Jeremayakovka

Global Caliphate Forces Anticipate, Interpret Obama's First Iraq Moves

From the Islamic Republic of Iran's Press TV: Taji Mustafa of the international, pro-global caliphate Hizb ut-Tahrir Party of the United Kingdom (!) is trying to cool somebody's jets in this recent, post-American election commentary.

Says Mustafa: Barack Obama is not Vladimir Lenin. He's not a revolutionary who has come with a new system to Washington DC, planning to overthrow the current system and turn everything upside-down.

Who? What rabble? To what revolutionary squads, cadres, kooks, and thugs is Mustafa speaking?

Thankfully, Jamie Kirchick  articulated the pro-American perspective. Note very well, in the final minutes, the confrontation between Kirchick and Mustafa. Kirchick, whom I respect for going on camera there, was way too polite (calling him, "Sir") - he should have tore Mustafa's (rhetorical) head off and spit his (rhetorical) brains into the camera....

(H/T Jamie)

Don't Join The Swarm

Michael Ledeen's thoughts on the mainstream media and Election 2008:

For years now, most thoughtful Americans have known they were being misled by the MSM.  But they didn’t know exactly where to go to get the real news.  Over time, many of them learned to read blogs, to listen to talk radio, and to read the few good journalists who still believe they should report, and let the people decide.  It’s only natural that the Dems should want to shut down these outlets and those reporters, and I think that’s going to be a very big battle in the very near future, whoever wins tomorrow.

It follows from all this that there’s another thing that has my dander flying:  the snooty treatment of Palin.  It’s as if that old New Yorker cover–the one that shows Manhattan occupying most of the map of the United States, then the Mississippi River and fly-over country in a small strip, then San Francisco and Los Angeles in a larger area–has now become the template for all proper thinkers.  I’m sure lots of folks in fly-over country are enraged by this, but many others want to have a seat at the table, want to join the celebrities, want to be thought of as serious thinkers.  And so they join the swarm.

American exceptionalism rests upon independent thinking, pride in community and heritage, and disdain for ivory tower intellectuals combined with admiration for self-help and achievement.  My greatest fear is that these values are going to be trashed over and over again the next few years, and we will have to fight it very fiercely.

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Professor Ledeen, whom (along with his Anbar Province/Marine vet son) I had the privilege of meeting last summer at a San Francisco luncheon, is definitely a "neoconservative" - when asked whether the Iraq invasion was (perhaps?) a mistake, he replied: Yes. We should have invaded Iran.

Ed Koch - Liberal With Sanity

Found at Chaim's blog, Freedom's Cost:

Today, according to the most recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey, “71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as President, an all-time high in polling.” His position can be compared with that of Harry Truman who left Washington unpopular and alone in 1953. Today, with the passage of time, most historians and certainly the American people, see Truman in a different light, primarily for his willingness to stand firm against Soviet aggression, whether against Greece or South Korea, and proclaim the Truman Doctrine, effectively defending the free world from Soviet efforts to expand their hegemony. Like Truman, George W. Bush, in my view, will be seen as one of the few world leaders who recognized the danger of Islamic terrorism and was willing with Tony Blair to stand up to it and not capitulate.
-- Ed Koch

Happy Presidents' Day - "War, Pestilence, Famine"

Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged, whether right or wrong, occupies no enviable place in life or history. Better for him, individually, to advocate "war, pestilence, and famine" than to act as obstructionist to a war already begun. The history of the defeated rebel will be honorable hereafter, compared with that of the Northern man who aided him by conspiring against his government while protected by it. The most favorable posthumous history the stay- at-home traitor can hope for is -- oblivion.

-- from the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant
(18th president of the United States)

Via HuffPo, Sean Penn Muses Execution of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Mistrusts Ms. Rodham Clinton's "Poisonous Ambition"

[E]xisting law provides that the likes of Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice, if found guilty, could have hoods thrown over their heads, their hands bound, facing a 12-man rifle corps executing death by firing squad.

In the same post, Don't underestimate the damage [Ms. Rodham Clinton's] poisonous ambition can do to this country.

"All The People In Iraq, Muslim and Christian, Is Brother"

(St. John's Church, Baghdad)
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As reported by Michael Yon in Iraq.
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(H/T JMK friend Carolyn)

Rudy's Rumbles Felt On The Left

* Update *(10/19) * Daniel Pipes clarifies his departures from the Bush Administration's policies in "Giuliani's Fresh Start": I twice voted enthusiastically for George W. Bush, am proud to have been his nominee [to the United States Institute of Peace] in 2003, and predict historians will rate his presidency a success. But presenting Rudy Giuliani and his advisors as Bush administration clones is nonsense. News magazines might consider doing some research before spouting off.
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A prospective Giuliani nomination means a commitment to continue and refine the Bush Doctrine, to pursue a forward military and ideological strategy against Islamofascism. Unfortunately liberal opinion makers are viewing this with alarm. Scott Lemieux at The American Prospect's blog TAPPED quotes Matthew Yglesias, Joshua Michael Marshall, and Matthew Duss on the matter. In "STOP RUDY" Lemieux makes a hanky-grabbing point about the truly catastrophic foreign policy Giuliani would likely pursue were he to succeed at being elected, a policy that would kill millions of people. Makes me want to grab a hanky all right, and wipe a nether region with it.

Remember Noam Chomsky's October 2001 slander that invading Afghanistan would lead to genocide? Chomsky, it says in that link (scroll down), warned that millions would die within the next couple of weeks. I recall Norman Finkelstein's radio remarks in March 2003 comparing the imminent invasion of Iraq to Hitler's invasion of Poland. Yet supposedly mainstream liberal pundits think this way -- their talking points derive from the extreme left (and the Jewish extreme left, at that). Lemieux goes on to finger Giuliani's brain trust as the culprit in the persons of Daniel Pipes, who braves implacable Islamic ideology (at home even more than abroad), and Norman Podhoretz, who consistently rectifies the errors of contemporary American liberalism, most recently in World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. (WWIV reviewed here: "a bracing read, and a necessary one.")

Lemieux also poo-poos Giuliani's lack of foreign policy experience. As if Ms. Rodham Clinton has a competitive resume to put forward in that department. And as if her brief and undistinguished Senate career weren't made possible, arguably, by the prostate cancer that forced Giuliani in 2000 to stand down from a head-to-head contest with her for the seat.

The left's stubborn refusal to concede hawkish Jewish-Americans a place at the table, to consider the grave process by which they (we) have arrived at our convictions, has been and stands to remain the death knell (morally, if not always electorally) of the Democratic Party. Just ask Joe Lieberman -- and Rudy Giuliani.

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Previous: "Giuliani In San Francisco And His 12 (13?) Commitments For America"

Dennis Miller vs. Harry Reid

"Al Qaeda Has Lost The War For The Hearts And Minds Of Iraqis"

Matt Sanchez speaking yesterday "Live from Anbar" on Kevin McCullough's New York-based Christian talk radio show, Musclehead Revolution.

From DC to Anbar, CPAC Honoree Honors Martyred Sheik

Matt Sanchez, whose media spotlight earlier this year provided a great opportunity for me to "come forward" about homosexuality in a new, critical, and appreciative way, has been reporting for several months now as an embed from Iraq, the Gulf, and Afghanistan. As more proof of the need for and rise of the New Media, Matt conducted what most unfortunately became the last interview Sheik Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi gave to the press. Sheik Sattar, who apparently craved to live in a civil Iraq and for Islam to be a civil religion, recently received media when al-Qaeda savages assassinated him. Hopefully there will be more from Matt on the martyred sheik.

Petraeus's Congressional Testimony

Politico has the pdf for downloading.
Don't say you didn't read it, didn't know where to find it.

Al Qaeda Kills, Cooks Children, Serves Them To Parents

Says Michael Yon, per World Net Daily:

The report from Yon came while he was covering the war – and al-Qaida's involvement – in Baqubah, and he was listening to statements from an Iraqi official who asked that his name not be reported.

"Speaking through an American interpreter, Lt. David Wallach, who is a native Arabic speaker, the Iraqi official related how al-Qaida united these gangs who then became absorbed into 'al-Qaida.' They recruited boys born during the years 1991, 92 and 93 who were each given weapons, including pistols, a bicycle and a phone (with phone cards paid) and a salary of $100 per month, all courtesy of al-Qaida. These boys were used for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people," said Yon's dispatch, "Bless the Beasts and Children."

"At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al-Qaida directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al-Qaida invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11 years old," Yon continued.

"As Lt. David Wallach interpreted the man's words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, 'What did he say?' Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al-Qaida served the boy to his family."

Newt on Gwot

Must see video of Gingrich's remarks at the National Press Club. H/T Mick.

As Congress's Approval Ratings Tank ... Ask GOPublius, Ask Lew, Ask Jackie

GOPublius sees in it a boon for Republicans, while Lew at Right in a Left World urges popular political reinvigoration to thwart Democrats' machinations -- now that they supposedly have Karl Rove's playbook.

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And now ... a few words ... from Jackie Mason:

Eight Theses On Being Jeremayakovka

for Casey Sheehan and Cindy Sheehan, especially

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Fausta tagged me last week in the "8-ball meme" for eight more previously unknown personal facts. The first eight, it seems, only whetted her appetite. So here are eight, not just facts about, but theses[*] on being Jeremayakovka. [Note: It took a week to tweak #1-#4, and it'll be a piece of work to finish #5-#8. Please bear with me....]:
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1. My parents' ages are 19 years apart, with my mother being the older partner. Their coming together defied custom and practicality, even morality. Not surprisingly, it was also short-lived. Each was also (in effect) an only child, which is what I am, unmistakably. When coming of age as a radical leftwing activist, "family values" were something I rejected categorically and conspiratorially (in pride), and ignorantly and jealously (in shame). Despite reexamining leftwing values for some time now, for me to opine from the vantage point of "family values" would be, still, an imposture. "Family values" remain something to be observed rather than experienced, to be understood (if at all) a posteriori, not a priori.

2. Women usually react with visceral enthusiasm when I inform them that, yes, in fact my mother brought her first, her only healthy child to term at age 45. This is true especially of younger, unmarried, childless women. Standout exclamations include Whoa! and Way go to, mom!. Their enthusiasm smacks of ignorant solidarity, bordering on idolatry, and elicits from me mostly dismay. These daughters (so to speak) of "third wave feminism" -- educated to believe that just about anything subverting "traditional gender roles" (while also trafficking in the mainstream) is curious, virtuous, imperative -- know nothing of the tender travails and miserable dignities that attend a domestic situation such as the one my mother and I knew. These "peers," along with their baby boomer parents (here I include my other, baby boomer parent), often seem to me (as they must have seemed to my mother) to some extent, and in the worst sense, mere children.

3. When very young, about 5 or 6, I inadvertently plunged into the Sailboat Pond in New York's Central Park. I was racing to the opposite side to recover my model boat when the jingle of a far-off ice cream truck distracted me. So much so that, my head craning in one direction and my body running in another, I strode right over the pond's raised cement edge and into its artificial shallows. I forget how I got out -- whether anyone reached for or jumped in after me, or whether if even I pulled myself out. I do remember my father carrying me, soaking and sobbing, not home but to where he lived.

4. When a little less young, about 9 or 10, I nearly got myself swept away into the Gulf of Mexico. A hurricane off the coast of Texas was sending successions of waves -- about twice as tall, fast, and frequent as usual -- into the west Florida beach where my mother and I were vacationing. This monstrous aggregation of briny sights, blustery sounds, salty smells was so enthralling that, with nobody else around, I decided I would test their bounties of touch and taste.... A few minutes later my feet, I suddenly realized, no longer could touch sand. With waves rolling in one upon another, my strokes rectified nothing. The waves lifted me and surged past, leaving me in their hollows where still I could not touch bottom.

In terror, time and language collapse. What remains in the mind (if anything) is the will -- yet even that is often displaced. Bobbing in that excited surf, my body became a constricted concert of heart, lungs, throat, nostrils, a concert bellowing in stark, perfect, physiognomic pitch (which only now I can translate into words): Confront terror with every fiber of your being. If you don't, it will seize you and make off with you. Fight it NOW or succumb forever. My thin, little-boy limbs stroked and kicked in a frantic unison through roller coaster swells. Ignoring whatever lay beneath me, I aimed directly for the line of shore (no longer just a beach). Watching it within reach, and even sensing its approach, brought no consolation until at last all four limbs, surf-slackened, scraped through lapping wavelets the rough but familiar blanket of sand.

Just how long it took to get back I could not measure in time, only distance. Relieved and morose, elated and enervated, I had to concede that I'd washed up hundreds of yards away from the point to which I'd struggled to return. My curiosity had nearly destroyed me. And while my best efforts, I saw, could deliver me, they also could not quite restore me.

On the wobbly walk up the beach, as if obeying an unfamiliar oath in a language yet to be identified (let alone acquired, let alone mastered), I calculated that it would be best never to tell anyone what I'd just come through. Least of all tell either parent. Others would receive my report only as shore-dwellers whereas I would transmit it as both shore-dweller and tempter of the deep. This unsettled purpose made me neither proud nor happy nor secure. It left me only with the sharp sense that, as the poem goes, "East is East, and West is West ..." -- and never the twain shall meet.

All in all it didn't feel like victory against the terror that had gripped me, but merely a draw.
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[*]: Proclaiming "Theses on [a *very important* subject]" is the boldest public undertaking any leftwing intellectual can ever realize (except for the seizure of state power). V.I. Lenin's "April Theses" of 1917 declared openly the Bolsheviks' intention to destabilize Russia's Provisional (reformist) Government. Walter Benjamin followed suit in 1940 with his oft-imitated "Theses on History." It seems to me high time that someone compose Theses for "our brave new, 'neoconservative' 21st Century." --JMK

Boot And Bennett On Success Indicators In Iraq

Max Boot, author of the forthcoming War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History, 1500 to Today, due out in paperback next month (reviews etc. here and here), was a guest on Bill Bennett's "Morning in America" radio program, podcast through Townhall.com. Listen to Boot and Bennett:
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BB: What's going on over there?

MB: There are some pretty astonishing measures of success ... in Anbar province, Baghdad, and in Baquba, and elsewhere as well.... The early signs are certainly positive. But unfortunately some of the progress that is being made on the ground is being undermined by the incessant calls for withdrawal from home, which basically signal a lack of resolve to our enemies in Iraq, and suggests to a lot of them that they can wait us out -- not the message we want to be sending at the very time that our troops are engaged in very high risk operations that have a decent chance of success.

BB: Is the screechiness and the volume of the calls for withdrawal getting more intense because people sense -- Is there actually maybe some sense of panic on the part of some people that we might actually be turning this thing around? I said a long time ago that it's a very odd place to be, with a number of the Democrats almost being in a position of having to root against success. If we're showing success, does this in some way explain the kind of histrionics we're seeing? [emphases added]

MB: ....The news coverage back home basically suggests that the surge is a failure.... Some of the gains that are being made on the ground, that is not part of the normal discourse of the news media. And so I think kind of casual browsers of the news media, including a lot of the people on Capitol Hill, they think that the surge has already failed.

BB: Why is it you're on to this and other people aren't?

MB: Well, there's no real secret to it.... The indicators are there if you read the benchmark report that was released by the White House last week. And I also keep pretty close touch with folks in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, and pay attention to what's going on. You have to look at the underlying trends and you can't be mesmerized by the story that there was a bombing yesterday -- terrible as it was -- or the story that three U.S. soldiers -- awful as it was -- were killed yesterday. And I think we tend to lose sight of the underlying trend which, over the past six months, with some setbacks, has been largely positive.

BB:  What's the consequence of what the Senate's debating right now -- if we pulled out and moved everything to Afghanistan?

MB: Well, for a start I think what you would see is that Afghanistan would deteriorate very quickly because al Qaeda would be able to shift resources from fighting us in Iraq to fighting us in Afghanistan. And they would be emboldened to do so because they would have this example of having defeated this superpower in Iraq. And just as they were emboldened by defeating the Russians in Afghanistan they are going to want to repeat the same trick with us in Afghanistan. So I think you would very quickly see the situation getting worse in Afghanistan as well as around the world where the jihadists would be on an upsurge. So I think if we just left right now, it would be a disaster. Oddly enough even the New York Times, which thinks that we should leave, even they have written in their editorials about what the consequences would be, and they would be pretty dire.

BB: The UN head yesterday, the Secretary General, Mr. Ban, has said that it would be a disaster.

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* Update * AEI's Michael Rubin's recent Congressional testimony on prospects for success in Iraq.

Victor Hanson Fisks Every Single Word Of NY Times Editorial Demanding Immediate US Withdrawal From Iraq

.Every single word.
.(H/T Seraphic Secret)

The Media At War, At War With the Media

Two strong pieces at National Review Online about American journalists' devastating role, whether inadvertent or deliberate, in undermining American war efforts.

Then (Vietnam):

When the American intelligentsia became disillusioned with Vietnam during the late 1960s, [David] Halberstam and [Neil] Sheehan abandoned support for the U.S. defense of South Vietnam. Like many journalists today, they avoided reporting on American military heroism in the belief that reports of American valor would increase support for the war in the United States and would put servicemen in a more favorable light than those who did not serve.
-- Mark Moyar, author of Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War 1954-1965
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And now (Iraq):

After spending some time with the mainstream media, it’s not hard to understand why the coverage coming from Iraq is, as Staff Sergeant Rodriguez from the 4-9 cavalry out of Texas put it, “Completely wrong . . . in my opinion.”

The media has a conflict of values. A successful insurgent will always get more recognition than a successful infantryman — no matter how many successful infantrymen there are. In an arm-wrestling match between progress and propaganda, the reward of media coverage for bad behavior has a Pavlovian effect on attention-seeking terrorists....

Unlike any other player on the board, the press has no oversight, no mandate, few penalties, and even fewer consequences. [emphasis added]
-- Matt Sanchez, Marine reservist, Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom honoree, and embed reporter in Iraq. Matt blogs about Iraq and other topics here.
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Previous: "The Media Will Win Or Lose Iraq"

Edwards Eye For the Straight Guy

* Updated *

The current issue of Barron's shows John Edwards combing his coif most admiringly while gazing into a handheld mirror.

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Note, Gentle Reader, that all the presidential candidates on the Barron's cover are looking at you -- except Edwards who is looking at himself. Everyone looks the part of a candidate -- except Edwards who, if anything, is looking at the part in his hair (let alone a part in the election). There's no crescent-and-star bling on Barack (Hussein) Obama, no dour 1984-imagery draped over Big Sister Hillary, no flip-flops making flippy floppy around "Mitt Happens" Romney. More than those flung at any other candidate, the Rightosphere's select epithets for this presidential pretender from North Carolina -- insinuations of "Breck girl" and even "silky pony" -- are gaining traction in the MSM. It's time for the Rightosphere to take a bow.

Also implied in this Barron's cover is the value that remains to be teased out of Ann Coulter's four-month old faggot "rehab" joke. In keeping with my commentary (from day one here and last week here), despite some ugly suggestiveness of the word "faggot," the joke's manifest value has very little to do with whether John Edwards has, ever has had, or ever will have sex with men. Nor should it -- unless, as we learned from Jim McGreevey (scroll down in link), it can compromise something as private as national security. The joke's value has nothing to do with liberals' haste to impute to Coulter status as the GOP's "bigoted id," as if she had a glaring intent to bully gays (scroll through here), nor with conservatives' haste to enumerate an almost sublime sense of their accepting nature -- while repudiating one of their own. As if the force of contemporary conservatism can (or ought) to be reckoned apart from Coulter's sophisticated satire....

Previous: "Boo Frickin' Hoo, Liz"

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As the 2008 primary season gets into high gear (a 2007 fundraising season, mostly), let's recall the first close-up look most of us ever had of John Edwards, as reflected in the comments (and rebuttals) of Dick Cheney. From their 2004 vice-presidential debate:

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EDWARDS: There is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th -- period....

CHENEY: I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror. And the point is that that's the place where you're most likely to see the terrorists come together with weapons of mass destruction, the deadly technologies that Saddam Hussein had developed and used over the years.

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EDWARDS (at one point): The president and the vice president have not done the work to build the coalition that we need.

EDWARDS (at another): [If John Kerry and I are elected,] we will not outsource our responsibility to keep this country safe.

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EDWARDS: We've taken 90 percent of the coalition casualties. American taxpayers have borne 90 percent of the costs of the effort in Iraq. And we see the result of there not being a coalition: The first Gulf war cost America $5 billion. We're at $200 billion and counting....

CHENEY: When you include the Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies, they've taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq, which leaves the U.S. with 50 percent, not 90 percent. With respect to the cost, it wasn't $200 billion. You probably weren't there to vote for that. But $120 billion is, in fact, what has been allocated to Iraq. The rest of it's for Afghanistan and the global war on terror. The allies have stepped forward and agreed to reduce and forgive Iraqi debt to the tune of nearly $80 billion by one estimate. That, plus $14 billion they promised in terms of direct aid, puts the overall allied contribution financially at about $95 billion, not to the $120 billion we've got, but, you know, better than 40 percent.

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CHENEY: Senator, frankly, you have a record in the Senate that's not very distinguished. You've missed 33 out of 36 meetings in the Judiciary Committee, almost 70 percent of the meetings of the Intelligence Committee. You've missed a lot of key votes: on tax policy, on energy, on Medicare reform. Your hometown newspaper has taken to calling you "Senator Gone." You've got one of the worst attendance records in the United States Senate. Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.

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MODERATOR: The next question goes to you, Mr. Vice President. I want to read something you said four years ago at this very setting: "Freedom means freedom for everybody." You said it again recently when you were asked about legalizing same-sex unions. And you used your family's experience as a context for your remarks. Can you describe then your administration's support for a constitutional ban on same-sex unions?

CHENEY: Gwen, you're right, four years ago in this debate, the subject came up. And I said then and I believe today that freedom does mean freedom for everybody. People ought to be free to choose any arrangement they want. It's really no one else's business. That's a separate question from the issue of whether or not government should sanction or approve or give some sort of authorization, if you will, to these relationships. Traditionally, that's been an issue for the states. States have regulated marriage, if you will. That would be my preference.

In effect, what's happened is that in recent months, especially in Massachusetts, but also in California, but in Massachusetts we had the Massachusetts Supreme Court direct the state of -- the legislature of Massachusetts to modify their constitution to allow gay marriage. And the fact is that the president felt that it was important to make it clear that that's the wrong way to go, as far as he's concerned. Now, he sets the policy for this administration, and I support the president.

MODERATOR: Senator Edwards, 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Yes. Let me say first, on an issue that the vice president said in his last answer before we got to this question, talking about tax policy, the country needs to know that under what they have put in place and want to put in place, a millionaire sitting by their swimming pool, collecting their statements to see how much money they're making, make their money from dividends, pays a lower tax rate than the men and women who are receiving paychecks for serving on the ground in Iraq.

Now, they may think that's right. John Kerry and I do not. We don't just value wealth, which they do. We value work in this country. And it is a fundamental value difference between them and us. Now, as to this question, let me say first that I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful thing. And there are millions of parents like that who love their children, who want their children to be happy.

And I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, and so does John Kerry. I also believe that there should be partnership benefits for gay and lesbian couples in long-term, committed relationships. But we should not use the Constitution to divide this country. No state for the last 200 years has ever had to recognize another state's marriage. This is using the Constitution as a political tool, and it's wrong.

MODERATOR: New question, but same subject. As the vice president mentioned, John Kerry comes from the state of Massachusetts, which has taken as big a step as any state in the union to legalize gay marriage. Yet both you and Senator Kerry say you oppose it. Are you trying to have it both ways?

EDWARDS: No. I think we've both said the same thing all along. We both believe that -- and this goes onto the end of what I just talked about -- we both believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. But we also believe that gay and lesbians and gay and lesbian couples, those who have been in long-term relationships, deserve to be treated respectfully, they deserve to have benefits.

For example, a gay couple now has a very difficult time, one, visiting the other when they're in the hospital, or, for example, if, heaven forbid, one of them were to pass away, they have trouble even arranging the funeral. I mean, those are not the kind of things that John Kerry and I believe in. I suspect the vice president himself does not believe in that. But we don't -- we do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

And I want to go back, if I can, to the question you just asked, which is this constitutional amendment. I want to make sure people understand that the president is proposing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage that is completely unnecessary. Under the law of this country for the last 200 years, no state has been required to recognize another state's marriage.

Let me just be simple about this. My state of North Carolina would not be required to recognize a marriage from Massachusetts, which you just asked about. There is absolutely no purpose in the law and in reality for this amendment. It's nothing but a political tool. And it's being used in an effort to divide this country on an issue that we should not be dividing America on. We ought to be talking about issues like health care and jobs and what's happening in Iraq, not using an issue to divide this country in a way that's solely for political purposes. It's wrong.

MODERATOR: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.

CHENEY: Well, Gwen, let me simply thank the senator for the kind words he said about my family and our daughter. I appreciate that very much.

MODERATOR: That's it?

CHENEY: That's it.

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MODERATOR: [The next question] goes to you, Senator Edwards, and you have two minutes. Ten men and women have been nominees of their parties since 1976 to be vice president. Out of those ten, you have the least governmental experience of any of them. What qualifies you to be a heartbeat away?

EDWARDS: The American people want in their president and in their vice president basically three things: They want to know that their president and their vice president will keep them safe. They want to know that they have good judgment. And they want to know that you'll tell them the truth. John Kerry and I will tell the American people the truth....

MODERATOR: Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.

CHENEY: You want me to answer a question about his qualifications?

MODERATOR: That was the question.

CHENEY: I see. Well, I think the important thing in picking a vice president probably varies from president to president. Different presidents approach it in different ways. When George Bush asked me to sign on, it obviously wasn't because he was worried about carrying Wyoming. We got 70 percent of the vote in Wyoming, although those three electoral votes turned out to be pretty important last time around.

What he said he wanted me to do was to sign on because of my experience to be a member of the team, to help him govern, and that's exactly the way he's used me. And I think from the perspective of the nation, it's worked in our relationship, in this administration. I think it's worked in part because I made it clear that I don't have any further political aspirations myself. And I think that's been an advantage. I think it allows the president to know that my only agenda is his agenda. I'm not worried about what some precinct committeemen in Iowa were thinking of me with respect to the next round of caucuses of 2008.

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MODERATOR: Mr. Vice President, picking up on that, you both just sang the praises of the tops of your ticket. Without mentioning them by name at all, explain to us why you are different from your opponent, starting with you, Mr. Vice President.

CHENEY: Why I am different from John Edwards. Well, in some respects, I think, probably there are more similarities than there are differences in our personal story.

I don't talk about myself very much, but I've heard Senator Edwards, and as I listen to him, I find some similarities. I come from relatively modest circumstances. My grandfather never even went to high school. I'm the first in my family to graduate from college. I carried a ticket in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for six years. I've been laid off, been hospitalized without health insurance. So I have some idea of the problems that people encounter. So I think the personal stories are, in some respects, surprisingly similar.

With respect to how we've spent our careers, I obviously made a choice for public service. And I've been at it for a good long time now, except for those periods when we lost elections. And that goes with the turf, as well, too.

I'm absolutely convinced that the threat we face now, the idea of a terrorist in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, is very real and that we have to use extraordinary measures to deal with it. I feel very strongly that the significance of 9/11 cannot be underestimated. It forces us to think in new ways about strategy, about national security, about how we structure our forces and about how we use U.S. military power.

Some people say we should wait until we are attacked before we use force. I would argue we've already been attacked. We lost more people on 9/11 than we lost at Pearl Harbor. And I'm a very strong advocate of a very aggressive policy of going after the terrorists and those who support terror.

MODERATOR: Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.

EDWARDS: Mr. Vice President, we were attacked. But we weren't attacked by Saddam Hussein. And one thing that John Kerry and I would agree with you about is that it is....

MODERATOR: You just used John Kerry's name.

EDWARDS: Oh, I'm sorry. I broke the rule.

One thing that we agree about is the need to be offensive in going after terrorists. The reality is that the best defense is a good offense, which means leading -- America returning to its proud tradition of the last 75 years, of once again leading strong coalitions so we can get at these terrorist cells where they are, before they can do damage to us and to the American people. John Kerry made clear on Thursday night that -- I'm sorry, I broke the rules. We made clear -- we made clear on Thursday night that we will do that, and we will do it aggressively.

But there are things that need to be done to keep this country safe that have not yet been done. For example, three years after 9/11, we find out that the administration still does not have a unified terrorist watch list. It's amazing. Three years. What are we waiting for? You know, we still don't have one list that everyone can work off of to see if terrorists are entering this country. We're screening our passengers going onto airplanes, but we don't screen the cargo. There are so many things that could be done to keep this country safe. You have to be strong, and you have to be aggressive. But we also have to be smart. And there are things that have not been done that need to be done to keep the American people safe.

MODERATOR: Would you like to respond? Thirty seconds.

CHENEY: No.

* * *

MODERATOR: As previously agreed, we'll go to closing statements now, two minutes each. Coin toss, Senator Edwards, you begin.

EDWARDS: Thank you. Thank you, Gwen. Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for being here.

You know, when I was young and growing up, I remember coming down the steps into the kitchen, early in the morning, and I would see the glow of the television. And I'd see my father sitting at a table. He wasn't paying bills, and he wasn't doing paperwork from work. What he was doing was learning math on television. Now, he didn't have a college education, but he was doing what he could do to get a better job in the mill where he worked. I was proud of him. I'm still proud of him. And I was also hopeful, because I knew that I lived in a country where I could get a college education.

Here's the truth: I have grown up in the bright light of America. But that light is flickering today. Now, I know that the vice president and the president don't see it, but you do. You see it when your incomes are going down and the cost of everything -- college tuition, health care -- is going through the roof. You see it when you sit at your table each night and there's an empty chair because a loved one is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. What they're going to give you is four more years of the same.

John Kerry and I believe that we can do better. We believe in a strong middle-class in this country. That's why we have a plan to create jobs, getting rid of tax cuts for companies outsourcing your jobs; give tax cuts to companies that'll keep jobs here in America. That's why we have a health care plan. That's why we have a plan to keep you safe and to fix this mess in Iraq. The truth is that every four years you get to decide. You have the ability to decide where America's going to go. John Kerry and I are asking you to give us the power to fight for you, to fight to keep that dream in America, that I saw as a young man, alive for every parent sitting at that kitchen table.

MODERATOR: Vice President Cheney?

CHENEY: Gwen, I want to thank you.

It's been a privilege to serve as your vice president these last four years and to work alongside President Bush to put our economy on an upward path. We've cut taxes, added 1.7 million new jobs in the last year, and we'll continue to provide opportunities for business and for workers. We won't be happy until every American who wants to work can find a job. We believe that all Americans ought to have access to available -- to medical care and that they ought to have access to the finest schools in the world. We'll do everything we can to preserve Social Security and to make certain that it's there for future generations.

I've worked for four presidents and watched two others up close, and I know that there's no such thing as a routine day in the Oval Office. We saw on 9/11 that the next president -- next decision a president has to make can affect the lives of all of us. Now we find ourselves in the midst of a conflict unlike any we've ever known, faced with the possibility that terrorists could smuggle a deadly biological agent or a nuclear weapon into the middle of one of our own cities.

That threat -- and the presidential leadership needed to deal with it -- is placing a special responsibility on all of you who will decide on November 2nd who will be our commander in chief. The only viable option for winning the war on terrorism is the one the president has chosen, to use the power of the United States to aggressively go after the terrorists wherever we find them and also to hold to account states that sponsor terror. Now that we've captured or killed thousands of Al Qaida and taken down the regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, it's important that we stand up democratically elected governments as the only guarantee that they'll never again revert to terrorism or the production of deadly weapons.

This is the task of our generation. And I know firsthand the strength the president brings to it. The overall outcome will depend upon the ability of the American people and the strong leadership of the president to meet all the challenges that we'll face in the days and years ahead. I'm confident we can do it.

The Media Will Win Or Lose Iraq

That's the gist of Fausta's interview with experienced, informed "embed" reporter, military veteran, and blogger Michael Fumento. He talks about his work reporting on the ground in Iraq, about the MSM's electronic insularity over there, and about Army bureaucracy.

Outside the Wire - Profiles in Courage in Iraq

Common sense documentary presenting the high morale and high morality of American Marines in Iraq, Outside the Wire.

(H/T Classical Values.)

Good Going, Virgil!

Congressman Virgil Goode (R-VA) lit up the media when he criticized Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) for swearing the oath of loyalty to the Constitution on a Koran. I read the news approvingly, although did not at the time read in depth about good Congressman Goode.

Here's video footage, found at Pedestrian Infidel, of Goode's proud and rousing statement on the floor of the House condemning "for the troops, but against the surge" H. Con. Res. 63 and -- nay-sayers take note -- expressing his hope for  a fundamentally tolerant Iraq and America.

Bring the Candidates Home, Now!

Abe Miller laments the lose-at-all-costs liberalism that reigns in the (so-called) culture in "The Sacrifice in Iraq and its Betrayal":

As V.S. Naipaul once said: At Oxford, in his day, everyone knew that English literature was not a serious subject.

Today, however, he adds, it is not even a subject. And the list extends far beyond English literature. We are a corrupt society, a society without honor, but not because of those who project power to defend us on foreign soil or those who bear the burden of our defense, but because of those who would cynically manipulate such sacrifices for the pursuit of power.

Yes, there were numerous tactical and strategic errors made in Iraq. I could list them better than any critic of the war. After all, I spent three decades studying collective violence, insurgency and civil disorder. If you ceased, however, to prosecute a war because of errors, you’d never win one. [emphasis and links added]

UK Black Muslim Terrorist Organizer: "9/11: That Was A Day That Changed Many Muslims' Lives, Especially Those Inside The Tower"

* Updated w/ Brando ; China execution (2/16) *

Is he talking about the al-Qaeda operatives or the Muslim victims among the dead? It's not clear, but Abu Izzadeen's Muslim audience responded with appreciative laughter. Hot Air has him on video, clear as a bell.

He's going to jail which is stupid becaue there he'll get three hots and a cot and endless recruiting opportunity. It's state-sponsored jihad. You send people to jail under the principle that they can be rehabilitated and reintegrate into society. This individual has absolutely zero intention of doing so. He's more than a criminal, he's an enemy. Jail's too good for him.

Charles Manson is insane. This guy's a basket case.

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Related: "Because it's judgment that defeats us."

You have no right to judge me. It's impossible in words to describe what is ... necessary ... to those who do not know what horror means. Horror, horror. Horror has a face ... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies....

I remember when I was with Special Forces ... we went into a camp to innoculate some children. We left the camp after we had innoculated the children for polio [and when] we went back there and they had come and hacked off every innoculated arm. There they were there in a pile, a pile of ... little arms. And I remember. I-- I-- ... I cried. I wept like some ... grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it -- I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized -- like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond -- a diamond bullet right through my forehead.

And I thought, "My God, the genius of that! The genius, the will to do that." Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. Then I realized: they were stronger than we. Because they could stand it. These were not monsters, these were men, these were trained cadres. These were men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled with love. But they had the strength -- the strength -- to do that.

If I had 10 divisions of those men, then our troubles here [in Vietnam] would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill. Without feeling, without passion. Without judgment -- without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.
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Now watch the video of  Abu Izzadeen at Hot Air, linked at the top of this post.  A guillotine may be too good for him.

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Previous: "The Face of Muslim Terror - Pray-à-Porter"

Related: China executes 'em.

One of the Best and the Brightest

I joined the fight because it occurred to me that many modern day "humanists" who claim to possess a genuine concern for human beings throughout the world are in fact quite content to allow their fellow "global citizens" to suffer under the most hideous state apparatuses and conditions. Their excuses used to be my excuses. When asked why we shouldn't confront the Ba'ath party, the Taliban or the various other tyrannies throughout this world, my answers would allude to vague notions of cultural tolerance (forcing women to wear a veil and stay indoors is such a quaint cultural tradition), the sanctity of national sovereignty (how eager we internationalists are to throw up borders to defend dictatorships!) or even a creeping suspicion of America's intentions. When all else failed, I would retreat to my fragile moral ecosystem that years of living in peace and liberty had provided me. I would write off war because civilian casualties were guaranteed, or temporary alliances with illiberal forces would be made, or tank fuel was toxic for the environment. My fellow "humanists" and I would relish contently in our self righteous declaration of opposition against all military campaigns against dictatorships, congratulating one another for refusing to taint that aforementioned fragile moral ecosystem that many still cradle with all the revolutionary tenacity of the members of Rage Against the Machine and Greenday. Others would point to America's historical support of Saddam Hussein, sighting it as hypocritical that we would now vilify him as a thug and a tyrant. Upon explaining that we did so to ward off the fiercely Islamist Iran, which was correctly identified as the greater threat at the time, eyes are rolled and hypocrisy is declared. Forgetting that America sided with Stalin to defeat Hitler, who was promptly confronted once the Nazis were destroyed, America's initial engagement with Saddam and other regional actors is identified as the ultimate argument against America's moral crusade.

-- Lt. Mark Daily, US Army, killed in Mosul, Iraq. More about him here.

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We have a positive moral duty to remember his life, his words and his example. No "Yes, but..." or "On the other hand..." applies here.

Related: "Nihil Nisi Requiescat in Pacem"

Time, Patience, Understanding

Michelle Malkin blogs from Iraq. If it doesn't look glamorous, that's because it's not. Here's her blogging, with links to a vlog and an upcoming New York Post article:

I came to Iraq a darkening pessimist about the war, due in large part to my doubts about the compatability of Islam and Western-style democracy, but also as a result of the steady, sensational diet of “grim milestone” and “daily IED count” media coverage that aids the insurgency. I left Iraq with unexpected hope and resolve. The everyday bravery and consummate professionalism of the troops I embedded with has strengthened my faith in the U.S. military.

Go Michelle. Go troops.

The Sanity Squad on Saddam's Execution

Last week at Pajamas Media four mental health professionals (and bloggers) discussed Saddam Hussein's execution: Neo-neocon, Siggy, Dr. Sanity, Shrinkwrapped. (Click over for some feisty exchanges in the Comments section, too.)

Interestingly, while all four are opposed to the death penalty in criminal cases, they unanimously support death in the case of the deposed dictator, mass torturer and mass murderer.

Here are some excerpts (I hope I matched the following names to the voices correctly, and that I transcribed the comments verbatim -- or close to verbatim, anyway!):

Siggy:
It's just a fascinating thing, you have people outraged at the execution and oblivious to the evil.... I am opposed to the death penalty -- which may surprise a lot of people -- but I am not opposed to it in the case of evil.... Evil has to be excised.... There is not one single example of evil that has been talked into submission.... There's a little too much "love" [pretended love from the Left, love for ideas and for people] and not enough hate.... The issue is our [Western] society that supports tyrants and despots that have caused such failure.

Dr. Sanity:
What we see is kind of a continuous pattern of history in the last 50 years of the Left supporting evil. All these people who buy into this leftist/communist/socialist [view demonstrate] a sad case of envy and also a lust for power....They have a real empathy for tyrants like Saddam.... They constantly accuse everyone else of having darker motives that they themselves desperately deny. As you know, we have a term for that, that's called "projection."

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Previous:
"REVENGE IS JUSTICE"
"Which Side Are You On?"

A view from Europe:
Oliver Kamm champions the rule of law, though not much else about the execution:

I regret the sentence and am repelled by the pictures of Saddam with a noose around his neck; and I see nothing improper in saying so, even though I am not one of Saddam's many victims. But I laud the mechanism of justice, impartially administered, that has rightly convicted this monstrous figure of a few of his crimes.

Chillin', Not Trillin (No. 2) - "You think I sing..."

Neo-neocon is definitely chillin', not Trillin. She waltzes across JMK's stage today with verses from a recent post:
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You think I sing a repetitious dirge
“Iraq, Vietnam; please let the two diverge!”
But here’s some news: the Democrats they urge,
“Oh Mr. Bush, don’t recommend a surge!”

And why? They say we’re surely on the verge
Of failure. It’s inevitable. A scourge
Successor Pres (a Dem?) will have to purge
As copters on the roof, they re-emerge.

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Related: Bill Kristol, "There Is a Way Forward in Iraq"
Previous: "Chillin', Not Trillin (No. 1) - 'Jews Item'"

"REVENGE IS JUSTICE"

** Updated w/ my remarks (bel0w) **

Lovin' it! When you call a spade a spade, as David does, you can call revenge justice:

It's a pinch myself day when the lead news story is about recriminations and regrets that Saddam Hussein, a man who incarnates evil, was not treated more decently at his belated hanging. And the editorial hand-wringing is that this was revenge not justice. As though being nice to someone who put human beings in plastic shredders -- head first -- and boiled even his relatives in oil, would make us more civilized rather than less. Revenge is justice. Saddam should have been drawn and quartered. The best thing about his execution was the presence of Shi'ia muslims taunting him with the memory of one of his Shi'ia victims. The shameless left and shameless liberals who would have kept this monster in power and are now shedding tears over the fact that he was killed should have the decency to let the Iraqis have their moment of revenge, pitiful as it is compared to the crimes this monster committed....

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Related JMK posts: on Saddam's execution, "Which Side Are You On?"; on revenge, "Ungovernable, Unconscionable, Unspeakable (Almost)."

My remarks, in response to a reader's email earlier this week, on what I felt while watching the execution:

A whiff of what Jews alive in 1944-1945-1946 felt plus new knowledge that the rule of Law can slay Evil. Justice was meted out to him in a way it was not to: Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire). Ceausescu being taken out as summarily as he was does not ring as true as this execution. It forges a great bond between the Arab middle east and the liberal West. May the bond endure. A grim act, but a great, sacred day.

Which Side Are You On?

Beyond despair

** Updated! with a Marine's comments and an NBC news anchor blowing the story of his career (both below); related, "it is pathology that drives conflict and not the other way around..." and Alexandra on why Ahmedinejad deserves the same ; (01/04: "REVENGE IS JUSTICE")**
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Grimly reaped
Plus: more grimly reaped

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Burn, baby, burn

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This side of hope (and history)

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A Marine emails:

Saddam was a figurehead leader encouraging them everyday at his trial with his rants broadcast on Iraqi national TV. Not only former Saddam loyalists were encouraged by this but also the many Islamic and sectarian militias that are fighting for their own causes. The mere fact that he was kept alive for 3 years, while in the insurgent world he would have been dealt with in about an hour, gave the common insurgent fighter the thought over time that the new Iraqi government and the Americans were never going to get serious about justice in any form! This thought (although we all knew better) continued to encourage the enemy to fight and they told us that on several occasions. Now you must be thinking, “Well they don't care about death they want to die for the "‘cause,’" but that becomes a lot less true when you’re talking about capture, imprisonment and eventual execution. That takes away some of the glory and drive from them. Now don't get me wrong I'm by no means saying that we should switch from a policy of kill on sight to one of attempted capture. I'm just saying that it this says to the enemy that we are maybe a little more serious about this than you thought and you won't get out of this alive no matter what! [emphases added]

Further update: An NBC news anchor at WEBH (Orlando, FL) says Saddam was "assassinated." Let's go to the video ... at Neocon Express. So, buddy, which side are you on? I mean, which side of the bed did you wake up on? What part of your head were you dropped on?

Alexandra: I believe that every execution is controversial; Hussein's probably the least of all in terms of accumulated guilt -- he certainly deserved to be put to death by his people. But Saddam had lost his power and remained for years nothing but a shadow of his cruel past. Not so our Thug-In-Chief....

Who Does The Jobs Most Americans Refuse To Do?

Like Buffalo, But With an "R"

this may not be the mark fix you are looking for but holy cow he gets slammed in this one!

Loyal and loving Mark Ruffalo fans mention my hefty fisking of an interview he granted back in October to Democracy Now's Amy Goodman. (Scroll within the link down to "4mark"'s post, time-stamped @ 5:49 PM today.) The interview had been all about politics -- namely, Mr. Ruffalo's decision to prominently lend his name and his voice to one of the most virulent and anti-American "antiwar" organizations in the weeks leading up to the pivotal mid-term elections. In "Mark Ruffalo - 30 Going on 13," JMK blogged between the lines of that interview, literally. JMK did not criticize Mr. Ruffalo's right to petition his government -- I criticized the judgment he exhibited while exercising that right while, yes, trying to rip him a new one for it. If anyone concerned has anything to add, please do.

Three Years To The Day

Gotcha!

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Because, because, because....

The Gate of Mystery

Rocco continues his on-the-ground reportage from Iraq with his fifth installment, "The Gate" (links added):
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And he (Virgil) then as initiate to novice:
"Here must you put all division of spirit
and gather your soul against all cowardice.

This is the place I told you to expect.
Here you shall pass among the fallen people,
souls who have lost the good of intellect."

So saying, he put forth his hand to me,
and with a gentle and encouraging smile
he led me through the gate of mystery.-Dante

A tall, polite American with a tight, painted smile greets me when I enter the house. After a brief chat he walks me to my room telling me that its permanent occupant will be returning from abroad in a few weeks. Until he does, the room is mine. I thank him, enter the room and close the door....

Donald Rumsfeld: The Final Days as Secretary

Lew appreciates the outgoing Secretary of Defense.

Overheard at the Department of Defense

An anonymous JMK source in Washington relays this from a GI in Baghdad:

Look, in the end, somebody's going to win here. It will either be Sunnis, Shias or us. So why don't we just go ahead and win?

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It's a matter of political and civil will.
Ah, c'est simple, mes compatriotes! C'est simple!

What Terrorists Really Want

JMK's blogfather Robert Avrech nails it in a wicked satire of the Iraq Study Group report:

Muhammed: We don't even have to kill that many American soldiers, the blessed Martyrs killed more in one day in the Twin Towers than we have managed to kill in all the five years the Americans have been here in Iraq. But the Americans are soft, decadent, and only want to play video games, and watch Pamela Anderson movies.
Ahmed: Pamela is the devil, curse her.
Muhammed: Curse her

* * *

And what terrorists may really get ....

from Mark Steyn's comments on the ISG report:

Perhaps the Baker Commission's proposals will prove not to be as empty and risible as those leaked. But, if they are, the president should pay them no heed. A bipartisan sellout -- the Republicans cut and the Democrats run -- would be an awesome self-humiliation of the United States. And once the rest of the world figures it out, it'll be America that's the Green Zone.

The 11 Steps

Newt Gingrich tries to stem the influence of Washington "realists" by asking and answering 11 questions about how to confront the situation in Iraq:

Will the Baker Hamilton Commission make a real contribution in helping us win the war against the fanatic wing of Islam? Or will it be simply one more establishment effort to hide defeat so the American political system can resume its comfortable insider games without having to solve real problems in the larger world?

VDH cuts through the BS

His latest thoughts on Middle East affairs.

Wrangling with Rangel

Is this the best that over 35 years of Congressional service can produce? Watch Charles Rangel's performance on CNN, via Hot Air. Michelle Malkin asked for a translation. I think it goes something like this.

He's deflecting rather than engaging GOP talking points by throwing them all up in the air as unanswerable: Is Iraq winnable, or not?  Are Americans prepared to sacrifice for victory, or not?  Will the 110th Congress vote to reinstate a draft, or not? He doesn't take a stand on any of these.

He speaks as if Congress has the authority or expertise to overhaul the highly specialized and sophisticated armed forces of the United States. Congress is not the best body to do that; in fact it's one of the worst.

Rangel's grandstanding on prime time is a kind of asymmetric political warfare -- a rhetorical, Democratic, inside-the-Beltway IED.

If Americans voted for change on 11/7, Rangel's offering change for the worse.

More: Neocon Express wants to debate the draft openly.

A Roman Thought on Iraq

Quanto vos attentius ea agetis, tanto illis animus infirmior erit; paululum modo vos languere viderint, iam omnes feroces aderunt.

The more vigorous your action, the less will be their courage; but if they detect the slightest weakness on your part, they will all be here immediately, filled with reckless daring.

-- attributed to Cato the Younger [his Plutarch's life here] by Sallust in Bellum Catilinae

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 Jeffrey Scott Shapiro -- a Democrat -- argues in "Forsaking Honor" that Congressional Democratic pressure to withdraw from Iraq is a grave mistake.

Victor Hanson wants facts to back proposals.

W(h)ither Iraq?

Power Line blog offers a mini-analysis:

[W]e need to identify the reasons we have remained in Iraq for the past few years. I can think of five: (1) to avoid a humiliating Mogadishu-style defeat that will embolden our enemies, (2) to prevent parts of Iraq from becoming a base for anti-American terrorists, as Afghanistan was under the Taliban, (3) to prevent Iran from becoming the dominant player in portions of Iraq, (4) to prevent Iraqis from killing each other in sectarian strife, and (5) to promote a democratic Iraq.

Keep John Bolton in the U.N.!

* Updated: 1) Bush will stick by his nominee; 2) The beginnings of a thread... *

Word has it that the White House, in another capitulation to the incoming Democratic Congressional leadership, will withdraw John Bolton's nomination from consideration for Senate confirmation as U.N. Ambassador (via Atlas Shrugs). To keep him nominated and to get him confirmed would be one hell of a fight, but a fight worth every ounce of sweat.  For starters, you can email the White House and tell them to keep John Bolton in the U.N.! Send your message to comments@whitehouse.gov. Here's what I sent earlier today:

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Dear Mr. President,

  I am alarmed to hear that you may withdraw John Bolton's nomination from consideration before the Senate. Ambassador Bolton is one of the most effective and persuasive proponents of the "Bush Doctrine" your administration has presented - a foreign policy principle which is now under heavy assault by the new Democratic Congressional leadership. He is irreplaceable. My confidence in your leadership - and the confidence of many, many Americans - will suffer a blow if you let the threat of Democratic opposition deter you from standing up for your choice.

  During the pivotal weeks leading up the commencement of the 110th Congress, please take to heart the moderate but also forceful and principled words of Senator Tom Coburn:

We do not need to govern from the center as much as we need to govern from conscience. When politicians have the courage to argue their convictions and lose their political lives in an honest battle of ideas the best policies will prevail.
(from a statement the Senator issued yesterday)

  Mr. President, I urge you to do everything in your power to see that Ambassador Bolton's nomination prevails.

Truly Yours,
JMK

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The 110th Congress is going to be the longest two years of the Bush presidency. Beat the 11/7 blues by getting a head start on those Congressional battles now!

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Update: Fellow "9/11 Neocon" Dave told the White House what he thinks of John Bolton, and with eloquence (below). Isn't it time you did, too? Email the White Hosue now, then tell your friends to do so:  comments@whitehouse.gov

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President Bush and Vice President Cheney:

 

I've had a hard time the last several years as a Republican in liberal San Francisco. Our Ambassador at the United Nations has been a silver lining in a sky often filled with bad news or inarticulate but well-intentioned blunders.

 

I believe the Administration's appointment and support of John Bolton has been among its finest hours-- and allowing Bolton to leave the United Nations without a fight is an humiliating defeat for both this presidency and America.

 

His presence in those halls of corruption is a daily victory for both the Free World and the much maligned voices of neoconservatism. He has been the staunchest ally of the special US-Israel relationship and a bulwark against poisonous anti-Zionism. As a voice of clarity against today's totalitarianism and its duplicitous enablers, Bolton's words sting from the bully pulpit like Churchill's.

 

Please bring yourselves to support John Bolton with even half as much vigor as he brings to his office every day.

 

David Reaboi

San Francisco, CA

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So, who's next?

John Kerry - The Democratic Gift to Republicans Who Just Keeps on Giving

[Today we feature a guest post from Robert Avrech of Seraphic Secret. Robert's having maintenance performed on his site today, so he asked us to get his timely commentary on John Kerry out on the wire -- PRONTO!

(Needless to say, Jeremayakovka is honored to have been asked and proud to help out the man who is, as the saying goes, our veritable blogfather.)]

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This is what he said: You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

We all know what this means. It's not complicated. Nor is it open to multiple interpretations. Let the chattering classes "deconstruct" this one sentence as much as they want, but common sense will prevail -- especially for our friends in the military who are intelligent enough to know when they've been insulted.

Kerry further insults their and our intelligence by insisting that he was just making a joke about President Bush -- a joke "that was botched."

Uh-huh.

In fact, Kerry's statement is simply a logical extension of his deepest feelings and most public pronouncements about the American military. Since Viet Nam, John Kerry's views have been well documented and articulated. His belief that we have been an imperialist nation, that our soldiers have engaged in widespread war crimes, that our military is a dark machine that he is personally ashamed of.

To issue a simple and sincere apology should not be difficult, but for Senator Kerry, this option seems as far-a-way as the summit of Mount Everest.

And the reason that the mainstream media, even now, is desperately trying to downplay this flap it is really quite simple:

Kerry's statement resonates; it shudders with a core truth.

HIs words point out once again that the Democrats have contempt for soldiers...
That the Democrats are not comfortable in uniform and armed with weapons...
That the Democrats, at heart, prefer to sing Kumbaya rather than The Halls of Montezuma.

And this is the reason Kerry's statement has rippled across the landscape and created panic in the Democratic voting precincts.

For in the end it comes down to this: the Democrats cannot be trusted with National Security. The only thing they can be counted on is this: they will raise taxes.

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Let us move on.

Here is a website that made me smile and sway in my seat, and I'm hoping it will do the same for you.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles. Just click the individual frame and presto, you've got the original music video. When rock and roll rocked; when contemporary music still had lyrics, melody and harmony.

-- Robert J. Avrech

Common Sense with the Commander-in-Chief, Plus Input From the Front

As a perfect antidote to an exasperating exchange today with one of my most recklessly liberal friends about the upcoming election (in which we ended up speaking at, not with, each other), here's a calm, deliberate, judicious, informed, and articulate hour-long session with President Bush, provided by Michael Barone. It's the president along with leading conservative journalists, including some of my favorites Byron York, Mark Steyn, and Charles Krauthammer. It's such common sense. So break out your earphones and listen to this timely and vital update from the Commander-in-Chief himself. (And big thanks to Ms. Malkin who flagged this item as as soon as it broke.):

We're in this grand ideological struggle. It is a struggle between moderate people and a struggle between ideologues who are totalitarian and who kill to achieve an objective without conscience....

My biggest issue that I think about all the time is the next attack on America. Because I'm fully aware that there are people out there who would like nothing more than to have another spectacular moment by killing Americans....

We need to be on the offensive all the time....

Now it's an interesting world in which people are not willing to listen to the words of an enemy. But in this case we're able to listen to the enemy, find out what the enemy thinks, and publish their thoughts. The Commander-in-Chief must listen carefully and take their words extremely seriously. In other parts of the world and some [people] here -- I'm not casting aspersions, I'm just giving you a sense, I'm telling you what's on my mind -- I am in disbelief that people don't take it seriously as if they are some kind of incompetent and isolated people. They're plenty competent, they're plenty tough, and they're plenty ambitious....

Protecting this country is the number one issue....

It looks grim right now, because murder is the tool of some, revenge is the tool of others. In this different kind of war the propaganda of the enemy is brutal and effective, and it upsets Americans because we value life.  My responsibility is to speak as often as I can to the American people and explain the stakes and how we will succeed....

If we leave, they will follow us here. That's really different from other wars we've been in....

If we don't deal with it, the rest of the world won't deal with it. It's really important for the United States to stay in the lead....

I view this struggle as a struggle of Good vs. Evil, by the way. I don't think religious people murder. I think people are misusing religion to justify their murder. A lot of Americans understand it that way. Maybe it's not nuanced enough for some of the thinkers, and all that stuff. That's fine. But that's exactly what a lot of people like me think. My job is to make it clear to the American people the stakes and to spell them out as plainly as I can. A lot of people understand it.

Another thing that is really interesting about this particular part of the War on Terror and the overall War on Terror is that we've got a military that is full of decent, honorable, courageous people who strongly support what we're doing. Strongly. I find it really interesting that those most attuned with the stakes of the struggle are those who are right in the middle of the fight....

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And these excerpts are from the first portion of the recording.

Update (10/26): Roger Simon interviews Michael Barone for Pajamas Media. They get into the elections, blogging itself (Barone started his back in 2002), and even a mention of the recently completed interview with the president.

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That's the macro-perspective. For the micro, see James Taranto's "Best of the Web" for October 25 at WSJ Opinion Journal, from which I pulled the following nitty-gritty input from an Army sergeant who specializes in intelligence gathering and stationed near Baghdad [emphases added]:

If we continue on as is in Iraq, we will leave here (sooner or later) with a fractured state, a Rwanda-waiting-to-happen. "Stay the course" and refusing to admit that we're screwing things up is already killing a lot of people needlessly. Following through with such inane nonstrategy is going to be the death knell for hundreds of thousands of Sunnis.

We need to backtrack. We need to publicly admit we're backtracking. This is the opening battle of the ideological struggle of the 21st century. We cannot afford to lose it because of political inconveniences. Reassert direct administration, put 400,000 to 500,000 American troops on the ground, disband most of the current Iraqi police and retrain and reindoctrinate the Iraqi army until it becomes a military that's fighting for a nation, not simply some sect or faction. Reassure the Iraqi people that we're going to provide them security and then follow through. Disarm the nation: Sunnis, Shias, militia groups, everyone. Issue national ID cards to everyone and control the movement of the population....

The short of it is, the situation is salvageable, but not with "stay the course" and certainly not with cut and run. However, the commitment required to save it is something I doubt the American public is willing to swallow. I just don't see the current administration with the political capital remaining in order to properly motivate and convince the American public (or the West in general) of the necessity of these actions.

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And that's the thought I'd like to leave you with.

PS - Rick Moran's got a thing or two to say as well.

Robin Williams Loves New York, Kind Of

While performing on the USS Enterprise near Iraq, Robin Williams sported a t-shirt that read, "I [love] New York" -- in Arabic.
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Is this a mixed message or a clear message? I think it's a mixed one. Robin's not a (native) Arabic speaker, so the shirt can't be his own best expression of his own best sentiment. Whose sentiment does that shirt express, then? Whose, exactly? Looks like wishful linguistic acrobatics to me.

Don't Go, G.I. Joe

Blogger Rocco DiPippo (who likes to fish) bagged a big one yesterday, one the Washington Post almost let get away:

On Sunday, the Washington Post ran a story that is so important, that it should have run on the front page. But since it runs counter to the defeatist MSM message, it was buried on page A-19. The story concerned the Iraqi leadership's fear that the U.S. will soon abandon Iraq to the terrorists.

For the rest of his good catch, click here.

Europeans for Terror Gather in Italy

"To Revolt is Necessary" screams the slogan atop the Anti-Imperialist Camp's web site.  This site is an informational, tactical, financial, and logistical crossroads for European terrorist enablers and their international allies.  Even more than most extreme Left sites, AIC is laden with articles, pictures, and links to other organizations.  It is professionally designed and quite interactive.

Currently near the top of the right sidebar is a thumbnail link to the six-day conference, "Resistance (and Intelligence)." Kicking off today, it looks to be not just a Who's Who of every major terrorist, anti-Western, Islamic and anti-semitic war but also a How and a Why to support them.

Just look at certain offerings:

"Palestine: The Liberation Movement Since Hamas's Victory"
"Chavez's Proposal"
"Lebanon: Theory and Practice of Hezbollah"
"The Holocaust Industry: How it Justifies the Zionist Genocide in Palestine"
"Afghanistan: Roots, Dynamics, and Perspectives of the Guerilla War"

If any international visitors have opinions and impressions to contribute, I would appreciate them.

(H/T: Stefania)

Why We Write

Journalist Steven Vincent was murdered one year ago today in Basra, Iraq. Arriving of late to blogosphere and the war on terror effort, I still have a lot to learn about him. Freedom-loving people everywhere owe his memory, and those of all journalists killed in these wars, profound thanks.  Yehudit is making sure the blogosphere pays him full honors today in a three four-part post at Kesher Talk.

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Steven Vincent, 1955-2005

Quote of the Day

Everybody in the U.N. advocates their own national interest.  The only difference is that the United States is the only one that's criticized for it.

-- John Bolton, in a ten-minute televised interview on Hannity & Colmes
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America's U.N. Ambassador clarifies the United States' position on Israel's defensive counter-attack and on Syria, Iran, and North Korea. He describes Israel as going after the "root causes" of terrorism. I like it.