Jane, You're Playing a Game You Never Can Win, Girl...*

It's amazing how time changes everything, how a new year, a new Congress invigorates one into thinking that perhaps they were right all along. Or, at least it must seem that way to Jane Fonda.

In a reprise of her antiwar youth, Jane Fonda finally came out and spoke to an antiwar rally in Washington DC last weekend. "I haven't spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years," she said. But, "Silence is no longer an option."

Oh, yes it is! Hasn't this woman learned anything? After all, she apologized at least twice for her actions supporting the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, acts which she acknowledged caused harm to other Americans and which gave aid and comfort to the enemy. In other words, treasonous acts that at any other time would have seen her prosecuted. Haven't you learned to keep your ignorant mouth shut yet?

Maybe Jane and her Fellow Travelers should reminisce a little further back, and ponder the words of an American president who was himself attacked for leading the country into an unpopular war, who was savaged by his Democratic opponents, and yet whom, unlike Jane Fonda, was proven to have been on the right side of history:

“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.” -- Abraham Lincoln

Jane, we know your game. Silence is no longer an option... it's mandatory. Shut the hell up and let the President win the war.

Read this for more on Hanoi Jane and her avowed appetite for her own foot.

*apologies to Jefferson Starship

...And the Democratic (Non-) Response

After stewing on James Webb's response to the SOTU overnight, I felt compelled to write about what was said, and as important, what wasn't. I'm going to focus on Iraq because that is the primary subject in front of the country.

Many people who identify as Democrats think that Webb really put the wood to Bush last night. Yes, he was very eager to blame, but was anything really accomplished. I don't see it. Come on! What did Webb really say?

Whether or not you believe invading Iraq was necessary back in 2003 (I do), the fact remains that we did. All of the finger-pointing, blame-gaming, insulting, etc., is irrelevant. Yeah, I know it's red meat for the Democratic base, but it's basically just so much BS. The question is, what do we do now?

Some are urging that we leave Iraq as quickly as possible. They say that achieving our objectives is impossible, that those objectives aren't worth another American's life, or both. Some, e.g. Michael Moore, say that, because we shouldn't have invaded in the first place we deserve to fail and we should give up, retreat, and accept the consequences as our just desserts. What I haven't heard these types fully explain is their understanding and acceptance of what will happen should we heed their urge and abandon Iraq immediately.

Others realize that, as Hillary said (unfortunately not about Iraq), we must be "in it to win it." Whether or not we were right to invade Iraq, whether or not we've made mistakes, we have to deal with reality as it is, not as we wish it would be. And, the reality is that abandoning Iraq would be disastrous for the US and for the rest of the civilized world.

Abandoning Iraq would leave it to be controlled by Iran or by Al Qaeda after a fierce and bloody war and the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Abandoning Iraq would mean we'd leave the sanctuary of a nation-state with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil to be used as a resource by those who have repeatedly sworn to destroy us by any available means. Abandoning Iraq would give our sworn enemies a new, and much better base than Afghanistan ever was. Abandoning Iraq means the War on Terror (the war against Islamic extremists of both Sunni and Shia persuasion) would come to our shores, as it did on 9/11.

Webb held up the Korean War and the way it was ended as a desirable solution. The Korean peninsula is a mess today because we didn't finish what they started back in 1950. More than 50,000 Americans died and hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent in Korea over the past half-century. Now, North Korea is frantically working to develop nuclear weapons to go on top of their ballistic missiles, even though they can't feed their population. So, offering the way we handled Korea as being a good way to settle Iraq is woefully ignorant at best, and dishonestly disingeneous at worst.

When I hear Webb mention that the Dems will "show [us] the way" I think about how they showed us the way out of Vietnam... and that way led over killing fields strewn with millions upon millions of bodies. Or, how they showed us the way out of Somalia... and that way led to an emboldened Al Qaeda and increasingly effective terrorist attacks against us culminating on 9/11. We've seen the Democratic way, and it doesn't lead to peace and stability. It leads to war and instability because the Democratic way tells our enemies that we can be attacked with impunity.

Here's the problem in a nutshell: the "cut-and-runners" believe that there's no way we can win in Iraq, there's no way we could win, and that we've already lost so we might as well cut our losses and get out now. This begs the question of why is it that the US can never win a war anymore while the our dilapidated and rag-tag enemies are inevitably victorious? Why is it that the most powerful nation in the history of the world can't win a war, while the weakest and most disorganized states can never lose? Why is it that Ethiopia can completely rout the Islamists in Somalia in a couple of weeks but we can't rout them in Iraq in three years? The answer is obvious... different rules of engagements. We can't win, these people believe, because they can't bring themselves to do what it takes to win.

I used to think James Webb was a smart man. Now, I wonder if he really did learn anything from Vietnam, or is he just embittered and angry and looking for someone or something to, as we rednecks say, whup up on. That's not what the country needs now. Why don't people realize this?

The State of the Union

George Bush gave one of the best speeches of his presidency tonight. It was cogent, coherent, and well-delivered. The question is, was it well-received? Only the pollsters know... maybe.

Watching his speech tonight via a live Internet video stream, I was struck by the reactions of the various members of the audience in the House chamber, especially to Bush's statement of "Whatever the people voted for, they didn't vote for failure [in Iraq]." Unfortunately, the Democrats seem to be circling like sharks smelling blood in the water, Bush's blood. They think he's fatally wounded (and he may be), but Bush isn't giving up yet. "Lame duck" status is a matter of perception, and Bush has the advantage of strength of character; he really doesn't care what people think of him as long as he believes he is on the right path. So... regardless of whether Bush's positions on the issues have merit, too many of his opponents will seek to act in whatever manner gains them the most political advantage whether or not the country is helped or hurt.

I also watched the Democratic response, given by Senator James Webb. Now, I have been a Jim Webb fan ever since I read "Fields of Fire" and especially "A Sense of Honor" while I was an NROTC midshipman. I thought George Allen's attack on Webb based upon the father/son scene in "Lost Soldiers" was pathetic; it cost Allen the election as it should have. However, James Webb the Senator is not as impressive as James Webb the author, or James Webb the Vietnam-era Marine war hero. In many ways it seems he has become the type of politician he reviled in "Something To Die For" when he pontificates on the mistakes that were made as "reckless" instead of acknowledging that mistakes are the "friction of war" as von Clausewitz noted.

Hindsight is 20/20, as the saying goes. Two years later, it's blindingly obvious what should have been done in the aftermath of the Iraq War; declare martial law, clamp down on Iraq as we did in post-WWII Germany and Japan, set up the country as a US protectorate and get the civil institutions up and running before we turned Iraq back over to its citizens. However, at the time, there was little popular support for a long occupation just as after the Clinton Administration there were insufficient numbers of troops to successfully fully occupy Iraq while meeting our commitments across the globe. More important, what is accomplished by continually harping on our mistakes and publicly threatening the Administration with a Congressional fight over the war? Yes, I know it's good for partisan political advantage, but is it good for the country? Imagine how much harder it would have been for FDR to fight World War II if the Republicans had continually pointed out the mistakes that were made, from failing to reinforce Wake Island, to letting the Philippines fall, to the disasters in the Solomon Islands, Anzio, etc. We would not have won that war in this political climate.

Do I think the surge in Iraq will work? Evidently both Al Qaeda and al Sadr do; the former has evacuated Baghdad knowing that to stand and fight means losing, the latter is desperately trying anything and everything to avoid the coming smackdown. The problem I have with the Democrats and their views on the surge is, as John Kerry so aptly put it, they were for it until they were against it. There is no reason to the Democratic opposition to Bush's plans, unless one considers it acceptable to seek partisan advantage by any means necessary regardless of the troops it endangers and the harm it does to the country.

The Republicans lost the Congress because they failed to live up to their campaign promises and took their constituencies for granted. "Where else are they going to go?" was the attitude. The Republican leadership knew that most conservatives wouldn't vote for liberal Democrats. What they forgot is that their base might not go anywhere and choose to stay home and not vote at all. This is what happened in 2006; the Republican turnout was very light while the Democratic base showed up at the polls and voted. The same thing happened in 1992, with the same results (the GOP lost everything). However, I don't think 2006 portends a continuance of Democratic Congressional rule after 2008. Just as they did in 1992, the Democrats are well on their way of reminding the voters why they were kicked out in the first place, and we all know what happened in 1994.

Despite their missteps and blunders, the Republicans have brought the country a long way from where it was in 2000, from the start of a recession with an administration that refused to face the oncoming economic and terrorist storms. We weathered the recession and 9/11, and the country is stronger with more jobs, a better economy, and reduced deficits. The terrorists who were gaining strength in 2000 have been largely obliterated and the few that are left are hiding in holes in remote regions of the world. Most of us no longer worry about terrorist attacks on our country, and that goes a long way to explain why Democrats won (we don't se the threat). But our troubles and travails aren't over yet, despite wishful thinking on the part of the majority of Americans.

So, the State of the Union is that we are both stronger, and blinder, than we have been in a long time. We have a president who still believes we are threatened, and not only does the opposition disagree but many from his own party are starting to distance themselves as well.

Who's right? Unfortunately, I think we'll find out sooner rather than later.

Winter Windstorm Aftermath

It was no Hurricane Katrina, but the worst winter storm in more than a decade hit us last Thursday evening, eventually turning out the lights on more than 1.5 million people in the Pacific Northwest.

You don't realize how much modern society depends upon electricity until you are forced to do without it for several days. It looks like our power won't be on until at least tomorrow (Monday) and perhaps even Tuesday, and many people have been told that it will be until after Christmas. We who are without power are not the unluckiest ones; several people were killed by falling trees.

The picture to the left shows a house in our subdivision that was hit by a falling tree. Luckily, no one was hurt but the house was extensively damaged. The woman who lived there with her family had arranged to have the remaining trees on her lot removed. She told me that the falling tree had hit her children's rooms and scared everyone to death, and that she was cutting every tree on their lot down. "It's going to look like a desert." I can't say that I blame her.

Why do so many trees fall? The Pacific Northwest's ubiquitous evergreen is the fir tree, and these trees have evolved to survive in thickly-timbered forests. The root systems of these trees goes maybe a foot into the ground, but spreads out to the diameter of the widest limbs... wide but shallow. Fir trees survive windstorms because a grove of them have interlocking roots so each helps support the other. However, all bets are off when people come along and thin out the trees in order to put things like houses and roads and powerline right-of-ways.

The reason we are without power for so long is shown, to the right. The high voltage feeder lines that run into the area substation were knocked out by several falling trees in a quarter-mile stretch. The damage was extensive; a couple of poles will need to be replaced and several of the feedlines will need to be re-rigged. This will take a couple of days and only started this morning.

The strategy for coping with widespread power outages is to go for effectiveness... make the quick fixes that will restore power to the most people with the least amount of work. The harder problems, or those that affect fewer people, are handled later.

Our problem is a time-consuming mess, and affects a few thousand people, so it had to wait while the easier or more wide-reaching problems were taken care of first.

Even though this is an inconvenience, it does point out some things I need to add to the emergency kit. The number one item is going to be a generator, followed by an electric cooler. The food in the fridge was the first thing to go; opening the door on Friday morning quickly let the cold air out and the milk spoiled by the evening. We have natural gas, but the furnace is useless without the blower motor, so the second thing is to get an electrician to set up the breaker panel so we can run a few things off of the generator. It would be nice to be able to do a couple loads of laundry, or run the dishwasher, or watch the television, and we don't need to do everything at once.

This was a good wake-up call, for those of us who are only inconvenienced. My condolences go out to those who fared worse.

On Bringing a Knife to a Gunfight

This article was inspired by a fellow blogger's post about her latest present.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert on knife fighting (far from it). But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

In all the hoopla about the utility of guns, particularly handguns, for self-defense, many seem to forget about knives.

We've all heard the old saw about "bringing a knife to a gunfight" as a warning about being outgunned, as it were. However, knives do have a place in one's defensive armory, and every professional man-at-arms that I know carries a knife at all times. Especially when they can't carry a gun.

Knives have many characteristics that make them as good, or perhaps even better, than a gun for close-range self-defense. These include:

• A knife never runs out of ammo
• A knife never jams (especially a fixed-blade knife)
• A knife is quiet
• A knife is scary, because everyone has been cut and we all know it hurts
• A knife is seen by many as not as dangerous as it truly is, making its possession less threatening to the general public

Knives has some disadvantages, as well:

• You must be within arm's reach to strike your opponent
• Using a knife effectively requires a modicum of training (as much as a basic handgun course)
• Most people find that stabbing or cutting an attacker to be much harder from a psychological viewpoint than shooting an attacker, because knife fighting is up close, personal, and brutal
• You will get bloody, even if you don't get injured
• If the other person also has a knife, you both will be cut; the winner just gets cut less.

In other words, if you intend to use a knife as one element of your self-defense plan, then you need to be tactically and psychologically prepared to have a reasonable chance of success.

While the use of the sword reached its peak in Renaissance-era Spain, the development of knife fighting techniques and tactics reached its zenith in the Phillipines during the first part of this century when, in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent suppression of the Moro Rebellion, practitioners of Escrima, the Filipino martial art of armed and unarmed combat, traveled, interacted, and competed thus exposing each subgroup's unique techniques to examination and adaptation by all. During four centuries of Spanish rule, the open practice and instruction of Escrima was punishable by death. As a result, Escrima practitioners trained with sticks of varying lengths, first as a substitute to knives and swords and later in addition to them as the utility and effectiveness of stick fighting became apparent. The real beauty of the style is its superficial simplicity and adaptability of the techniques to swords, knives, and the empty hand; a true Escrima master is always armed.

Escrima spread to the Hawaiian Islands and then to the US West Coast via Filipino workers, where it was generally only taught to persons of Filipino descent. Eventually, the style was learned by dedicated Western martial artists.

An Escrima master is someone that you certainly don't want to anger. The speed and skill of a true master is extremely scary, and very effective. Take, for instance, the elderly Filipino man who was accosted by a gang of youths who attempted to rob him a few years ago. When the police arrived, they found one innocuous-looking unharmed old man with a bloody pocket knife, and a half-dozen bleeding youths, each bearing numerous assorted painful yet superficial knife wounds. The old man was arrested and charged, but was found not guilty at his trial by a judge who couldn't fathom how a slight aged senior citizen could defeat several juvenile delinquents with extensive violent criminal records. Before letting the old man go, the judge asked for, and received, a short demonstration of Escrima from the old man in open court, and acquitted him after realizing that the master could have easily killed all of his attackers if he so chose.

So, bringing a knife to a gunfight isn't always a losing strategy... especially if your opponent doesn't realize that you have a knife, and you can lure him close enough to eliminate the advantages of a gun. Tactics, not weapons, win fights.

The Final Solution: Will It Be Ours, or Theirs?

We're never going to have peace in the Middle East until we get rid of the problem.

That means getting rid of present-day Syria and Iran, the financial and logistical supporters of terrorism in the Middle East and the world.

That means killing the leadership of these two countries, and anyone else who just doesn't get it.

That means actively helping Israel hunt down and kill Nasrallah and his Hezbollah henchmen hiding like cockroaches.

That means killing Hezbollah fighters. No quarter asked or given.

The US should use Syria's continued support for insurgents and terrorists who kill American in Iraq as the cassus belli and do a little dance on Damascus.

If we're lucky, Iran will honor its mutual defense pact with Syria, and we can go there and rearrange the furniture, B2-style. But, I think the Iranian mouth has written a check its ass can't cash. A couple of days after we went into Syria, sitting in Baby Assad's former throne, the Iranians would be scared shitless, cringing in fearful anticipation of the upcoming bitchslap. They wouldn't be talking very tough then.

Could the US and Israel do this? Militarily, yes. Who's going to stop us? Not the mullahs. Not the Russians... they'd probably take the opportunity to smack Chechnya. Not the Chinese. They're not going to get started in a war they can't win.

I'd tell you who'd stop this, though. The American Left. There'd be screams about impeachment, massive (paid) protests by International ANSWER and their fellow-travelers, and of course the media would happily equate Bush with Hitler.

Never mind, of course, that the course of action described above IS going to happen... it's just a question of when, not if. And, the longer we wait, the readier they'll be and the harder it will be.

It's 1938 all over again. Except the starting gun isn't going to be the invasion of Poland. It's going to be a mushroom cloud over a Western metropolis.

Casus Belli

While most in the West have been going about their business, enjoying the summer, and generally living their lives, momentous happenings have occurred in the Middle East.

The Iranians, having stalled for as long as they could, have finally run out of time diplomatically. The US-led diplomatic efforts to get Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions has reached an impasse due to Iranian intransigence, and the European powers have finally admitted that the matter must move to the UN Security Council and sanctions imposed on Iran.

The Iranians know that at the end of the day they'll lose in the UN, despite the assurances of their Russian and Chinese protectors. Therefore, anything must be done to move the story of Iran and its nuclear weapons program off of the world stage. Anything, that is, except stopping their development of nuclear weapons.

So, the puppetmasters start pulling the strings. North Korea launches numerous mid- and long-range ballistic missiles in an impromptu test. Hamas terrorists dig a tunnel under the border with Israel, attack an Israeli army outpost, and kidnap a soldier, dragging him back through the tunnel into Gaza and into hiding, and Hamas spokesmen claim responsibility, offering to trade him for hundreds of Hamas terrorists that Israel has imprisoned. Israel launches a massive military strike into Gaza, destroying Hamas-occupied Palastinian government offices, destroying infrastructure, and dividing the territory, as they search for their missing soldier.

The Israelis have tried bargaining with the Palestinians, and that didn't work. They've tried disengagement, withdrawing from Gaza and building a wall to separate the two sides, and that didn't work. The Palestinians, or enough of them, don't want peace or coexistence; they want to look out over the Mediterranean and see miles of Jewish corpses floating in the surf, and that is clearly untenable to Israel. I believe that Israel is going to try their only remaining option: killing enough angry Palestinians so that the rest are frightened enough to leave Israel alone. After all, what have they got to lose?

Iran, unprepared for the scale of Israeli operations against Hamas, and besieged by calls for assistance from its Hamas proxies, instructs Hezbollah, its proxies in Lebanon to conduct a similar operation on the Israeli-Lebanon border, which proves equally successful in that two Israeli soldiers are kidnapped and brought back into Lebanon and eight are killed. The escalation is designed to force Israel into diverting some of its forces from Gaza where Hamas is hard-pressed... but again Iran miscalculates. Israel has already mobilized considerable reserves, and these are unleashed against Lebanon while the pressure is increased in Gaza.

Iran has also miscalculated world opinion. Arab countries, after their pro-forma criticism of Israel, hold Iran and Syria and their terrorist proxies primarily responsible for the outbreak of hostilities. In Lebanon, most blame the incidents on Hezbollah and support for disarming the Iranian- and Syrian-backed terrorist group grows both inside and outside the government. The Lebanese have few illusions about the capabilities and will of the Israelis especially after such a provocation, and wish to have no part of war with Israel.

In Europe, support for Palestine is tepid, and most countries condemn Hamas for starting the conflict. The US, under George Bush, issues a terse statement holding Syria and Iran directly responsible for the crisis. The message to Israel is unspoken but clear: there will be no consequences for destroying Hamas and Hezbollah.

Make no mistake: this is a very dangerous time for the world. Hamas and Hezbollah will be devastated. Syria will see Hamas- and Hezbollah offices, and the homes of leaders, bombed. Syria is defenseless against Israeli air attack, and the Israeli Army would be in Damascus within days should the Israelis launch a ground attack. The Iranians realize this, and have warned Israel that any attacks against Syria would result in an Iranian counterstrike. However, Israel already believes itself to be under attack by Iran thru its Hezbollah and Hamas proxies, and the recent rocket attack against Haifa is believed to be the result of Iranian rockets launched by Iranian Revolutionary Guards units located in Lebanon. Israel will do what it believes is necessary to end the threat of Hamas and Hezbollah once and for all, and that will most likely include at least air attacks on Damascus targeted at Hezbollah leaders.

What will Iran do? Expect to see further escalation, perhaps by North Korea, perhaps in Iraq (al Sadr is Iran's proxy here). This crisis is the result of another miscalculation on its part; Iran truly thinks that the civilian populations of Israel and the West are timid, the leadership is politically constrained, and therefore we are unable to respond effectively. As to why Iran believes this, we have only to look at our own press and the attacks against the current Administration by the Democrats. Iran believes that Western media sentiment reflects popular sentiment and this popular sentiment, especially in America, has politically damaged George Bush to the extent that it has removed his ability to respond military to any threats, in the same way that popular sentiment crippled Lyndon Johnson and removed the US's ability to respond effectively on a strategic level against North Vietnam. Iran believes wrongly.

Most wars are started by miscalculations; one side believes that the other won't fight and so it escalates in an attempt to achieve its goals via intimidation. When the other party escalates similarly, the first party continues until the first blow is struck. By that time it is too late: both sides are committed to a course of action which involves fighting which continues until the conflict is resolved. Hitler didn't think the West would fight for Poland; Japan didn't think the US had the stomach to fight after the blow struck at Pearl Harbor; Saddam didn't think the US would respond military to his invasion of Kuwait, or to his refusal to comply with UN resolutions. Oops.

The Iranians didn't think the Israelis would fight, and they don't believe the US will, either, hence their clumsy attempts at intimidation. What will they do when, shortly, Israel destroys their proxies and kills its leaders, and then punishes Syria for its hand in the attacks? They will be facing considerable loss of prestige and power, and the eradication of two decades worth of work as the terrorist organizations they've invested considerable amounts of time and money are destroyed. They may even face attack from Israel, which may decide to strike Iran's nuclear sites as retaliation for Iran's support of Hamas and Hezbollah. Count on this happening if Israel has solid proof of direct Iranian attacks against it. And, the Israelis may get help in their strikes via the use of Iraqi airspace for refueling... and perhaps even US airbases in Iraq.

The Iranians, seeing the rest of the Moslem world through their malevolent eyes, overestimate the hatred of Israel and the US throughout the Middle East. They believe that if Israel and/or the US strikes Iran, fellow Moslems will arise by the millions to declare jihad against the Great and Lesser Satans. In their hatred of us, they overlook the fact that most of the Middle East, unlike Iran, is Arab, and that there is a considerable level of animosity against Persian Iran by its Arab neighbors. The Iraqis especially, both Shia and Sunni, have no love for their Iranian neighbors. If Israel or the US is legitimately provoked to strike Iran as a response to aggression, most Arabs will rationalize it away as "They deserved it." Iran is on its own here.

Machiavelli wrote, "Never do your enemy a small harm" and "If you go to stab the king, make sure that you kill him." The warning here was to finish what you start, because it is very dangerous to act so as to leave a slightly wounded and greatly angered enemy. This is the situation we face with Iran today. We need to finish what we start. We need to stab our foe, and ensure that he is dead. We need to realize that Iran is the heart of the terrorism problem against the US, the West, and the rest of the world. We need to cut out this heart, or put a stake through it, and end the threat once and for all.

And we need to do it sooner rather than later, before Iran gets nukes.

See this for more on Iran

A Quick Note to the Netroots

You guys are nuts.

Let me rephrase that; you guys are perfectly, splendidly, logical... but your worldview is hopelessly skewed. Your worldview doesn't comport with reality, but you keep insisting that you're right and reality is wrong.

In your worldview, 'facts' like everyone wanting to get US troops out of Iraq ASAP, people think that war profiteering is a huge problem, the economy sucks, etc., are valid reasons why people will overwhelmingly arise and throw the Republican scoundrels out. Unfortunately, for you, the majority of voters don't agree with your 'facts' and see things a little differently.

Why have the Dems gone from running every branch of government to running nothing in a decade? Because the majority of Americans have seen the Dems govern... and didn't like it. Make that "were deathly afraid of it."

Between Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and the obstructionist Democrats in the Senate, the American voter has seen a party that is indecisive, delusional, myopic... a party that thinks that having good thoughts and good intentions is all that matters. A party that truly thinks that issues like North Korea were better when the Dems ruled... and did nothing. A party that thinks Bush is a greater evil, and a greater threat, to America than bin Laden. A party that, when at the reins of power, ignored bin Laden and Hussein and any other problem it could because dealing with those problems might make some people uncomfortable. A party that views leadership as merely the ability to take a poll, gauge public opinion, and then run to get in front of it. Even worse, a party that uses loaded questions and skewed polls and the 'bandwagon' approach ('most right-thinking people believe we should do X', so come join us!') on everything from gun control to tax policy to education to whether lying under oath is perjury (yes for Scooter Libby, no for Bill Clinton) to the Iraq War to manipulate the voters. The American voter has seen how the Democrats operate, and he doesn't like it.

Face it: your party is in denial. The American voter may be somewhat disappointed in Bush, but perhaps that disappointment isn't that he's gone too far... but that he hasn't gone far enough. The American voter wasn't upset about Abu Graib. Heck, worse happens in San Francisco on a Saturday night. The American voter isn't upset about Guantanamo, he's upset that we let these bastards live instead of killing them on the battlefield as the Geneva Convention specifically allows. The American voter isn't upset about going to war in Iraq, he's wondering why we're not kicking Iran's butt. The American voter isn't upset because the Bush Administration immigration plan is too tough, he's upset because it's too lax.

You guys all hang around together, and talk to each other, and you all agree... but that doesn't mean the rest of the world agrees with you. Get out, travel, and hang with people who DON'T normally associate with you. Maybe then you'll understand that, unlike the '90s when Democratic power was at its peak, the American voter isn't going to buy your nonsensical talking points.

Maybe then you'll start to understand why a Dem majority just isn't going to happen until the Democratic Party leadership changes, and definitely not towards the netroots.

Shiitake Mushroom Cloud! Hundreds of WMDs found in Iraq!

Just checking Drudge before I trundled off to bed, and Wow! what a headline! "Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq..."

Turns out the US has found more than 500 artillery shells that contained either mustard gas or sarin gas. This information was released earlier today in a press conference called by Senator Rick Santorum and Representative Peter Hoekstra, both Republicans. Minority House Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and Representative John Murtha also received this information from John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. Figure the odds of the Democrats would call a press conference to announce the discovery of WMDs in Iraq... that would be right after the Democratic press conference to apologize to Bush for calling him a liar.

The document received from Negroponte is basically a one-page summary of a classified intelligence report that goes into great detail on what has been found in terms of WMDs and WMD programs, and only scratches the surface of the contents of the classified report. Even that much would not have been declassified without the strenuous efforts of Santorum and Hoekstra.

From the Santorum/Hoekstra press conference:

HOEKSTRA: Thanks, Senator, and thank you for your help.

You know, as we've been continuing the work and the research on WMD and what existed when, it's been interesting. We spent a lot of time working or people have been coming to the committee, what we call unconventional sources.

The senator has indicated that a few months ago, an unconventional source went to Rick and said, You ought to look for this report. And the senator spent some time looking for it, couldn't get his hands on it and called over and said, Can you help get this report? And we went looking for it, and we found it.

[...]From the Kay report and the Duelfer report, the conclusions that they reached indicated that during that period of time from the Gulf War to Operation Iraqi Freedom, there was evidence of continuing research and development of WMD, an ongoing effort with various kinds of chemicals, research programs and those types of things.

The piece that still remains unanswered, or remained unanswered, was that piece of exactly what, other than the programs, what existed in Iraq in 2003?

The Iraqi Survey Group, or the impression that the Iraqi Survey Group left with the American people was they didn't find anything.

The report that Rick and I reference -- and I'll have to tell you that I'm disappointed in the summary that was provided for us in an unclassified version from the intelligence community because I think you lose some of the context of exactly what Rick and I and others on the committee have seen from that report.

But this says: Weapons have been discovered; more weapons exist. And they state that Iraq was not a WMD-free zone, that there are continuing threats from the materials that are or may still be in Iraq.

And I think what that points out to us -- and remember, the Iraq Survey Group was in Iraq for about 16 months, employing up 1,700 people. They didn't find many chemical weapons.

And since that period of time, we have found hundreds. This assessment says more exist. And I think what that points out is that there's still a lot about Iraq that we don't fully understand.

The Iraq Survey Group suspended field visits five months after they were there. So they stopped field visits in October of 2003. So what we're now finding are our troops stumbling across these as they go into Iraq.

The full-blown effort to discover these caches of chemical weapons stopped a year and a half ago. And this is the kind of stuff that we are still finding.

[...]Some of you may have the question -- and we had the same question -- if this report was completed in April, why couldn't a senator receive it for six weeks and why did it take eight weeks for it to be brought to our attention and finally put into our hands? What other reports exist about either the existence or the nonexistence of chemical weapons in Iraq?

That information is information that we need to have and is information that needs to be brought to the American people.

So we are working on the declassification of the report. We are going to do a thorough search of what additional reports exist in the intelligence community. And we are going to put additional pressure on the Department of Defense and the folks in Iraq to more fully pursue a complete investigation of what existed in Iraq before the war.

What else is interesting about all this: an anonymous Defense Department downplayed the announcement:

"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

Uh... excuse me, Yes they are! One of the primary reasons given for invading Iraq by President Bush in his letter to Congress was that, in a post-9/11 world, we couldn't trust Saddam Hussein to resist the temptation of slipping a WMD or two to an al Quaeda-type to use against us if he thought he'd have plausible deniability. We invaded Iraq not only because of the considerable evidence that Saddam was continuing his WMD research programs (evidence confirmed after the invasion), but that he retained stockpiles of chemical weapons in defiance of UN resolutions and the Gulf War ceasefire agreement. So, the sketchy information released by the evidently unwilling intelligence organ of this country vindicates Bush and the decision to go to war.

All of this begs the question: why did the Bush Administration have to be forced into releasing even this small bit of information... information that cuts off the "Bush Lied!" folks at the knees?

The Real Ugly American (ht: Ed Morrissey) says:

General Tom Mcinerney is reporting on Fox Hannity and Colmes right now that that the administration has been keeping this low profile to avoid exposing 3 of the 5 members of the UN Security council; Russia, China, and France. McInerney says these weapons will be traced to these countries, and asserts it is well known that Russia helped Saddam move most of his WMD stockpiles out of Iraq before the war.

Here's what I can't figure out: why does the Bush Administration give a flying fig about exposing Russia, China, and France as violators of the very UN resolutions they helped pass? It's not as if these are America's three great allies. To the contrary, they are the biggest pains-in-the-youknowwhats we have to deal with in the Security Council, and they've certainly been no help dealing with Iran, North Korea, or Iraq. I can't believe Bush and Company are so stupid as to have risked the 2004 election or the ability to govern in the second term to spare these countries a well-deserved public humiliation.

I think the answer lies elsewhere... in the executive branch. Specifically, I think it lies at the feet of unelected bureaucrats who do not support the President or his policies (both foreign and domestic) and who are willing to manipulate information in order to harm the Administration. Maybe it's the same people who have been responsible for all of the anti-Bush Administration leaks... yet who can keep a secret that exonerates the Bush Administration from even the Senate and House Intelligence committees.

Isn't it interesting? Or, rather, unsettling? Would it be paranoid to think that perhaps there has been a concerted effort by unelected officials to sway public opinion by releasing or withholding information, in a manner that threatens to destroy the political effectiveness of the elected chief executive?

The truth needs to come out. It's obvious that the Iraq Survey Group, rather than answering whether or not WMDs existed in Iraq, refused to do the work that would reach a definitive yea-or-nay conclusion and instead issued a report buttressing an anti-Administration view... a report that turns out to be made up.

Negroponte needs to declassify the entire report covering post-ISG WMD finds in Iraq. And then, there needs to be some housecleaning in the executive branch.

What The Hell Is Natalie Maines Upset About?

"Taking the Long Way," the new Dixie Chicks album, premiered at #1, making them the first female group to have three albums debut at the top. (Premiering at #1 means that retail stores have ordered large quantities of their album in anticipation of strong sales; it does not mean that there is strong customer demand for the album.) However, there is still a lot of anger over Natalie Maines' anti-Bush comments in front of concert audiences in London, England and other venues during the Chicks' last tour. Many country music stations are refusing to play the first two singles released from the new album.

I was never a Chicks fan; my apathy towards country music generally combined with my disgust at Maine's public immaturity extinguished any fleeting desire in me to listen to their work. However, a fellow blogger commented on the new album and piqued my interest. A blurb on AOL Sessions piqued it further, and what the hell, I didn't have to give them any money to listen....

"Not Ready to Make Nice" is a excellent song, and Natalie Maine's performance is powerful. There's no doubt that she feels she has been wronged, and that the reaction of her fans both angered and dismayed the group. In a vacuum, the song and the group's rendition of it is extremely compelling from an artistic viewpoint. But watching Maine's answer to the question of what the 'Bush comment' and its repercussions meant to the group, makes it clear that the woman, brilliant singer and songwriter that she clearly is, just doesn't get it. Not only is she clueless about current events, she just doesn't understand why her fans were alienated. Her fellow Chicks seemingly suffer from the same shortsightedness, chortling at the coincidence of their album release occurring at the same time Bush's poll ratings are at a low. (Not that I care about poll ratings or anything, but the overt schadenfreude is symptomatic of the immaturity that got the Chicks into their mess.)

Ms. Maines evidently doesn't understand that words have consequences. Instead, "Not Ready to Make Nice" is an in-your-face to all of her fans; how dare they stop buying Dixie Chicks albums and concert tickets! The fans' reaction "...turned my whole world around... and I kinda liked [my life the way it was]" sings Ms. Maines. Well, then, at the risk of saying the obvious, perhaps you should have kept your kept your political observations to yourself.

"Forget... I'm not sure I could." That's Natalie Maines' view, but it also is a view shared by many of her former fans. The latest news reports indicate that the Dixe Chicks are cancelling several concerts on their current tour due to poor ticket sales.

"Not Ready to Make Nice" finishes with Ms. Maines' hubris. She sings, "They say... time heals everything... but I'm still waiting," implying that her fans who abandoned her owe her an apology.

Based upon lackluster ticket sales, the dismal Billboard performance of the two singles released to date, and the continued boycott of their songs by a large number of country and western radio stations, the fans evidently are, in the words of Ms. Maines, "...not ready to back down, still mad as hell" and believe Ms. Maines and the Dixie Chicks are the ones who need to apologize.

The Dixie Chicks need to realize that they need their fans more than the fans need them, and that people don't buy their CD or go to their concerts to hear their political opinions. If they're waiting for an apology from the fans, they'll be waiting a while longer yet.