Still, it is vastly better than their truly ridiculous "relative poverty" measure. Here are the results of their assessment of absolute deprivation:


The United States and the United Kingdom fare much better here. Moreover, as I have noted before, it makes no sense to compare the US to small European countries. Instead, the appropriate comparison group is the major advanced economies of Western Europe (namely, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy). I'm not sure why Italy does not appear on this graph, but you can see that the two countries that are highlighted in the UNICEF report as being terrible for children score rather well on this more sensible measure. Think about that when you read the headline U.S., Britain ranked last in child welfare. Except that they rank 6th and 8th (out of 28) on a measure of actual material well being. In other words, when it comes to child welfare, the US and Britain are both doing rather well (which is the exact opposite of what UNICEF wants you to believe).

As I said, UNICEF is a joke, and a not very funny one at that.

Left-wing vs. Liberal in Jesusland

I'm not religious, but I do attend church (because my wife wants me to), so I have exposure to churchgoers that virtually every one of my left-wing colleagues lacks. To them, Jesusland (an intentionally derisive term, in some cases) refers to red states that are inhabited by of a bunch of intolerant and morally inferior bigots and homophobes who seek merely to judge and indoctrinate and to ensure that the theory of evolution is suppressed in our schools. Anyone who goes to a typical church knows better. Religious bigots exist, of course, but, in my experience, they are the exception, not the norm.

Of course, there are many liberals who go to church, but liberal churchgoers are not the left-wing elitists who sneer at believers and refer to them as inhabitants of Jesusland. Academia is home to many such elitists. They don't go to church, so their view of the religious right is determined by what the mainstream media feeds them (and reporters don't go to church either).

People usually refer to academics as being liberal, but one definition of "liberal" is this:

free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant

Left-wing elitists are not liberal in this sense. The prejudice they feel towards the "religious right" is as deep as it is palpable to even a casual observer. I'm frequently stunned by the religious bigotry I hear on Air America. Left-wing elitists appear to believe that if you go to church, you'll discover that it is all about finding ways to eliminate a woman's right to choose, about devising strategies to keep gays from marrying, and about indoctrinating others to be as intolerant as possible. What jumps out at you instead is how generous the religious right is (much more generous than I am, for example). Not so long ago, one church service after another was focused on helping the victims of the Tsunami and the victims of Hurricane Katrina. More recently, the pastor was emphasizing the fact that many have forgotten about the victims of Katrina who still need money to live and volunteers to build houses. In an earlier service, there was an update about the small army of volunteers who devote days on end to building houses and helping out at the orphanages in Mexico. They literally camp out in the deserts of Mexico while providing these services. Then it was time to hear a report from those who spent the last year of their lives fighting bureaucracies in various African countries to get orphanages built over there.

When I mingle with the churchgoers, I'm generally amazed at the time and money they donate to worthy causes. Statistics show that people who attend church are more generous when it comes to giving money to charities (even when giving to non-religious charities). For example, according to this site, the average itemized charitable contributions on tax returns for the "red states" from 1997 to 2004 was $3741, whereas for the richer blue states it was $3018 (go here if you can't stand this and want to see all kinds of adjustments that make the blue states seem more generous). However, what statistics like these do not show -- and what is simply stunning -- is the amount of time they donate to worthy causes. By contrast, I devote almost none of my time to charitable causes (e.g., I don't put in 20 hours per week helping the police deal with children who have been removed from abusive homes, as someone I know does). Equally stunning are the personal sacrifices they are sometimes prepared to make, sacrifices that involve neither time nor money. For example, a friend of mine, whose family is religious, has 3 daughters. All 3 of them (plus their mother) cut off almost all their hair so that wigs could be made for cancer patients whose chemotherapy makes them bald. Think about a young girl cutting off her hair for the benefit of others. That is a non-trivial sacrifice, to say the least. Have you ever in your life made a comparable sacrifice? I didn't think so. Neither have I. If these things could be quantified, I suspect that the "generosity index" would show the religious right to be vastly more generous than the secular left.

I'm not religious, but I consider many religious people to be better than I will ever be. Not all, certainly (because some on the religious right really do fit the left-wing stereotype), but many. I don't share their beliefs, and I disagree with them on certain emotionally charged issues (e.g., I would not outlaw abortion at conception, and I'd vote in favor of civil unions, and perhaps marriage, for gays), but I respect and even admire the average churchgoer. As such, I'd like to think I'm free from prejudice and bigotry towards the religious right, which means I can still reasonably think of myself as a liberal. My academic colleagues (and most reporters) are probably better described as being left wing, but perhaps not liberal. I think the distinction between left-wing and liberal should be made more often than it is.

"It's a lie to say that the president lied"

It's an old issue, but it is alive and well on the liberal side of the political spectrum. To this day, liberals confidently claim that Bush lied about Iraq's suspected WMDs so that he could wage his war for oil (or whatever). I hear the charge being made on an almost daily basis over at Air America. And even Hillary Clinton, who I was previously inclined to forgive for the nuttiness she must put on display if she has any hope at all of winning the Democratic nomination for president (e.g., "This was his decision to go to war with an ill-conceived plan and an incompetently executed strategy"), has begun to slip into what I regard as unforgivable territory:

At virtually all her stops in this early nominating state, she ran into questions about her Iraq vote. She says Mr. Bush misled Congress and she now wants a cap on the number of troops, as well as beginning a "phased redeployment" of troops from Iraq.

John McCain had a memorable response to this way of thinking some time ago when he said "I think it's a lie to say that the president lied..."

I think so, too. In fact, it's a bald-faced lie, and when it was relentlessly repeated by the media even after being factually refuted, I understood something that I had never previously realized: in our news media, truth can be subordinated to a cherished liberal fantasy. This does not occur because reporters are deliberately misleading their readers. It's just that reporters are almost exclusively from the left end of the political spectrum. Without realizing it, they live in an echo chamber, and when something just makes perfect sense to them (e.g., Bush is an unconscionable liar), they run with it, knowing deep in their souls that it is true. That this would happen did not surprise me at all. What did surprise me was that the fantasy would persist at full strength even after it was factually refuted. To this day, I am simply amazed that our news media can be this way. It would be as if everyone in the media still clung to the belief that Saddam possessed a huge arsenal of WMDs even though the detailed evidence now shows otherwise. That might be what would occur if reporters were almost exclusively conservative. But they are almost exclusively liberal, so a different factually refuted fantasy long survives its definitive refutation.

To the mainstream media, Joseph Wilson was a credible individual whose claims of having boldly exposed Bush for the liar he is were to be taken seriously. Fine. They should have been taken seriously -- until, that is, Wilson was exposed as a fraud by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Although Wilson pretended that he had debunked the notion that Saddam sought uranium in Niger (as Bush had earlier claimed in a State of the Union address), the committee's investigation revealed that he did no such thing:

The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal...

When this bipartisan panel unanimously endorsed the report in which this sentence appears (with vice-presidential candidate John Edwards signing off on it as well), I thought that would be the end of it. To my amazement, it wasn't. Instead of portraying Wilson as the fraud he turned out to be, the media virtually ignored the report and immediately and uncritically accepted Wilson's next lie that Bush and his evil minions "outed" secret agent Valerie Plame to punish the poor man for bravely speaking truth to power. This, too, was eventually debunked when it became clear that Richard Armitage -- well-known Washington gossip who opposed the Iraq war -- inadvertently revealed that information to both Bob Woodward and Robert Novak.

The media's willing participation in these two Joe-Wilson-induced fantasies is not something I will easily forget. To this day, many liberals appear to firmly believe that Bush lied. I have no doubt that many people in Europe and throughout the Arab world continue to embrace that false allegation as well. And because the long-refuted lie still lives, I wanted to add further to its refutation by focusing on the question of whether or not Bush specifically misled members of Congress (as Hillary and many other linguini-spined Democrats who voted for the war have done). Note that my derisive description ("linguini-spined") applies not to those who opposed the war, which is an honorable position, but to those who supported it and then later renounced it while pretending that their earlier support was based on their having been misled by Bush.

Virtually every liberal politician is on record expressing Bush-like sentiments about the grave threat posed by Saddam Hussein before the war (I could quote them at length, but I won't because many others have). After the war, many of these liberal politicians whined (that's the right word here) that they were misled by Bush. That's how they reconcile their earlier statements about the threat posed by Iraq and their subsequent finger-in-the-wind positions, and that's the focus of my post today.

In light of that transparently dishonest maneuver, statements by two prominent liberal politicians are worth revisiting. Both are running for president in 2008, and one or the other seems likely to win the nomination. Their prior statements serve to refute the notion that Bush misled Congress (e.g., by withholding secret intelligence information proving that Saddam was no threat at all). Those statements cannot be replayed often enough. The first statement was quoted a few days ago on my blog. When ask about this issue in 2003, John Edwards said:

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about-Since you did support the resolution and you did support that ultimate solution to go into combat and to take over that government and occupy that country. Do you think that you, as a United States Senator, got the straight story from the Bush administration on this war? On the need for the war? Did you get the straight story?

EDWARDS: Well, the first thing I should say is I take responsibility for my vote. Period. And I did what I did based upon a belief, Chris, that Saddam Hussein’s potential for getting nuclear capability was what created the threat. That was always the focus of my concern. Still is the focus of my concern.

So did I get misled? No. I didn’t get misled.

Is that too nuanced for a liberal media to comprehend? Yes. But it is pretty clear to me. The vice-presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket in the last election states unequivocally that he was not misled by Bush. So, not only did Bush tell what he believed to be the truth to the American people (contrary to what the congressionally certified liar Joseph Wilson claimed), he did not mislead our senators either. Matthews can't believe it, so he asks again:

MATTHEWS: Did you get an honest reading on the intelligence?

EDWARDS: ...And as you know, I serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee. So it wasn’t just the Bush administration. I sat in meeting after meeting after meeting where we were told about the presence of weapons of mass destruction. There is clearly a disconnect between what we were told and what, in fact, we found there.

Here, Edwards makes it crystal clear that although the intelligence was wrong, he wasn't misled. Do you see how preposterous it is to suggest that Bush lied given that this prominent Democrat completely exonerates him of the charge?

And he's not the only one. Another Democratic candidate for president is Hillary Clinton, who is now out there trying to weasel out of her previous bold support for the war by claiming that her prior support was based on the fact that her own President lied to members of Congress. This woman, who is revered by Democrats, was also asked if Bush essentially tricked her into voting for the war (which is the liberal fantasy that still lives). Here is what she said:

April 20, 2004. Mrs. Clinton tells Larry King: "I don't regret giving the President the authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade." Asked whether she thinks she was "fooled," she replies: "The consensus was the same, from the Clinton Administration to the Bush Administration. It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared about the weapons of mass destruction."

Never before has a liberal fantasy been so thoroughly refuted as this one and yet survived virtually unscathed. Neocons have their fantasies, too, but they are reluctantly updated when the facts come in. For example, neocons generally agree that the threat posed by Saddam's WMDs was overstated (because Saddam himself was deliberately misleading, but that's another story), that his ties to al Qaeda were not as extensive as we feared (though such ties did exist), and that democracy will be harder to bring to the Middle East than we had hoped (because al Qaeda is a more formidable foe than we realized). Liberals seem unable to similarly update their views when the facts come in, and that includes the liberal media (and that's amazing).

Barack Obama Adopts the Eerie Code of Silence

As I have noted ad nauseam on my blog, liberals are simply not serious when it comes to analyzing the situation in Iraq. Barack Obama continues this proud tradition by providing his analysis of Iraq without making even the slightest reference to al Qaeda.

Does he know that al Qaeda is the most potent force behind the so called civil war in Iraq? Does he know that they bombed the Golden Mosque in Samarra one year ago (almost to the day)? Does he know that this was the key event in fueling the sectarian violence we see today (and that it was designed to do precisely that)? Does he know that al Qaeda is continuing that effort to this very day? I see no sign that he does in what he has to say while announcing his candidacy:

But all of this cannot come to pass until we bring an end to this war in Iraq. Most of you know I opposed this war from the start. I thought it was a tragic mistake. Today we grieve for the families who have lost loved ones, the hearts that have been broken, and the young lives that could have been. America, it's time to start bringing our troops home. It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war. That's why I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008. Letting the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever is our last, best hope to pressure the Sunni and Shia to come to the table and find peace.

Finally, there is one other thing that is not too late to get right about this war - and that is the homecoming of the men and women - our veterans - who have sacrificed the most. Let us honor their valor by providing the care they need and rebuilding the military they love. Let us be the generation that begins this work.

As I have said before, there is an eerie code of silence among liberals when it comes to al Qaeda in Iraq. No matter how hard you search Obama's statement for the words "al Qaeda," you won't find them. It always that way, and that's just amazing. More amazing is the fact that, so far as I can tell, no one else has taken notice of this truly remarkable phenomenon.

Back in November, Obama wrote a piece about Iraq in which he actually did mention al Qaeda. He said:

Drawing down our troops in Iraq will allow us to redeploy additional troops to Northern Iraq and elsewhere in the region as an over-the-horizon force. This force could help prevent the conflict in Iraq from becoming a wider war, consolidate gains in Northern Iraq, reassure allies in the Gulf, allow our troops to strike directly at al Qaeda wherever it may exist, and demonstrate to international terrorist organizations that they have not driven us from the region.

He wants to redeploy our troops "over the horizon" so they can strike at al Qaeda wherever it may exist. Well, it obviously exists in Baghdad and in the Anbar Province, where it is intentionally and successfully stoking a civil war. A redeployment over the horizon will set them free to wreak further havoc and will be perceived by them as a glorious jihadist victory over America. That will enhance their ranks and facilitate their global jihadist aspirations according to our own National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), the very same NIE he selectively uses to complain about the invasion of Iraq:

The conflict has left us distracted from containing the world’s growing threats – in North Korea, in Iran, and in Afghanistan. And a report by our own intelligence agencies has concluded that al Qaeda is successfully using the war in Iraq to recruit a new generation of terrorists for its war on America.

But Obama's plan will consolidate that very phenomenon by handing al Qaeda a victory in Iraq. By leaving this issue untouched, Obama apparently seeks to create the impression that since our war in Iraq is creating more terrorists, abandoning the war in Iraq will have the opposite effect. That is dangerously naive according to the NIE estimate that he ironically cites to support his case.

But give the man credit for at least mentioning the words "al Qaeda." Unfortunately, he's not doing that anymore. I can only surmise that an authoritative memo went out to all liberal politicians instructing them to analyze Iraq in terms of a big ol' civil war that has only to do with Shiite militias attacking Sunni insurgents (and vice versa), with no role whatsoever played by the very terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11. In truth, al Qaeda's role is central (sad to say), but Obama and Kerry and Kennedy and Pelosi and Murtha and Webb and even Chuck Hagel steadfastly refuse to confront that issue. Not one of them provides the slightest clue that they understand the details of the role played by al Qaeda in Iraq. By sharp contrast, President Bush, in his State of the Union Address, got the details exactly right:

In Iraq, al Qaeda and other Sunni extremists blew up one of the most sacred places in Shia Islam — the Golden Mosque of Samarra. This atrocity, directed at a Muslim house of prayer, was designed to provoke retaliation from Iraqi Shia — and it succeeded. Radical Shia elements, some of whom receive support from Iran, formed death squads. The result was a tragic escalation of sectarian rage and reprisal that continues to this day.
...
If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country -- and in time the entire region could be drawn into the conflict.

For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective.

Dead on accurate. What does Barack Obama think about this analysis? We'll never know now that he has joined his liberal colleagues in not even mentioning al Qaeda in hopes that no one will notice.

Someday, someone other than me (someone with a lot more influence, perhaps) will take notice of the eerie code of silence that liberals have adopted when they analyze the situation in Iraq. When that happens, it might prompt some reporter somewhere to ask Obama (and other big-ol'-civil-war analysts) this question:

"what's your analysis of the role played so far by al Qaeda in Iraq, and how do you expect their status to be affected by our departure?"

Even back in November when he mentioned al Qaeda, Obama offered no thoughts whatsoever that would help to answer this question. I'd love to hear his response, but I'm not holding my breath. Even if he were asked, I feel sure that he would not answer.

UPDATE: Just as I finished writing this post, I noticed that Australia's Prime Minister John Howard took notice of my favorite issue by challenging Obama on his plan for withdrawal and the issue of al Qaeda in Iraq. Howard said:

"I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory," Howard said. "If I were running Al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."

Well, that's exactly right. What a perfect opportunity for Obama to come out swinging by explaining precisely how his plan for unilateral surrender will amount to a gigantic setback instead of a glorious victory for al Qaeda. In effect, John Howard asked the question of interest. In response, Obama merely says this (maintaining the eerie code of silence, of course):

Attacking the U.S. and Australian leaders at once, Obama said pre-war intelligence shows that President Bush was wrong to go into Iraq. He added that "the threat of terrorism has increased as a consequence of our actions in Iraq."

Sigh...Is Obama seriously suggesting that a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would amount to a setback for al Qaeda in Iraq, and that this will decrease the threat of terrorism? He doesn't say, of course, even though it is the only relevant question. He doesn't say because it would be preposterous for him to do so. So he quickly changes the subject by announcing that our invasion of Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism. In doing so, he is referring to the same NIE that pointed out that this very problem would be worse if the jihadists perceived themselves as having succeeded in Iraq. How does his plan ensure that they do not perceive themselves in that light? For obvious reasons, he doesn't say.

Barack Obama, like every last one of his liberal colleagues (with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton) is simply not serious about Iraq. But at least he has finally begun to perfect the art of the snotty quip:

"I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops on the ground now. And my understanding is that Mr. Howard has deployed 1,400. So if he's ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest, he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them up to Iraq," he continued.

Another 20,000? Let's see, the US has 140,000 troops committed to Iraq out of a total military of 2.6 million (active duty plus reserves). That comes to about 5% of our military in Iraq. Australia has about 1400 troops committed to Iraq out of a total military of about 70,000. That comes to about 2% of their entire military, which strikes me as a rather sizable commitment for a serious ally. Obama apparently won't be satisfied unless John Howard commits more than 30% of the Australian armed forces (1400 + 20,000) to Iraq. I'm thinking he had no idea how ridiculous his snotty little suggestion was.

Barack Obama is a White Man

Well, he is exactly as white as he is black, and that's what's interesting.

What's the rule that determines whether one is black or white? I'm asking that question sincerely since I am suddenly genuinely puzzled by the issue. I've always thought of the "one drop rule" as being a rule that was grounded in racism. The one drop rule essentially holds that if you have even one ancestor who is black, then you are black (no matter how white you actually are). Here is some information on the one drop rule from Wikipedia:

The 1910-19 decade was the zenith of the Jim Crow era by most measures, and also the decade when the one-drop rule was first adopted as written law. Tennessee led the parade by adopting a one-drop statute in 1910. It was followed by Louisiana in the same year, Texas and Arkansas in 1911, Mississippi in 1917, North Carolina in 1923, Virginia in 1924, Alabama and Georgia in 1927, and Oklahoma in 1931...By 1925, almost every state had a one-drop law on the books, or something equivalent. These were the laws that gave power to bureaucrats like Walter Plecker of Virginia [8], Naomi Drake of Louisiana [9], and similar people around the country — people whose mission was to hunt down any families of mixed ancestry and shove them to the Black side of the color line.

I was reminded of this racist rule when I read an article that included a quote from one of Barack Obama's books:

Descended from a white American mother and black Kenyan father, the Illinois Democrat once wrote: “He was black as pitch, my mother white as milk.”

This caught me by surprise when I first read it. For the first time, I realized that, objectively, Barack Obama is precisely as white as he is black, yet everyone refers to him as an African American. Suddenly, I wasn't sure why that is. Is it because he has at least one drop of African American blood? I thought we were past that.

I hope that no liberal reader accuses me of being racist for expressing puzzlement over this issue (liberals have a well-known tendency to demonize at the drop of a hat, which is what worries me here). In the eyes of many, Barack could become our first African American president. Would that still be true if he were only 10% black instead of being 50% black? What is the rule that makes someone black?

That's my question for today. In our racist past, the one-drop rule was the rule that dictated whether you were black or white. In our relatively non-racist present, it seems to be something similar to that, to my sudden surprise. Or, if that's not the rule, what is?

To me, if you insist on classifying according to skin color, it makes sense to call someone black if they are majority black (e.g., 75% black, 25% white) and to call them white if they are majority white. But Barack Obama seems to have a different rule, which I noticed on the Drudge Report:

Acknowledging that his presidential campaign has opened a racial debate, Sen. Barack Obama, who has a white mother and an African father, says if you look African-American, you are treated like one...

When asked by Kroft if growing up in a white household had caused him to make a decision to be black, Obama replies, "I'm not sure I decided it. I think... if you look African American in this society, you're treated as an African-American. "It's interesting though, that now I feel very comfortable and confident in terms of who I am and where I stake my ground. But I notice that... I've become a focal point for a racial debate," says Obama.

That's interesting. If you look African American? Well, that comes in degrees (i.e., it's not a black or white issue, so to speak). Some people look a lot more African American than he does, others less so. How many degrees of skin pigment do you need before you believe that people treat you like you are African American? Obviously, the blacker your skin, the more likely you are to be treated as black, and the whiter your skin the more likely you are to be treated as white. Note this, for example:

“We found that a light-skinned Black male can have only a bachelor’s degree and typical work experience and still be preferred over a dark-skinned Black male with an MBA and past managerial positions, simply because expectations of the light-skinned Black male are much higher, and he doesn’t appear as ‘menacing’ as the darker-skinned male applicant,” he says.

You see? Even racism is a matter of degree. It's not an all-or-none thing. That being the case, there must be some rule that says if you are black enough, then you are African American.

Barack Obama appears to have made a decision to be black because he believed that a certain number of other people regarded him as black. So, perhaps that is the new rule, the one that has superceded the one drop rule. If you feel black (or you feel as though a certain percentage of people treat you as such), then you are black. But what is that percentage? Has the one percent rule replaced the one drop rule? That is, if one percent of the people you encounter treat you as if you are black (in your own view), then you have a license to decide that you are black? Something like that, I guess.

The idea that you are what you feel reminds me of the notion of transgender, which is defined like this:

Transgender is the state of one's "gender identity" (self-identification as male, female, both or neither) not matching one's "assigned gender" (identification by others as male or female based on physical/genetic sex). Transgender does not imply any specific form of sexual orientation (transgender people may identify as queer, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual or asexual.)

So, if, despite my anatomy, I feel female (or, perhaps, if I feel as though I am treated as female by a certain percentage of the population), then that's what I am. It boggles the mind, and I suspect that this way of thinking is exclusive to the left end of the political spectrum (thereby explaining its popularity on college campuses).

Well, I hope you don't consider me a racist because I, myself, do not regard Barack Obama as an African American. In a similar way, when I put half-and-half in my coffee, I do not regard that dairy product as either whole milk or pure cream. It is half of each, and it would be odd to refer to it as one or the other. It's equally odd to refer to Barack Obama as being black. If he wins the election, he'll be our first mulatto president. The American Heritage Dictionary defines mulatto as follows:

1. A person having one white and one Black parent.
2. A person of mixed white and Black ancestry.

Am I wrong? This definition seems to apply in this case. That same dictionary defines African-American as follows:

A Black American of African ancestry

One of these definitions seems to fit Barack Obama a lot better than the other, or so it seems to me.

This is not one of the major issues of the day, but I was just really puzzled to hear Obama say that he is an African-American whose mother was white as milk and whose father was black as pitch. His objective racial identity is not all or none (it's a mixture), yet his psychological identity is. It's not important, I guess, but it is fascinating.

Don't Let Global Warming Fry Your Brain

Are humans mostly responsible the global warming that has occurred over the last century or so? I don't know, and neither do you. And that's what makes this topic so interesting. Many have adopted an almost religious faith in the idea that human activity is not only a contributing factor to global warming but that it is the major cause. Those who are inclined to have a deep and abiding faith in that idea will find comfort in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The money quote from their report is this:

Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

There you have it. It is as if a bunch of priests and ministers and pastors got together and wrote a report confirming to their satisfaction that God exists.

What you have to understand about the research behind this report is that it is not experimental in nature. Instead, it is correlational, and correlational research can never be definitive when it attempts to draw causal conclusions. I wrote about this before in connection with the deterrent effect of the death penalty. To really know if the death penalty deters murder, you can't just show that when the number of executions increase, the number of murders decrease. The reason is that many other unknown forces forces could have caused the change in the murder rate (e.g., the population of young males, who commit most of the murders, might have been decreasing at the same time that executions were increasing). Liberals understand this idea when the issue is the deterrent effect of the death penalty, but they have trouble understanding the exact same issue when it comes to global warming.

The reason why it is somewhat reasonable to believe that the death penalty deters murder is that various countries performed an actual experiment by directly manipulating the suspected causal variable (namely, executions). That is, instead of just allowing courts to enforce the death penalty as they saw fit and then seeing how the murder rate changed in response (which would be a correlational study), various countries turned off executions by making them illegal. That's what I mean when I say that they directly manipulated the variable of interest. In America, Canada, England and Australia, the murder rate increased shortly after executions ceased. Moreover, when executions resumed in the United States, the murder rate declined again. None of this amounts to proof, but at least the suspected causal variable was repeatedly manipulated (i.e., executions were turned off an on), and each time that happened, the murder rate changed as if the death penalty serves as a deterrent. An outcome like that increases confidence that there is a causal connection.

Contrast that with global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. The critical variable here is the emission of greenhouse gasses, and what you need to do is manipulate that variable to see what happens. That is, to know if a causal connection exists, we would need to to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions for 100 years or so and see what effect it has on the temperature of the earth. If the temperature cooled, it would increase our confidence that a causal connection exists. And then, to increase confidence further, you'd need to resume greenhouse gas emissions to see if the earth starts to warm up again. At the end of that long experiment, you'd have a pretty good idea of whether or not a causal connection exists. Even then, you could not be sure (a point that applies to the deterrent effect of the death penalty as well).

Nothing like that experiment has been or ever will be performed. As things stand, scientists run computer models that try to control for every alternative variable they can think of that might be having an effect on the earth's temperature. Unfortunately, those models cannot take into consideration the effect of unknown variables, which is precisely why you really need to perform an actual experiment (just as you do when trying to decide if the death penalty deters murder).

Similar considerations apply to epidemiological research that endeavors to find a connection between what you eat and what diseases you are likely to get. For example, men who live in Italy and Greece have a relatively low incidence of prostate cancer compared to men in America. They also have diets that are rich in tomato sauces. Does that mean that if you eat more tomato sauce that you will be less likely to develop prostate cancer? Of course not. It might be true, but odds are it isn't. The reason is that men who live in Italy and Greece differ from men in America in many, many other ways as well. They are probably less stressed overall, they might have more sex, they might drink more water, they could sleep more, they might get more exercise, they could be exposed to more sunlight, they might drink more wine, and on and on and on. No matter how hard you try to statistically control for all of these other variables, you can never do so in a convincing way because you simply cannot control for the variables you fail to think about.

To find out if the correlation between eating more tomato sauce and having a reduced risk of prostate cancer reflects an actual causal relationship, you have to perform an experiment. That is, you have to randomly assign, say, 100 men to the tomato sauce group and 100 men to the placebo group and follow them over the long term to see if the tomato sauce group has a lower risk of prostate cancer. Very often, when you perform the actual experiment, you are surprised by the lack of effect. I'm not sure if the "tomato sauce experiment" has been performed (perhaps we'll discover that, in this case, the connection really is causal), but my general point is that correlational research is useful for generating hypotheses, not for yielding confident conclusions. There are countless examples of compelling epidemiological correlations that went up in smoke when tested experimentally. Global warming research is correlational in nature and has generated a useful hypothesis. But that's all it has done.

In the absence of convincing evidence, many people are nevertheless convinced that greenhouse gasses account for most of the global warming that occurred over the last half century. If you find yourself completely convinced by purely correlational research, then you have learned something useful -- about yourself. The issue of global warming is like a Rorschach Inkblot Test that provides a window into your soul. If you set aside your biases, you'll come to realize that the evidence is suggestive, not conclusive, because correlational research can never be more than that.

The problem we face is this: in light of suggestive but inconclusive evidence that greenhouse gasses are significantly contributing to global warming, what should we do? That's a hard question to answer, so expect people to take the easy way out by adopting global warming as their surrogate religion and then denigrating those who challenge their faith. Here's Ellen Goodman, right on cue:

Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.

She obviously decided to take the easy option instead of trying to answer the hard question. Serious people should contemplate the hard question.

The Irrelevance of America's "Prestige"

There is news today about Bush's popularity among Arabs:

Poll shows Arabs dislike Bush

By Carol Giacomo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new poll on Thursday underscored deep Arab unhappiness with the United States but said the negative image could be repaired if Washington brokered a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace agreement.

The survey of 3,850 people in six Arab countries rated President George W. Bush as the most disliked world leader, while the United States and Israel were viewed as significantly greater threats than Iran.

Sixty-seven percent of the respondents said the United States could improve its image by brokering a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement.

I don't mean to sound glib, but I really don't care what the Arabs think about Bush (or about America for that matter). But don't get me wrong. If you offered me the choice of being liked or disliked by Arabs, I'd choose to be liked. But if they choose not to like America or its president, that's their business.

Here is an earlier poll showing how much Arabs dislike us and that further explains the lines along which they think:

Most Arabs polled said they believe that the Iraq war has caused more terrorism and brought about less democracy, and that the Iraqi people are far worse off today than they were while living under Hussein's rule. The majority also said they believe the United States invaded Iraq for oil, to protect Israel and to weaken the Muslim world.

Well, I'd say that most liberals in America feel the exact same way even though it deviates wildly from reality. The most recent poll of Iraqis that I am aware of was taken in September, many months after sectarian violence had jumped to high levels. You can find that poll here, and the most relevant results are as follows:


The chart shows the percentage of those who did, indeed, think that ousting Saddam was worth it. The Shiites make up about 60% of the population, the Kurds about 20% and the Sunnis about 20% (as indicated at the bottom of the chart). As you can see, despite the violence, the 80% of the country that was liberated by coalition forces prefer not to live under tyranny despite the violence (go figure). Only the 20% of the population that was living high on the hog at the expense of the rest of the population would prefer to see Saddam Hussein back in power. Yet Arabs around the world and liberals here at home are utterly convinced that we have made life worse for the Iraqis. As that article says, "Most Arabs polled said they believe that...the Iraqi people are far worse off today than they were while living under Hussein's rule." Well, the Iraqi people disagree, but don't let that stand in your way of hating America. The Iraqis themselves certainly don't (i.e., they dislike us, too, despite being happy that they have been liberated from tyranny).

So, the fact that Arabs don't like us because they can concoct a fantasy according to which we have destroyed the good life the Iraqis once enjoyed is not really a big issue from my point of view. It says much more about them than it does about us.

I know what you are thinking: "but maybe if they liked us, they'd be less inclined to intentionally slaughter unarmed, non-threatening, and completely innocent men, women and children!" Well, no, that's an inappropriate way to think. To see why, think about France. Do they like us? No, the French do not like us. But before you get too upset about that, ask yourself this question:

Does it matter?

When you stop to think about it, the surprising answer is "no." It does not matter at all. Again, if offered the choice of being liked or not by the French, I'd choose to be liked. But if, to be liked, America would have to coddle a tyrannical, genocidal dictator like Saddam Hussein, sign on to and then ignore the the Kyoto Protocol (as many countries around the world have done), and recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court, I'd rather be disliked. After all, as I said, being disliked by the French does not matter in any significant way.

Do you disagree? If so, you should try to enumerate the ways in which America suffers because the French don't like us. Does it hurt our economy in any way at all? No. Our economy could hardly be in better shape. Does it jeopardize our national security in anyway? No. The French never have been and never will be a reliable ally against any foe of America.

Our feelings about the French are mutual, but that fact does not hurt them very much either. Neither country is going to declare war on the other and neither will send deranged terrorists to kill and maim school children in the other's country. And because we are economically dependent on each other, we are likely to maintain trade ties.

I often hear people (liberals, mostly) lamenting the fact that America's prestige has suffered under Bush. And if prestige is the same as popularity, then it's true. It has suffered. But the point that needs to be made over and over again is that it simply does not matter. The price of being liked by the French is way too high, and the cost of not being liked is negligible. If I am wrong about that, I'd love to hear about the huge price we are paying for not being liked. I've put this question to many a liberal who laments our lost "prestige," and they are always stumped.

But what about Arabs and other Muslims? Some of them have this unfortunate tendency to intentionally self-detonate amongst innocent women and children. Isn't it important that they like us so they will be less inclined to do that? No. Instead, it's important for them to turn against terrorism. And they are according to the most recent polling data:


If our lost prestige were coupled with a general increase in support for terrorism throughout the Muslim world, then I would have to agree that our lack of popularity comes at a steep price. But as the Muslim world turns against America it so happens that they are turning against terrorism as well. Their turning against terrorism and joining the civilized world is vastly more important than them liking us. And, of course, their price for liking us is way too high.

So, let them dislike us because it just does not matter. What matters is that we change how the Muslims of the world feel about terrorism. They used to lovingly embrace the intentional slaughter of unarmed innocent women and children, but even they are starting to awaken to the reality of that primitive method.

This is not a popularity contest. It's a war on terror. People need to keep that in mind.

Taking Notice of al Qaeda in Iraq?

Readers of my blog know that I've been saying for quite some time now that the main problem in Iraq is al Qaeda and that proponents of withdrawal never so much as mention that terrorist organization (except, perhaps, to say that "the real terrorists are in Afghanistan, but Bush took his eye off the ball to fight a misbegotten war in Iraq"). Glenn Reynolds has an interesting post today about that:

A PRESS BLACKOUT? "bu Omar al-Baghdadi is Al Qaeda's guy in Iraq, and nowadays, the Sunni insurgency is being whittled down to Al Qaeda's activity in Iraq. It's that simple, and he's that important. So why isn't the Times writing that? I think the answer has something to do with what seems, to my eyes, to be a determined campaign to keep the American people from knowing the nature of the enemy in Iraq because identifying this enemy as Al Qaeda casts the debate about the war in a whole different light." (Via Ed Driscoll).

Indeed it does cast the debate about the war in a whole different light. But Democrats (and other critics) have adopted an eerie code of silence about the issue, which you can read about in the following posts if you are interested:

February 01, 2007
Francis Fukuyama is an Anticon

January 23, 2007
Jim Webb's Response Fails the Test of Seriousness

December 24, 2006
John Kerry Has No Comment On Al Qaeda

December 23, 2006
Liberal Analyses Ignore al Qaeda in Iraq

December 07, 2006
Stop Complaining about the Iraq Study Group

October 03, 2006
Should We Set a Timetable for Withdrawal or Send More Troops?

John Edwards is not a Viable Candidate

It will be interesting to watch the primary season unfold, especially if John Edwards wins the Democratic nomination. That would be a very surprising outcome because John Kerry's running mate in the last election just does not seem like a viable candidate to me.

Where do I begin? First, I am sure you know that he he amassed his fortune by working as a slick trial lawyer. One simply cannot listen to his efforts to persuade a jury without wincing in pain. You don't think so? See for yourself:

A Globe review of Edwards's career from the mid-1980s through 1997 reveals that he was more than just a practitioner of medical malpractice law. He was one of its most prominent specialists, stretching the reach of the law for nearly two decades. But he also came to personify some of the alleged excesses that reformers have sought to curb.

For instance, his summations routinely went beyond a recitation of his case to a heart-wrenching plea to jurors to listen to the unspoken voices of injured children.

"I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her, I feel her presence," he said in his record-setting 1985 lawsuit on behalf of Jennifer Campbell, born brain-damaged after being deprived of oxygen during labor. "She's inside me and she's talking to you. . . . And this is what she says to you. She says, `I don't ask for your pity. What I ask for is your strength. And I don't ask for your sympathy, but I do ask for your courage.' "

Critics say such emotional appeals can lead to pain-and-suffering awards that go beyond what's warranted. "There's a feeling that jury verdicts are not based on just the facts," said Nick Ellis, president-elect of the North Carolina Association of Defense Attorneys.

Yuck. He made millions based on his ability to tug at the heartstrings of jurors, and I'm not sure that says anything good about the man.

What has he done with his millions, other than purchase a seat in the US Senate? Well, Mr. "Two Americas" is spending his fortune like this:

Edwards Takes Heat Over Lavish Estate
Critics say Edwards' lavish home contrasts his campaign's anti-poverty message

Democrat John Edwards, who has made an anti-poverty message the theme of his 2008 presidential campaign, is taking heat for the lavish home he has constructed in Orange County, N.C.

In December, Edwards chose the modest backyard of a New Orleans woman who had lost her home to Hurricane Katrina as the image that best underscored his campaign theme.

Now voters are seeing another, sharply contrasting image of Edwards: his own home.

Sitting on 102 secluded acres _ surrounded by trees and defended by no-trespassing signs _ the 28,000-square-foot estate that Edwards and his family call home has presidential privacy.

A main home has five bedrooms and six-and-a-half baths. It's connected by a covered walkway to a bright red addition known as "The Barn," that includes its own living facilities along with a handball court, an indoor pool and an indoor basketball court with a stage at one end. Nearby, the family has cleared space for a soccer field.

With a current building value of $4.3 million, the unfinished Edwards estate is already about $1 million more expensive than any other house in the county, according to tax records. It sits on land worth about $1.1 million.

It looks to me like Robin Hood stole from the rich and, instead of giving it to the poor, he built himself a mansion. There's nothing wrong with that -- not at all -- but it somehow makes his anti-poverty message hard to swallow. It reinforces the hard-to-escape impression that the same skills he used to bamboozle juries are now being used to bamboozle America about his deep and abiding concern for the poor. That concern could be genuine, but his ultra-lavish accommodations make you wonder.

Then there was this recent development:

February 7, 2007, 11:51 am
Edwards’s Blogger Blooper
By Kate Phillips

The efforts by 2008 presidential contenders to exploit the megaphone of the blogosphere has hit a bump, it seems, as former Senator John Edwards’s hiring of two controversial bloggers gathers more attention than his health care plan or even his new McMansion spread in North Carolina.

We are catching up a bit on the controversy. We first saw a kernel of this mentioned on Instapundit last week, when one of the two new bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, was supposedly caught by some other bloggers “airbrushing” some of her cruder language out of a post at her site, Pandagon.

The campaign also hired Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister. [forgive our earlier typo making sisters plural by accident.]
But now, both are under the spotlight, or rather the glare, with at least one blogger (Dean Barnett over at TownHall.com) taking up a pool as to when the two might be fired by Mr. Edwards. Some are counting the hours.

On top of the pair’s vulgar language in some posts, Bill Donohue of the conservative Catholic League called on Tuesday for their ouster from the campaign’s nascent Internet foray, complaining about their anti-Catholic rants. (We can’t repeat here some of their writings; they are quite frequently profane. Michelle Malkin has catalogued some posts here.)

Go to Michelle Malkin's site to read the liberal profanity spewed by these bloggers that Edwards thought would be good for his campaign. For the life of me I cannot figure out why so many liberals think it is cute and sassy to express their ideas using profanity. I thought that way during my early adolescence, but I eventually outgrew it. By contrast, liberal uber-blogger Daily Kos (for example) thinks that swearing helps him to make an intellectual contribution to various debates. The liberal bloggers hired by Edwards apparently feel the same way. It's a very weird phenomenon that does not apply to any of the uber-bloggers on the right.

Well, John Edwards' slick closing-argument nonsense, his lavish mansion, and the potty-mouthed bloggers he adores are relatively minor issues. More serious is his once reasonable stance on Iraq and how that compares to his current stance. As I noted before, many liberals accused George Bush of falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein posed an "imminent threat" (remember that controversy?). In truth, George Bush never used those words except to say that we cannot simply wait around doing nothing while Saddam Hussein becomes an imminent threat. By contrast, John Edwards did state very clearly (on more than one occasion) that Saddam posed an imminent threat. In a 2003 interview on Hardball, he had this to say to Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about-Since you did support the resolution and you did support that ultimate solution to go into combat and to take over that government and occupy that country. Do you think that you, as a United States Senator, got the straight story from the Bush administration on this war? On the need for the war? Did you get the straight story?

EDWARDS: Well, the first thing I should say is I take responsibility for my vote. Period. And I did what I did based upon a belief, Chris, that Saddam Hussein’s potential for getting nuclear capability was what created the threat. That was always the focus of my concern. Still is the focus of my concern.

So did I get misled? No. I didn’t get misled.

MATTHEWS: Did you get an honest reading on the intelligence?

EDWARDS: But now we’re getting to the second part of your question.

I think we have to get to the bottom of this. I think there’s clear inconsistency between what’s been found in Iraq and what we were told.

And as you know, I serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee. So it wasn’t just the Bush administration. I sat in meeting after meeting after meeting where we were told about the presence of weapons of mass destruction. There is clearly a disconnect between what we were told and what, in fact, we found there.

You don't say? The sentences in bold are simply blasphemy for anyone suffering from even a mild case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. And then there was more blasphemy in this interview with Larry King in February of 2002:

KING: Senator Edwards, when discussing the North Korean problem, the president wants to confront the regime, deal with its own missiles program plus its exports. There is not a reasonable military option when it comes to North Korea is there?

EDWARDS: Well, I don't think we're focused on military options right now, John.

I think it was important, in answer to your last question, it was important for the president to go to the region. I think he did help alleviate some of the concerns that people in that area had about this "axis of evil" comment.

But I do think that the more serious question going forward is, what are we going to do? I mean, we have three different countries that, while they all present serious problems for the United States -- they're dictatorships, they're involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries. I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country.

And I think they -- as a result, we have to, as we go forward and as we develop policies about how we're going to deal with each of these countries and what action, if any, we're going to take with respect to them, I think each of them have to be dealt with on their own merits.

And they do, in my judgment, present different threats. And I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat.

He sounds just like George Bush, doesn't he? I give him a great deal of credit for that. Once upon a time, he was an honest man. Although the intelligence information was wrong, he accepted it and drew reasonable conclusions (exactly like George Bush did). Now, of course, with the Democratic primaries approaching, his finger is in the wind and he is turning on his prior position.

Here is his mea culpa ("I was wrong" he says about his vote to support the invasion), in November of 2005, in which he also explained how we should solve the problem of Iraq. It is a typical liberal analysis in that the words "al Qaeda" are nowhere to be found. It is always that way with liberal analyses. That's why I rarely consider such analyses to be serious.

But my main point is that Edwards had already strongly -- and reasonably -- defended his support for the war long after everyone knew that the WMD threat was vastly overstated by the intelligence community. Last Sunday, Tim Russert called him on this in an interview on Meet the Press. Edwards was simply surreal in his attempt to explain away his finger-in-the-wind conversion on this issue:

MR. RUSSERT: Many have suggested, included some of the candidates Friday at the Democratic National Committee, that the reason so many Democrats voted for giving the president authority in October of 2002 was a political calculation. They were afraid of the midterm elections of 2002. Do you think that’s fair?

SEN. EDWARDS: It’s a—it’s a completely fair question. If I—if I were watching a, a politician under those circumstances, I’d be very cynical about what their motives are, and why, why they did what they did. I can only tell you, in my case, I came to the conclusion, turned out to be wrong, that the president should be given this authority.

I do think it’s important—again, not defensively—but important to point out that I didn’t run the war and neither did the other people in Congress who voted for the war. The president’s the one who made this extraordinary mess. I mean, it’s been mistake after mistake after mistake. But I did cast this vote, and I’m the person responsible for this vote, no one else.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me bring you back to October 10th of 2004. You were running for vice president, a few weeks before the election...

SEN. EDWARDS: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: ...you were on this program. The war...

SEN. EDWARDS: I remember.

MR. RUSSERT: The war is now a year and a half old, and I asked you about your vote. Let’s watch.

SEN. EDWARDS: Sure.

(Videotape, October 10, 2004)

MR. RUSSERT: If you knew today, and you do know, there is—there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, would you still vote to go to war with Iraq?

SEN. EDWARDS: I would have voted for the resolution, knowing what I know today, because it was the right thing to do to give the president the authority to confront Saddam Hussein.

I think Saddam Hussein was a very serious threat. I stand by that, and that’s why we stand behind our vote on the resolution.

(End of videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: That’s a year and a half into the war.

SEN. EDWARDS: Mm-hmm. Perfect—that’s a very fair question. I can tell you what happened with me, personally. We got through—I was—at that point, I was in the middle of a very intense campaign, one that I thought was very important for America. When the campaign was over and the election was over, we had a lot going on in my own family. Elizabeth had been diagnosed with breast cancer, we were taking care of her. And for the first time I had time to really think about, number one, what I was going to spend my time doing, and, number two, my vote for this war. And over time, when I reflected on what I thought was going to be necessary going forward, to have some moral foundation to work on issues like poverty and genocide, things that I care deeply about, I could no longer defend this vote. It was pretty simple. And I got to the place I felt like I had to say it and had to say it publicly. And so—what?--a year—a year or so ago I did that.

MR. RUSSERT: But if you look back and people say, well, the midterm elections of 2002, the Democrats did not have the courage to stand up to President Bush and voted for the war, weeks before the mid—the presidential election of 2004, you’re running for vice president of the United States, a chance to say something about the war. Instead you said, ‘My vote was correct, Saddam was a threat.’

SEN. EDWARDS: But in—but in fairness we were very critical about the war at that point, during the 2004 campaign, very critical about the war, very critical of what was happening with the war, the impact that the war had had on America’s moral standing in the world. But, you know, my, my vote was wrong, and I, I—and I take responsibility for it.

Good grief. Have you ever seen anyone squirm like that? He's effectively saying "Oh sure, I had no political courage whatsoever, but I was critical of Bush while he was trying to wage a difficult war -- very critical -- and that's the important thing."

How inspiring.

As I said, John Edwards does not seem like a viable candidate to me. I can hardly wait to find out if I am right or wrong about that.

NIE Reports, Old and New

Do you remember when a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was leaked to the press before the last election? Giddy liberal reporters fell all over themselves to excitedly explain how we all get to blame Bush for creating more terrorists with his misbegotten Iraq war. Ignoring the report's most important message, reporters triumphantly quoted (or paraphrased) this line:

The Iraq conflict has become the cause celebre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

Fine. The Iraq conflict has also dramatically reduced support for terrorism throughout the Muslim world, but reporters have amnesia when it comes to that fact, and they wouldn't report even if they did remember it because it would dampen the anti-Bush celebration. Even to this day, Bush critics are invariably shocked when I point out that support for terrorism is decreasing (not increasing) in the Muslim world. Their reaction to news like this is much like Kubler-Ross' 5 stages of grief:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

If they ever get to stage 5, a liberal critic's acceptance of the facts (shown below) will also include a stage-1-like denial of the idea that George Bush has anything to do with it (as if it would have happened had Al Gore been president). Anyway, here are the poll results that place that NIE report into some perspective:


This chart is a little hard to read, but focus on the "Never" column (showing the percentage of respondents who think that violence against civilians is never justified) and consider how that number has changed in recent years for Jordan, Pakistan and Indonesia.

In any case, a far more important message in that prior NIE report was as follows:

...we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization.
...
Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

John Murtha and John Kerry favor a plan -- which can be called "strategic redeployment" or "raising the white flag of surrender," depending on your point of view -- that will undoubtedly cause the jihadists to perceive themselves to have succeeded in Iraq. That would, in my view, reinforce the world's most dangerous theory, which is that America is a paper tiger whose resolve is easily shaken.

I have been arguing for some time that we cannot withdraw from Iraq because that would effectively amount to a defeat at the hands of al Qaeda. Now, a newly released National Intelligence Estimate only serves to reinforce my view. And, so far as I can tell, it completely undercuts the Democrats who think that withdrawing from Iraq is a good idea. If only a single advocate of withdrawal would confront these issues, I'd be amazed. Here is some of what the report says:

Coalition capabilities, including force levels, resources, and operations, remain an essential stabilizing element in Iraq. If Coalition forces were withdrawn rapidly during the term of this Estimate, we judge that this almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq, intensify Sunni resistance to the Iraqi Government, and have adverse consequences for national reconciliation.

If such a rapid withdrawal were to take place, we judge that the ISF would be unlikely to survive as a non-sectarian national institution; neighboring countries—invited by Iraqi factions or unilaterally—might intervene openly in the conflict; massive civilian casualties and forced population displacement would be probable; AQI [i.e., al Qaeda in Iraq] would attempt to use parts of the country—particularly al-Anbar province—to plan increased attacks in and outside of Iraq; and spiraling violence and political disarray in Iraq, along with Kurdish moves to control Kirkuk and strengthen autonomy, could prompt Turkey to launch a military incursion.

Do you favor withdrawal? Fine. Grapple with these facts while explaining your position. And if you idolize John Murtha, John Kerry or Chuck Hagel, ask yourself why none of them will ever so much as mention al Qaeda in Iraq when they knowing explain why it's time to leave.

As you can see, the intelligence analysts (unlike "blame-Bush" Democrats) are serious, and they are paying attention to the details. They know that Zarqawi spelled out a clear plan for Iraq. He wrote it all down in a letter that was captured in 2004, one that you can read for yourself here. The plan, in a nutshell, was as follows:

So i say again, the only solution is to strike the religious, military, and other cadres of the Shi'a so that they revolt against the Sunnis.
...
If we are able to deal them blow after painful blow so that they engage in a battle, we will be able to reshuffle the cards so there will remain no value or influence for the ruling council, or even for the Americans who will enter into a second battle with the Shi'a. This is what we want. Then, the Sunni will have no choice but to support us in many of the Sunni regions.

Well, the Shiites have revolted against the Sunnis in response to the painful blows inflicted by al Qaeda.

Now what?

That's the only question. Bush has given his answer. I wish the Democrats would offer a non-binding resolution giving theirs. Instead, as always, they favor a resolution that simply says "Bush is wrong." Thus, even after their recent election victory, the Democrats still refuse to be serious about Iraq. That fact speaks volumes to me.

The Death Penalty, in the News

Pre 9/11, people used to argue about whether or not the mainstream media exhibits a liberal bias. Nowadays, even liberals concede the point. This bias is especially apparent on the issue of the death penalty. Consider this story recently published by Reuters:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The death penalty is under what may be an unprecedented review in the United States, mostly involving questions about lethal injection, by far the most common method of execution.

"Although many of the stays of executions are due to the lethal injection process, the openness of courts, of governors and legislators to reconsider issues that were thought to be settled is a sign of broad discomfort with the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, head of the Death Penalty Information Center, which works against capital punishment.

Liberal opponents of the death penalty are oddly inclined to try to convince anyone who will listen that opinions about the death penalty are inexorably trending their way, as if there is an "evolving standard of decency" on this issue. That's a liberal media Hall of Fame phrase, by the way. In a few short words, it conveys the idea that there is a trend in the liberal direction, that the trend reflects an "evolution" in thinking (not just a change), and that the direction of change is toward the "decent" end of the spectrum and away from the indecent end. I can't remember who first said that, but I love the phrase nonetheless.

In any case, as is typical in stories about the death penalty, the article suggests to readers that this evolution in thinking is underway. A non-liberal reporter would point to some actual evidence that supports the claim made by this partisan expert or, at a minimum, would seek out the opinion of other experts who might disagree. But this reporter thinks it makes more sense to just keep quoting Richard Dieter, who is saying the words that the reporter wishes were true:

"The public is also beginning to wonder whether a program with so many problems and risks is worth keeping, for whatever supposed value it might have," he added.

Really? What makes him think so? I don't think so, for reasons I'll present in a moment.

The reporter then presents a few additional facts that help to reinforce the idea that there is an evolving standard of decency on this issue (in a transparent attempt to get you to change your mind lest you be left behind when the "decency train" leaves the station):

Sixty-nine territories and countries, including the United States, use the death penalty, while 128 countries have abolished it, according to Amnesty International, a human rights group that works to end capital punishment.

According to Dieter's group, Illinois and New Jersey have a formal moratorium on all executions, while lethal injection issues have also halted them in Arkansas, California, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and South Dakota, in addition to the other states mentioned.

Polls indicate a majority of the U.S. populace supports capital punishment, though the numbers have dropped since some states adopted life-without-parole options for courts to consider.

Really? What polls? The reporter does not say. That's because what he says is not true.

Let's try to unpack what he might be referring to. First, let's again look at support for the death penalty in the United States over the years (found here):


Support for the death penalty declined a bit in the late 1990s, but it has remained stable at 2-to-1 in favor for a while now. There is not the slightest hint of a change, which is something that I am sure would really bother this reporter (where is that evolving standard of decency, anyway?).

What if you ask about the option of life in prison? Here are the results:


As you can see, it is about a 50/50 split, and it is also not changing. Of course, as I have noted before, this is an odd question. There are more than 10,000 arrests for murder each year, and I doubt that anyone wants 10,000 executions per year. Most people would want life in prison for most cases and the death penalty for a subset of cases. That being the case, how is one supposed to answer the either/or question that was asked?

To gauge support for the death penalty as it is applied in the United States, the question should be: "do you support retaining the death penalty as an option for prosecutors to seek in cases of especially heinous murders, such as the rape and murder of a young child or the murder of an on-duty police officer, or should life in prison without the possibility of parole be the most severe penalty allowable?" The answer to that question would tell you the level of support for the death penalty.

But don't expect a liberal reporter to do anything other than write an article designed to create the impression that all decent people are finally seeing the light and withdrawing their support for the death penalty. It's not happening, but it's pretty easy to find news reports suggesting that it is.

Earnest liberal reporters with a well-meaning agenda haven't had much of an effect on support for the death penalty, but they do seem to have convinced the public that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to murder. Here are the results from one relevant poll:


I was among those who once believed that the death penalty did not serve as a deterrent (I've never read anything to the contrary in the news), which is why I was so astonished to encounter undisputed data like this:


This graph shows that when the number of executions per year dropped towards zero in the U.S., the murder rate increased. When executions increased again, the murder rate dropped. That certainly suggests that actual executions might serve as a deterrent to murder (i.e., executing guilty people might save the lives of innocent people). This evidence does not prove a causal relationship, but I can say this with a very high degree of confidence: these numbers do not even slightly reinforce the widespread belief that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent to murder. And if people were exposed to this graph, they'd be shocked, as I was. If the results were different and instead showed support for the "brutalization hypothesis" (according to which executions cause people to go out and murder more often), I have no doubt that the chart would be well known and would even appear in textbooks. But the results are what they are, so the information is top secret instead.

Taking on the Mahdi Army (and Avoiding Clinton Derangement Syndrome)

I'm always looking for evidence bearing on my theory that the coming crackdown in Baghdad will focus on Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda terrorists while leaving the Mahdi Army alone (assuming they cooperate, of course). I actually think that's how it should be, which pretty much sets me apart from the rest of the blogosphere, so far as I can tell. Here is a new article that does little to disabuse me of my theory:

Baghdad offensive set to begin - U.S. officers

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S.-Iraqi campaign to stabilize Baghdad will begin soon and the offensive against militants will be on a scale never seen during four years of war, American officers said on Sunday.

Briefing a small group of foreign reporters, three American colonels who are senior advisers to the Iraqi army and police in Baghdad said a command center overseeing the crackdown would be activated on Monday.

"The expectation is the plan will be implemented soon thereafter," Colonel Doug Heckman, senior adviser to the 9th Iraqi Army division, said at a U.S. military base in Baghdad.

OK, here it comes. At the end of February, I'll be plotting up casualty statistics to see if there is any evidence of progress. This does not mean that I am actively hoping for failure, like an astounding 31% of my fellow Democrats are. I sincerely hope for success, both for our troops and for the Iraqi people, and I even believe that there is a chance for success (in Baghdad, anyway). However, I also believe that you have to face the facts even if you don't like what they have to say. So, as always, I'll be taking a sober look at the casualty statistics when the time comes.

With regard to the focus of the new effort by American and Iraqi troops, the article goes on to address the issue of whether or not the coming crackdown will target the Mahdi Army. One indication that it might would be provided by a direct answer to that very question (e.g., an answer like "yes, we are going to hit the Mahdi Army hard by going after their foot soldiers in Sadr City"). But no American official has ever answered that way (not that I have seen, anyway), and here is the latest answer that was given to that question:

Asked if the Mehdi Army's stronghold in Sadr City would be cleaned out, Heckman acknowledged the political sensitivity but said all options were open.

"If we feel we need to clear Sadr City to bring stability, we will do that. Are there restrictions that will not allow us to do that? Right now there are not," Heckman said.

If we feel the need? Translation: if the Mahdi Army behaves itself, we are not going to go looking for a fight. If they keep up their ethnic cleansing, though, we'll have to take action against them.

Again, there will almost certainly be some clashes with rogue elements of the Mahdi Army. It is not, after all, a disciplined fighting force with all elements under the strict command of Muqtada al Sadr. Still, a large-scale confrontation involving a clear-and-hold strategy in Sadr City may not be in the cards. I hope the Mahdi Army will stop their execution campaign against Sunni males when they see evidence that the troop surge is keeping Sunni militants in Baghdad (both insurgents and terrorists) under control. That would be vastly preferable to a direct confrontation with them.

Although I'll be looking for some sign of success next month, the military is setting a much longer time frame:

"The end of the summer is when we should see some concrete results and be able to say is this working or not," Heckman said. That would be around September.

The outcome of the troop surge in Baghdad will probably play a large role in determining who becomes our next president. If it works, those standing in opposition today will be reminded that they chose not to stand with our troops -- or with the Iraqi people -- in their hour of need. If it fails, John McCain will be reminded that this was, essentially, his idea, in which case Hillary Clinton would seem to be the odds on favorite to win. Could this be why so many Democrats openly hope that al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents will defeat this American initiative (i.e., defeat our troops) and prevent stability in Iraq (i.e., prevent the continuing mass slaughter of innocent civilians)? It's the only explanation I can think of.

Those who support the president's efforts in Iraq are, I assume, uniformly horrified by the poisoned state of mind that afflicts up to one half of the Democratic party. But there is a lesson to be learned here. If Clinton wins, Republicans (and Democratic supporters of the president's national security policies) should work hard to avoid descending into Clinton Derangement Syndrome. The recipe for doing that is to avoid angrily accusing Clinton of every conceivable character flaw and to avoid hoping for America's failure when she adopts policies that you don't like. A much, much better approach would be to argue strongly against Clinton's policies based on logic and reasoned analysis while nevertheless hoping that those policies succeed and leave America in a better place. Calling her a "liar" (or whatever you might plan to call her) to avoid the hard debate is a way to gain cheap political points at the expense of your own country.

Al Qaeda has the Upper Hand in Iraq

If you aren't already, get used to this:

Feb 3, 2007 BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed 135 people on Saturday in the deadliest single bombing in Iraq since the 2003 war, driving a truck laden with one ton of explosives into a market in a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad.
...
"All Iraqis were shaken today by this crime," Maliki said in a statement in which he again spoke of his government's determination to crush the militants. "The Saddamists and Takfirists (Sunni militants) have committed another crime."
...
A militant group linked to al Qaeda -- the Islamic State in Iraq -- vowed in a Web recording on Saturday to widen its attacks to all parts of Iraq instead of just focusing on Baghdad and would only stop when "Bush signs a surrender accord."

Suicide bomber? Check. Indiscriminate slaughter of Shiites, including men, women and children? Check. Looks like the work of al Qaeda to me.

Who are the "Takfirists" that the prime minister partially blames this attack on? Here is how Wikipedia defines them:

In modern times, the term has been adopted as a badge of pride by an Egyptian group called Takfir wal-Hijra. Adherents to the sect were urged to cut all ties with non-members (takfir) and leave to join the sectarian communes (hijra, or migration). Hence the word is sometimes used in contemporary discourse in a neutral way, as a reference to this Egyptian group.

It is also used as a term of abuse for the Salafi and Wahabi versions of Islam.

Opponents of these groups point to the Wahhabi history of conquest or the violent ideology of Islamist terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and claim that Wahhabis and Salafis are therefore takfiris, willing to kill other Muslims whom they regard as insufficiently Muslim.

So, I think he might be referring to al Qaeda or like-minded terrorists. Whether or not that's true, it definitely looks like al Qaeda in action to me, slaughtering Shiites so that they will continue the assault and ethnic cleansing of Sunnis. Here is another story that seems to support my claim that the spectacular bombings in Baghdad (like the latest bombing) are often the work of al Qaeda:

AIRSTRIKE TARGETS SENIOR AL QAIDA LEADERS NEAR ARAB JABOUR

BAGHDAD, IRAQ ? Coalition Forces targeted the leadership of an al-Qaida in Iraq related vehicle-borne improvised explosives devices network Friday during an airstrike operation near Arab Jabour.

Intelligence reports indicated that this network is responsible for a large and devastating number of VBIED attacks in the Baghdad area. They are also responsible for IED and sniper attacks conducted against the Iraqi people and Iraqi and Coalition Forces.

Coalition Forces believe that key terrorist leaders were killed during the airstrike.

VBIEDs are car bombs, often driven by suicide bombers. That's what al Qaeda does. And they are doing it not only to incite civil war (which is good for them) but also because they know you can't stand it. And they are right, aren't they? This is a weird war in which one side wins merely by keeping violence alive, not by acquiring any territory or by controlling any aspect of the government.

Here is more on al Qaeda's new threat:

Al Qaeda-linked group vows to widen Iraq attacks
By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle

DUBAI (Reuter) - An Iraqi militant group linked to al Qaeda vowed on Saturday to widen its attacks to all parts of Iraq instead of just focusing on Baghdad, after Washington announced plans to beef up its forces in the capital.

The leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, a body set up by al Qaeda's Iraq wing and other Sunni militant groups in October, said in a Web recording the campaign would stop only "when (U.S. President George W.) Bush signs a surrender accord".

"We today announce a strategy ... which is wider and wiser with God's power. It does not involve Baghdad alone but all parts of the Islamic state," said the speaker, identified as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the group.

In January Bush said he would send 21,500 more U.S. soldiers to Iraq in an effort to crack down on sectarian killings and insurgent attacks, especially in Baghdad.

Baghdadi said Bush was giving Muslim fighters a chance "to slaughter the wounded crusader giant and take advantage of the collapsing morale of its soldiers and commanders".

I wish someone would ask the Democratic leadership if they think that George Bush should sign the surrender accord offered by al Qaeda or not (and if not, what do they think the response should be?). And an inquisitive reporter could also ask the Democratic leadership if their recent actions help to reinforce al Qaeda's giddy analysis of American morale. Well, maybe not, since no Democrat would actually answer the question. Instead, they'd say "George Bush is destroying America's morale by starting this unjust war with lies and then fighting that war with incompetence, all the while ignoring the victims of Katrina." And if you hate Bush, that probably feels like an answer to the question, even though it would obviously be an evasion designed to avoid the awkwardness of a direct answer.

In any case, when al Qaeda says that they will widen their attacks to all parts of Iraq, I believe them. Completely. That's what they will do even if we manage to quell the violence in Baghdad. They will do it because it is their ace in the hole. They are confident that they can continue to set off bombs and that CNN cameras will bring you the carnage live and in color (and in gory detail). They are also confident that, before too much longer, you will cry uncle. And then they will really be in business. If I had to bet money on the ultimate outcome, I'd bet on al Qaeda. It pains me to say that, but America's morale appears to be crumbling in exact accordance with the well-thought-out plans of al Qaeda. As they see it, when they bomb civilians, it's your job to become demoralized and to start savaging your own president (if you haven't already). An ever increasing number of Americans have decided to follow al Qaeda's script to the letter. We are not exactly acting like the stalwart British in WW II, are we? And in WW II, it was the British themselves being bombed, not the recently liberated people of a faraway land. Well, perhaps that's what it takes (i.e., perhaps our resolve will be renewed only when al Qaeda comes calling here again).

We want the Iraqis to live in a peaceful democracy, and we tried (and are still trying) to give that to them. I sincerely hope we will succeed. But liberal critics might be right when they say that "those people" are simply not up to it. I still hope that they are up to it, but if the liberals are right in their negative assessment of the Arab mentality, then there is nothing that can really be done about it. Establishing democracy in Iraq is our second most important goal. If it turns out to be impossible, then we must concentrate on our most important goal: defeating al Qaeda. That would mean making sure that the Shiites prevail, in which case we would have to live with Muqtada al Sadr having a strong influence over the future of Iraq. That would not be ideal, but Muqtada is a vastly smaller threat to America and Europe than al Qaeda is. Even if Muqtada decides to remain closely allied with Iran, which seems unlikely to me, that does not seem terribly problematic because, in all likelihood, Iran is going to economically self-destruct before they bring American or Israeli bombs down on themselves for building a nuclear bomb. And we might see more activity like this before Iran become the next North Korea:

Report: Iranian scientist assassinated by Mossad

A US-funded Iranian radio station reported on Sunday morning that a scientist involved in Iran's nuclear program died two weeks ago in mysterious circumstances.

According to a report in the London's Sunday Times, an American source hinted that the scientist, Prof. Ardshir Hassanpur, 44, was assassinated by the Mossad.

Who knows if that's true, but even if it isn't, it's probably good for Iranian nuclear scientists to start worrying about the possibility that the Mossad is interested in them.

I'm not too Disappointed in Hillary

Hillary Clinton has been a steadfast supporter of Bush's approach to the war on terror, including the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Also, in the past, she has made comments that indicate that she appreciates the long-term consequences of losing that war in either country. For example, in the past, she has said lots of sensible things like this:

America has a big job to do now. We must set reasonable goals to finish what we started and successfully turn over Iraqi security to Iraqis. We must deny terrorists the prize they are now seeking in Iraq.

It's why I've never really feared another Clinton presidency (Hillary this time), although I have been puzzled by her popularity in the Democratic party. Shouldn't they hate her guts for having the strength to seriously confront the threat we face from radical Islam? For similar reasons, I've been puzzled by John McCain's popularity among Democrats. If Democrats were consistent, they'd hate these people, call them liars, accuse them favoring blood for oil, and so on.

In any case, I knew that Hillary would have to change her tune when she announced her candidacy for president. After all, she seeks the nomination from a party 50% of which is either sure that they want al Qaeda to prevail over America in Iraq or are not sure who they support. She cannot continue to be sensible on issues of national security if she hopes to appeal to those extremists (because she needs their votes in the primaries). As such, I was not too surprised by her sudden change of tone:

Clinton Promises to End War if Elected

"If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president, I will,"
...
Clinton said while the resolution may not be perfect, it represents the first time Congress has stood against the president on the war.

"There are many people who wish we could do more,'' Clinton said.

"You can!'' came a call from a small gathering of activists from the peace group Code Pink. Others in their group standing along a side wall chimed in, calling for a binding resolution that would end the war immediately, while some nearby audience members asked them to quiet down.

"But let me say,'' Clinton said, her voice rising above the din, "that if we can get a large, bipartisan vote to disapprove this president's plan for escalation, that will be the first time that we will have said no to President Bush and began to reverse his policies. Now, I want to go further.''

"Bring them home, then,'' said a man dressed in desert camouflage that said "Iraq Veterans Against the War.'' Clinton said she has proposed capping U.S. troop levels and pulling funding for Iraqi forces, but won't cut funding for U.S. troops while they are on the battlefield.

Those hecklers are undoubtedly from the extremist wing of the Democratic party that wants the troops brought home, not because they support them in any way (torturers and rapists and journalist killers that they are), but because they want to secure America's defeat as soon as possible (by their own admission, if polls are to be believed -- and I believe them).

You should not think that I am exaggerating here. Even liberal columnists openly (and lovingly) embrace the concept of America's defeat, as I have noted before:

For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?

People with this attitude constitute a big part of Hillary's party. So don't be too hard on her as she succumbs to the extremist nonsense that is embraced by fully half of her own party.

January in Iraq

As usual, I have plotted up civilian causalities in Iraq for the month of January according to the statistics at icasualities.org (the numbers have been appropriately corrected for certain months for reasons that I have described at length in prior posts):


The graph shows when al Qaeda pulled off their critical attack (the one that liberal "big-ol'-civil-war" analysts seem to know nothing about). Civilian causalities started to increase immediately thereafter as the Shiite militias took up al Qaeda's invitation to start killing Sunnis. The casualties have increased ever since, though they seem to have leveled off over the last 3 months. I hope to see some improvement in these numbers as the troop surge gets underway over the next few months. In that respect, I am unlike many of my fellow Democrats. An unbelievable 34% of Democrats openly admit that they do not want the troop surge to succeed (i.e., they do not want to see it to result in a more stable Iraq). Why? Presumably because they are so badly afflicted by Bush Derangement Syndrome that they'd rather see the Iraqis suffer indefinitely than to see George Bush get any credit for improving the situation. They are, in effect, siding with al Qaeda in Iraq, though many probably fail to appreciate that fact since their perceptions are shaped largely by pictures and headlines offered up by the mainstream media. Another 15% of Democrats are not sure if they want the surge to succeed (i.e., they are unsure whether they side with America or with our enemies in Iraq). I never imagined that the political polarization in American would reach that level of pathology, but apparently it has.

In any case, the casualties in January still seem to correspond to my tripartite analysis:

1. attacks on US soldiers, Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi infrastructure are mostly carried out by Sunni insurgents hoping to restore themselves power (though Shiite militias plant some of those IEDs as well). As I have said before, the media should continue to refer to these people as insurgents, not terrorists.

2. the ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter of innocent men, women and children of the Shiite sect by suicide bombers is the work of al Qaeda in Iraq working to demoralize Americans and to keep the Shiite militias fighting (about 240 January causalities in Baghdad appear to fall into this category). The media mistakenly refers to these killers as insurgents, but the proper term is "terrorists." It is almost comical that mainstream media reporters often cannot bring themselves to use that term for fear of seeming judgmental. Insurgents do not intentionally slaughter women and children. Terrorists do. Any reporter who can't appreciate that distinction needs a brain transplant.

3. The targeted execution of Sunni males found bound, tortured and shot is the work of Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army (about 600 January casualities in Baghdad appear to fall into this category)

The Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda terrorists constitute the enemy in Iraq. Many believe that the Mahdi Army is the enemy as well, and to some extent they are (e.g., they sometimes attack American troops). But for the most part, they are operating as an effective ally by targeting Sunni males who might be involved in the insurgency or might be harboring al Qaeda. The recent al Qaeda attacks in Baghdad occurred mostly at the end of January, right after the Mahdi Army started to keep a lower profile in preparation for the troop surge. Imagine what would happen if American troops started to aggressively target Muqtada's troops. It would be a dream come true for al Qaeda.

I sincerely hope the troop surge works, but al Qaeda has a strong hand to play. The more they bomb, the more the media misleadingly talks about "insurgents" and "militias" fighting a "civil war" (as if al Qaeda does not exist), and the more Americans savage their own president and start calling for withdrawal. As such, you can be sure that al Qaeda is lining up the suicide bombers in preparation for the troop surge.

Memo to CNN: al Qaeda thinks that the public has a right to know about every gory detail of their "insurgent" activities, so be sure not to disappoint them in the coming confrontation. I am sure you won't.

Meanwhile, the always great Victor Davis Hanson makes a point about Democrats that I and many others have been making for quite some time (since well before the invasion, actually):

Hedging on Iraq
The Democrats prepare for anything, and advocate nothing
...
Democrats seem to be saying that the Iraqis aren’t worth another American life, and that the hope of democracy over there was misplaced, making futile the rare opportunity offered by American blood and treasure.

It matters little whether this is factually correct; their only concern is the immediate political ramifications of such a “blame ’em” stance.

...
It is fine for Democrats to talk of “redeployment” out of Iraq, “engagement” with Syria and Iran, more soft power, Europeans and the United Nations, organizing “regional interests,” etc. — until one realizes that we did mostly just that for most of the 1990s.

And? We got Syrian absorption of Lebanon, Afghanistan as an al Qaeda base, a Libyan WMD program, worldwide serial terrorist attacks, Oslo, a Pakistani bomb, a full-bore Iranian nuclear program, Oil-for-Food — and 9/11. If one doubts any of this, just reflect on why the Democrats have not offered any specific alternative plans. And when pressed, they usually talk only of “talking” and thereby bring embarrassment to even their liberal questioners.

The blame game he refers to, which is what Democrats spend most of their time doing, is obviously done for partisan political purposes and may help to explain why so many Democrats openly admit to cheering for the success of the enemy in Iraq. That sort of political posturing would be quite normal and completely understandable if we were talking about, say, an economic recession. Whatever party is in power during a recession, the other party can and should attack them for incompetence (even if the policies of the party in power have nothing to do with the recession). There is nothing unpatriotic about that. But it's not that way in a time of war. Relentlessly playing the blame game in a time of war without offering any coherent alternative (ever) goes beyond mere criticism of the president. Mere criticism, coupled with a coherent plan boldly expressed for the good of the country even if it would entail political costs, would amount to patriotic opposition. Unfortunately, but most so-called liberals these days are better thought of as anticons (who, when it comes to matters of national security, stand against the president and in favor of nothing).

Francis Fukuyama is an Anticon

I had not heard of Francis Fukuyama until left-wing Bush-haters started celebrating the fact that a "neocon" (namely, Francis Fukuyama) was criticizing the invasion of Iraq. Since then, I have stumbled across some of his views on crime rates and political ideology, and them seen both reasonable and centrist to me.

His latest article is entitled "The neocons have learned nothing from five years of catastrophe," which suggests to me that he is starting to go over the liberal deep end. Either that, or he has a book to sell. And like many liberals these days, he seems to be defining himself in opposition to Bush's policies instead of with reference to a coherent set of ideas. That's why I dub him an "anticon." Many people who fancy themselves "liberal" fall into that category these days.

Contrary to the title of Fukuyama's article, neocons actually have learned something from Iraq, and what they have learned is a critically important lesson. That lesson can be denied by sticking your head in the sand and suggesting that Bush's incompetence in Iraq is responsible for the mess we are in. That might make you feel better ("everything is just fine except for Bush's unbelievable incompetence"), but if you pull your head out of the sand and look around, you'll find that Bush's apparent incompetence is actually a reflection of al Qaeda's remarkable skill. The events of 9/11 proved that al Qaeda was a formidable opponent. The last year in Iraq proved that they are, unfortunately, even more formidable that we realized. They knew that they could engineer sectarian conflict by relentlessly bombing Shiites and their holy sites, and they knew, much better than I did, that American morale would instantly crumble in response. And they also knew they could use the mainstream media as their very own Department of Propaganda (with the infamous CNN sniper video being the most blatantly obvious example). One has to be impressed by their insight into the American psyche and their ability to manipulate, seemingly at will, a liberal media. I underestimated them, and I am not likely to do so again. I've learned my lesson.

Fukuyama says that neocons have learned nothing from the events in Iraq, but he thinks he has. For example, he says this:

A final lesson that should have been drawn from the Iraq war is that the current US government has demonstrated great incompetence in its day-to-day management of policy. One of the striking things about the performance of the Bush administration is how poorly it has followed through in accomplishing the ambitious objectives it set for itself. In Iraq, the administration has acted like a patient with attention-deficit disorder. The US succeeded in organising efficiently for key events such as the handover of sovereignty on June 30 2004, or the elections of January 30 2005. But it failed to train Iraqi forces, failed to appoint ambassadors, failed to perform due diligence on contractors and, above all, failed to hold accountable those officials most responsible for these and other multiple failures.

Above all? As if holding officials accountable would have stopped al Qaeda from bombing the Golden Mosque in Samarra, which triggered the violence we see now? His case would be more convincing if it consisted of more than just the regurgitation of standard liberal talking points (as if he has a book to sell to that eager audience) and if he evidenced at least slight awareness of what has happened in Iraq over the last year.

Like everyone who criticizes the war in Iraq, Fukuyama says nothing useful about al Qaeda in Iraq. Should we accept their terms of surrender and further embolden their global jihadist plan by pulling out of Iraq (as so many Democrats are inclined to do), or not? If not, what should we do? He doesn't say. Critics of the war in Iraq never do. As I have noted over and over again, no matter how hard you search their critiques for the words "al Qaeda," you will come empty. OK, to be fair to Fukuyama, I should acknowledge that he mentions al Qaeda twice (but only in passing, as if that terrorist organization is a minor side issue). For example he says:

States such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Palestine and a host of others are not able to exercise sovereign control over their territory, ceding power and influence to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, political parties-cum-militias such as Hizbullah in Lebanon, or various ethnic and sectarian factions elsewhere.

But what should we do about the fact that al Qaeda is calling the shots in Iraq? Let them win, hope they lose to the incompetent Iraqi forces after we leave, or pretend that they are not a threat? He doesn't say. Critics of the war in Iraq never do.

Here is the other mention of al Qaeda in his article:

Unlike al-Qaida, Iran is a state, deeply rooted historically (unlike Iraq) and flush with resources as a result of energy price rises.

Again, not the slightest hint of what he thinks should be done about al Qaeda in Iraq. Critics of the Iraq war never address that point (not Nancy Pelosi, not Ted Kennedy, not John Murtha, not Harry Reid, not Jim Webb, and not Francis Fukuyama), and the reason why they don't is clear. To acknowledge al Qaeda in Iraq in any way would be to undermine the left wing position on Iraq. If you cannot address the facts in a sensible way, the thing to do is to pretend that those facts don't exist (and to then savage your president for his supposed "incompetence" instead, thereby making yourself feel better).

On Iran, Fukuyama further establishes his anticon credentials. The idea that Iran is "flush with resources as a result of energy price rises" seems like an awfully rosy analysis in light of their declining oil output and the rapid decline in oil prices that we have seen lately (not to mention their increasingly dire economic situation). But Fukuyama makes that point because he wants you to believe that Iran has economic treasures that they value so much that, even if they acquired a nuclear bomb, they wouldn't use it for fear of nuclear retaliation. Here is what he says about that:

I believe that there are reasons for being less alarmist. Iran is, after all, a state, with equities to defend - it should be deterrable by other states possessing nuclear weapons; it is a regional and not a global power; it has in the past announced extreme ideological goals but has seldom acted on them when important national interests were at stake; and its decision-making process appears neither unified nor under the control of the most radical forces.

Oh sure, don't worry. Be happy! All that talk about annihilating Israel coming from a radical Islamist? It's all just a bunch of talk. After all, Fukuyama says so. Isn't that good enough to risk a few million Israeli lives by allowing Iran to develop a nuclear arsenal?