Collateral Damage

At first blush, the news reports from Britain indicated that special operations forces had averted another suicide bombing in the London subway system when they shot and killed a suspect who gate-crashed and attempted to escape on the Tube. The man had ignored several commands to stop and cooperate, and instead headed for the same system that had recently seen two coordinated attacks. When police stopped him, they immediately killed him to stop the suspect from blowing up the train, themselves, and surrounding Londoners. They had every reason to believe that they had saved dozens of lives.

Every reason, until they discovered he had no bomb:

Scotland Yard admitted Saturday that a man police officers gunned down at point-blank range in front of horrified subway passengers on Friday had nothing to do with the investigation into the bombing attacks here.

The man was identified by police as Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian, described by officers as an electrician on his way to work. "He was not connected to incidents in central London on 21st July, 2005, in which four explosive devices were partly detonated," a police statement said. ...

The shooting shocked many of the country's 1.6 million Muslims, already alarmed by a publicly acknowledged shoot-to-kill policy directed against suspected suicide bombers. And it has dealt a major setback to the police inquiry into suspected terrorist cells in London.

"This really is an appalling set of circumstances," said John O'Connor, a former police commander. "The consequences are quite horrible." Azzam Tamimi, head of the Muslim Association of Britain, said: "This is very frightening. People will be afraid to walk the streets, or go on the tube, or carry anything in their hands."

A cousin of the dead man, interviewed on Brazil's leading television network, identified him as João Alves Menezes and said he was an electrician who had been working in England for more than three years. The cousin, Alex Pereira Alves, identified Mr. Menezes' body in London, the network said.

Mr. Menezes was from the interior state of Minas Gerais, home of the bulk of migrants from Brazil to the United States and Europe and had been in Britain legally, Mr. Alves said. He would have been on his way to work that morning, he said, and had no reason to flee the police.

Menezes, a Catholic, had legally emigrated to Britain three years earlier and worked as an electrician. He spoke English well and would have understood the commands to stop, and his family says he had no reason to flee from the police -- and yet he did.

Many people will take this time to second-guess the London police and British special services. They will note the tragic consequences of a shoot-first policy that killed an apparently innocent man just trying to get to work, although one would expect that an innocent man would have stopped when commanded to do so instead of running for the nearest subway car. The police themselves will now second-guess themselves when it comes to making split-second decisions that could mean death in either direction.

Debate on tactics has its place and its benefits, but when such debate comes, it has to take place in the proper context -- and that context is the war which Islamofascist terrorists have declared on the West.

In its way, this shows the folly of treating captured terrorists as if they were POWs. The Geneva Conventions exist to prevent civilian authorities to make these kinds of choices. It forces nations engaged in warfare to clothe their soldiers in recognizable uniforms so that civilians do not face these deadly consequences. The death of Menezes shows the wisdom of summary executions of infiltrators, spies, and saboteurs during wartime in order to discourage their use. The use of deadly force on people in civilian life in part because of a poor choice of outerwear during a hot summer season directly relates to the kinds of attacks that al-Qaeda has conducted on civilian populations.

London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, departed from his normally loathsome moral equivalencies to point the blame for Menezes' death where it belongs:

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: "The police acted to do what they believed necessary to protect the lives of the public.

"This tragedy has added another victim to the toll of deaths for which the terrorists bear responsibility."

Livingstone manages to get this one right. This is why civilized nations saw the need to agree on conditions for war as an exchange for proper treatment of the combatants. It protects the combatants -- but more so, it protects the non-combatants. Al-Qaeda hides its operatives among non-combatants to not only avoid their own capture but also to maximize collateral damage in our response. Encouraging this by granting their terrorist minions GC protections only guarantees more of the tragedy that took Menezes' life.

If anyone doubts this, let me pose this scenario. You have taken your wife and children to the subway in your city. Just as you turn away to see them off on their day, you hear loud voices telling someone to stop now and for everyone else to get down. As people drop to the ground, you see a young man vault the turnstiles and run hell-bent for the same subway car your family just boarded. You notice that he's wearing a long trenchcoat despite the 80-degree heat and what looks like a bulky sweater underneath, and that he looks terrified. Several police trail behind him by twenty feet, yelling at him to stop, but he speeds up instead. The doors to the car have not closed, and he sees them open and lunges towards your family. At this point, it occurs to you that if he has a bomb, he could set it off at any time and kill dozens of people -- including you and your family.

What would you like the police to do? Treat him like a criminal or a terrorist?

Sometimes And Whenever

Fox News reports this morning on a trend in weddings that not only demonstrates the slide away from commitment in our culture, but the erosion of confidence in what used to provide the apex of optimism in the confluence of private and community living. Instead of vowing to remain together "until death do us part," nuptials now include such tenuous promises as "until our time together is over":

Vows like "For as long as we continue to love each other," "For as long as our love shall last" and "Until our time together is over" are increasingly replacing the traditional to-the-grave vow — a switch that some call realistic and others call a recipe for failure.

"We're hearing that a lot — 'as long as our love shall last.' I personally think it's quite a statement on today's times — people know the odds of divorce," said New Jersey wedding expert Sharon Naylor, author of "Your Special Wedding Vows," who adds that the rephrasing is also part of a more general trend toward personalizing vows.

This trend is nothing new. Not long ago, a friend pointed out a news article about a London jeweler who crafts wedding rings in incomplete circles -- allowing the wearer a symbolic way out of their marriage. The problem isn't marriage -- it's a failure to support commitment.

The problem that most couples have when they get married is the illusion of love, that romantic love forms the core of the relationship. It doesn't. Romantic love provides a bond that seals the relationship so commitment can form, but commitment is the core of any marriage that hopes to succeed. Romance comes and goes many times over the course of a marriage, and commitment keeps it together during the lulls.

Vows that deliberately remove the commitment from the marriage transform marriage into a convenience instead of a covenant. Even if one does not believe in the religious aspects of marriage, the legal and social aspects of marriage create ties to the community. Marriage failures create tremendous stress in society, especially where children are involved. Those commitments can't be avoided by cutting holes in rings or swapping vows for transient thoughts of infatuation.

The First Mate and I volunteer our time to a Christian-based marriage support organization, Marriage Encounter. We have served on the board for several years and now have the privilege of serving as the President Couple of the board. We try to help people realize their potential in their marriages by stressing commitment, both to themselves and to God, and to assist them in building better communication skills for conflict resolution. We have done this since 1999, but the organization has provided these weekends for thirty-three years in the Twin Cities.

This weekend we are filling in at the last minute for a Marriage Encounter weekend. Hopefully, at some point we will get a chance to see these couples to reverse some of the damage the commitment-phobic society has inflicted.

Michelle Malkin, who first posted about this, celebrates her 12th wedding anniversary this weekend. Happy anniversary to the Malkins, who graciously opened their home to the First Mate and I on our visit to DC earlier this month. The Anchoress also has her perspective on this, a must read.

AQ Kills Muslims In Egypt, Belies Iraq As Cause

Al-Qaeda took responsibility for the horrendous coordinated series of bombings in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday, killing 83 and wounding hundreds. The suicide car-bomb attacks targeted Egypt's tourist business, which hoped to recover from the Luxor bombings in 1997 and a series of attacks last year:

The attacks dealt a fresh blow to the tourism industry so crucial to Egypt's economy, which was still recovering from the fallout of last year's bombings.

There have also been several attacks in tourist areas in Cairo in recent months, as Egypt prepares for its first multi-candidate presidential election in September.

The Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Levant and Egypt said it carried out the multiple bombings as a "response against the global evil powers which are spilling the blood of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Chechnya."

Where has Egypt stationed its soldiers in any of these areas? Nowhere. Why does AQ want to attack Muslims in Egypt if the country doesn't have any soldiers deployed to Iraq? Because Iraq has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda's overall war. This attack should make that obvious, finally.

Egypt has no patience with radical Islam; Hosni Mubarak sees it as a threat, and rightly so. Radicals killed his predecessor for signing a peace treaty with Israel and Mubarak has maintained that diplomatic contact. He has managed thus far to checkmate the radicals in Egypt, mostly through political oppression that has the deadly side effect of oppressing everybody, creating more radicalism. For example, Osama's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, hails from Egypt and used to head the leading radical terrorist group there before it folded itself into AQ.

AQ antagonism towards Egypt has nothing to do with Iraq, Palestine, and Chechnya and everything to do with assuming control of the ummah in its entirety. It attacks the US and Britain because we oppose the radical takeover of Southwest Asia by the lunatic Islamofascists. Does that involve Iraq? Certainly; right now it's the hot front in the war on terror, along with Afghanistan. But to claim that these attacks spring from our presence in Iraq exclusively, or even our presence in Arab lands, flies in the face of all evidence. Where are the American troops in Egypt?

The media, especially the British media who keep haranguing Tony Blair about causing the London bombings as a price for liberating Iraq, need to start adding two plus two and quit getting three for an answer. AQ operations point to a long-term strategy of isolating and crippling Middle East governments that (a) oppose radical Wahhabism and (b) operate in a secular manner that maintains ties to the West, especially Israel. That is the scope of the war Islamists have fought for twenty years under different banners -- Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and now al-Qaeda. They want to seize power by force, cast a Taliban-style tyranny over the entirety of Southwest Asia and North Africa (to start), and bring the infidel world to its knees through the control of petroleum.

Why, four years after 9/11, does the media and the Left still fail to grasp this? Could it be because acknowledging this fact requires a stark choice to either fight or surrender, and they would prefer to create a fantasy through sophistry to allow them to simply go AWOL instead?

The Canadian Underground

Earlier this week, Canadian invesigators found a tunnel that runs under the border between British Columbia and Washington that ran drugs and guns between the two countries. American officials say that while they have uncovered more than 30 such tunnels between the US and Mexico, the BC-Washington tunnel is the first on our northern border, and one of the most sophisticated they've seen:

The smugglers spent more than a year building the 360-foot (110-meter) tunnel that ran from a Quonset hut-style storage building in the rural Aldergrove neighborhood of Langley, British Columbia, to the living room of a home in Lynden, Washington, U.S. and Canadian investigators said.

"It was well built, probably one of the most sophisticated tunnels we've ever seen," said Rod Benson, an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "There was a significant drug trafficking organization that was responsible for the construction."

Video supplied by investigators showed that the inside of the tunnel was lined with wood supports and concrete reinforced with steel. The builders had installed a small cart to allow them to move freight or people from one end to the other. ...

Large quantities of potent "B.C. Bud" are smuggled to the United States each year from British Columbia, where illegal marijuana growing has been estimated to be a more than C$2 billion-a-year industry ($1.7 billion).

Investigators said that while they believe it had only been used briefly to smuggle marijuana to the United States, the tunnel was also likely intended to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States and cocaine and guns into Canada.

The RCMP arrested three men involved in the tunnel, including Francis Devandra Raj, who owned the property at the Canadian end of the tunnel. All three were "well known" to Canadian authorities, who point out that such an activity had to have major financing to complete the project:

Acquiring the properties and building the tunnel would have cost more than $1-million, Insp. Fogarty said. The 1.2-metre by 1.2-metre tunnel, running between one metre and three metres below the surface, was wired for lighting and included a sump pump to drain off water regularly and a mechanical winch to raise or lower cartloads of drugs. It is the first tunnel ever discovered on the Canada-U.S. border.

Insp. Fogarty, who led the RCMP's combined forces special enforcement unit during the investigation, said the police believe the people who constructed the tunnel associated with members of organized crime networks in B.C. that ship multimillion-dollar drug orders across the border.

Does this set off warning bells for anything else other than drug running? Why would a drug-running syndicate sink that much money into a tunnel when drugs can get muled across the border much less expensively? A million-dollar tunnel is a hell of a lot of overhead for a two-billion-dollar industry, which is what the Canadian marijuana market pulls in every year. It also involves significant risk of detection and capture; in fact, according to the news reports, authorities got tipped off by the amount of lumber brought into the small rural community and the debris coming back out from this property. Even given the possibility of a crime syndicate having leadership with long-range vision and a willingness to invest in infrastructure, it seems unlikely that they would spend that kind of money through associates.

The amount of investment and the sophistication and expense of the tunnel makes me wonder if that money didn't come through other sources. The article mentions efforts to smuggle illegal aliens from Canada to the US. Given that our mutual border does not represent a firm bulwark against infiltration in the first place, what kind of illegals did this tunnel transfer to Washington? Perhaps the kind mentioned in this CBC report from last May, based on a report from the Toronto Star (requires fee):

The majority of al-Qaeda recruits in Canada are being trained at home, not abroad, making the terror network a direct threat to Canada, according to a recently declassified intelligence report.

The homegrown recruits are highly prized for their familiarity with Western societies, says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service report, obtained by the Toronto Star.

AQ involvement in Canada is nothing new. Front Page Magazine reported on this in 2002, and Time Magazine in 2003. Time reported that Osama bin Laden specifically wanted new recruits with a command of English and thorough knowledge of North American geogragphy and customs. Front Page quoted Canadian intelligence officials that AQ had established terrorist cells in Canada, describing them as "sleeper cells", designed to hide themselves for long periods of time before receiving orders to attack.

The only problems in establishing cells in Canada are that the targets AQ wants to hit are here in the US, and border travel has become somewhat riskier since 9/11. Since the AQ organization has financing and doesn't mind spending it on one-off opportunities, the tunnel makes much more sense for that purpose than a long-term investment in pot smuggling, especially when one considers the care that went into building it. Illegals may have already come through the tunnel, and it hardly seems reasonable that Canadians want to escape from an economy essentially similar to ours, or that they would need to do so illegally.

So what kind of people need to come through an underground tunnel from Canada to the United States? Not the kind of people who want to work jobs other Americans disdain, I suspect, but the kind that "disdains" Americans altogether.

Rallies For Oppression Shockingly Disappoint

Islamists in Pakistan called for massive rallies against the Pervez Musharraf government after it rounded up hundreds of suspected terrorists while investigating the London bombings. The grassroots effort to support Taliban-style tyranny fell somewhat short of expectations:

An Islamist call for nationwide protests in Pakistan against a crackdown on militants after the July 7 London bombings fell flat on Friday with rallies in big cities failing to attract more than a few hundred people. ...

Up to 700 Islamists, most of them teenagers or in their 20s, chanted anti-Musharraf and anti-U.S. slogans at Islamabad's Lal or Red Mosque, which was raided by security forces searching for militants on Tuesday.

Some shouted slogans in support of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban government, which was overthrown by U.S.-led forces after the al Qaeda attacks on U.S. cities on Sept. 11, 2001.

The protesters pelted a police post with stones, destroyed lamp posts and set fire to a police motorcycle.

Seven hundred people? More people show up here at the opening of a Krispy Kreme donut shop. Calling for massive rallies always carries the risk of embarrassment if the numbers don't reach significant levels. Howell Raines found that out when his weeks-long jeremiad in the New York Times against the Masters tournament in Augusta only resulted in a few dozen protestors on the first day.

This failure to capture the Pakistani imagination could find an explanation in the autocratic nature of the Musharraf government. However, Pakistan has seen protests of far more significant scope that challenged his policies. This shows that the Islamists have lost tremendous credibility since the fall of the Taliban, a result reflected in an opinion poll released last week showing rapid erosion of Islamist popularity and growing interest in democratic rule among the peoples of Southwest Asia and North Africa.

It looks like Islamofascism may be returning to its previous state: the lunatic fringe, where it belongs.

Returning From Obscurity To Issue Inanities

Since the announcement of John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court, some pundits have grumbled about the fact that a white male has replaced the nation's first female justice. Of course, pundits get paid to grumble. Unfortunately, we have some sailing in from the waters of obscurity to claim another 15 minutes of fame -- and none less welcome to a Supreme Court confirmation process than the woman who attempted to scuttle one fourteen years ago. Anita Hill writes about her disappointment that George Bush didn't limit his search to minorities and women:

As Peter Canellos of the Boston Globe wrote, Roberts' career reads like "a 1950s Boys' Life primer on how to prepare for the Supreme Court."

But was John Roberts chosen because he's the best choice for the court or because he may easily be confirmed? And why not choose a woman to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court? Or use this as an opportunity to nominate the first Latino to the court?

Not surprisingly, the answer to these questions has to do with the politics of confirmability. One thing is certain: If nominees are selected based on the very narrow and elite credentials that brought us John Roberts, a wide range of equally qualified, more diverse candidates will never even be considered.

Let's recall that this woman did her level best to torpedo the confirmation of the second African-American nominated to the court and tarnished his reputation for all time, based on allegations that went back ten years and on which she had never previously acted. Nor do I recall her causing a stink about the nominations of David Souter before, or Stephen Breyer after, that of Clarence Thomas. It seems her commitment to diversity has much in common with her commitment to consistency.

However, let's take her complaints at face value and not as the cloaked attack on a conservative jurist (and administration) that it is. What does she find objectionable about John Roberts' background?

* Graduated from Harvard, both as an undergrad and as a law student

* Ran the Harvard Law Review as managing editor

* Ran the appellate practice of a DC law firm

* Clerked for a Supreme Court justice (the Chief Justice, in fact)

What do all of these point towards? For most of us, a sterling reputation and a great background for a Supreme Court justice. For Anita Hill, all it says to her is how exclusionary Bush's standards must be:

Had these "extraordinary" credentials set the standard for judicial nominations in 1982, Sandra Day O'Connor would never have been appointed. She never clerked. She never worked for a president. She never served as a federal judge.

Ideology notwithstanding, even Circuit Judge Edith Clement, whose name surfaced as the front-runner prior to Bush's official announcement, would not survive this standard, despite the fact that she has more judicial experience than Roberts. The first Latino U.S. attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, was also rumored to be a potential nominee. But like O'Connor's, his resume is missing a clerkship and his judicial experience was state, not federal.

If one takes Hill at her word (and takes her seriously), then the above qualifications do not benefit the United States but serves to damage us by ensuring a "return to an all-white-male Supreme Court". She actually argues that the President should have picked someone with fewer qualifications, ensuring that the next pick could meet lower standards. High standards, she tells us, encourages racism and sexism.

I'm not kidding. I wish I were.

Amazingly, she then goes on to scold Bush using "confirmability politics" in selecting Roberts for the position. The term irony does not begin to cover her nerve in arguing this point. Thanks in part to Hill and her unsubstantiated smear job on Thomas, all we have watched for the past five years is the Democrats playing hardball politics in keeping the Senate from voting on Bush's nominees. Instead of focusing on the traditional issues of qualifications and experience, now we have Senators and their supporters looking for dirt to dig up on every executive nominee, especially for the judiciary. What used to be a civil and informative process of introducing judicial nominees to the American public has turned into a gauntlet of smears and gotchas.

We can thank Hill for that, along with Ted Kennedy and others starting from the Bork nomination. And she has the chutzpah to complain about this administration attempting to avoid it with a nominee carrying such sterling qualifications that the nomination rises above politics?

I have one question for Hill, before she returns to the well-deserved obscurity she earned: Where was this column when Janice Rogers Brown got pilloried by Senate Democrats for four years? Priscilla Owen? Miguel Estrada?

Adios, Anita, and don't rush back.

UPDATE: David Souter came before Clarence Thomas. (h/t: CQ reader Bill)

Let Me Revise -- Attack The Wife And The Kids

Yesterday I wrote that when opponents of the Bush administration couldn't find anything nasty to say about SCOTUS nominee John Roberts, the Los Angeles Times decided to attack his wife and her devout Catholocism instead. That looks positively Churchillian next to the fashion-police anklebiting coming from the Washington Post's style section, in which "reporter" Robin Givhan makes fun of the kids as well as the wife:

It has been a long time since so much syrupy nostalgia has been in evidence at the White House. But Tuesday night, when President Bush announced his choice for the next associate justice of the Supreme Court, it was hard not to marvel at the 1950s-style tableau vivant that was John Roberts and his family.

There they were -- John, Jane, Josie and Jack -- standing with the president and before the entire country. The nominee was in a sober suit with the expected white shirt and red tie. His wife and children stood before the cameras, groomed and glossy in pastel hues -- like a trio of Easter eggs, a handful of Jelly Bellies, three little Necco wafers. There was tow-headed Jack -- having freed himself from the controlling grip of his mother -- enjoying a moment in the spotlight dressed in a seersucker suit with short pants and saddle shoes. His sister, Josie, was half-hidden behind her mother's skirt. Her blond pageboy glistened. And she was wearing a yellow dress with a crisp white collar, lace-trimmed anklets and black patent-leather Mary Janes. ...

The wife wore a strawberry-pink tweed suit with taupe pumps and pearls, which alone would not have been particularly remarkable, but alongside the nostalgic costuming of the children, the overall effect was of self-consciously crafted perfection. The children, of course, are innocents. They are dressed by their parents. And through their clothes choices, the parents have created the kind of honeyed faultlessness that jams mailboxes every December when personalized Christmas cards arrive bringing greetings "to you and yours" from the Blake family or the Joneses. Everyone looks freshly scrubbed and adorable, just like they have stepped from a Currier & Ives landscape.

In a time when most children are dressed in Gap Kids and retailers of similar price-point and modernity, the parents put young master Jack in an ensemble that calls to mind John F. "John-John" Kennedy Jr.

Separate the child from the clothes, which do not acknowledge trends, popular culture or the passing of time. They are not classic; they are old-fashioned. These clothes are Old World, old money and a cut above the light-up/shoe-buying hoi polloi.

Got that? The Roberts' children were too perfect, a slap in the face to the workin' man who has to buy his kids light-up shoes instead of saddle shoes. The wife looks like she worships Donna Reed. Why, it's just another example of how stuck up and old-fashioned the Bush administration is!

For God's sake ... this wasn't a fashion show! In fact, on Fox the only shot we saw of his family during the announcement was a head shot of Jane Roberts. I didn't even know the kids were there until I saw still shots of Jack getting impatient. To me, it looks like a normal family outing in what used to be called their "Sunday best," trying to look nice and unobtrusive for Roberts' nomination announcement. Perhaps Givhan would have considered it more realistic if Jane showed a little bit of a thong and Josie dressed like a Bratz girl?

Highly disappointing. I thought that the Washington Post took politics, and journalism, a bit more seriously than this. Using the Roberts kids to cheapshot George Bush and John Roberts goes off the scale for cowardly sniping. Givhan and the editors owe their readers an apology for letting this get to print. (via Michelle Malkin)

Zarqawi Continues To Alienate Muslims

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi continued his strange new strategy of alienating Muslims by kidnapping yet another diplomatic envoy to Iraq. This time, terrorists captured the Algerian charges d'affaires nearby his embassy in an ambush:

Algeria's top diplomat in Iraq was abducted Thursday by masked gunmen, witnesses said, nearly three weeks after the group called al Qaeda in Iraq kidnapped and killed an Egyptian envoy and threatened to seize more diplomats.

Ali Belaroussi, the chargé d'affaires at the Algerian Embassy, was accosted by gunmen about 100 yards from the embassy in the west Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour and forced into the back of a car, according to witnesses. One witness said a bodyguard was abducted along with Belaroussi; another said that only the envoy was seized. ...

Because Algeria has not posted an ambassador to Iraq, Belaroussi is chief of his country's diplomatic mission here. No Arab country has sent an ambassador since Iraq's transitional government was formed in late April; the first was to have been Ihab Sherif, the Egyptian diplomat who disappeared on the night of July 2. Three days later, on a day when two other diplomats were attacked in apparent kidnapping attempts, al Qaeda in Iraq said that it had kidnapped Sherif, then announced July 7 that Sherif had been executed.

Perhaps Zarqawi wants to use the kidnapping to foment an Islamist uprising in Algeria, although the religious extremists have mostly fled the North African nation over the past few years. How the kidnapping and eventual killing of an Algerian envoy in Iraq will boost standing for Islamists among Algerians, however, is beyond me. It would instead reinforce the perception among Algerians that Islamists cannot operate from reason nor from Islam, and that to negotiate with them necessarily means surrender to them. As a tactic it does nothing except provide them with a slim chance for a ransom, and as a strategy it defeats their purposes elsewhere.

Maybe this is all they have left. They have failed to eject the Americans and Britons from Iraq. They failed in their attempts to create the Terrorist Fortress in Fallujah, getting their asses kicked out of there as soon as the Marines were seriously unleashed in the City of Mosques. The terrorists couldn't stop the Iraqis from going to the polls and electing representatives to govern Iraq instead of lunatics with bomb belts imposing their tyranny. They haven't stopped the constitutional process from moving forward. Now they're trying to isolate Iraq from the Arab world by killing Arab envoys -- a method which will ensure their alienation from even potential allies in the region.

It doesn't take much brains to become a suicide bomber. I think we're seeing that it doesn't take much more mental ingenuity to lead them, either.

SchumerTo Use Estradification Ploy

Senator Chuck Schumer has decided to continue his quest for obstructionism in the John Roberts confirmation process despite the tentative endorsements of centrist Democrats of George Bush's SCOTUS nominee. He plans to pursue the same kind of documents that the Bush administration and former White House counsels of both parties said were inappropriate for release during the aborted Miguel Estrada confirmation:

Democrats said yesterday they will demand that the Bush administration hand over internal legal memorandums written by Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. while he was a government lawyer -- something the White House has refused to do in the past.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said he broached the topic during a meeting yesterday with Judge Roberts, who replied that any decision about his writings as deputy solicitor general would be made by the White House.

Republicans on Capitol Hill said the request is not likely to be granted.

Demands for those same documents -- deemed legally privileged by this and previous administrations -- led to the rejection of Miguel Estrada, an earlier Bush nominee to a lower court.

Democrats have used this tactic to stall the nomination of John R. Bolton, Mr. Bush's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations.

Schumer may not get very far in his Estradification -- what some Republicans now call this tactic -- as it looks like he won't have the votes to sustain a veto for it. However, it does point out that the Democrats, especially the more lunatic Kennedy/Durbin/Schumer wing, still want to rely on such discredited maneuvers to attempt to wrest power from the Executive and the Senate majority. They think nothing of damaging attorney-client privilege to get it, either.

If nothing else, this pathetic threat reveals the prior requests even more clearly as pointless fishing expeditions, mere excuses on which Democrats could hang filibusters. During the Estrada hearings, if one recalls, the Democrats claimed that they needed the documents to determine Estrada's views on issues that he refused to answer -- appropriately, as legal ethics require that nominees not comment on issues that they might face as a jurist, in order to maintain their independence. Next, they used the same tactic on John Bolton under the premise that he bullied subordinates and misused classified information to that effect, despite a bipartisan denial of that allegation by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Schumer wants to do the same thing to Roberts, and this time he hasn't even waited for the hearings to start nor to make up a false allegation to provide cover. He wants the documents because >i>he wants a fight, even though others in his own caucus have clearly decided against one. Hopefully, enough of them will drop away to embarrass Schumer, to the extent he can be embarrassed, and Estradification will eventually disappear from DC's lexicon.

Shooting In The Tube

After the second series of bombings in as many weeks in London's transport systems yesterday, police have tightened security to avoid another attack. This morning, that heightened scrutiny resulted in the death of an "Asian" man on the Tube when he tried to board a train despite a police warning to stop:

Chris Wells, a 28-year-old company manager, said he was travelling on the Victoria Line towards Vauxhall when he left the train at Stockwell.

He saw about 20 police officers, some of them armed, rushing into the station before a man jumped over the barriers with police giving chase.

He said: "There were at least 20 of them [officers] and they were carrying big black guns.

"The next thing I saw was this guy jump over the barriers and the police officers were chasing after him and everyone was just shouting 'get out, get out"'. ...

Witness Mark Whitby, speaking to BBC News 24, reported the man was shot five times at close range after he had jumped on a train.

Mr Whitby added that he was sitting on the tube train reading his paper as it was stationary with its doors open in Stockwell station. He said he heard people shouting "get down, get down!"

He said: "An Asian guy ran on to the train. As he ran, he was hotly pursued by what I knew to be three plainclothes police officers."

He said the man tripped and was also pushed to the floor. He said: "One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him. I saw it. He's dead, five shots, he's dead."

He reported the man did not seem to be carrying a weapon or wearing a rucksack.

American readers should remember that "Asian" to a Briton will not just refer to Chinese or Japanese people, but also those from the subcontinent, i.e., India, Pakistan, and so on. Even without the rucksack, it seems that this man meant to get on the train regardless of the police effort to stop him. With all of the publicity about rucksacks (and for all the good they did the lunatic terrorists yesterday), he could have had explosives on his body, in the style of Gaza and West Bank suicide bombers. That would explain why the police shot him once they had him pinned down.

This story is still developing, but it seems clear from the eyewitness testimony in the Guardian that the man did not commit an act of jaywalking, and that British security isn't playing around when protecting the London transportation systems.

UPDATE: Another detail emerges on an update to the original story:

There was speculation the man may have been a would-be suicide bomber who had been followed by police. Mr Whitby said he did not see a bag, but the man had worn a bulky winter-style coat, and there may have been "something underneath it".

A bulky winter-style coat -- in July? SkyNews has some so-far unconfirmed details:

Armed officers opened fire on the suspect as he hurdled a ticket barrier and raced along a platform at Stockwell station.

Police screamed at passengers to evacuate and are thought to have shot the suspect as he stumbled on to a train. ...

Unconfirmed reports suggest the man was involved in Thursday's assault on the capital.

It looks more and more like the British managed to stop a big attack this morning.

Goldberg Goes For Number Nine

Bernard Goldberg appeared on The O'Reilly Factor, which for conspiracy theorists makes his ninth appearance on Fox since the release of his book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37). Bill O'Reilly and Goldberg mostly appeared amused at the debacle, with O'Reilly wondering why Goldberg bothered to appear on Donny Deutsch's show in the first place. Apparently, its overnight Nielsen rating was a whopping 0.1, or around 70,000 -- and that after this blog and others "promoting" Goldberg's appearance for 30 hours or so. Goldberg's tongue-in-cheek response: "Well ... it seemed like a good idea at the time."

The tone remained light throughout the interview; when the satellite feed dropped out for a few seconds, both joked about Deutsch pulling the plug. Not as funny, though, was Goldberg's revelation that the Deutsch show edited down the segment. The show's 30-minute run time last night (when it normally runs an hour) makes it look like the Big Idea producers decided to do some heavy-duty whittling. That explains why it appears that Goldberg lost his temper so quickly with Linda Stasi. Interviews on cable news shows rarely edit content unless it violates FCC or libel/slander restrictions, and those who do reveal it. It looks like another example of a serious ethical lapse on the part of The Big Idea's producers and Deutsch.

I wrote to the producers to ask them if the segment would be edited yesterday, and they have chosen not to respond to my question.

You can see the segment yourself at the Political Teen. I thought it was pretty funny, and at least this time you can actually hear Goldberg's responses.

Guess Who Wrote This?

It's time to play, "Guess The Author!", with your host, CQ. Here's how we play. I will give a quote about the Plame/Rove leak investigation, and readers have to guess who wrote it and when. The prize for guessing correctly -- well, lording it over your neighbors, feeling good, and so on.

(Hey, this isn't Bob Barker, mm-kay?)

Anyway, here's the quote, courtesy of CQ reader Andrew X:

At the threshold, an agent whose identity has been revealed must truly be "covert" for there to be a violation of the Act. To the average observer, much less to the professional intelligence operative, Plame was not given the "deep cover" required of a covert agent. ... She worked at a desk job at CIA headquarters, where she could be seen traveling to and from, and active, at Langley. She had been residing in Washington -- not stationed abroad for a number of years. ... [T]he CIA failed to take even its usual steps to prevent publication of her name.

So who wrote this? The Washington Times? Bill O'Reilly? Rush Limbaugh? Captain Ed, or his evil twin Dafydd?

Pencils down, please.

This was written by --

ABC, CNN, CBS, Fox, Gannett, NBC, Reuters, AP, Hearst, Knight-Ridder, the Tribune Company, the Washington Post, and about two dozen other news organizations.

What? You didn't read that in their coverage? That's because they saved up this argument for an amicus curiae brief appealing the grand jury subpoenas for Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller filed on March 23, 2005. Four months ago, all of these news organizations who have given us such breathless coverage over the past few weeks of leaked tidbits of testimony have argued all along that the entire episode is nothing more than a political fishing expedition.

This doesn't prove them correct, of course. However, all of the people from these organizations who continue to chase Karl Rove for a supposed crime and beat up Scott McClellan at the White House press gaggle daily -- and the White House Correspondents are included separately in this brief -- have an interesting way of changing their tune when convenient.

UPDATE: Jimmie at Sundries Shack guessed the right answer -- about five days ago ...

UPDATE: Jon says Dale at QandO guessed this right nine days ago ...

Dafydd: A Pro-Christian Jewish Agnostic Speaks Out

I could have more provacatively titled this post "Are Atheists Actually Demented?" because that is the impression I get from the founder and head of the premier anti-religion organization in the country, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State -- or United Separators, as I call them for short.

Up on their website, the United Separators have come out swinging against Judge John. G. Roberts, who the president named as his nominee to the Supreme Court a couple of days ago. In "Senate Should Reject Confirmation Of John G. Roberts To Supreme Court, Says Americans United," an unsigned article posted yesterday, founder and chief anti-religion guru Barry Lynn draws his line in the sand (hat tip to Michael Medved, who mentioned this on his radio show today):

“John Roberts has long been a faithful soldier in the right wing’s war on the Bill of Rights,” said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “He does not support personal liberties and should not receive a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land.”

He cites only one example of Roberts' "war on the Bill of Rights": his brief, while serving as deputy solicitor general for Bush-41 (that is the say, the position of the first Bush administration, which Roberts, as their attorney, faithfully argued to the Court), which Lynn describes as follows:

Lynn noted that Roberts, as deputy solicitor general in the first Bush White House, drafted a key legal brief urging the Supreme Court to scrap decades of settled church-state law and uphold school-sponsored prayer at public school graduation ceremonies and other forms of government-endorsed religion. (At the time, Roberts was serving as political deputy in charge of crafting policy under then Solicitor General Kenneth Starr.)

“Roberts will work to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state and open the door to majority rule on religious matters,” Lynn said. “In a game with such high stakes, this unwise crusade should disqualify him.”

What? You mean -- Roberts actually supported enforced prayer in the schools, where young tots would be forced to their knees under penalty of physical brutality and forced to mouth words against their own religious faith? Yep, that's exactly what Mr. Lynn would like you to believe. (And note the reverse name-dropping, guilt-by-employment of noting that Roberts' boss was... Kenneth Starr, gasp!)

However, the New York Times, at the end of a lengthy and surprisingly flattering bio-piece on Roberts, went into somewhat more detail on this case:

The government had asked the Supreme Court to discard an earlier test and overturn a lower court ruling that held a clergyman could not give an official address at a junior high school graduation in Providence, R.I. It asked the court to rule that "civic acknowledgments of religion in public life do not offend the establishment clause" of the Constitution "as long as they neither threaten the establishment of an official religion nor coerce participation in religious activities."

At the time, officials in the first Bush administration told reporters that the reason for intervening was a tactical decision to try to draw out Justice David H. Souter, then the court's newest member, and get him on the side of the administration, which was hoping eventually to change the approach to religion in public settings.

In the end, the court voted 5 to 4 against the administration and upheld the lower court's decision. Among those in the majority were Justice Souter and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, whose seat Judge Roberts has been nominated to fill.

Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Wednesday that Judge Roberts's participation in the case makes him "unsuited for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court." He said that if confirmed to the court, Judge Roberts would "open the door to majority rule on religious matters."

So the case was actually about allowing a clergyman to speak at a junior-high graduation. Great Scott, it's a theocracy!

The hair-on-fire hysteria on the part of the United Separators at the mere idea of a guy with a backwards collar being allowed to say a word at a graduation is only marginally less irrational than the ACLU threatening to sue the County of Los Angeles unless they removed the teeny, tiny cross atop a mission in the county seal, lest some unsuspecting and easily influenced Hindu or Buddhist see it and spontaneously combust.

Full disclosure: the "Jewish agnostic" of the title is myself; I'm Jewish on my parents' side, coming from a long tradition of secular American Jews stretching back to about the 1830s. But far from sharing Mr. Lynn's frothing hatred of anyone who believes in God, I myself love widespread Christianity and Judaism in society.

I absolutely believe that it is vital for a free and civilized society that the huge majority of people believe in what Dennis Prager calls "ethical monotheism." Prager defines ethical monotheism (as I understand it) as the belief in one omniscient God who demands that human beings behave towards each other with both decency and justice. Unless ethical monotheism is at the very core of a culture, that culture will retreat from justice and mock decency, and it will become a hellish place to live.

So I hope you're forgive my bluntness, but Barry Lynn and his United Separators can just go to the Hell that I don't believe in!

For the rest of this crabby, pro-Christian, pro-Jewish rant by a secular agnostic, read on!

The necessity is clear: all of our concepts of freedom and liberty derive from belief in the divinity of the human soul, found in both Judaism and Christianity. The rule of law derives from the idea of universal right and wrong -- which derives ultimately from Judaism's belief (even before Jesus) that the law is for all, king and shepherd alike. Even the scientific method also derives from the idea of universal right and wrong: gravity in the United States in 2005 is the same as gravity in Napoleonic France, Mediæval Germany, and the Roman Empire, whether it was recognized or not... which means not only the eternal values of Western civilization and the United States but even the material benefits that derive from modernity all depend upon ethical monotheism.

Which is why the farther you stray from that societal religious belief, the more tyrannical, backwards, and poverty-stricken that society becomes. Europe has turned its back on religion, and not coincidentally, on self defense, on economic growth, and on justice and decency (examples available upon request). But they sure love their anti-American grandstanding!

We may pass lightly over economic basket-cases like Tibet, horrific "atheist" dictatorships such as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Mao's China, and the Latin American thugocracies (now new and improved in Venezuela!), and... well, the less said about the recent history of sub-Saharan Africa, the less likely I'll get my mug shot up on the wall of the Daily Kos: Wanted, dead or even deader, for crimes against progressivism!

(Note that just claiming to be a Christian does not make one an ethical monotheist; it depends upon one's actual beliefs, not the label.)

And I think it also succinctly answers Professor Bernard Lewis's question, "what went wrong" with Islam? Islam is monotheistic; but it is not, in my opinion, an "ethical monotheism." This is because in Islam, the most important duty that believers owe to other men is not to treat them with decency and justice, but rather to convert them to Islam, by force if necessary; and if they will not convert, to enslave them -- or kill them.

Ethical monotheisms very often behave unethically; this goes all the way back to the reign of King Saul in ancient Israel. But for every King Saul there is a Prophet Samuel who can step up to point out that the Law is for all. Throughout the long and evil history of slavery in the Christian West, for but one example, there were always opponents, some clergy and some lay, who argued that the institution was inherently unjust and wicked, for all men and women had divine souls that could not be herded like cattle. For centuries, the arguments fell on ears deafened by greed and inertia... but the arguments were there, ready to be used, when civilization finally matured to the point where it became the majority view in the nineteenth century.

Those arguments were never made in other cultures, for they made no sense: they did not have the concept of universal right and wrong. And they still don't, even today; I have never heard any deep or heartfelt rejection of slavery within Islam, for example; the arguments are merely of practicality, if they are even made at all.

The highest ideal of Buddhism appears to be acceptance of one's fate, from my reading; this is the ideal of perpetual victimhood. And the highest ideal of Communism and Naziism is obedience to the current party line. As I said supra, I believe the greatest ideal of Islam is conversion by any means necessary.

Only in Judeo-Christianity is the greatest ideal justice. For this reason, hostility towards mainstream Judeo-Christianity deeply offends me as a civilized Westerner, as an American, and especially as a secularist.

I want mainstream Catholics, Protestants, and Jews on the Supreme Court. I want the president and members of Congress to be mainstream Jews or Christians of some specific and heartfelt sect. Not some vague "Christian" who changes his religion over a bicycle path (if you know what I mean, and I think you do); but somebody who actually has a firm belief in some specific religion that actually sets ethical boundaries on his decisions and behavior. To quote my favorite TV show, "no man should be allwed to govern others until he has first learned to govern himself."

To repeat myself (because I like the phrase and because I'm basically too lazy to think of a different ending)... unless ethical monotheism is at the very core of a culture, that culture will retreat from justice and mock decency, and it will become a hellish place to live.

So I hope you're forgive my bluntness, but Barry Lynn and his United Separators can just go to the Hell that I don't believe in!

The Secret S

Today's Washington Post article on the State Department memo detailing Valerie Plame's involvement in sending her husband to Niger lacks a great deal of context. Bloggers appear to assume that the (S) described in the article denotes the status of Plame's identity, but a more careful read of a poorly-written article shows that it doesn't mean that at all:

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post. ...

Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

That sounds pretty damning -- and it might still be, but this description and the rest of the article doesn't establish this as dispositive at all. In any classified document, each paragraph has to carry a label indicating the level of classification for the information contained within. Later in the article by Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei, we find out that the paragraph contains seven sentences, and that Plame only gets mentioned in two of them. That doesn't establish that her identity was classified, although it could. It could just as easily mean that other information in the same paragraph carried that classification.

Another important piece to consider is the level of classification given. Most people don't understand that "secret" is the second-lowest classification grade possible. I would hope that NOC lists have much higher classification than that, and surely they do. Most likely, that information gets kept under codeword classification, a form of top-secret that Sandy Berger made famous when he stuffed some material of that classification into his pants and stole them from the National Archive.

Note also that the memo referred to Valerie Plame by her married name, Valerie Wilson. She wasn't "outed" under that name, and unless her maiden name also gets mentioned in this memo, it doesn't sound like the memo was the original source of the information that got leaked to Novak and others.

Like so much about this case, hearing little pieces outside of their context lends plenty of confusion to an already chaotic muddle. As Alexander Pope once warned, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Either drink deeply of the facts, or not at all.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire has some good analysis on this, which should shock no one.

Nothing On Roberts? Go For The Wife

The Los Angeles Times must have taken its coverage about the lack of controversy attached to SCOTUS nominee John Roberts to heart. Instead of reporting further on Roberts, the LAT decided to go after his wife's pro-life beliefs instead:

While Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s views on abortion triggered intense debate on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, there is no mistaking where his wife stands: Jane Sullivan Roberts, a lawyer, is ardently against abortion.

A Roman Catholic like her husband, Jane Roberts has been deeply involved in the antiabortion movement. She provides her name, money and professional advice to a small Washington organization — Feminists for Life of America — that offers counseling and educational programs. The group has filed legal briefs before the high court challenging the constitutionality of abortion.

A spouse's views normally are not considered relevant in weighing someone's job suitability. But abortion is likely to figure prominently in the Senate debate over John Roberts' nomination. And with his position on the issue unclear, abortion rights supporters expressed concern Wednesday that his wife's views might suggest he also embraced efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

"It's unclear how all this will affect her husband," said Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman with the Center for American Progress, a liberal public policy group. "It's possible that he would have a different view than her. It's just that in the absence of information about this guy, people are looking at her and trying to read the tea leaves."

I expected this, but nevertheless it's pretty appalling. Take a look at the language used in these paragraphs. It's unclear how this will affect her husband. It's possible that he will think for himself, rather than give in to his wife and fail to rule in an independent manner. Perhaps she won't put her hand up his back and operate him as a hand puppet. And let's not forget to mention her religious affiliation, and his, to complete the picture.

Well, Roberts has sat on the bench for two years and practiced law for twenty-five more. Why not just check his record? And does the Los Angeles Times plan on highlighting the religious affiliation of all executive nominations, or are Roman Catholics the only people blessed with this kind of scrutiny? Unless Catholics have become ineligible for public service, all this does is to underscore a belief that Catholics cannot act as independent jurists.

If Roberts decided to highlight his wife's career as a reason to confirm him, then I would understand why Jane Roberts and her beliefs would get scrutinized. Hillary Clinton came in for similar criticism, but her husband hailed them as a team, with the famous "two for the price of one" slogan that turned out to haunt them as her more radical views became public. However, nothing points to Roberts or the White House making Jane Roberts an argument for his confirmation, and the fact that she has her own political viewpoint doesn't make it germane to his confirmation.

The Los Angeles Times should find this kind of attack piece embarrassing. Unfortunately, it won't.

Maybe He Just Knows The Secret Handshake

Who needs the blogs? The Washington Post managed to kill off a John Roberts rumor within 24 hours, albeit one they helped fuel in yesterday's coverage of his SCOTUS nomination. Roberts, contrary to liberal-activist groups' hysteria, has never belonged to the Federalist Society:

Everyone knows that, like all good Republican lawyers, John G. Roberts Jr. is a member of the Federalist Society, the conservative law and public policy organization where right-of-center types meet to denounce liberalism and angle for jobs in the Bush administration.

And practically everyone -- CNN, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times and, just yesterday, The Washington Post -- has reported Roberts's membership as a fact. One liberal group opposed to Roberts's nomination, the Alliance for Justice, has noted it on its Web site.

But they are wrong. John Roberts is not, in fact, a member of the Federalist Society, and he says he never has been.

Roberts has appeared as a speaker at Federalist Society events, but never joined the club. The news will come as a shock to many, even inside GOP circles. It appears that Roberts decided quite a long time ago that he wanted to pursue a career in the judiciary and avoided entanglements that might cause controversy -- although why people get so hysterical about a group based on a fairly mainstream school of conservative thought is beyond me. Federalism as a philosophy, after all, goes back to the founding of this country.

At least the Washington Post and Charles Lane acknowledged the error, on page A16, of course. Good for them. So far, I don't see retractions from the other news services mentioned, but the day is still young, and we can always hope.

Close Call For London's Round Two

It appears that terrorists have attempted a second wave of bombings targeting London's transport systems, but in this case failed to do much damage. The BBC reports that several incidents occurred in subways and buses, but that the only explosions came from the detonators and not from any other explosive material:

Minor explosions using detonators only have sparked the evacuation of three Tube stations and the closure of three lines, a BBC correspondent has said.

Police cordoned off large areas around Warren Street, Oval and one of the Shepherd's Bush Tube stations.

A route 26 bus in Hackney Road in Bethnal Green had its windows blown out by a blast. There were no injuries.

Police in London say they are not treating the situation as "a major incident yet".

One person was injured at Warren Street. There were reports the injured person may have been holding a rucksack containing the detonator.

I also followed this on Fox News while in transit this morning, who relayed the feed from Britain's SkyNews Network. Reports of hazmat investigators entering the stations where the incidents occurred raise suspicions of what materials were used in the apparently-coordinated attack. It seems odd that several incidents all would have resulted in duds -- unless the same incompetent built all the devices, which certainly could be possible.

More as this develops. So far, thankfully, it looks like no one was killed.

UPDATE: Keep checking with Michelle Malkin for new info, links, and analysis.

UPDATE II: Be sure to see The Anchoress' photo essay explaining why the liberation of Iraq has nothing to do with the London bombings.

Gray Lady Wants A Shield, But For What?

Today's New York Times editorial argues for the passage of a federal shield law that would allow reporters to keep their sources confidential, proscribing law-enforcement agencies from subpoenaing journalists to reveal sources unless they can prove imminent danger as a result. They use the current Plame investigation as proof of the necessity for such protection:

Witnesses spoke of the dozens of subpoenas that have been issued to journalists in recent times and the half-dozen or more reporters who have been found to be in contempt of court for doing their jobs - some journalists, like Judith Miller of The Times, have actually been jailed. As Mr. Dodd pointed out, the idea that jailing reporters will inhibit journalism is not a theoretical worry. Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time Inc., testified yesterday that since his decision to turn over notes in the Valerie Wilson case to the federal prosecutor, Time reporters had shown him mail "from valuable sources who insisted that they no longer trusted the magazine." The Cleveland Plain Dealer has announced it will not publish two investigative reports because they are based on leaked documents and the paper fears the possibility of subpoenas. Its editor said, "Jail is too high a price to pay." We regret that decision, but it should at least ring alarm bells for Congress.

The amendments added this week to bills before the Senate and the House would provide for the forced disclosure of confidential sources "to prevent imminent and actual harm to the national security." It is a narrow exception that journalists should support, because as William Safire, the retired Times columnist, testified yesterday, "We are not seeking an absolute privilege." We second Mr. Safire's caution that an imminent threat means an actual and urgent threat, not a potential threat.

This argument has two major flaws, perhaps three. First, as we saw after 9/11, putting the burden of proof on the government to prove "an actual and urgent threat" means creating a threshold that will for all practical purposes never be met. What constitutes a "threat", let alone an "actual and urgent" kind? If the Times defines that as potential loss of life, that would be very difficult to do unless the original report indicated that the source wanted to kill Joe Doe at 11 pm at the Nite Owl Cafe tomorrow. One would hope that a journalist would have already called the cops and informed them of that. Waiting for a subpoena makes attempts at prevention somewhat pointless.

The second major flaw is the idea that the media exists as a quasi-governmental association that can blithely hand out free passes from investigators to both itself and its sources. Journalists do not exist as a higher class of citizenry as the rest of us. If someone were to tell me of a conspiracy to ship weapons to reactionary anti-tax zealots in Minnesota, complete with times, dates, people, and places, and I didn't bother to tell the FBI or local police about the information, I could be held as a material witness or even accomplice. If I refused to testify, I could be charged with obstruction of justice. Why would that change simply because I can get a by-line at the Times?

Third, and I believe most telling, the entire argument hinges on the use of anonymous sourcing, which experience tells us that the media treat very inconsistently, especially in this case. As I wrote in the Daily Standard yesterday, the Times itself -- especially the editorial board -- has no problem attacking sources when it their information doesn't fit their predetermined narrative and demanding their prosecution for leaking:

In July 2003, a rogue CIA operative, hired by his analyst wife at the agency, was leaking false information about war intelligence to national newspapers. When that didn't raise enough eyebrows, he went public, misrepresenting his findings and the nature of his selection for the assignment. Having a CIA operative suddenly take political potshots at the administration called into question whether the White House had lied about intelligence or the ambassador was telling the entire truth himself. Cooper went to his best sources to find the answer to the question, and he got the right answer. Sounds just like Watergate, except in this case, the White House told the truth while low-level elements at the CIA appear to have twisted intelligence reports into lies to undermine the government--a clear abuse of their power and position. An anonymous source had once again proven its value . . . right?

Not exactly.

Their demand for a shield law to protect journalists while spending most of the past ten days attacking Karl Rove for trying to point out that Wilson repeatedly lied and spread misinformation about his CIA assignment stretches hypocrisy to new limits, even for the Paper of Record.

Putin Tries New Method To Retain Power -- Acquisition

Who says the new Russia doesn't believe in capitalism? Just when Vladimir Putin faces mandatory retirement due to term limits on the Russian presidency, he comes up with a plan right out of the corporate playbook to change the rules. He and Belarus President Lukashenko have devised a plan to reunify the Belarussians to the Russian Federation, and Putin will use that to subvert term limits:

PRESIDENT LUKASHENKO of Belarus arrived in Russia yesterday to promote a reunification plan for the two countries to offset growing Western influence in the former Soviet Union.

Some analysts say that the new union would allow Vladimir Putin to stay on as President after 2008, when, having served two terms, he is obliged to step down under the present Russian Constitution.

The two countries formed a loose union in 1996, but it has been hampered by economic disputes and personal animosity between Mr Lukashenko and Mr Putin.

Both leaders, however, appear to have put aside their differences after revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and now seem to be forging ahead with plans to form a new union.

Lukashenko may not like Vladimir Putin, but he wants some guarantees of power and control. Taking a look around his borders, he can easily see that the wave of democratization has crested at the edges of Belarus, with Ukraine to his south, the Baltic states to his north, and Poland on the west -- all democracies, and all an undue influence on the last former Soviet republic in the West to still suffer under strongman rule. Activists have already met with Condoleezza Rice in April, and Lukashenko can read the writing on the wall.

Putin now has a built-in excuse to stay on in the presidency, for two reasons. First, the re-integration of the Belarussians will not go pleasantly for either Lukashenko or the Belarussians, who probably prefer their independence. That will require the use of security forces, and possibly emergency powers, to counter. Second, the new entity could "require" a new constitution, which Putin could influence to remove the term limiting on the presidency. The Belarussians won't be the only group ending up less free under a reunification plan.

Without a doubt, Putin wants a buffer between Russia and the forces of democratization in order to hold onto power in the Kremlin. Using Belarus as a shield would serve his purposes and allow him to claim credit for reversing the decline of Russia since the collapse of the Confederation of Independent States in the early 1990s. Gobbling up and oppressing a few million Belarussians in doing so does not bother Putin in the least.

Dafydd: Either/Or

A puzzling and intriguing story from AP raises -- and begs, of course -- a conundrum of the first order: who killed them?

In "Sunni Arabs Continue Constitution Boycott," Qassim Abdul-Zahra writes that the Sunni delegation to the Iraqi constitutional convention are "continuing" their boycott, which I didn't even know was ongoing. Jeeze, you go away for a day, and all heck breaks loose.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Sunni Arabs decided Thursday to continue boycotting the committee drafting Iraq's new constitution, casting doubt on whether the group can meet an August deadline to complete its work. Insurgent attacks, including two car bombings, killed 15 people, officials said.

If that looks like two stories got accidentally shuffled together, get used to it; it's all through this piece. On the one hand, we have boycotting Sunni; on the other hand (now I sound like JFK), we have various people killed in terrorist attacks. There is somewhat of a connection, but they really are two distinct stories.

The Sunni delegates are boycotting (they mean on strike) until their demands are met, the primary of which is that there be an "international investigation" of the assassination of two of the fifteen Sunni delegates at the convention:

Two members resigned under rebel threats, and two prominent Sunnis - committee member Mijbil Issa and adviser Dhamin Hussein al-Obeidi - were assassinated in front of a Baghdad restaurant two days ago - prompting other Sunnis to suspend participation in the drafting.

We pause in the midst of this exciting story of Sunni suffering to ponder the question that Qassim Abdul-Zahra leaves hanging: do the Sunni believe that Issa and al-Obeidi were assassinated by Shia?

It's hard to make sense of this demand otherwise: "Say, you lot -- we refuse to attend your bally constitutional convention until you promise that we'll stop assassinating ourselves!"

Another possibility is that the delegates are deep into a "Captain Renault" moment: they really think it was Zarqawi, like the rest of us thought; but they hope the world will blame the Shia, the Kurds, or perhaps the Coalition troops.

One of the other demands (I know you're shocked, shocked to hear this) is "a greater role for Sunnis in drafting the constitution." I don't know how much affirmative action they expect, after shunning the elections and now engaged in a sit-in at the convention; but it does tend (at least to me) to cast doubt on the honesty of their demand for an investigation. The demand for religious preference makes me think the outrage is faux, sort of like those folks who demand reparations for a peculiar institution whose demise will celebrate its sesquicentennial in ten years.

Here is the connection between the two distinct stories that were shoehorned into this article:

Elsewhere, two suicide car bombings and a string of other attacks in and around Baghdad Thursday left 15 people dead, police and army officials said.

The attacks today were all against Iraqi government targets -- two Iraqi army checkpoints, the Qadisiyah provincial council, the Ministry of Trade, Iraqi guards at a British security firm, and an Iraqi patrol. All of the attacks took place in either the Sunni Triangle or the smaller "Triangle of Death" just south of the former, where Sunni al-Qaeda terrorists freely operate. And all of the victims were employees of the new Iraqi government.

And the AP does not quote a single member of the Sunni delegation calling for an "international investigation" into any of these 15 deaths. Perhaps AP is just being shy, but I think it likely that the Sunni delegation couldn't care less if officials of the Shia-run government are slain... they focus their outrage like a laser beam on bad things that happen to them.

Suppose the Sunni line turns out to be correct; suppose that some Shiite group has begun to target Sunnis. Would that be the beginning of the response from the rest of Iraq that finally goads the Sunnis into ratting out the terrorists? My Magic 8-Ball says "ask again later."

By the rules of constitutional ratification, if any three provinces reject the constitution by 2/3rds vote, the constitution fails... and Sunnis constitute a majority in four provinces: Anbar and Nineveh, which are almost all Sunni; and Salahaddin and Diyala, which have substantial Shiite populations (but not more than 33%, I believe). Which means that the Sunni probably can, all by themselves, prevent the constitution from being ratified... but only if they vote almost unanimously against it.

What we don't know is how all these shenanigans are playing out among the general Sunni population: are they just itching for a chance to throw the nascent nation into chaos by rejecting the constitution? (The next go-round might not be so Sunni-friendly, if the Shia and Kurds see them as obstructionists.) Or are the Sunni Iraqis simply fed-up with the antics of their delegates, and do they just want to vote in the constitution and have done with it?

We won't have long to wait: the constitution is supposed to be finished by August 15th.

Osama's Ambassador Loses Diplomatic Immunity In Britain

The Scotsman reports that Britain may finally get serious about deporting radical imams and activists preaching hate and jihad in the wake of its first-ever suicide bomb attack. Abu Qatada now faces deportation to Jordan in a hastily-arranged agreement with the Hashemite Kingdom not to execute or torture deportees from the UK:

ABU Qatada, the extremist cleric known as "Osama bin Laden's ambassador in Europe", is finally facing deportation to Jordan after British officials brokered a potentially groundbreaking extradition deal.

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, announced yesterday that authorities in Amman had agreed to give verifiable commitments not to impose the death sentence or impose torture on anyone handed over.

This was billed by ministers as the first in a string of deals aimed at dismantling what critics have called "Londonistan" - the community of Islamic extremists being protected from extradition.

Qatada, a Jordanian national, is wanted by eight police forces across three continents and is currently under house arrest in London. He has been suspected for years as a key player in the al-Qaeda network.

Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, made no reference to him yesterday - but said that there were several foreign nationals whom Britain cannot deport because the courts rule that they would be ill-treated.

Watching their subways and buses -- and fellow Londoners -- get blasted into bloody pieces seems to have lessened the concern over deportees getting ill treatment abroad, as it should. No one wants to see people tortured, but there should be limits to Western forebearance. Free democracies do not need to consider liberty a suicide pact. Those who emigrate to these societies and then turn around and preach violence (and plan and conduct it) against their hosts and the allies of their hosts do not deserve the protection of that society.

Islamofascists have declared war on the West, and Britain's response was to allow them to remain free, spreading hate and recruiting enlistments into their lunatic armies. This comes from the same impulse that says we should understand Islamist terrorists instead of fighting them; surely if we treat them nicer than their experiences in their native lands, they will moderate themselves. It doesn't work that way with fanatics, as Britain found out too late on July 7.

The only way to handle individuals who insist on becoming enemies through deeds and incitement to action is to treat them as enemies, not illegal immigrants and possible asylum seekers. Both Britain and the US need to eject those who alight themselves on our land as parasites, looking to live off our openness while plotting and preaching its destruction, and let the terrorists and their sympathizers deal with the consequences of their deportation.

London Bombers Got Long-Distance Pep Talk?

Pakistani and British investigators have found phone records indicating that al-Qaeda leaders may have contacted the London bombers the night before the terrorist attacks that killed at least 56 and left hundreds injured on July 7. Haroon Rashid Aswat, now in custody in Pakistan, also visited all four bombers in the weeks leading up to the attack:

Haroon Rashid Aswat has emerged as the figure that Scotland Yard have been hunting since he flew out of Britain just hours before the attacks which killed 56 people.

Aswat, 30, who is believed to come from the same West Yorkshire town as one of the bombers, arrived in Britain a fortnight before the attacks to orchestrate final planning for the atrocity. He spoke to the suicide team on his mobile phone a few hours before the four men blew themselves up and killed fifty-two other people.

Intelligence sources told The Times that during his stay Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London.

Aswat has been known to Western intelligence services for more than three years after the FBI accused him of trying to set up al-Qaeda training camps in the US. When he was arrested in a madrassa (religious school), Aswat is understood to have been posing as a businessmen and using a false name. He was picked up in a raid at a madrassa at Sargodha, 90 miles from Islamabad, by Pakistani intelligence officials and flown to a jail in the capital.

Security sources there told The Times that he was armed with a number of guns, wearing an explosive belt and carrying around £17,000 in cash. He had a British passport and was about to flee across the border to Afghanistan.

The British have been cautious thus far about identifying the bombings as an AQ operation. They saw what happened with Jose Aznar in Spain when he assumed immediately that the ETA conducted the Madrid attacks. Even though Blair doesn't face any immediate elections, he'd prefer to act a bit more cautiously and keep his credibility intact.

These developments do strongly suggest that AQ sponsored and directed this attack, and that is significant. For the past two weeks, the British have wondered why the mostly home-born terrorists could have decided on suicide jihadiism, especially since Britain and London especially have a tradition of free exercise of religion, particularly tolerant of Islam itself. This shows that AQ and its affiliates have no problem infiltrating free societies, of course, but it also shows something else: AQ doesn't want to achieve some kind of cultural parity as its end goal. It wants to wipe out all other forms of religion except the most radical and deadly form of Islam. It has now attacked the two Western countries in which Muslims can operate most freely (America and Britain) and conducted savage and cowardly attacks on its civilians.

In fact, Aswat himself had been in the US before 9/11. His purpose? He wanted to set up madrassas and AQ training camps in remote parts of Oregon, training recruits in "urban warfare", poisons, and firearms. Aswat got that assignment, according to the Times report, from a London-based imam.

It now appears that Aswat's long run of infiltration, incitement, and plotting against the peoples who hosted him has come to an abrupt end. Unfortunately, it comes after Aswat apparently directed the AQ operation that brought the lives of 52 Londoners to an abrupt end as well.

Donnybrook (Updates)

So I watched the Donny Deutsch show, The Big Idea, featuring the appearance by Bernard Goldberg discussing his book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37).

What a joke.

The first segment got contentious but remained professional, but Deutsch obviously didn't like the book. He immediately jumped into the list and began to debate entries like Barbara Walters, and obviously had not read what Goldberg wrote about her and others. The argument proceeded like any number of cable-channel bickerfests, with the host and guest talking over each other, but nothing bitter or mean -- just a disagreement. One would presume, however, that an professional interviewer would have at least reviewed the material in some depth and have prepared factual support for their questions and points before the show.

The next two segments should embarrass CNBC and everyone associated with the show. Deutsch invited four other people onto what supposedly passed for a panel discussion, none of whom had read the book before criticizing it. I'm sorry to say that one of these 'experts' was a blogger for whom I have enormous respect: Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine. You can read his take here, but be sure to read the comments on the post. His readers weren't fooled. This was an unprofessional ambush. Did Goldberg get riled up? Yes he did, but he tried to rein it in, which is more than I can say for the five people who did nothing but try to suck up as much microphone time belittling him as possible.

Another guest had actually counted how many times Goldberg appeared on Fox News Channel (eight appearances since the book's release) and declared that to be proof of an agenda. Stasi then jumped in and asked why he wouldn't appear on the other networks. Goldberg could barely fit in his reply that he would have gladly appeared on other shows had they asked him to come. Do television critics know that people don't just walk onto a set and force their way onto talk shows?

And then Deutsch compared Goldberg to Joe McCarthy on an exit to break, when Goldberg couldn't respond to it. Yikes.

Jeff links to my earlier post, dismissing the information in it by claiming I spoke to someone "masquerading" as a source. Well, if that's true, they did a damned fine job of conjuring up the truth. I think that you're normally brilliant, Jeff, I really do, but you got used and you don't even know it.

I have no problem with people who don't like the idea of list books, or who don't like conservative politics, or who don't like cultural criticism. However, professional talk shows don't set up ambushes 5-1 on guests they don't like. That Deutsch and his producers have to rely on those tactics tells me all I need to know about his abilities as an interviewer and a journalist.

Addendum: Just to clear up a minor point in Jeff's post, the response from the show's producers came from an inquiry which I sent them prior to posting. They did not respond to the post; they responded to the e-mail I sent the producers, giving them the opportunity to have their response included in the article. I don't think Jeff meant any ill will in how he phrased it in his post; perhaps my post wasn't clear on that sequence.

Note: You can read my interview with Goldberg here and here, to get a better sense of what Goldberg might have said had he been given a better chance to speak.

UPDATE: Jeff responds to his critics here, and once again the commenters take him to the woodshed. I'm sorry that Jeff continues to justify the unjustifiable, but I give him at least one thumbs up for keeping his comments sections open on both posts.

Democrats Signal Filibuster Unlikely

Some Senate Democrats signaled today that they will not likely support any attempt to filibuster SCOTUS nominee John Roberts, at least not based on his judicial philosophy. The AP reports that two key Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Joe Lieberman, have characterized Roberts as mainstream enough not to invoke the "extraordinary circumstances" envisaged by the Gang of 14:

The possibility of a Democratic filibuster against Supreme Court nominee John Roberts in the Republican-controlled Senate seemed to all but disappear Wednesday. ...

"Do I believe this is a filibuster-able nominee? The answer would be no, not at this time I don't," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a strong abortion-rights supporter and a committee member. ...

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said the group had sent a message to the president to send the Senate a mainstream conservative. "And it appears at first look that Judge Roberts is that," he said.

Roberts is "in the ballpark of a nonconfrontational nominee," Lieberman added.

It will take more than two Democratic defections to ensure that a filibuster fails, of course, but Feinstein and Lieberman carry a lot of weight in the Democratic caucus. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas would not risk their standing with their red-state constituents by acting more liberal than Feinstein, and likely neither would Byron Dorgan of North Dakota or Max Baucus of Montana. This doesn't preclude the possibility of them changing their minds on the pretext of an Estrada strategy, where the filibuster comes as a procedural matter to force more disclosure from the White House. Given the high-profile nature of these hearings, however, and the general likability of the nominee (as opposed to John Bolton), that pretext probably won't fly.

We should all be able to look forward to an up-or-down vote for Roberts at some point. This doesn't mean that the confirmation process will go smoothly or quietly, but it will mean that it won't go on interminably. At least that's an improvement over the last three years.

Joyfulness On Roberts Nomination Not Universal On The Right

After the initial glow of George Bush's announcement of John Roberts as his Supreme Court nominee, rumblings have surfaced on the right about his lack of a track record defending conservatism. The loudest of these rumblings comes from the ever-outspoken and highly entertaining Ann Coulter, who takes her accustomed no-holds-barred approach to venting her dissatisfaction:

So all we know about him for sure is that he can't dance and he probably doesn't know who Jay-Z is. Other than that, he is a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Big zippo. Nada. Oh, yeah...we also know he's argued cases before the supreme court. big deal; so has Larry Flynt's attorney.

But unfortunately, other than that that, we don’t know much about John Roberts. Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever. ...

It means absolutely nothing that NARAL and Planned Parenthood attack him: They also attacked Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Hackett Souter.

The only way a supreme court nominee could win the approval of NARAL and Planned Parenthood would be to actually perform an abortion during his confirmation hearing, live, on camera, and preferably a partial birth one.

It means nothing that Roberts wrote briefs arguing for the repeal of Roe v. Wade when he worked for Republican administrations. He was arguing on behalf of his client, the United States of America. Roberts has specifically disassociated himself from those cases ...

Maybe Roberts will contravene the sordid history of “stealth nominees” and be the Scalia or Thomas Bush promised us when he was asking for our votes. Or maybe he won’t. The Supreme Court shouldn't be a game of Russian roulette.

I don't despair at Coulter's well-written and humorous rant (read the whole essay), because I believe it serves a good purpose. She's correct about Roberts and his quiet record. Randy Barnett makes a similar point at the Volokh Conspiracy in much greater detail. (H/T: Tom Holsinger) Roberts does not bring much in terms of a solid track record of speeches and opinions that distinguish him as a conservative in the mold of a Scalia or a Thomas. The high points of his record have more to do with the success he had at school, his high-profile assignments in the Reagan and Bush administrations, the extensive SCOTUS experience he has accumulated, and a reputation among his peers for a solid, conservative outlook.

Does he come with guarantees? No. Coulter has that much right.

However, that is also his strength. He can withstand a political dogfight because he doesn't hand his opponents any weapons. They will drag him through the mud anyway, as their remarks have already begun to indicate. Democratic obstructionism will create a furor that will dwarf what we've already seen in the electorate last year, when it gave the GOP another four seats in the Senate. Another Thomas-style smear job or Bolton-style filibuster will guarantee that the Democrats lose even more ground in 2006, leaving the field wide open for Bush to nominate more established conservatives in his final session of Congress.

Carol Platt Liebau, in the meantime, doesn't want Ann to create discord:

I have always enjoyed hearing from and reading Ann Coulter. She is smart, she's beautiful, and she is certainly funny.

But she is making a big, gigantic, horrendous mistake in attacking John Roberts for being insufficiently conservative. And she should stop it -- now. ...

A right wing attack on Roberts can do nothing but marginalize conservatives and create trouble for themselves, for the Bush Administration, for the conservative cause generally, and for a good and decent man. I do hope Ann Coulter will think twice, and stop the attack. There are so many better uses for her prodigious talents.

I also agree with Carol's post, especially her defense of Roberts on a point-by-point basis. But I think that Ann's public broadside serves the President as well. It will be hard for the Democrats to paint Roberts as an extremist while Ann chides him for his potential to transform into a second coming of Souter. Ann also reminds the base that it needs to keep its voice heard by the GOP, which has sometimes acted as if a majority has no relevance in democracies. Ann allows center-right essayists like Carol to stay in shape for this battle, and opens an opportunity for people with extraordinary credibility like Hugh Hewitt to confirm through his personal experience that Roberts indeed meets our needs and desires as a SCOTUS justice.

Dissent can sometimes strengthen us for what we face. I don't fear Ann Coulter's lack of endorsement for John Roberts, and neither should anyone else.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin rounds up other reactions to Ann Coulter.

Warp Speed, And Godspeed, Mr. Scott

Fans of Star Trek are mourning the loss of the colorful actor who brought the Enterprise's engineer, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, to life on television and the silver screen. James Doohan passed away early this morning from pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, at age 85:

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, he said.

He had said farewell to public life in August 2004, a few months after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

I spent many wonderful moments watching Doohan portray the ever-resourceful Mr. Scott, whose love for the ship surpassed even that of the captain, James Kirk. My nickname comes from my earlier passion for the series, which has lessened considerably over the years, but the fondness remains. Doohan's Scottish burr and his characterization of the brawling, loyal, and passionate engineer recalled the best of war movies of the 1940s and 1950s while playing in an environment that rejected that kind of take on conflict. That was no mean feat, and Doohan managed to make it look effortless.

As a fan, we often heard about personal conflicts between some of the stars of the show. This AP obituary notes the worst of them, between Doohan and William Shatner, that time could not cure. It seems a shame. Shatner gave his side of the conflict in an appendix to his book Star Trek Memories, acknowledging that he had treated his co-stars thoughtlessly in the past and could not resolve the personal animosity Doohan held for him.

Like most of the cast, Doohan was doomed to labor the rest of his career under the heavy shadow of Trek obsession. He did not publicly complain about the handicap it placed on his opportunities, giving his fans his all whenever he made appearances at shows and in the movies and sequels. For that, of course, we will always be grateful.

The word is given, Mr. Scott. Warp speed. (h/t: CQ reader Peyton Randolph)

The Largest Battle Of The Roberts Confirmation War

I predict that, despite the mostly-pleasant sounds wafting from Washington circles in the past fourteen hours since George Bush made John Roberts his first Supreme Court nominee, we will see a highly contentious public battle over his confirmation. Senators Leahy, Schumer, Kennedy, and Durbin signaled in muted tones that they have no intention of treating Roberts expeditiously, and instead have emphasized that they will treat this confirmation as "starting from scratch" -- which, as Jon Cornyn correctly deduced, presaged obstructionist tactics.

But that only speaks to tactics. The ammunition for the Democrats will prove too seductive to refrain from firing, and the largest battle will actually return them to a favorite accusation against the Bush administration: their conduct of the war on terror. Last week, Roberts joined in a unanimous decision to affirm the jurisdiction of military tribunals in processing terrorists detained overseas, a decision that has a solid basis in law but which horrified those who want to return counterterrorism to the realm of law enforcement. Roberts did not write the opinion for Hamdan v Rumsfeld, but joined in its conclusions.

Slate fired the opening salvo on this battle with an article by Emily Bazelon, in which she implies that Bush nominated Roberts as a quid pro quo for writing him a blank check on detainees:

Roberts may indeed turn out to be a wise, thoughtful, and appealing justice. Tonight when Bush announced his nomination, Roberts talked about feeling humbled, which won him points on TV. But an opinion that the 50-year-old judge joined just last week in the case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld should be seriously troubling to anyone who values civil liberties. As a member of a three-judge panel on the D.C. federal court of appeals, Roberts signed on to a blank-check grant of power to the Bush administration to try suspected terrorists without basic due-process protections. ...

This tribunal isn't like the courts-martial that are used for prisoners of war. It goes by rules that cut back the rights of defendants even more drastically than the tribunal that the United States has helped establish in Iraq to try Saddam Hussein has. Hamdan has no right to be present at his trial. Unsworn statements, rather than live testimony, can be presented as evidence against him. The presumption of innocence can be taken away from him at any time; so can his right not to testify to avoid self-incrimination. If Hamdan is convicted, he can be sentenced to death.

Bazelon goes on to construct a technical argument, one that has a huge flaw in its reliance on the Geneva Conventions -- the fact that Hamdan doesn't qualify for treatment as a POW. That formed a crucial basis for the DC circuit court. Bazelon wants to allow terrorists to disregard Geneva Conventions -- in fact, their tactics and strategies are the antithesis of what the GCs established -- but hold the US unilaterally responsible for treating their detainees to the highest standards of the treaties, even though they explicitly do not apply to non-signatories. Bazelon's argument for civil rights and civil trials for terrorists captured abroad in civilian garb holds little coherence or factual support. It's based purely on emotion and moral equivalency.

However -- and this is highly important -- this decision allows the Democrats to once again pick up the Gitmo thread. They can use Hamdan to rhetorically tie Roberts to alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay and the abuses at Abu Ghraib. In short, they will use Roberts as a stand-in while they spend their time railing against the war and its conduct. Two of the war's most rabid and incoherent critics, Ted Kennedy and Dick Durbin, sit on the Judiciary Committee. Roberts' confirmation hands them a two-for-one opportunity that they will not refuse.

PFAW, NARAL, and NOW will beat the Roe drum, but that question will provide few fireworks. Watch for the Hamdan hammer to swing over and over again during the confirmation process.

UPDATE: My friend Paul at Power Line asks, "Is it really smart to attack Roberts for not voting to confer more legal process on bin Laden's associate?" Heck no, it's not smart -- but that's really never been a threshold for Kennedy, Durbin, and Schumer. Don't expect Hillary Clinton to join in on this topic. She, at least, is smart enough to avoid the blowback this will create.

The Timing Of Roberts' Nomination

Plenty of speculation appears in today's commentary about the timing of the John Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court. With Patrick Fitzgerald's grand-jury investigation into the Plame leak eating up headlines over speculation on Karl Rove's role, some argue that the administration wants to use the SCOTUS nomination to push Plame off the front page. This punditry finds its way into what should be straight news reporting, as in Elisabeth Bumiller's inside look into the eventful day that preceded the prime-time announcement last night:

Both Republicans and Democrats said that the speeded-up timing - administration officials had at one point told reporters to expect an announcement in the last week of July - would have the effect of pushing news of Karl Rove and a federal investigation into who leaked the identity of a C.I.A. officer off the front pages, at least for a time. But Mr. Bartlett told reporters that Mr. Bush's timing had nothing to do with Mr. Rove and everything to do with giving the Senate adequate time to meet Judge Roberts and to deal with the enormous amount of paperwork and logistics such a nomination requires before the recess next week.

"This was driven by that time clock," Mr. Bartlett said.

Some may dismiss Bartlett's claim as ridiculous. After all, the Senate has several weeks in which to confirm Roberts, and timing should be no problem at all. However, those people obviously did not watch Senator Pat Leahy speak with the press last night, along with his colleague Chuck Schumer. The two Judiciary Committee members made it clear that they will not allow this nomination to move forward expeditiously at all; both insisted that his earlier and overwhelming approval to the DC Circuit appellate bench made no difference at all.

Leahy in particular seemed to warn of a long, protracted battle. "Judge O'Connor gave us such a gift," he said, in a number of lavish references to the retiring SCOTUS justice whom Roberts will replace. "She promised to return in October if we didn't have a replacement confirmed," sounding hopeful that this is exactly what will happen. It may have provided one of the strangest moments last night, having a Senator on the Judiciary Committee openly hope that they could stall a nomination in order to force the return of a retired justice who wants to spend more time with her ailing husband.

Schumer didn't sound any better. He complained that despite the most consultation any president had conducted in modern American history, the Judiciary Committee would start off woefully unprepared for an expeditious processing of Roberts' nomination:

Two prominent members of the committee, Mr. Durbin and Mr. Schumer, warned on Tuesday that the president's failure to share names with them could complicate the confirmation process.

"Had we been given some names beforehand," Mr. Schumer said, "we would have been able to do some due diligence before any announcement, and be able to suggest to the president who might quickly succeed and who might face a tougher road to confirmation."

In other words, be prepared for another silly season from the Senate Democrats. John Roberts has appeared on almost every speculative list for the past two years on possible SCOTUS nominations. Not only that, but the Judiciary Committee has already interviewed Roberts for the DC Circuit appeals court two years ago. Unless Schumer and Leahy want to tell the American public that they treated his nomination cavalierly and carelessly because an appellate court holds no great import -- a notion that flies in the face of their obstructionist tactics for the past four years -- then the idea that the Senate doesn't have the necessary preparation for a confirmation hearing will receive nothing but derision from all but the most left-wing of demagogues.

If this is what the Democrats try, they can kiss 2006 goodbye.

UPDATE: One reader asks me to clarify O'Connor's status. She resigned "effective upon the nomination and confirmation of my successor." In other words, her resignation from the bench becomes effective the moment the Senate confirms her replacement. That avoided leaving a deciding vote off the bench if the confirmation process bogged down. That clause, which is not all that unusual, is what Leahy called a "gift" last night. I think he considers it a life preserver. Had she flat-out refused to return, the pressure on the Democrats to avoid stalling would have been tremendous.

UPDATE II: Jon at QandO nails bad reporting and criticism at Tapped. It's been a while since I've linked to Jon, but I read his neo-libertarian (libertarianism mixed with sanity) blog every day, and I recommend it to everyone. Great stuff there.

Media Fickle On Anonymous Sources

My new Daily Standard column has now been posted. I explore the Rove-Plame debate in the light of anonymous sources and the Deep Throat celebrations of just a few weeks back:

SO IN SUM: In July 2003, a rogue CIA operative, hired by his analyst wife at the agency, was leaking false information about war intelligence to national newspapers. When that didn't raise enough eyebrows, he went public, misrepresenting his findings and the nature of his selection for the assignment. Having a CIA operative suddenly take political potshots at the administration called into question whether the White House had lied about intelligence or the ambassador was telling the entire truth himself. Cooper went to his best sources to find the answer to the question, and he got the right answer.

Sounds just like Watergate, except in this case, the White House told the truth while low-level elements at the CIA appear to have twisted intelligence reports into lies to undermine the government--a clear abuse of their power and position. An anonymous source had once again proven its value . . . right?

Not exactly.

For those who have paid attention to the thorough debunking of Joe Wilson, I think this provides a fresh look at the hypocritical nature of the media's treatment of Karl Rove. Hope you enjoy.

UPDATE: Right Wing Nuthouse has more on yellowcake, Saddam, and the Plame leak.

UPDATE II: The Blogometer links back to the article -- and if you don't have the Blogometer as a daily must-check, you should. Meanwhile, the Anchoress worries about the kids.

Report: Donnie Deutsch Sandbagged Bernard Goldberg

An informed source told me this afternoon that Bernard Goldberg's appearance on CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch turned out to be a sandbag to attack Goldberg and his book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37). The interview, which airs at 10:30 pm EDT on Wednesday night, starts off as a one-on-one with Deutsch, and apparently went off with no problem. Deutsch or his producer asked Goldberg to stick around for another segment to participate in a panel discussion on cultural mores, and Goldberg agreed.

However, instead of debating cultural issues as the producers had explained the segment to Goldberg, it turned out that the show had stacked the panel with people who disliked Goldberg's book -- and ganged up on him to belittle it. Goldberg stuck it out for the segment, but was understandably irate at the end and told the booking producer, Marilyn Cutler, that it was one of the most unprofessional experiences of his life. Cutler told Goldberg that the executive producers had forced her to set Goldberg up for the attack.

An e-mail to the press office for The Big Idea prompted this response:

"Mr. Goldberg was invited on our program to discuss his new book. We asked him if he would be willing to stay and join a panel of print and online journalists to discuss the people and issues he raised in the book and he agreed. At certain points during the segment, Mr. Goldberg, the panelists and Donny did not always agree. We felt that it was a healthy and robust conversation.

"We treat all of guests, including Mr. Goldberg, with nothing but the utmost respect and courtesy. We encourage people to tune into CNBC tomorrow night at 10:30PM and watch for themselves."

Tune in tomorrow night to see for yourselves. It wouldn't be the first time that a CNBC talk show ambushed one of its guests. We'll see if this follows that earlier example provided by Chris Matthews.

UPDATE AND BUMP: I'm bumping this to Wednesday just to make sure it gets seen amidst the Roberts coverage. Also, I heard from Dave Johnston, who notes that Goldberg isn't the only recipient of the Deutsch double-cross:

The show's director originally contacted me on Monday this week. I was told that Deutsch would be talking about videogames, and they wanted someone from the gaming media to talk about a bunch of things. The subjects listed to me ran the gamut from "the future of videogames" to "online clans and community." I was told that the violence thing might come up, in light of the recent 25-to-Life exposure, to which my response was a dismissive "that's been done to death, it's boring." The director simply asked me if I would "just say that on air."

When I arrived at the studio, and after being caked in layers of makeup, I sat down in front of the camera and soon learned that the entire show was about violence. It kicked off with Donny holding up a copy of Computer Games magazine declaring that there wasn't a single game in there that wasn't violent, and they then immediately cut to scenes of CJ stamping on a girl until she bled over the pavement in San Andreas. I was introduced as pretty much the bad guy who thinks this doesn't have an effect on kids, and...well...things just deteriorated from there. I tried to discuss the ratings system, I tried to talk about how the majority of games are sold at Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy, and how they all take the ratings system very seriously...but this isn't what the show was supposed to be about. Donny had an agenda. "All games are violent" was his proclamation, and nothing was going to sway him. We weren't here to test a hypothesis. While this was happening, the director kept nagging me through the earpiece to "jump in and talk about what you're here to talk about." I was pissed. "That's not what the show appears to be about, darling."

As we cut to the first break in the live taping, more guests were being lined up including Columbine student Brooks Brown and his parents. This was looking like a full on ambush...so I got up and left. I'd been set up as an apologist for videogames, and with the obvious agenda it was clear that neither I, nor anything I represent was going to come out of it unscathed. Deutsch wasn't interested in discussing the efforts of the ESA or the ESRB, or the fact that the rating system has been commended by numerous organizations, he was simply interested in demonizing an entire segment of entertainment.

So I bailed, feeling just a tinge of smug self-satisfaction at being such a prissy media primadonna, but also absolutely furious about the way I'd been ambushed. The pre-show "prep" was incredibly misleading, and it was clear that I'd been set up. Before I left the studio I demanded to speak to the director so I could express myself to the fullest extent of the English language, but she wouldn't speak to me.

I think that the comupter-game industry should be answering some tough questions, but this kind of ambush television is, as Goldberg told the Deutsch producers, completely unprofessional and highly unethical. It certainly shows that The Big Idea has a history of this kind of Jerry Springer antics, and that those invited to participate in on-camera interviews on the CNBC show may want to reconsider.

UPDATE II: It's not on his website yet, but Fox announced this morning that Bill O'Reilly will have Bernard Goldberg on tonight to discuss what happened on the Deutsch show, which airs about 90 minutes afterwards. Some rumblings have it that Deutsch may pull the episode.

Editorial Response To Roberts Nomination: Stunned And Cautious

If George Bush wanted to set the media elite back on their heels with his first Supreme Court nomination, he succeeded brilliantly.

The selection of John Roberts appears to have stunned editorial writers in the four largest cities. Their entries today heralding this new judiciary battle show a healthy dose of caution and calls for a dignified process. Most of them tip their hat to Bush's political skills, noting the difficulty for Democrats to deal with the thin paper trail of Roberts, but still point out potential land mines for his confirmation.

The Washington Post gives Bush the most credit for a thoughtful selection:

IN NOMINATING Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court, President Bush picked a man of substance and seriousness. Judge Roberts has served only briefly on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but he was previously among the country's best-regarded appellate lawyers, both in private practice and as deputy solicitor general during the administration of George H.W. Bush. Judge Roberts is a conservative, but he has never been an ideological crusader; he has admirers among liberals. If confirmed as the successor to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, it is likely that he will shift the Supreme Court toward the right. But his nomination is not a provocation to Democrats -- as some other possible nominees would have been. Mr. Bush deserves credit for selecting someone with the potential to attract broad support.

Like most of these editorials, the Post notes Roberts' arguments on behalf of the Bush 41 administration against Roe v. Wade as one speed bump, and also mentions a Commerce Clause case that may give some big-government backers heartache about the potential narrowing of the reach of the federal bureaucracy. However, the Post castigates People for the American Way for its hyperbole and its unreasoned opposition in suggesting the nomination could be a "constitutional catastrophe". The Post also hails Harry Reid's moderate and calm reaction and expresses hope that the Senate can produce the dignified process we all want to see.

The New York Times does not share the Post's optimism. Picking up most of their talking points from Ted Kennedy's press release yesterday -- really, you should compare the two -- the editorial echoes the lament of Kennedy and Pat Leahy that Bush did not nominate another O'Connor. Although careful not to overtly oppose Roberts, the Times edges up about as close as it can to endorsing rejection without saying so:

The American people know little about Judge John Roberts, other than that President Bush is nominating him to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court. But in the coming weeks that should change. The Senate has a duty to scrutinize his background and to question him closely at his confirmation hearings about substantive areas of the law. If he is a mainstream conservative in the tradition of Justice O'Connor, he should be confirmed. But if on closer inspection he turns out to be an extreme ideologue with an agenda of stripping away important rights, he should not be.

The editorial then spends the rest of its time explaining why Roberts looks like the latter than the former, raising the spectre of an America powerless to stop air pollution, child labor abuse, and dangerous sweatshops. They also warn that Roberts' thin record on his judicial philosophy could hide a far-right drive to "resurrect ancient, and discredited, states' rights theories," a reference to the mythical and oh-so-creepy Constitution In Exile movement. And of course, the editorial mentions that Roberts opposed Roe.

But they don't oppose him. Yet.

The Chicago Tribune mostly stays neutral, starting off its editorial with a canned cliche about the importance of SCOTUS nominations. It then acknowledges that Bush took the time to select a nominee who is prepared to face the issues and young enough to serve a substantial time on the court:

Presidents have often appointed justices for passing political reasons, or even personal ones. But when it came time for George W. Bush to make his first nomination, he did something different: He looked for a distinguished lawyer with a mind to match the difficult issues the court must address and the youth to serve long enough to leave a substantial imprint. ...

Roberts, 50, is generally regarded as a solid conservative but not a hard-edged ideologue. His brief time as an appellate judge means he has written few opinions that might reveal his underlying judicial philosophy. While that may give the Republican Party's right wing some concern, it also leaves Democratic partisans with minimal ammunition against him. Anyone hoping to portray him as a dangerous extremist, as Robert Bork was caricatured in 1987, will have to be exceptionally creative.

The Tribune mostly focuses on the lack of controversy Roberts should create in his confirmation battle. It mentions Roe, but unlike the NYT, it also provides the context the Post gave in noting that he represented his client in that brief (Bush 41), not himself. Its conclusion expresses disappointment that Bush couldn't find a female or minority candidate -- the only one which makes that an issue, interestingly -- but concludes that Bush did pick an outstanding legal mind.

The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, writes ... poorly. Easily the weakest of the four editorials, it meanders around, obviously ill-prepared to take a position on Roberts but lacking the consistent distance of the Tribune editorial. For instance, it raises the Roe issue and then presents the counterargument rather clumsily:

Much also will be made of a footnote in a legal brief he submitted as deputy solicitor general in 1991, saying that Roe vs. Wade "was wrongly decided and should be overruled." It is an undeniably disturbing assertion. But he can argue that he was merely arguing the position of his then-boss, President George H.W. Bush. (In fact, Roberts did make essentially this point in his confirmation hearings 12 years later.)

On the other hand, the LAT finds the two issues I think will likely be the biggest hurdles of his confirmation, apart from Roe: his membership in the Federalist Society and his recent vote upholding military tribunals for terrorist detainees at Gitmo and elsewhere. Given the recent histrionics in the Senate involving Gitmo, I expect the latter will give Democrats not just an opportunity to beat up Roberts, but to use him as a proxy to grandstand against the Bush administration on the war.

I suspect that as the hearings move forward, editorial boards will find what they need to take a more firm position on his confirmation. In the meantime, to varying extents, they have to sit on their hands and wait for the Judiciary Committee to do its job.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! The Alamo City Commander has more.

ABC: It's John Roberts

ABC and Fox News now report that Bush will name John Roberts as Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement. (via Michelle Malkin)

If true, this is great news. More later as it develops.

UPDATE: People For the American Way won't share my enthusiasm:

In the short time since he was confirmed by the Senate in May 2003, Judge Roberts has issued troubling dissents from decisions by the full D.C. Circuit not to reconsider two important rulings. These included a decision upholding the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act as applied in a California case and a ruling against Bush Administration efforts to keep secret the records concerning Vice President Cheney's energy task force.

Hey, this might be a two-fer: a conservative justice and a member of the CheneyChimpyMcHalliburtEnron conspiracy!

UPDATE II: He doesn't have many fans at the Alliance for Justice, either:

As a political appointee in the Reagan administration, Roberts worked to oppose both busing and affirmative action as means of desegregation. Roberts was also involved in the administration's highly controversial efforts to make it nearly impossible for Voting Rights plaintiffs to prove violations. He later represented the first Bush administration in taking anti-choice positions in two high-profile reproductive rights cases. Roberts is nominated to the DC Circuit which hears many critical cases involving health, safety and civil rights regulations.

If John Roberts really is the nominee, this sends a signal to the Senate that Bush has no intention of backing down from the confirmation fight. Expect PFAW, AFJ, NARAL, and the Democratics to come out with all guns blazing. It may not take a Byrd Option to shut down a filibuster, but it will take a big effort to get cloture on the floor.

UPDATE III: Hugh Hewitt says he's delighted. He has a six-hour special broadcast tonight to cover the nomination and debate it. Be sure to tune in or listen on one of his Internet streams.

UPDATE IV: This will also get some people exercised, when it comes up during the confirmation debates:

Advocacy groups on the right say that Roberts, a 50-year-old native of Buffalo, N.Y., who attended Harvard Law School, is a bright judge with strong conservative credentials he burnished in the administrations of former Presidents Bush and Reagan. While he has been a federal judge for just a little more than two years, legal experts say that whatever experience he lacks on the bench is offset by his many years arguing cases before the Supreme Court.

Liberal groups, however, say Roberts has taken positions in cases involving free speech and religious liberty that endanger those rights. Abortion rights groups allege that Roberts, while deputy solicitor general during former President Bush's administration, is hostile to women's reproductive freedom and cite a brief he co-wrote in 1990 that suggested the Supreme Court overturn
Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 high court decision that legalized abortion.

"The court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion ... finds no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution," the brief said.

In his defense, Roberts told senators during his 2003 confirmation hearing that he would be guided by legal precedent. "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. ... There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent."

Expect this to get hammered over and over again by Ted Kennedy and the rest of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. We may need the Byrd Option to get cloture. He won't get a unanimous confirmation this time around.

UPDATE V: NZ Bear has a new John Roberts tracking page at the TTLB Ecosystem. Ian, the Political Teen, has video of the news report. That makes it official, I believe ...

UPDATE 7:57 CT: Fox News has Jon Cornyn on, saying that Roberts is a "mainstream, traditional judge". Mark Pryor won't comment on a filibuster, but says that he feels encouraged that the White House did so much consulting prior to making the pick.

8:01 - Bush introduces Roberts ... Roberts stands by his side.

8:03 - Notice the brilliance of the prime-time introduction. As Hugh noted earlier, Bush gets to define Roberts before the opposition can smear him. Bush lays out his life story and his endorsements, pre-empting the inevitable bloviating of Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer, who Fox reported was unhappy to hear of Roberts' nomination.

8:06 - Bush consulted with Reid and Leahy to make sure that the process is conducted with fairness and civility. We'll see. I predict we will see some Anita Hill-type shenanigans at some point. (I hope not, of course, but the track record of the Left has been pretty poor lately.)

8:10 - Short statement, no questions. Roberts is very well spoken, and plenty of poise, which he'll need in the weeks ahead.

8:12 - Leahy and Schumer now talking. "No one is entitled to a free pass..." He's laying out the rationale for a much tougher confirmation process than what Roberts faced before. Leahy scolded the "extreme right" for opposing a candidate that would follow in O'Connor's judicial philosophy.

8:14 - Schumer: Roberts must answer a wide range of questions, and must earn his confirmation instead of the Senate proving him unworthy, an unusual notion for executive appointments.

8:18 - Durbin says that Bush has guaranteed a "more controversial" confirmation with a controversial nominee.

8:23 - Leahy and Schumer didn't look very happy or very engaged. They appear to be going through the motions.

8:24 - Stupid question #1 from press to Leahy and Schumer: "What does the Roberts nomination mean for Native Americans in this country?" After a moment to register the non-sequitur, Schumer replied dryly, "It's too early to tell."

8:27 - Leahy still obsesses over O'Connor, lamenting that Bush didn't pick her clone. Feh.

8:28 - Leahy won't commit to getting the confirmation done before the Supreme Court comes back into session -- in October! He wants to have O'Connor come back. I'm not kidding.

8:32 - My prediction: we will see a Bolton-style stall tactic, where the Democrats demand more and more documentation from prior cases, and then filbuster when the White House finally balks. The Democrats started this tactic during Miguel Estrada's confirmation hearings.

8:36 - Cornyn talking now. President has chosen a "known quantity", a man who has argued 39 cases at SCOTUS. Cornyn also emphasized what has been called the "Ginsburg rule", where they refused to answer specific questions about how they would judge certain cases.

8:41 - Starting over from scratch, as Schumer proposed, shows a predilection to stalling and obstruction, Cornyn says. This already seems to be shaping up as a big partisan fight.

8:43 - Want to know what the opposition thinks? Citizen Journal has some links for you.

8:45 - "Are they looking for a fight, or are they looking for an orderly and dignified process?" Cornyn scoffs at Schumer's notion that Bush didn't consult enough with the Democrats.

8:48 - Reporters ask Cornyn about the Estrada strategy, and Cornyn says that he will oppose any such attempt, and that an effort to try it will expose Democrats as obstructionists.

I'm going to close this thread out (not the comments -- they always stay open), although I'm obviously going to continue to post on this issue for the next several weeks. My inbox is already filling up with responses from special-interest groups to Roberts' nomination, I see! And if you want your dose of inanity and insanity, check out the reaction at Daily Kos. The big news there? Bush has "coke jaw". Simply brilliant analysis.

Dafydd: The New Antisemitism

...Is Moslem Derangement Syndrome.

Do I mean the undenial derangement of some but not all Moslems, who murder the innocent to make some irrational point of religious bigotry? Oh, not this time. By Moslem Derangement Syndrome, I mean those Americans who advocate the murder of hundreds of thousands of Moslems, just to make an equally irrational point arising from their religious bigotry.

I explicitly refer to all those who propose, demand, and practically salivate over "nuking Mecca."

I'm not talking about Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO). He never went that far. As far as he did go, he was still a dangerous fool; but just as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) does not really believe that American guards at Guantanamo Bay are just like Nazi concentration-camp guards, Stalinist gulag torturers, and Khmer Rouge butchers -- he was just stretching for a ridiculous (but dangerous) intensifier -- neither does Tancredo really support the idea of incinerating 350,000 people and setting a match to the quick-burning fuse of world wide holocaust by "bombing Mecca" in response to a nuclear terrorist attack.

Tancredo was simply speculating irresponsibly, firing off the mouth before the brain was in gear, and giving terrorist mouthpieces around the world more supposed "evidence" that America is on a "crusade" against Islam. So I'm not talking about old Tom.

I am talking about you, sitting right there at your desk at work or home reading these words. Moslem Derangement Syndrome applies to anyone who sees the war on terrorism through an increasingly apocalyptic filter, where every attack, every statement, and eventually every turbin on TV becomes more evidence of Armageddon, Ragnarok, the final battle between Good and Evil.

This is a deadly metaphor. If this really is Armageddon, the Final Trump, the armies of righteousness versus the demons of darkness, then anything goes. Everybody is a target. There is no distinction between combatant and civilian, between terrorist and believer, or even between enemy Moslem and allied Moslem; the world becomes one monstrous "war of all against all," in which there not only are no neutrals, there are no innocents.

That some folks look forward to such a horrific conflagration with ill-disguised glee is no testament to the civilizing nature of Western society.

This new avatar of antisemitism is no different than the old: Jew hatred began as the hatred of a religion; but in the 20th century, it overtly became what it covertly was all along... a kind of racism, hatred based upon the blood. And although those who suffer from MDS insist they hate all Moslems democratically, not just Arabs, their specific examples never stray far from the Semitic genotype: I've heard "nuke Damascus" and even "nuke Teheran" (Middle-East Persians surrounded by Arabs), but never Jakarta, Islamabad, or Khartoum. The unmistakable whiff of race permeates MDS.

And there is little lower than that. The only way MDS victims could fall off that floor would be to retreat into the final barbarity of tribalism, where they could join their terrorist neighbors in an orgy of blood against the subhumans of that other tribe in the next valley over.

But I do have an obligation to say what I'm for, not just what I'm against. What do I suggest we do if terrorists plant a dirty bomb under Los Angeles, Denver, or New Orleans? Or worse, how should we repond to a "suitcase nuke" (the favorite shibboleth of MDS these days, as if you can by one off the shelf at the local Samsonite outlet) exploded somewhere on the mainland?

Here's a revelation: how about identifying who did it, and which country aided and abetted them -- and then expunging those people and that regime?

Rather than strike with eyes wide shut at all 1.3 billion Moslems in the world -- how to win friends and influence people! -- let us strike with open eyes at the actual ghouls themselves, the true enemies of civilization and humanity: the Ba'athists in Syria, the mullahs in Iran, the werewolves who rule from Pyongyang. Let us announce our plan: we strike any country that actually had a hand in the attack, along with every international terrorist group in the world, whether or not it was specifically involved: every Wahhabist terror cell, every spinoff from Hezbollah, every al-Qaeda affilliate. Even the IRA. Every militant group that does not disarm and sue for peace.

I think better of the American people than do those who swim deep in the currents of Moslem Derangement Syndrome. Real Americans truly, deeply, madly believe in American exceptionalism and the basic righteousness of our individual values. They will never demand that we kill innocents to punish them for looking like our enemies.

Everyone who dares is unAmerican, and I'll have no truck with him.

Bush To Announce End To Plame Debate At 9 PM EDT (Updated!)

Figuring that the press has eaten itself enough over the Plame leak investigation, George Bush announced that he will toss the media a fresh bone on which to chew for the next few weeks, tonight at 9 PM EDT:

President Bush has decided whom to nominate to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court and was poised to announce his pick in a prime-time Tuesday night address.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the Bush administration was asking television outlets to broadcast the speech live. Bush's spokesman would not identify the president's choice. But there was intense speculation that it would be Judge Edith Clement of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Speculation all morning long has centered on Edith Clement, as the gentlemen at Power Line have discussed. Neither appear terribly impressed with her selection, if it turns out to be her. Clement did get unanimously confirmed to the Fifth Circuit bench four years ago, making it difficult for the Democrats to mount much of an offense against her nomination. However, as John and Paul note, the lack of a real reference for her judicial philosophy appears to have short-term political benefits, but also carries long term strategic risks. Those of us who remember the David Souter nomination know exactly what I mean by "risks".

People For The American Way, however, already have a complaint page at the ready for Clement. None of the cases about which they object appear to hold much steam for a Senate-floor showdown; one dissent expressed a desire to limit federal power in armed-robbery cases (a Hobbs Act issue), one written opinion in a majority lowered the amount of "suffering" damages awarded to two people who died in a car accident, and in a third case, Clement dissented in favor of denying a hearing for a terminated public-school teacher. PFAW will no doubt try to play those rather picayune complaints into a firestorm, but without any real core philosophical components in play, I doubt it will lead to much opposition in the Senate.

This may wind up as a successful under-the-radar selection for Bush. I certainly hope he has found a true judicial conservative who exercises restraint in creating new law through judicial fiat. However, it looks like he intends on holding back the known and celebrated judicial conservatives for Rehnquist's retirement.

UPDATE: I was kidding when I wrote the title and lead for this post, but apparently the Washington Post isn't:

Sources said the timing of an announcement had been moved up in part to deflect attention away from a CIA leak controversy that has engulfed Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove.

So who's the sources for Reuters? Judith Miller and Matt Cooper? I understand the need for anonymous sourcing (again, watch the Daily Standard for my column on this tomorrow), but using them for this kind of lame analysis shows how uncontrolled and addicted the media has become to them.

Former Bush White House Counsel Brad Berenson tells Reuters that Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu endorsed Clement for the nomination, which should help speed her through her confirmation process. However, her lack of a "paper trail" gets some notice, as well as the historical similarity to David Souter (meager paper trail, followed a controversial confirmation event). Also, Dick Durbin fired a warning shot today across Clement's bow:

She won Senate confirmation by a 99-0 vote in 2001. But Assistant Senate Democratic Leader Richard Durbin said "a different standard has to be applied" for a Supreme Court candidate and predicted she would face "harder questions, more questions" than in 2001.

On the other hand, unless the Democrats come up with something highly inflammatory, they know they'll be better off with Clement than with the slate of truly conservative nominees from which Bush could pick. His reaction to a floor fight over a nominee like Clement will be to up the ante on the next attempt, and they know it. Politically, they can ask a few tough questions, but they will have no credibility for a filibuster.

UPDATE II: Hugh Hewitt says we should also look at Edith Hollan Jones -- apparently he's getting some mixed signals from the White House. I don't see any reference to Jones on PFAW's site. According to Renew America, however, it won't take long for Ralph Neas to gin up some offense against her confirmation:

Just 56, Judge Jones has served twenty years as an appellate judge on the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court. She was appointed by President Reagan in 1985 at the age of 36.

Judge Jones has openly criticized Roe v. Wade, condemns "modish, untested philosophical notions" imposed by the Supreme Court "that would have left the [Constitution's] Framers aghast," and believes that the Framers' principles of limited government and personal virtue were derived mainly from the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule. In January 2003, she told a University of Virginia audience that the nation's foundational values were Biblical.

Jones is critical of the legacy of the Warren Court, which she contends "extravagantly assumed the power to dictate new 'rights' not expressly stated in the Constitution and in so doing foisted its philosophical vision on the United States with consequences far beyond the Court's imagining."

Among areas Jones believes the activist Supreme Court has damaged American society are crime and punishment, pornography, family relations, public order, and youth and education.

Sounds great to me, but this would touch off a huge fight in the Senate, and probably would require the Byrd option to get her confirmed. As such, I see her as a replacement for Rehnquist when he steps down.

UPDATE III: Both Clement and Jones belong to the Federalist Society. That ought to get some Democratic knickers in a twist. Neither justice has any formal opposition argument at Nan Aron's Alliance for Justice site.

UPDATE IV: Forgot to mention that Michelle Malkin has lots of great links up already at her site.

UPDATE V: ABC says it isn't Clement. My bet is that it's Jones.

Tories Still Polling Badly In Canada

Despite having one of the worst political scandals in Canadian history as an albatross, the Liberal Party continues to outpoll the Conservatives, building up strong leads in BC and the Atlantic area. The reason? The Tories still have not done a good job of showcasing their party leader:

The gift of scandal and voter fatigue with the four-term Liberal government have done little for Stephen Harper's Conservatives, a new poll suggests.

A Pollara poll gives the Liberals a commanding advantage - 11 points ahead of their arch-rivals, with staggering leads in battlegrounds like B.C., the Toronto area and Atlantic Canada.

Michael Marzolini, who heads Pollara, says the Canadian electorate wants to punish the Liberals and there's only one explanation for such a large lead.

"The whole thing is Stephen Harper at this stage," said Marzolini, who was once the Liberals' pollster.

Once again, the lack of standing for Harper remains the Tories' biggest stumbling block. Whether this comes from a lack of political skill on Harper's part -- which might have been reflected in his being outmanuevered this spring during the Adscam controversy -- or a malicious political smear campaign from the Liberals doesn't really matter in the end. Harper obviously has a problem that needs immediate addressing, or the Tories will have to consider other options.

As I've said before, Harper needs to find ways to communicate over the heads of Canadian media and directly to the electorate. He needs to connect personally with Canadian voters, engaging them and making them feel comfortable with Harper on a personal basis. Right now, his biggest problem seems to be that the opposition has been able to get out in front of Harper and define him on their terms, making him into a Conservative bogeyman with "hidden agendas". If Harper can pull a Reaganesque speaking tour and find that connection with Canadians, it not only helps him build confidence in his leadership, but it will also destroy what remains of Liberal credibility after their assaults on Harper.

He has a summer and an autumn to make his case. If he hasn't convinced Canadians of his honesty, forthrightness, and leadership qualities by then, the Tories may need to make some changes.

Zarqawi Starts Targeting Sunnis

Iraqi terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has concentrated his effort in recent weeks on inflaming sectarian passions in Iraq by targeting Shi'ites and Kurds for attack, rather than Americans or the thus-far sympathetically inclined Sunni population. That changed today as a terrorist assassinated a prominent Sunni politician working on the new Iraqi constitution:

Mijbil Issa was gunned down, along with an adviser to the committee and a bodyguard, in the Karradah area of Baghdad, according to Mohammed Abed-Rabbou, another Sunni member of the drafting committee.

Issa was among 15 Sunnis named last month to a committee charged with drafting a new constitution by Aug. 15. The Sunnis were added in an attempt to reach out to the religious community at the heart of the insurgency.

However, two Sunni committee members had already quit because of threats from the insurgents who oppose the U.S.-backed, Shiite-dominated government.

Zarqawi seems to have decided to pull out all the stops to sabotage the constitutional process in Iraq. Attacking what used to be their public-relations base risks alienating the formerly dominant sect under Saddam. These attacks and threats underscore Zarqawi's intent not to restore a Sunni hegemony but a Wahhabist tyranny akin to the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan before October 2001.

The Sunni need to decide whether they will continue to support these lunatics. They should have learned by now that terrorist proxies are like using a slippery knife; once in use, it all too easily turns on the user and can prove deadly. Whether they show the same resilience and courage of their countrymen during the January elections and use that knowledge to overwhelmingly reject Zarqawi and his goons -- and cough him up -- remains to be seen. If they don't learn it now, Zarqawi certainly has more lessons planned for these recalcitrant pupils.

Look Who (Used To) Read Government Reports

The Washington Times goes after the partisans still flogging the Rove-Plame connection in the face of all available evidence in its editorial today. The paper points out that the media has chased its own whistleblower while ignoring the corruption he pointed out:

Let's make it clear at the start: Were special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation to bring evidence to light that Karl Rove or anyone else in the Bush White House had anything to do with revealing the identity of any covert CIA agent, President Bush should fire them and they should be forced to face the full consequences of the law. But nothing in the public record thus far suggests that Mr. Rove or anyone else in the administration has committed such a violation in the case of Valerie Plame. Mrs. Plame is the former CIA agent who suggested that her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, an opponent of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy, be dispatched to Africa in February 2002 to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase "yellowcake" uranium from Niger.

What is known thus far suggests that:1) Mr. Wilson has misrepresented his wife's role in getting him the assignment and his own findings of his investigation in Niger; 2) In July 2003, when columnist Robert Novak first mentioned in passing that Mrs. Plame worked for the CIA, she was not functioning as a covert agent and her work for the CIA was common knowledge; and 3) That if there were-- against the public record -- a covert status to be exposed, it was possibly Mr. Wilson, with a speculative assist from David Corn, who writes for the Nation magazine.

Given what is known about Mr. Wilson and his veracity, it was almost surreal watching him interviewed on the "Today" show answering one softball question after another as he urged the president to fire Mr. Rove, and watching Mr. Wilson lionized as a purveyor of truth by Democrats like Sen. Charles Schumer in their effort to destroy the senior White House adviser. Last July, the Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report that calls into serious question virtually every substantive assertion Mr. Wilson made about his Niger trip.

The Times points out that although the media may ignore the Intelligence Committee now, it can't claim ignorance of its existence. They point to a 2004 Washington Post report by Susan Schmidt which clearly recognizes why the leaker may have spoken with Robert Novak:

The Post added that the committee's report "may bolster the rationale that administration provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee [purportedly Mrs.Plame], but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction." And the report "also said that Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'"

Apparently the Washington Times, alone in the national media, bothers to check on the facts of this case. My column in tomorrow's Daily Standard will discuss this in further detail. In the meantime, as the Tims does, people should allow the special prosecutor to do his job and quit trying to make the thoroughly discredited Joe Wilson into a victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy. As the record makes clear to anyone who bothers to read it, Joe Wilson victimized the truth and the American public, not the other way around. One would think that media sources who set such store by truth and openness would reflect that in their reporting as well.

Mr. Harper Goes To Washington

Stephen Harper took time off from his Canadian summer tour to speak at a convention of center-right parties from around the world meeting in Washington DC this week. Looking to invigorate his image abroad and to repair some of the damage to Canadian-US relations over Iraq and missile defence, Harper proclaimed that a Tory government in Canada would start getting serious about counterterrorism efforts:

A Conservative government in Canada would move aggressively to step up efforts in the war on international terrorism and create a single office to oversee Canada's spy and security forces, Opposition Leader Stephen Harper promised yesterday in a speech to right-wing fellow travellers gathered in Washington.

"In particular, Canada can play a stronger role in the war on terrorism," Mr. Harper told a receptive audience of representatives of centrist and conservative parties from more than 60 nations attending the triennial International Democrat Union meeting.

The G&M reference to "fellow travellers" sounds suspiciously close to the anti-Communist phrase in the 1950s. It adds a discordant note of disapproval to Paul Koring's coverage of Harper, a distasteful association that may be more apparent to American readers than those of Canada. The use of that term does nothing to reverse the reputation of the G&M as a mildy to moderately biased news source in Canada.

Koring does report that Harper pledged to start increasing Canada's investment in its security forces, reversing a years-long trend under Liberal Party rule that has seen Canadian security become less robust. Harper also explicitly stated that he wants to integrate Canada's security closer with American continental efforts, although he avoided talking about missil defense for the moment. After the London bombing, such a message might resonate with Canadian voters. The nature of the attack and its perpetrators, most of whom appear to have been second-generation British citizens, should alert Canadians to the dangers they also face. Their Muslim communities face many of the same issues in assimilation as did the British (and Americans, for that matter, should also consider this).

Canada's Conservatives need to take terrorism seriously, including better border security cooperation and overall immigration and visa processing. The Liberals have clearly decided to err on the side of an open-door policy, giving Islamists a potential toehold on North America. Harper could position his Tories to address the real concerns of Canadians regarding lax security and lack of investment in the forces that should protect them from attack. His Washington appearance shows that he aims to do just that, despite the ankle-biting of the press.

Why The Law Enforcement Approach To Terrorism Doesn't Work

Germany has shown once again why using a law-enforcement approach with terrorists ultimately fails to protect Western nations. A German court released suspected terrorist financier Mamoun Darkanzli because of a dispute over an extradition request and the reversal of a newly-passed German law intended to strengthen legal tools to fight terrorism:

In a ruling seen as a sharp blow to coordinated counterterrorism efforts in Europe, Germany's highest court refused Monday to turn over to Spain a citizen suspected of aiding Al Qaeda, arguing that a recent European agreement to streamline extradition procedures violated the rights of German citizens. ...

But on Monday the German Constitutional Court declared the law creating the European warrant void, even though it was ratified by the German Parliament in November. The court reasoned that the law infringed on the right of every citizen of Germany, enshrined in its Basic Law, to a court hearing in this country before extradition can take place.

The ruling will surely be seen as a setback in a Europe that has closer coordination to prevent terrorism at the top of the public agenda and is still reeling from the terrorist attacks in London this month.

"He must be set free following this ruling, which is a blow for the government in its efforts and fight against terrorism," said the German justice minister, Brigitte Zypries, referring to Mr. Darkazanli.

Mr. Darkazanli, who was interrogated by German investigators for several months after the Sept. 11 attacks, has denied having engaged in any terrorist activity, saying he was a businessman who knew members of the Qaeda cell in Germany only "by sight."

One of those "sights" came at a Hamburg wedding attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers. Spain's justice Baltazar Garzon invoked the European extradition procedure for Darkanzli based on Spain's further evidence tying Darkanzli to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The EU arrest warrant, enacted in 2002, supposedly overcame the individual obstacles of extradition in each member nation, allowing a more secure approach to handling terrorist cases. However, the German court interpreted national law to require that Germany have enough evidence to try Darkanzli in Germany before extraditing him to Spain -- requiring Spain's evidence and intelligence to be exposed publicly. Failing that, Germany could not extradite Darkanzli -- and he left German custody in a taxicab instead.

No one knows where he is now, of course.

This shows the predictable results of relying on law enforcement to fight Islamofascist terrorism. First, it underestimates the threat of terrorism by equating it to the grubby environs of organized crime, instead of the existential threat it clearly represents after 9/11, Madrid, Morocco, and London. Second, it takes the crucial intelligence battle and forces it to be exposed in open court, making Western nations decide whether the risk of blowing covers is worth a criminal conviction for a single operative. Third, the process takes so long that it eats up resources clearly needed elsewhere in the war and in civil law enforcement.

In short, as we saw in the 1990s, it provides a recipe for stalling and timidity, when boldness and quick action serve us better.

Terrorism may involve committing crimes, but it is not a criminal enterprise in the same sense of the Mafia. The Mafia and other organized-crime syndicates exist to skim money off of capitalist economies, using strong-arm tactics as well as corruption and stealth, but they don't aim to destroy the societies in which they operate. They exist as parasites, not predators, to Western societies. Islamofascist terrorists want to destroy us, and then take command of what's left. They are an existential threat, not mere parasites, and pretending that they are the same as a ring of car thieves puts us all at risk.

The Group Attack On Justices

The long delay in nominating a successor to Sandra Day O'Connor has led to a bit of impatience in opposition circles. Partisan interest groups have had to read the tea leaves to determine the likeliest candidates for which they will need ready arguments of "extraordinary circumstances," giving them the leeway they believe will allow the Gang of 14 to approve a filibuster. These groups seem to have settled on a circuit-by-circuit group attack, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has become their primary target. The Washington Post reports that five of the Fifth have reportedly made President Bush's short list in an article subheaded, "Southern Appeals Bench Known For Conservatism":

It wasn't all that long ago that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit was on the cutting edge of the civil rights movement, a liberal pocket of scholars aggressively enforcing the Supreme Court's demand for speedy desegregation in the Deep South.

But things have changed mightily in 20 years. Today, the New Orleans-based appellate court is considered among the most conservative in the land -- but it is still at the center of politics and history.

As both sides dig in for what is expected to a be contentious ideological struggle over a successor to Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, five of the judges mentioned as possible nominees are on the 5th Circuit: Edith Brown Clement, Emilio M. Garza, Edith Hollan Jones, Priscilla R. Owen and Edward C. Prado. ...

The court -- which covers Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana -- is known for its independence, and the Supreme Court has reversed it in a number of high-profile cases. The high court has also openly rebuked the 5th Circuit in death penalty cases, signaling that the appeals court crossed the line in denying defendants' rights.

Lois Romano quotes several experts in deducing the overall thrust of the court, which she paints as an appellate bench at odds with the Supreme Court, suffering reversal after reversal. In that, Romano makes the Fifth look like a conservative mirror to the liberal Ninth. However, that doesn't add up with the history of the court. In 2003, the Center for Individual Freedom looked at the performance of the Ninth and determined that it had far and away more SCOTUS review than any other court.

The 2002-3 court reviewed 56 cases from the federal appellate courts. Twenty-four of these came from the Ninth Circuit, and SCOTUS reversed eighteen of them, accounting for 30% of all reversals with written opinions. Eight of them were unanimous, accounting for over a third of all unanimous reversals across all levels of the judiciary. Those eight amount to almost three times the total number of reversals from the Fifth in that session.

It appears that the tone of this article overstates the Fifth's actual track record in reversals.

Nor do the individuals quoted appear terribly informed of the court's actual performance:

"It really is quite unusual for a lower federal court to thumb its nose at the Supreme Court so explicitly," said Peter B. Edelman, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University law school. "If you look at some of the other courts, I doubt you'll find the same kind of flaunting defiance."

Theodore M. Shaw, the director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said it is "extraordinary" how many times the Supreme Court felt it necessary to chastise the 5th Circuit. "We are not talking about a liberal Supreme Court," he noted. "We're talking about a conservative Supreme Court that apparently became frustrated with the 5th Circuit's failure to meaningfully review criminal convictions for constitutional infirmities . . . cases involving prosecutorial misconduct, police misconduct, racial discrimination. Those problems were not being addressed by the 5th Circuit, so the Supreme Court had to step in."

At least Romano identifies Shaw's affiliation. Edelman, a well-respected professor at Georgetown, also happens to sit on the boards of Center for Community Change, the Public Welfare Foundation, and Americans for Peace Now. He worked for Bobby Kennedy during his time in the Senate and on brother Ted Kennedy's 1980 presidential campaign. Edelman, while having earned tremendous respect, hardly qualifies as a disinterested legal expert.

It appears that the group attack will be the strategy employed, trying to paint a whole slate of justices with the "extremist" smear as an efficient opening salvo in the upcoming confirmation battle. Unfortunately for President Bush, the media seems to stand ready to assist in this effort with slanted reporting such as we see here with Lois Romano.

UPDATE: Beldar has more on this topic, including a lengthy explanation in my comments. And on a personal note, I want to wish him well in his recovery from a recent (and blessedly mild) heart attack. I also changed some inaccurate wording in the post based on his input.

Dafydd: Hugh's Got a Point, For Once

(All right, that's not fair. Hugh has had points before. So maybe "twice.") But this one is pretty big.

Hugh was one of the first to jump on Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) for his hoof-in-mouth suggestion that if America is nuked by some militant Islamist group, we should increase the danger to the United States by orders of magnitude by bombing Mecca. (Michael Medved was also quick off the mark.)

Here's Hugh:

I want to be very clear on this. No responsible American can endorse the idea that the U.S. is in a war with Islam. That is repugnant and wrong, and bloggers and writers and would-be bloggers and writers have to chose sides on this, especially if you are a center-right blogger. The idea that all of Islam is the problem is a fringe opinion. It cannot be welcomed into mainstream thought because it is factually wrong. If Tancredo's blunder does not offend you, then you do not understand the GWOT. Yoni Tidi is a frequent and popular guest on my program, a deeply religious Jew and a retired major from the Israeli security services. On the program tonight he condemned the idea of attacking Mecca or any other target that is "Muslim" as opposed to "terrorist-supporting." We are not in a war with devout Muslims. We are in a war with Muslims who think that their faith compels them to kill non-believers and the nations that support those extremists.

Hugh's last sentence -- "we are in a war with Muslims who think that their faith compels them to kill non-believers" -- is fascinating... because if we were to follow the Tancredo Credo, that is exactly what we would be doing ourselves: killing 350,000 people for no other reason than their religious faith.

Our faith would be compelling us to go to war with all believers in Islam. Heck, even Ann Coulter, right-wing extremist extraordinaire, the fox of Fox, only "advocated" killing the Islamic leaders!

Huge calls the post The Tancredo Blunder, harkening back to the famous quotation by Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe on Napoleon's execution of the Duc d'Enghien on trumped-up charges: "It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder." (Some attribute the saying to Tallyrand or to Fouché, but I'll run with Bartlett's.) And indeed, the Tancredo utterance may turn out to be even worse than the imbecilic ramblings of Dick Durbin, which had the virtue of being so preposterous that even his friends were embarassed, even as they tried to cover his tracks.

Here is the problem: Tancredo has no authority to decide on military responses... but the fact that a powerful politician of the president's own party -- the darling of a certain nativist segment of the right -- has called for America to attack Islam itself (which is how even our Moslem allies will see it) plays directly into the hands of our enemies. They have argued ever since the invasion of Afghanisan that we may say our response is measured and focused, but what we "really" want is to go to war against the entire Moslem faith... that is, to become "Crusaders" in truth.

We are not helped by the mentally negligent Kool-Ade drinkers who pound the table and demand exactly that. But at least they can be dismissed, because they're not in the government: they're just morons with very unsatisfactory sex lives.

But this stupidity from a national politician -- a man well-known for acting globally while thinking locally -- is a very different thing. Rice, Rumsfeld, and probably even the president himself will now have to personally reassure our allies and the rest of the world that we're not gearing up for the "final solution" to the Islamic problem.

It's a load of offal dropped on the Commander-in-Chief's head that he needs like a mountaineer needs an avalanche. As Hugh rightly demands, what conceivable strategic purpose is served by bombing Mecca, under any circumstances? It's hardly deterrence, since the terrorists would probably welcome such a response -- because they would imagine it meant that the apocalypse was upon us, where Allah would reveal Himself, destroy the Jews and Crusaders, and restore the world-wide Caliphate.

The Left, to paraphrase Churchill, swim in currents of hate so strong it sears their very souls. We on the right must not dive in to drown alongside them.

Dafydd: Bear Flag League Reception and Hootenanny

As predicted, a fine time was had by all, except for those who got lost, never finding the joint due to the wretchedly error-ridden directions. Some attendees, however, mistrusting the geographical abilities of bloggers, thought to look up the route on the map and arrived undetoured.

Relying entirely upon my world-famous memory (and this "agenda" sheet of paper I hijacked back home with me), I shall post here a brief and entirely serious precis of the highlights of the Bear Flag League reception.

If serious, sober-minded reporting of such a momentous occasion as this yanks your crank, read on. The management warrant that no outright fabrications will be found in the following dissertation. Everything is true, including the orgiastic fertility rites and the sacrifice of a llama following the event.

Special Note: All times are approximated to within ± 3.825 minutes, due to obscured view of the sun.

Menace of the Bear Flag Chowder and Marching Society Reception

1:18

The reception was called to order amid immediate motions to adjourn to the bar across the street. Joy McCann -- I think -- made a futile effort to herd attendees out to the patio for the food. Alas, they were still roaming about looking for the "Free Open Bar Serving Apple Martinis" that had been widely rumored among some of the less mature attendees.

(This correspondent is not entirely sure it was Ms. Joy, as he was too busy still searching for that nonexistent wet bar.)

Lunch comprised large, disk-shaped pieces of ground beef and beef byproducts, cylindrical intestinal skins stuffed with unknown animal bits, and thin slabs of what purported to be deceased fowl; some gloppy, white concoction that could have been either potato salad or poi; something that had corn in it (kernals were visible); and beans. The mob was obliged to fight over the comestibles in a historically accurate reenactment of the Battle of Austerlitz (we were the Austrians, and Justene Adamec was General Franz von Weyrother).

However, there was little time to sample this fine cuisine, for the moment we sat down and speared a morsel on the tines of the old fork, Scott Schmidt began jumping up and down with excitement, frantically signalling some urgent message in semaphore.

Although each attendee wore a name tag, Schmidt announced that they were required to introduce themselves, presumably for the benefit of those bloggers who were illiterate; the ritual was briefly interrupted by a minor pushing match beween Baldilocks and upcoming speaker Allan Hoffenblum (author of California Targetbook), when the latter tried to pass himself off as the former.

The gang had barely finished introductions (Patterico was obliged to study his own nametag as a cheatsheet) when the Speaker to Gentiles drew a ball-peen hammer and began beating a Highland tattoo on a water glass. It was time for the first speech.

1:37

Your humble narrator eyed his still-full plate with impotent longing. The first speaker -- evidently having already dined an hour before at the nearby Hamburger Hamlet -- was ready to begin his after-lunch speech ("well it's after my lunch," he argued). He was Dan Weintraub, columnist for the Sacramento Bee and proprietor of the Bee-blog California Insider.

Weintraub discoursed at great length -- great length -- touching upon the circumstances of the creation of California Insider, the infamous Incident of the Enforced Editing, the circumstances of the creation of California Insider, his prediction of the demise of the daily dead-tree newspaper (about which more anon in a subsequent post), and the circumstances of the creation of California Insider.

There was a minor altercation between Mr. Weintraub and upcoming speaker Allan Hoffenblum (author of California Targetbook) over the former's coverage of a Congressional campaign managed by the latter shortly before the end of World War II.

Satisfied with his narrative, and smug in the superiority of his own prandial preparations to those of the hapless membership, Mr. Weintraub sat back again, ostentatiously picking his teeth with a burnished silver swizzlestick autographed by the surviving members of the Flying Wallendas.

2:34

The next speaker to jawbone the assembled multitude was erstwhile Speaker of the California Assembly and failed mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg, a Democrat who seemed relatively normal, strangely enough. Mr. Interlocutor would be overjoyed to convey the gist of Speaker Hertzberg's remarks, but they were delivered at such machine-gun pace that the audience were left bewildered, aware only of the fleeting impression of a particularly successful motivational speaker and something about blogging the Grand Canyon. The literature mentions a website associated with Mr. Hertzberg titled BigIdeas4LA, a quick perusal of which discloses such Big Ideas as:

My campaign for the Mayor of Los Angles was amazing. The energy in Los Angeles is just astounding. I heard from thousands of people throughout our great city- whether it was the Angelenos I met every day with ideas to change LA or from the more than three million hits and active issue petition signers on my website www.changela.com - it is clear that there are so many who share a passion for Los Angeles.

Just by discussing some big ideas, like breaking up the LAUSD and fixing traffic, I was propelled from a relative unknown to coming within a whisper of knocking off the incumbent mayor. I am extremely proud of the campaign we ran.

(It also discloses the word "oppossed," which would appear to be some intriguing combination of opposed and opossum.)

A small kafuffle ensued between Speaker Hertzberg and upcoming speaker Allan Hoffenblum (author of California Targetbook) over the contrast between the Speaker's neckwear and Mr. Hoffenblum's striking resemblance to Sen. John McCain.

3:02½

Mr. Hertzberg sat down amid hesitant applause and vigorous headscratching, only to be replaced by the well-known actor and soon-to-be Republican candidate for the California Assembly seat in the 40th District, Joseph C. Phillips. You may remember Phillips from one of these; but your faithful chronicler prefers Mr. Phillips' nostalgic starring role in the junior-high filmstrip series "Hall Monitors Are Our Friends."

There was some confusion as a scuffle broke out between current speaker Phillips (the actor and western-film buff) and upcoming speaker Allan Hoffenblum (author of California Targetbook) over just how "Democrat-safe" was District 40. Former Speaker Hertzberg was removed to an undisclosed location for his own safety.

3:14.159

Seeing the desperation on the faces of the trapped attendees -- Kevin Drum, a liberal Democrat who seemed relatively normal, strangely enough, and who operates the blog Political Animal, had almost gnawed off his own limb to escape -- Gunnery Sergeant Schmidt reluctantly called for ten minutes of liberty.

The population milled about uncertainly, trapped on the patio whence the food had been removed. Those who had not had a chance to finish lunch eyed one another nervously; it would not be going too far to suggest that some may have seen their fellows mutate into walking roast turkeys and plates of pasta (then again, they may have seen no such thing). Mr. Schmidt was observed fluttering about, trying to drive the herd back into the meeting room; after several ineffectual attempts, he inched his way up to the writer of these words, who had evidently impressed Mr. Schmidt with the quiet (or rather stentorian) aura of authority. "Can you get them to move back into the room?" he asked. Graciously, this one assented.

Following a bullhorn-loud bellow that spooked the herd into stampeding back whence they had come, the penultimate speaker cleared his throat nervously and prepared to cast oil on troubled fires.

3:38:11.889

As the attendees tussled over seats that had miraculously grown fewer in number, they discovered that in their brief absence, a wealth of literature had been plopped upon the tables, including the summer issue of the Claremont Review of Books; a pamphlet titled the Rise and Fall of Constitutional Government in America; the Memorial Robert Byrd Pocket Edition of the Declaration of Independence, the Constituiton of the United States, and the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region (Revised Edition) by John Bull and John Farrand (a.k.a. "the Two Johns"); two broadsheets advertising Achmed & Israel Persian Rug Cleaners; the Spring issue of Local Liberty, highlighting a brilliant interview by editor Ken Masugi of editor Ken Masugi (accompanied by an equally brilliant color photo of editor Ken Masugi); and a coupon for a free Caffè Vanilla Frappuccino with Caramel Affogato at the Starbucks inside the Midnight Special bookstore on the West Side. Attendees ruminated on the political significance of caffeinated Socialism as the first of two final speakers left the bullpen and took the mound.

He proved to be Ted Costa, the godlike gadfly who started the process to unseat the former governor of the Bear-Flag state, Gray "Grayout" Davis -- who, along with Gary Condit, looks like one of those "separated at birth" photo-montages. The present scribe misremembers exactly (or even vaguely) what Mr. Costa had to say, but he did entertain the crowd, drawing applause and thrown money by his sartorial splendor: as the author of this post recollects, Costa sported an ermine tuxedo in red and yellow motley; formal lederhosen; black knee-socks cross-gartered in brilliant magenta; Earth shoes; light blue, three-fingered gloves; and a Davy Crockett coonskin cap with veil; Flap has a photo that should display this prismatic costume in all its glory, clearing up any misunderstandings.

There was a momentary disruption as upcoming speaker Allan Hoffenblum (author of California Targetbook), evidently overcome by the sight of cross-gartered socks, rushed the "stage" area and attempted to annex Bosnia-Hercegovina in the name of Pasadena. Mr. Hoffenblum was given a fish and restored to his position, and Mr. Costa proceeded smoothly thence.

3:32:11.889

At last, the highlight of the evening -- the imminent end of the parade of witnesses -- was in sight; the assemblage breathed a collective sigh of utmost relief as the final speaker ascended a magisterial ivory dais that had been swiftly erected by cobbler's elves at the far end of the arena. Allan Hoffenblum, by this point well known to all in attendance, assumed the position.

Hoffenblum commenced on a well-regarded trip down memory lane, hitting the highlights of his exemplary career in politics, beginning with his first job as campaign manager for President John Adams's reelection bid. He continued managing the presidential campaigns of such illustrious political dynamos as General George B. McClellan, William Jennings Bryan, and Wendell Willkie (twice; Hoffenblum ran Willkie's posthumous 1948 campaign).

After the Chicago riots and Hoffenblum's infamous and quickly regretted "tartar sauce" speech, he retired from (some historians write "was driven out of") running political campaigns. Instead, he commenced upon a publishing empire anchored by the California Targetbook, which analyzes every California race in upcoming elections and retails Mr. Hoffenblum's favorite chili recipes. At the back of each edition are tear-out sewing patterns for matching Christmas frocks and pantaloons.

When he finished his speach, a gargantuan, roiling cheer exploded from the audience, as overwhelmed attendees spontaneously performed the "wave" in tribute. A small platoon seized Mr. Hoffenblum and carried him out upon their shoulders; but as more than twenty-four hours have elapsed without further sight of Mr. Hoffenblum, it's not yet certain the actual intent of that contingent. Enquiries are being made.

Exhausted, drained, and unmanned, the limp participants sidled out of the recital hall, pausing only long enough to grant press conferences thanking the Iraqi people. Within moments, the hall was denuded, bereft of its former occupants, and not coincidentally restocked with the Han-dynasty vase collection of Irving and Tillie Finkelstein, housed in that cafeteria room according to the diktat of the Finkelstein Foundation for the Static Arts.

The Bear Flag League has been informed that it is not the target of any grand-jury investigation in Los Angeles County.

Tancredo Fouls The Water (Updated)

We have enough problems fighting the war on terror in the measured, strategic method used by the Bush and Blair administrations without Republican Congressmen recommending the bombing of sites held sacred by Muslims across the political spectrum. Yet today, Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggested that a nuclear attack on an American city could result in a bombing run on Mecca:

A Colorado congressman told a radio show host that the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

Rep. Tom Tancredo made his remarks Friday on WFLA-AM in Orlando, Fla. His spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically. ...

"Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

The congressman later said he was "just throwing out some ideas" and that an "ultimate threat" might have to be met with an "ultimate response."

I think the "ultimate response" to Tancredo's apolcalyptic fantasy is that we don't bomb civilians in response to terrorist attacks, no matter how seductive such a response might seem. The idea that the US would retaliate in such a manner should be repulsive to any rational person, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum. The war on terror targets the terrorists and the governments which fund and/or shelter them, not the civilians who happen to live there.

Besides, who is Tom Tancredo to make these threats anyway? He doesn't have anything to do with the military chain of command or the national security systems that would make those kinds of recommendations. He certainly doesn't speak for the President, who has to make the final determination in loosing those weapons on any target. Tancredo does, however, lend a false sense of credibility to such threats in international circles, thanks to his position as an elected Republican official.

The GOP needs to remind Tancredo of the wisdom of silence in some issues.

UPDATE: Yes, we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 -- but we were at war with Japan and both cities had significant military production facilities. We also gave them plenty of warning on both and an opportunity to surrender each time.

We, however, are not at war with Saudi Arabia, and Mecca has little or no military significance. Furthermore, Tancredo doesn't want to nuke it for military advantage, but simply as an extortionate threat. That's little different than what al-Qaeda does.

And Truck, we bombed Saddam's military facilities in open warfare, fully declared. We didn't aim at civilians. If you can't tell the difference between that an a nuclear attack, that's simply pathetic.

UPDATE II: Mail and comments are mixed on this topic. Michelle Malkin links to other reactions, including some suggestions on what Rep. Tancredo should have said.

One blogger takes me to task for being overly concerned for war's unpleasantness. I have no problem with unleashing the awesome power of the American military, but I don't want to be stupid about it. Destroying Mecca automatically gets us one billion overt enemies, where now we face around 20,000 active and a couple of million covert at best. Even threatening to do that puts us at a disadvantage when arguing that we are not attempting an existential war against Islam. How can any intelligent Muslim believe that while we threaten Mecca, which has no military value whatsoever and sits in the middle of a country with which we are not at war?

Let me put it this way, which Hugh mentioned earlier. The excuse used by the IRA during its terrorist campaign against the British in Northern Ireland was that the battle involved a denominational war between Catholics and Protestants. Should the British have threatened to bomb the Vatican in response? What would that have done to the world's Catholics, not to mention a big chunk of Christians in general?

Here's what we should make clear will happen if we suffer another major attack in the US, especially one that uses WMD or causes significant losses:

1. Take out the air forces of the two nations we know to support terrorists -- Syria and Iran.

2. Destroy all nuclear facilities in Iran, to the best of our intelligence.

3. Bomb all known militarily-related manufacturing facilities.

That response not only provides a significant deterrent, but actually addresses the threats arrayed against the West. Without any air defenses and with their production capabilities reduced to rubble, we will leave them in a position where we can easily pick them off at our leisure. It also will give them something to do with their money other than handing it to terrorists for the next decade or so.

Obviously we need to have a response to attacks that will deter the nations that give aid and comfort to our nomadic enemies. Let's just make sure it's the right one.

UPDATE III: I removed the references to nuclear attack, as Rep, Tancredo did not specifically and explicitly say that. He did say that he would threaten to bomb Mecca, and perhaps do so. This resulted in several changes in the text above.

The clarification really doesn't change the issue; it only takes the nuclear hysteria out of it. (h/t: Baldilocks)

UPDATE IV: Best analogy so far comes from Hard Starboard, who initially thinks that I don't contemplate any retaliatory actions ... not true, which he acknowledges in his update:

[I]t appears that Morrissey and I do agree that retaliatory action would have to be taken, and that including Mecca on the target list would be like suffering a mafia hit and then firebombing the local Godfather's Pizza emporium.

If it isn't the most apposite analogy, it certainly is one of the most original, and humorous, I've seen so far.

UPDATE FINAL: Great comments on this post, folks, and a lively debate. I'm working on my next Daily Standard column and won't update further. You all have the last word, whenever that arrives.

UPDATE "WHAT'S AFTER FINAL?": Beltway Blogroll notes the irony of Tancredo's response to the Chinese nuclear threat against the United States last week:

"For a senior government official to exhibit such tremendous stupidity by making such a brazen threat is hardly characteristic of a modern nation -- particularly one planning to host the Olympic Games," Tancredo said in a press release.

Again, Tancredo didn't specify using nukes on Mecca, but other than that, this sounds pretty applicable. Too bad he couldn't have followed his own advice.

Broder Can't Read, Either

Unfortunately, the Plame investigation has uncovered a genuine national scandal -- the inability of the national news media to read a government report. David Broder provides another example in yesterday's Washington Post, where he continues to misrepresent the facts surrounding naming of Valerie Plame in a 2003 Robert Novak column. He starts off in a chatty vein by explaining the use of anonymous sourcing and the trust it requires, but quickly gets down to misrepresenting reality:

The first publication of Plame's name came in a column by Robert Novak, who said he had been given her identity and occupation by two Bush administration officials. The obvious intent of the leak -- and of the column, which ran in The Post and other newspapers -- was to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had just published an op-ed article in the New York Times challenging a presidential claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase nuclear material in Niger.

Wilson had been sent to Niger to see if that had been attempted. He concluded that it had not -- knocking one more hole in the administration case that Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. By exposing his wife's supposed role in sending Wilson on that mission, the White House was trying to link his finding to a well-publicized bureaucratic war in which elements of the CIA were doing all they could to undercut the case for going to war with Iraq.

No, no, no. As Matt Cooper states, he called Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, not the other way around, to get background on the Wilson article. The intent of Rove's warning to Cooper was to keep Time from printing a further reinforcement of Wilson's misinformation, as the Senate Select Intelligence Committee later corroborated. As Broder might have explained to his readers, journalists call anonymous and well-placed sources for just that purpose -- to find out whether they are barking up the wrong tree. The most famous and celebrated of these anonymous sources, Deep Throat, did the same thing for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; Mark Felt gave them little real information but guided them through their story by confirming or rejecting various interpretations and strategies.

Most egregiously, Broder repeats the utterly false claim that Wilson found no attempt by Saddam Hussein to buy uranium from Niger. Quite frankly, I may have to create a macro on my computer to keep repeating this information, but the SSIC report unanimously points out that Wilson actually substantiated that information when he spoke to the Nigerien government:

[Wilson's] intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996-1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999,(REDACTED) businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted "expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq."

Again, as I have repeatedly pointed out, Niger only exports four commodities: livestock, cowpeas, onions, and uranium. It doesn't take a genius to deduce that Saddam would have little interest in opening back-channel, secret negotiations to buy cowpeas and onions.

Broder praises Cooper for revealing Rove as his source while castigating Miller for remaining silent. Does he reject the use of anonymous sourcing? No; he just feels that Miller doesn't deserve any sympathy for her obstinacy, a position with which I agree but for different reasons. She has no privileged position within American law to ignore a court order, and so she has no one to blame but herself for her incarceration. Broder, on the other hand, thinks she deserves scorn and little sympathy for her present position for having used Ahmed Chalabi as a source before the Iraqi invasion:

But no one, not even Judy Miller, is wholly praiseworthy. She is the same reporter who, in a series of influential articles before the war, vividly portrayed the threat that Saddam Hussein's weapons supposedly posed. Only afterward was it learned that many of her "scoops" came from Ahmed Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi exile who had dreams of supplanting Saddam Hussein as Iraq's new ruler -- with the support of a conquering American army.

Her use of an unnamed source in that case was a distinct disservice to the country; had we known his name and motivation, much less credibility would have been attached to her reports.

That's the problem with anonymous single sourcing, though. If Broder thinks less of Miller, than what about Michael Isikoff? Mary Mapes and Dan Rather? Why single out Miller, when many more embarrassing debacles come easily to mind? It seems that the point of view of the articles has more to do with Broder's sympathy than the use of solitary sourcing.

I will write more about anonymous sourcing and the media schizophrenia surrounding it in my Daily Standard article later this week. I hope David Broder reads it, but I really would prefer that he and his colleagues read the SSIC report on Joe Wilson and stop spreading the misinformation that Wilson injected into the Iraq War debate -- originally as an anonymous source, of course.

French Lies Sink British Ties

The French continue to isolate themselves in the war on terror. First they allegedly concocted the forged documents that came to the CIA and caused a row over the State of the Union speech. Now they have gone out of their way to lie about sensitive information in the middle of the London bombing case simply to score a couple of political points, enraging the British and threatening to end cooperation between the two countries on intelligence:

In an interview with Le Monde that appeared on the newsstands last Monday afternoon - two days after the exceptionally open briefing - [French antiterrorism coordinator Christophe] Chaboud announced to the world that he knew "the nature of the explosives" used in the London bombings.

It "appears to be military, which is very worrisome," he said, adding: "We're more used to cells making homemade explosives from chemical substances. How did they get them? Either by trafficking, for example, in the Balkans, or they had someone on the inside who enabled them to get them out of a military base."

But Mr. Chaboud did not stop with his assessments of the explosives and their origins, which, it turned out, were completely wrong. He plunged into politics, railing at the British with an I-told-you-so air that Europe was a more dangerous place because of the war in Iraq.

For the past several years, the French have played an increasingly antagonistic role in security issues for the West. Although they joined the original coalition to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1990-91, they argued for normalization with Saddam almost since the last echoes of the guns faded from that war. When the US decided to stop issuing empty UN Security Council resolutions and demand compliance from Saddam in 2002, France originally told the US and Britain that it would support the effort, only to turn around and actively campaign to have other UNSC countries oppose any such enforcement.

After the invasion, we discovered mountains of evidence that France had taken bribes and undermined the sanctions regime, along with Russia, China, and Germany, making the effort to keep Saddam propped up much more understandable. However, it doesn't explain everything, as this latest development clearly shows. The French have apparently decided that their ludicrous quest to create a new French hyperpower out of sheer Gallic obstinacy has proceeded to new lows. In its way, it resembles the Joseph Wilson scandal; a government official in intelligence has lied about his information in order to make an anti-war argument based on fallacy.

The British feel that Chaboud leaked false information on purpose. The French might dispute that characterization, but the fact that Chaboud leaked anything and then followed it up with an insult to the British makes a counterargument rather difficult to believe. One would expect the man in charge of anti-terrorist efforts in a significant nation to know the meaning of sensitive information. The British, meanwhile, have made it clear that they will limit the information shared with France in the future, which will likely set off a tit-for-tat reaction across the EU.

If nothing else, this proves that we cannot rely on the French for assistance in the war on terror. They have no concept of the seriousness of the conflict or its nature, and now it looks like the French have lost what little honor they have left. The Chirac government, on the verge of being chased out of office by a highly discontented electorate, has settled for a survival strategy of damaging its putative allies for a brief moment of self-centered exploitation of Brit-hatred. Western governments should start protecting their interests by isolating France as quickly as possible, diplomatically, economically, and militarily. Perhaps that might provide a lesson for the current French regime about their empty fantasies of diplomatic domination.

Strib Still Confuses Judiciary With Legislature

Is it too much to ask for a newspaper's editorial board to have passed their high-school Civics classes? Apparently so in Minneapolis, where the Star-Tribune's editorial this morning once again attempts to opine on the Supreme Court opening left by Sandra Day O'Connor. They start in the predictable pattern set by earlier missives:

Americans have come to see how profoundly a single justice can influence the court and the country.

No one has seized upon that lesson with more fervor than America's religious right-wingers, who consider O'Connor's retirement during a Republican administration a chance to redirect the court. They won't readily say it, but they're eager to see another ideological bedfellow on the bench -- a predictable thinker whose views on abortion rights, gay marriage, police power and strong governmental authority reflect their own.

Uh-huh. I don't hear them complaining about Chuck Schumer demanding that any nominee answer questions about whether he or she will set aside earlier precedent or treat existing SCOTUS decisions as unshakeable -- which amounts to the exact same thing that the Strib deplores here. Schumer told the press last week that any nominee who refuses to proclaim in advance how he or she will vote on abortion, gay rights, and so one would face a filibuster as an "extreme" candidate.

Using that reasoning, however, the Warren Court's Brown v Board of Education decision violated both Schumer's and the Strib's understanding of the role of SCOTUS. Despite the Warren Court's correct reading of the 14th Amendment, it still flew in the face of established law and precedent going back over 60 years -- and was right to have done so. The difference is that the 14th Amendment spoke directly to the issue at hand, and Plessy v Ferguson ignored it in favor of comtemporary, popular thought.

Sound familiar?

The Strib, however, displays its ignorance in full view towards the end of this editorial:

It has become almost an article of faith among Republicans that "conservative" judges deserve praise for interpreting the Constitution narrowly -- a move they somehow imagine is freedom's surest guarantee. They save their calumny for "judicial activists," who they believe treat the Constitution as a handy starting place for slaphappy extrapolation that -- if left unchecked -- would affirm mayhem and debauchery as essentials of American life.

All this language -- all these assumptions -- pay short shrift to the complexity of U.S. jurisprudence. They also make light of the challenge the nation's top judges invariably face: As the words of even the high court's proclaimed conservatives show, interpreting the Constitution demands an inventive mind -- one that can translate centuries-old philosophy into modern policy.

That sounds lovely -- except creating policy isn't the job of the judiciary! The Legislature and the Executive work together to create policy. They represent the people, and the people can hold them accountable for their policy decisions on a regular basis on Election Day. The laws enacted by this policy get reviewed by the Judiciary when the need arises, but the only tasks set for the Judiciary is to ensure that the laws do not violate the Constitution and are applicable to the cases at hand. "Creating modern policy" is what got us Plessy in the first place, as well as Roe and all sorts of unconstitutional intrusions by the judiciary in the public-policy realm that belongs to the people.

One would hope that a major metropolitan newspaper like the Strib would employ people familiar with the Constitution and concepts like "separation of powers". However, as we see, the Strib worries more about partisan scorekeeping and the victories of special interest groups rather than the rule of law and Constitutional government.

LA Times Still Can't Get Plame Facts Correct

The Los Angeles Times runs an article on the Plame leak today that manages to avoid advancing the story with any evidence and get the existing facts almost entirely incorrect, despite a number of revelations in the past few days from grand-jury leaks and the new article by Matt Cooper. Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten concoct their stew of "revelations" and bad fact-checking by relying on anonymous sourcing:

Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told.

Perhaps that springs from the fact that Wilson not only lied in that op-ed -- on which I have written extensively -- but also had begun leaking false versions of his adventures to people like Walter Pincus and Nicholas Kristof. If any administration had someone leaking misinformation about intelligence operations, I daresay they would be "intensely interested" in counteracting it. And misinformation is exactly what Wilson peddled, according to the SSIC report on pre-war intelligence, in the part of the report that got unanimous bipartisan approval.

Although lower-level White House staffers typically handle most contacts with the media, Rove and Libby began personally communicating with reporters about Wilson, prosecutors were told.

And yet Cooper says that he called Rove and Libby, not the other way around. Cooper also called Rove about another topic entirely, and then changed subjects to bring up Wilson. Hamburger and Wallsten didn't miss this; they include it in the same article, although the readers have to go past the jump to see it:

In an article in the latest issue of Time magazine titled "What I Told the Grand Jury," Cooper writes that the grand jurors investigated his interactions with Rove in "microscopic, excruciating detail."

He says he called Rove after Wilson's article appeared and asked about it. "I recall saying something like, 'I'm writing about Wilson,' before he interjected," Cooper writes. " 'Don't get too far out on Wilson,' he told me."

Again, how does that square with Rove and Libby getting unusually aggressive about attacking Wilson? Did Rove force Cooper to call him using telepathic orders, secretly controlling Cooper? (Heck, if he could do that, he wouldn't even have needed Cooper to call.) Hamburger and Wallsten make the same logical mistake that the entire Exempt Media does in arguing that Rove and the White House had embarked on a vendetta against Wilson. One does not conduct a vendetta by waiting for the phone to ring and hoping a conversation might get around to the subject at hand.

The writers also gracelessly gloss over one of the main points of issue with Wilson's editorial blasts at the administration, and one of the problems with his mission from the start. The Times refuses to acknowledge that Plame sent him to Niger and that Wilson lied about it:

Wilson, a career Foreign Service officer who served in Iraq and several African nations, was sent by the CIA in 2002 to investigate whether Iraq had attempted to purchase nuclear materials from Niger. His New York Times article declaring that he had found no credible evidence of such an attempt despite the administration's continued claims that there had been one unleashed charges from White House officials that he was a partisan.

White House officials contended that he had wrongly indicated that he was sent on his mission by Cheney. In fact, Wilson had said in the article that the trip was inspired by questions raised by Cheney's office.

Eight days after Wilson's article was published, a syndicated column by Robert Novak questioned the credibility of Wilson's trip, suggesting that it had been arranged with the help of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, at the CIA.

As the SSIC found, Novak had it right, and Wilson lied about it to everyone. Not only did Wilson lie about the source of his mission, he also lied about the results. His report confirmed that Iraq had attempted to start secret trade negotiations with Niger in 1999, an attempt the Nigerien government deducted was aimed at purchasing uranium. Since the only other commodities Niger exports are livestock, cowpeas, and onions, Iraqi interest in Niger could easily be deduced, and Niger told this to Wilson, who reported it to the CIA. Somehow, however, this information doesn't find its way into the Los Angeles Times, even though it can be found in the SSIC report for anyone wishing to actually research this topic.

Over the past few weeks, the media have made it very apparent that they will continue to spin this story in the worst possible way, ignoring facts and logic to attempt to maintain Wilson as a victim and the Bush administration in the worst possible light. The only fact proven by this coverage, however, is that the Exempt Media once again has an agenda and that the editorial boards of these papers have either allowed their reporters to inject their biases into the news sections, or the editors have done so themselves. The LA Times's preference for half-truths and pointless innuendo over well-researched facts ill serves the California communities who must rely on them for reporting.

ADDENDUM: Once again, the media completely misses the point of the Plame connection to Wilson's disinformation campaign. Why did Wilson insist on denying his wife's role in his selection after the Novak article? It's not that she was covert -- she had been an analyst inside the US for six years at that point, not a field agent, and apaerntly well-known as such within Washington's elite circles. Does it not appear odd that Wilson started leaking false versions of his report after the war -- a war which the CIA reportedly resisted? Could this have been the reason Plame wanted Wilson to handle the Niger mission in the first place?

Leaking false versions of his report and his assignment, first in the New York Times and Washington Post through other reporters and finally through an overt op-ed, smells suspiciously like a disinformation campaign. That possibility certainly makes Plame's involvement worthy of note, and yet the mainstream media haven't even bothered to ask that question despite the number of clear falsehoods revealed by the SSIC report.

The New Hallmark Moment: Cheating

Apparently there really is a greeting card for every occasion, as the commercials used to claim. Cathy Gallagher has ensured that with her new line of greeting cards for cheating spouses, romantically named the Secret Lover Collection. This product line emphasizes the special bond formed between two people who promise other people not to sleep around, but then do anyway:

Gallagher doesn't plan on patronizing her own business. "You don't have to be a murderer to write a murder mystery," she says.

Nor, apparently, does one need to be unfaithful to write a Christmas card that says, "As we each celebrate with our families, I will be thinking of you."

Gallagher says her Secret Lover Collection of 24 cards is the first line exclusively for people having affairs, and she expects hot sales. She says half of married people have had affairs (though some studies show the figure to be far less — more like 15% of married women and 22% of married men, according to the University of Chicago). From former President Clinton's relationship with "that woman" to shenanigans on TV shows like "Desperate Housewives," affairs are out in the open.

"Look at the soap operas. It's all about forbidden love," Gallagher says in her Bethesda office, where the walls are painted red and pink. "Look at how many people on soap operas are having affairs. That's real. And I think that's why this is so scary — these cards are real, and for a lot of people it hits very close to home."

It doesn't appear that Gallagher wants to warn us on how "scary" the culture has become, but rather cash in on it. Her cards don't just reflect the moment, but actively encourage it. With such sappy sentiments as "I can't imagine my life without you … Even if I have to share you," and "I can't imagine not having you in my life. Let's start living our lives for 'us'", Gallagher's cards give a certain level of endorsement to the entire idea of cheating as a normal and even rational part of relationships.

Does Gallagher cause people to cheat? Of course not. But celebrating infidelity -- and explicitly profiting off of it -- amounts to an exploitation of misery for Gallagher's benefit. People used to consider that shameful, just as they did cheating on one's spouse. Now, apparently, both are considered just fine as long as one gets away with it. That kind of thinking does break down cultural norms, and while Gallagher may be more of a symptom than the disease itself, her joyful wallowing in emotional cruelty and the breakdown of families is disturbing to watch.

UPDATE: Mitch Berg has some ideas for new greeting-card lines. I think Mitch might be on the cusp of fortune ...

Book Review: Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

I refrained from running out to purchase the new Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, during the midnight madness sales at the local bookstores. Last time, that meant serious delays in getting a copy of the book. However, either Scholastic produced a more realistic first run or the initial enthusiasm may have been overestimated. When I went to the bookstore on Saturday, I found several dozen copies at 40% off available and almost no shoppers in the store. I took advantage of the opportunity and picked up my copy, and after finishing a couple of other projects this weekend, tore through the new installment.

* SPOILERS -- BEWARE! *

In my opinion, J. K. Rowling improves with each new outing, and Half-Blood Prince follows in that tradition. Rowling plays around a bit more with the formula here, just as she started to do with Goblet of Fire, and starts us off with several vignettes before the normal look at the abnormally normal Dursleys and their maltreatment of Harry, this time getting a good scolding and a lesson in manners from Professor Dumbledore before taking Harry with him. Unfortunately, unlike earlier volumes, Harry's trip to Hogwarts does not portend happier times -- as the first vignettes make crystal clear.

The war has not gone well for the Order of the Phoenix. After the loss of Sirius Black in the last battle, the Death Eaters captured remain in Azkaban. However, the others have made their presence felt in a number of attacks; Lord Voldemort has called his old allies to his side, such as the Dementors and possibly the Giants as well. His victories against the law-abiding wizarding world threaten to expose their existence to the Muggles, and the uproar has forced the Ministry of Magic to change hands. Security has tightened everywhere, but especially around Harry and Hogwarts.

As in Order of the Phoenix, Harry and his friends work less on solving schoolyard mysteries than in preparing to fight a war, but some of the same dynamics still remain. Quidditch plays a central role in life at Hogwarts, and the halting steps at romance first seen in GoF come back into more prominence here. The same antagonisms remain in play as well. Draco Malfoy still wants to thwart Harry and his friends, and Severus Snape seems as awful as ever -- only with the war and the nature of the enemy at hand, no one can know how dangerous these old antagonisms can get, or who a wizard can trust.

HBP resolves a number of storylines that Rowling has carefully constructed through the first five installments. As one might expect in the penultimate installment of the series, we learn much more about the origin of Voldemort. Most interestingly, Harry and Dumbledore team up to determine how Voldemort achieved his evil form of immortality, which holds the secret of his undoing. Before they can get to it, both must face betrayal and attack -- and as in the last book, a character dear to readers will meet a bitter end.

Some reviewers have taken to noting allegories between the Potter stories and real history, comparing Dumbledore to Churchill and Harry to America, as did Jonathan Last in last week's Opinionjournal.com. Those looking for such connections will probably not find disappointment in HBP, although the parallels may appear closer to the current war rather than WWII. The Death Eaters have taken to attacking Muggle civilians to force the wizards to both protect themselves and the Muggles simultaneously. The Ministry only appears to care about being popular rather than effective against Voldemort's growing gang of murderers and bloodthirsty lunatics. Keeping Death Eaters out of Hogwarts has become a high priority for everyone, but turns out to be much more complicated than anyone knows, and the threat might turn out to be closer than Dumbledore guesses.

HBP provides a gripping and quick read, a hallmark of the Harry Potter stories. Rowling appears to have improved her technical skills in writing, one of the weak points of the series but easily overlooked in favor of her excellent storytelling abilities. As the series continues to get more complex and serious, the improvement in technical skill comes none too soon. HBP is an excellent foundation for the final installment -- where Harry will have to take on Voldemort and only one of them can survive. I highly recommend the book for Potter fans.

Will Someone Please Teach Godwin's Law To Congress?

Can ... we ... PLEASE ... get Congressmen and Senators to throw away the Nazi analogies? Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) became the latest idiot to get impaled on a historical swastika when he attempted to paint Islamofascist terrorists as worse than Nazis. That may have escaped notice, but then LoBiondo decided to up the ante by crediting Hitler with a rational motivation for killing six million Jews:

Congressman Frank LoBiondo apologized for suggesting that Guantanamo Bay detainees were worse than Adolf Hitler because the Nazi dictator "sort of had a political rationale about what he was doing."

The New Jersey Republican made the remark on a radio talk show this past week, describing his recent visit to the Naval Base in Cuba. Muslim terrorists, he said, were more evil than Hitler.

"Hitler, in his philosophy, was, you know, he hated Jews, he was murdering Jews, and there were some people he liked. But he never went to the level that these people are going to," LoBiondo said.

LoBiondo had the intelligence to immediately retract the statement a few minutes later, profusely apologizing and completely abandoning the argument. That shows that LoBiondo has more political savvy than Senator Dick Durbin, who clung to his genocidal trifecta for days until Mayor Richard Daley stung him with a demand for an apology. However, that probably qualifies as damning with faint praise; getting compared favorably with Durbin doesn't take much besides being able to breathe with one's mouth shut.

When will our politcians understand that Nazi analogies amount to an almost-certain political jinx? We don't need to debate the relative merits of one form of fascism and oppression over another; they're all bad, grown-ups know it, and those who don't won't learn anything from sound bites like these. Members of both parties have had their hands scorched playing with this particular form of rhetorical fire often enough in recent days that others should have already learned to avoid these analogies at all costs.

We're not even asking for brilliance here, people. Just plain common sense. If you are an elected official, and the word "Nazi" starts to escape your lips, please please PLEASE squeeze them shut.

Cooper: Rove Didn't Call Me, Didn't Mention Name Or Status Of Plame

Matthew Cooper has decided to write about his testimony to the grand jury investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's name and status to Robert Novak. In the new edition of Time Magazine, Cooper confirms that the New York Times version of events published late last week which had him calling Rove, not the other way around, was accurate:

In his 2 1/2 hour testimony last Wednesday before the grand jury investigating the CIA leak case, TIME White House correspondent Matthew Cooper testified that when he called White House political advisor Karl Rove the week of July 6, 2003, Rove did not reveal Joe Wilson’s wife’s name and did not reveal her covert status to Cooper. But he did say that Wilson’s wife works at the “Agency on WMD.” This was the first time Cooper had ever heard of Wilson’s wife. ...

Cooper writes that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald “asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that (Valerie) Plame worked at the CIA.” Cooper says he testified that Rove did not.

Cooper also writes about his August 2004 testimony before the grand jury relating to his conversation with Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Cooper writes that, like Rove, Libby never used Plame’s name or indicated that her status was covert and he never told Cooper that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated. On background, Cooper had asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson’s wife sending him to Niger. Libby answered with words to the effect of “Yeah, I’ve heard that too.”

What an embarrassing denouement for the mainstream media and the Democrats in their zeal to target Karl Rove. No one except the darkest paranoid conspiracy theorists could believe that Rove or Libby deliberately sat around, knowing Cooper would call and eventually get around to asking about Wilson, and then use that opportunity to wreak revenge for Wilson's serial lies in his by-lined NYT piece as well as his leaks to Walter Pincus at the Post. Rove and Libby both performed the traditional background role (for which the media insists it needs anonymous sources) to warn Cooper that Wilson's version had seriously distorted the record.

Will this finally put this non-story to rest? Doubtful.

Busy Days

Lots of project work on the plate for the Captain this Sunday, and a visit from friends as well. Given that the news has been relatively quiet this weekend, I'm taking the afternoon off. However, I will return later tonight with a book review and more blogging.

Which book? Well, what's the book of the weekend?

Democrats And Their Kool-Aid

Dana Milbank and Charles Babington point out that Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman and New York Senator Chuck Schumer went to the same Brooklyn high school, James Madison. However, it appears that neither share that old school spirit with each other any longer, especially after Coleman singled out Schumer for "partisan attacks" in the Plame case:

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn and James Madison High Class of '66, took off Thursday after another nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn and James Madison High Class of '67, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "The chairman of the Democratic Senate campaign committee" -- that would be Schumer -- is "sucking the oxygen out of that atmosphere of collegiality and constructive cooperation by trying to make a partisan issue of something that is being handled by a special counsel today," Coleman said in a news conference on the Wilson-Plame-Rove CIA leak imbroglio. "Stop the partisan attacks," Coleman said. "Let's get away from the gotcha politics of Washington today."

Schumer's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fired back an hour later: "Norm Coleman is paying back his political patrons Karl Rove and George Bush today, picking up the hatchet for the White House and doing its dirty work."

That's about par for the Democrats these days. When a Republican says that a Democrat has been too aggressively partisan and obsessed with gotcha politics, the response from the Democrat is that the Republican must be corrupt and part of a dark conspiracy. The problem for this Democratic leadership isn't partisanship -- it's paranoia. They have become so unhinged that they truly believe that Karl Rove controls everything, and that all Republicans operate off of his talking points. John Hinderaker, Mitch Berg and I joked about this on our weekly radio broadcast yesterday, but the Democrats and their supporters increasingly demonstrate this.

On the other hand, as Babington and Milbank point out, occasionally the Democrats get caught using their own canned talking points. If some confused Senator Daniel Akaka's remarks on the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor with those of Harry Reid's, it's because they had the same writer:

Akaka read an eight-sentence statement that turned out to be virtually identical to a statement released earlier that day by Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who was in Nevada.

Three of Akaka's sentences matched those in Reid's statement word for word. Three others differed only slightly. Reid's statement said, "Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has been an inspirational figure to all Americans"; Akaka made it "for all Americans." Reid said, "As the first woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court, she blazed a trail that many will follow." Akaka ended the sentence, "for many to follow." Reid said, "It is vital that she be replaced by someone like her, someone who embodies the fundamental American values of freedom, equality and fairness." Akaka dropped the word "American."

The explanation? His staff accidentally gave Akaka Reid's speech. I guess that Akaka couldn't come up with his own reaction to the expected retirement of a Supreme Court justice.