Target Centermass

Category: Politics

  • Supreme Court to Hear Texas Redistricting Cases

    The stormy tale of the 2003 redrawing of Texas’ congressional districts will continue for at least a few more months as the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hearings on the matter.

    In a move that could redefine the limits of partisan politics, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear four Texas cases challenging a controversial remapping of the state’s congressional districts two years ago by the Republican dominated Legislature.

    The court also agreed to expedite the four cases – filed by minorities, Democratic officeholders and others who claim to have been disenfranchised by the GOP plan.

    The court gave no reason for accepting the appeals, which involve a wide range of highly charged claims: from “excessive partisan gerrymandering” and “mid-decade” redistricting to the dilution of minority votes. Just last year, the court ruled in a split vote that a Pennsylvania redistricting plan – though highly partisan – could not be resolved by the courts on a complaint that the process was simply too political.

    Since then, the court is the midst of a transition in which two of its nine justices will be replaced.

    At the very least, the announcement Monday promises to re-energize a bitter three-year struggle between Texas Democrats and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who is widely credited with engineering the redistricting strategy.

    “We felt all along that there was a serious voting rights violation in the way these districts were drawn, particularly involving the black voters in Fort Worth,” said former congressman Martin Frost, whose district was largely redrawn. “I hope they’ll throw the districts out.”

    A special two-hour hearing is scheduled for March 1. Redistricting arguments will be heard in addition to three other unrelated cases slated that day. Texas is scheduled to hold its primary on March 7.

    The current map’s boundaries resulted in a gain of six House seats for Republicans and a string of lawsuits by Democrats, who charged that the map was designed solely for that purpose. The Republicans countered that the plan added a black to the 32-member delegation.

    Well, of course the map was redrawn to help the Republicans, just as the previous district lines were essentially a court-sanctioned holdover from previous lines drawn by Democrats to help Democrats. As can be seen in this Houston Chronicle graphic, for every strangely-drawn district in the Republican plan, a similar strangely-drawn district can be found in the earlier incarnation.

    DeLay has blamed recent political and legal problems – including his indictment in Austin for money laundering – on Democrats angry about the redistricting. His office was philosophical Monday, saying the plan has so far passed every legal hurdle.

    “The Supreme Court’s consideration represents the last step in the redistricting process,” said his spokesman, Kevin Madden. He said the map, which aimed to clear past gerrymandering by Democrats, gained preliminary Justice Department approval and the backing of a three-judge federal panel.

    Yes, this indeed could be the end of the Texas redricting tale for the remainder of the decade, unless the Supremes toss out the plan. Although I hope that will not be the case, it sure would make for some interesting politics.

    There is certainly much to be made of Madden’s comment about clearing earlier gerrymandering. When I first moved to Texas in 1980, the state had just gone into Ronald Reagan’s electoral column two days earlier and was in the second year of having a Republican governor for the first time since the end of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Still, Texas was considered a one-party state as Democrats dominated every other level of the state’s politics. That shifted drastically over the 1980s and 1990s though, as the conservative nature of the state remained but the national nature of the Democrats drifted left. By 2000, the Republicans held every statewide office, including the governor and both U.S. senators. The last remaining Democrat strongholds were the Texas House of Representatives, responsible by law for drawing the districts for the state’s congressional delegation, and the Texas congressional delegation.

    In 2001, the state representatives essentially failed in their constitutional mandate to redraw congressional districts from 2000 census data, leaving it to the courts to only slightly modify the lines that had protected the Democrat congressional delegation. When the state house fell to the GOP in 2002, the state reps, in violation of no law, decided to take up their redistricting responsibility and apparently were successful in generating a map that more accurately reflected state party trends. Certainly, the process was successful in angering the state house Democrats, who fought the process tooth and nail (and even foot by cowardly shirking their duty and fleeing the state in mass in hopes of stopping the process). Hence, mucho bitter on the Dems part and today’s judicial struggles.

    Others blogging on the matter include James Joyner at OTB, who sees no constitutional problems with the redisticting and has a link to a nice summation of the issues under judicial consideration, and PoliBlog‘s Dr. Steven Taylor, who questions whether redistricting should be taken out of the hands of state legislatures.

  • Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy Dies

    1916-2005

    Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy was an atypical politician, a former college professor with a witty, erudite speaking style. His surprising 1968 presidential campaign turned him into a spokesman for a generation angry about the war in Vietnam.

    McCarthy, 89, died in his sleep Saturday at an assisted living home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael.

    A Minnesota Democrat, McCarthy challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination during growing debate over Vietnam, leading to Johnson’s withdrawal from the race and forcing the Democratic Party to take McCarthy’s antiwar message seriously.

    The former senator, who ran for president five times, wrote poetry in his spare time and was the author of several books.

    Well, I’m sure he meant well.

  • Nobel Winner Brands Bush, Blair War Criminals

    Besides being dementedly wrong, I bet his plays suck.

    Playwright Harold Pinter has launched a fierce critique of the Iraq War, branding the US President and British Prime Minister war criminals in his lecture as winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature.

    Pinter has demanded George Bush and Tony Blair be prosecuted under international law in the lecture.

    “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law,” he said.

    […]

    Pinter used nearly all of his nearly hour-long lecture to criticise the US.

    […]

    “The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them.

    “You have to hand it to America.

    “It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force of universal good.

    “It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

    Did I say demented? Yeah, Pinter’s that and then some. Hell, let’s just ignore America’s political opposition to a multitude of regimes that have together killed millions upon millions. Let’s ignore America’s sacrifices that have freed other millions from brutal oppression that Pinter was apparently quite happy to have as a part of the global neighborhood.

    Hell, let’s not stop at demented. Let’s go for lying jackhole.

    “We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11, 2001. It was not true.”

    Hey, Pinter, you sick old leftist probable-hack (really, I haven’t read or seen his crap but, hey, I’m merely prejudging — he’s the one actually lying), just which one of those you accuse, Bush or Blair, said Iraq “shared responsibility” for 9/11? Answer: neither, jackhole.

    Meanwhile, al Jazeera is quite happy echoing Pinter’s garbage.

  • Oliphant, Drawing from the Deep End

    According to his bio, Pat Oliphant is apparently the political cartoonist of all political cartoonists.

    As the most widely syndicated political cartoonist in the world and a winner of the Pulitzer, he produces work that is as visually stunning as it is metaphorically powerful.

    Visually stunning? Metaphorically powerful? The bio can now be updated with “pathetically disgusting” and “harmful to the national discourse.” Nice additions to the Pulitzer there, Pat. With his latest effort, Oliphant joins the disturbing chorus of the far, far left, spouting horrific insults and baseless accusations of the worst kind while only showing a slim grasp of history and a slimmer hold on reality.

    Oliphant, meet Godwin.

    WunderKraut, a blog previously unknown to me (thank you, Google Blog search), looks at the cartoon and calls out Oliphant on his comparison.

    You know, there was a time when even thinking about calling your Commander In Chief Hitler would have brought a well deserved backlash from the American people and the press. Not today.

    Sure Hitler killed over 6 millions Jews, several million other people, started the most destructive war in history and destroyed most of Europe for his own personal megalomania….

    BUT

    Bush is JUST AS EVIL!!!!

    Come off it already. Give me proof. [emphasis in original]

    WunderKraut continues on and it’s worth a visit. Still, I have to point out the twenty he leaves on Oliphant’s dresser when he finishes.

    PS: Can I officially question Pat Oliphant’s patriotism? Hell, maybe even his loyalty?

    To quote some blogger, “Heh.”

  • Iraq: Unwinnable Nam … or Maybe Not

    Howard Dean, failed presidential candidate and the chair of the DNC, has declared that the Americans have been defeated in Iraq.

    Saying the “idea that we’re going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong,” Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

    […]

    “I’ve seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, ‘just another year, just stay the course, we’ll have a victory.’ Well, we didn’t have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening.”

    Dean says the Democrat position on the war is ‘coalescing,’ and is likely to include several proposals.

    “I think we need a strategic redeployment over a period of two years,” Dean said. “Bring the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately. They don’t belong in a conflict like this anyway. We ought to have a redeployment to Afghanistan of 20,000 troops, we don’t have enough troops to do the job there and its a place where we are welcome. And we need a force in the Middle East, not in Iraq but in a friendly neighboring country to fight (terrorist leader Musab) Zarqawi, who came to Iraq after this invasion. We’ve got to get the target off the backs of American troops.

    Well, I’d like to respond to four aspects of this. First, as John Hinderaker at Power Line points out, defeatism was once frowned upon in American society, not trumpeted by the head of a major party. Second, I would really like an explanation of how a withdrawn force in a neighboring country is expected to combat the terrorist bastard Zarqawi while he wreaks mayhem in our wake in Iraq. This is nothing but a complete lack of a developed line of thought, thrown out for political expediency that deserves to backfire more that a gutteral Iowa scream. Third, as a former Guardsman and close buddy of a Guardsman currently returning from Iraq, I am disgusted by Dean’s patronizing characterization of the reserve components. I’d like to hear Dean try to sell that tripe to Lt. Col. Jeffrey Breor of the Texas Army National Guard’s 56th Brigade, returning from Iraq with tales of both the unit’s fine performance and progress on the ground. The Guard and Reserve don’t belong in a conflict like Iraq?!! I’ve got a little newsflash for the DNC chair: the Guard and Reserve go through the same training as members of the active service and are held to the same standards; the key difference in proficiency stems from training time after new troops return from their initial training and the accompanying unit cohesiveness. This is overcome to a large degree already, as the reserve units spend a substantial period uptraining before rotating to the sandbox. There is one substantial difference in National Guard training, and that is the one day a year spent on spent on riot control procedures, as the true base of former Governor Dean cannot be trusted to behave civilly in the political sphere. Oh yeah, before I forget, let’s not miss a chance to praise the brave troopers of the Kentucky Army National Guard’s 617th MP Company, who kicked ass while in Iraq.

    My fourth point with Dean’s bold stance of being decidedly meek is that, while in line with the established mythologies of both Viet Nam and Iraq, it stands in stark contrast to the true lessons of history and the reality of the nature of the current Iraqi situation. Frederick W. Kagan addresses this painstakingly in his “Iraq Is Not Vietnam” piece (hat tip to Jeff Goldstein).

    When american ground forces paused briefly during the march to Baghdad in 2003, critics of the war were quick to warn of a quagmire; an oblique reference to the Vietnam War. Virtually as soon as it became clear that the conflict in Iraq had become an insurgency, analogies to Vietnam began to proliferate. This development is not surprising. Critics have equated every significant American military undertaking since 1975 to Vietnam, and the fear of being trapped in a Vietnam-like war has led to the frequent demand that U.S. leaders develop not plans to win wars, but exit strategies, plans to get out of messes.

    There is no question that the Vietnam War scarred the American psyche deeply, nor that it continues to influence American foreign policy and military strategy profoundly. CENTCOM’s strategy for the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq is an attempt to avoid making Vietnam-like mistakes. Proponents of other strategies, like combined action platoons or oil spot approaches, most frequently derive those programs from what they believe are the right lessons of Vietnam. It is becoming increasingly an article of faith that the insurgency in Vietnam is similar enough to the insurgency in Iraq that we can draw useful lessons from the one to apply to the other. This is not the case. The only thing the insurgencies in Iraq and Vietnam have in common is that in both cases American forces have fought revolutionaries. To make comparisons or draw lessons beyond that basic point misunderstands not only the particular historical cases, but also the value of studying history to draw lessons for the present.

    Kagan goes on to look at the historical roots, composition, support and capabilities of the insurgencies we face in both Viet Nam and Iraq. The stark differences give lie to the supposedly authoritative but defeatist talk of Howard Dean. Kagan’s effort is somewhat lengthy, but pretty much worth every word. As an aside, my thoughts on exit strategies can be found here. I challenge anyone to provide a successfully executed war where an exit strategy was the guiding force and was followed to fruition.

    Howard Dean has accepted defeat. The American military has achieved success after success. The Bush administration has remained steadfast in its policy that Iraq is a key piece in the war against radical Islamic terror and that we are succeeding and progressing on the ground, though they’ve done a poor job of propagating the news.

    The American people will have to decide whether to move forward or find defeat after unprecedented success, a defeat that will reinforce unto our enemies the lessons they learned from Saigon ’75, Beirut ’84 and Somalia ’93 — bloody the Americans and they will cowardly run away, tail between the legs. And our children will have to live or die with that decision.

    Yes, it is in the hands of the American people. However, it is only fair that they are given the full story to make that decision. Today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked the all-too-negative media to present the full story that the American people haven’t been given, opened schools and not just exploding cars.

    As the United States wages its first war with widespread 24/7 news coverage, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged the media to ensure it’s telling the whole story about Iraq, not just focusing on events that make dramatic headlines.

    Rumsfeld, speaking at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s campus here Dec. 5, said troops frequently ask him why the American people aren’t getting a more accurate picture of what’s happening in Iraq. They question why violence seems to get the heaviest coverage, while “good news” stories about successes tend to go unreported.

    The secretary noted the media’s indispensable role in keeping people informed and holding the government to account. Many in the media have done “excellent reporting” in Iraq, and some have been killed in the process, he said.

    “But it’s important also for the media to hold itself to account,” Rumsfeld told the group.

    “We’ve arrived at a strange time in this country, where the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world,” the secretary said. Often this reporting occurs with little or no context or scrutiny, let alone correction or accountability, even after the fact, he said. Speed appears to be more important than accuracy or context to some reporters, he said, and their reports can spread around the globe, regardless of their validity.

    […]

    In May, rioting and several deaths resulted from what Rumsfeld called “a false and damaging” news story about a Koran being flushed down a toilet at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In yet another instance, a recent New York Times editorial implied that the U.S. armed forces were using tactics Rumsfeld called “reminiscent of Saddam Hussein.”

    Similarly, news reports that focus simply on terror attacks and bombings don’t paint an accurate picture or tell the whole story of what’s happening in Iraq, the secretary said.

    “You couldn’t tell the full story of Iwo Jima simply by listing the nearly 26,000 Americans that were casualties over about 40 days … or explain the importance of (Gen. Ulysses S.) Grant’s push to Virginia just by noting the savagery of the battles, and they were savage,” Rumsfeld said.

    Similarly, the secretary said, telling the story of what’s happening in Iraq by focusing only on how many Americans have died leaves much of the story untold. Just as important, he said, is the story of what those troops died for and what they lived for.

    It is the resposibility of the American populace to decide between possible success and Dean’s failure. Rumsfeld is correct — it is only fair, both for my future children and the honor of our military’s courageous efforts and sacrifices, that the supposed American media paint a fair, full and accurate picture to provide Americans the information needed for their monumental decision.

  • Carnival of Liberty XXIII

    This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community’s Carnival of Liberty is up over at Below the Beltway. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.

  • Supremes to Judge Campus Recruitment Dispute

    Trust me, more hinges on this pending case than the future of the don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

    The Supreme Court confronts a gay rights issue this week, in a case that asks whether law schools can bar military recruiters because of the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

    Each fall recruiters of all types jam law schools seeking top students in job fairs, receptions and interview sessions.

    Justices will decide whether universities that accept government money must accommodate the military even if the schools forbid the participation of recruiters from public agencies and private companies that have discriminatory policies.

    It is the first time that the court has dealt with a gay-rights related case since a contentious 2003 ruling that struck down laws criminalizing gay sex. In 2000, the court ruled that the Boy Scouts have the right to ban leaders who are openly gay.

    The latest appeal pits the Pentagon against a group of law schools and professors. The justices hear arguments on Tuesday.

    The government contends if it provides financial support to a college – with grants for research, for example – then in exchange it should be able to recruit “the very students whose education it has supported.” In this case, that means having the ability to recruit students, a tool made more essential since the Sept. 11 attacks.

    Federal financial support of colleges tops $35 billion a year.

    Law schools say they would welcome military recruiters if the Pentagon dropped its policy against openly gay personnel. Gay men and women may serve only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves.

    The outcome turns on the First Amendment and whether schools can be made to associate with military recruiters or promote their appearances on campus.

    No one is advocating that the schools are being made to associate with any governmental policy; federal assistance can always be declined by an institution if federal recruiters, specifically military recruiters, are unwanted for any reason. That is the choice currently in the hands of the universities, who apparently want to continue to suck on the federal tit while arbitrarily dictating to the military how it should manage itself during its defense of our nation if it merely wants access to those suckling.

    While the previous two gay-rights decisions mentioned in the article do not bode well for the government in this matter, it should be noted that, at least to my understanding, there is a long-standing history of rulings in favor of the restrictions on some constitutional rights by members of the military, especially in times of an all-voluntary force. That those same restrictions could be used to prevent the government from seeking members seems rather flawed, especially when one considers that the universities have an out (refuse money based on principles if, indeed, those principles are that strong) and any participation by individuals is not compulsory.

    Still, the Supremes have disappointed me very badly and very recently, so this one’s a crap shoot.

  • Blue on Blue: Dems’ Split Surfaces

    Back in June, I blogged about red on red. That’s American military jargon for enemy fighting, intentional or incidental, among and between our opposing forces. In that post, I mentioned the obvious fact that colors play key roles in other areas, specifically naming gangs and American political demarcations. Well, digging into the latter, lets take a little look at some developing blue on blue.

    First, I want to point out that the Democrats, as the party in opposition, have had two tremendous political advantages to date in their stances on the campaign in Iraq. Those advantages are as follows:

    • A generally all-too-friendly mainstream media, both to the Dems and to our enemies — a media that long allowed has allowed the Dems to oppose President Bush without offering alternatives, that exalts Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan with exposing the extremism of her beliefs or her attention addiction
    • An administration and military that has done a poor job (unfortunate assist to that same mainstream media) in terms of communicating our military successes and progress in rebuilding an Iraq devastated chiefly long before the invasion

    Unfortunately for the Democrat party, they have had some sizable hurdles to clear, hurdles that insist on cropping up again and again:

    • A far-left base comprised of elements that root for defeat, will accept defeat, wish to redefine defeat from how the Islamic world would define defeat, or want to pretend there would be no defeat from early withdrawal based on the fact that fighting Islamic terrorists in Iraq does not make the campaign part of the war against Islamist terror
    • A large portion of Americans who are ashamed of the way we have, in our recent history, cut and run, be it from Viet Nam, from Beirut or from Somalia, and recognize that these abandonments did not result in recognitions of supposed mistakes and good will when viewed through the eyes of our enemies, but rather clear signs of weakness — bloody America and America will run
    • A stubborn majority-party president that seems certain of his course of action
    • A military that has succeeded at every turn with casualties below most predictions, dominant when needed (the initial conquest of Iraq was amazing by military history standards but should be overshadowed by the amazing November 2004 urban assault on Fallujah, an offensive that redefined urban-warfare success) while maintaining an unprecedented degree of professionalism (despite the occasional bad apples, a card that has been way overplayed by the mainstream media [see the approximately 43 consecutive frontpage Abu Ghraib headlines in the NYT for example] without any historical context)

    Those are certainly some complexities to overcome for a group that wishes to be viewed as pro-American, pro-military and pro-War on Terror. Those hurdles can only be managed if the advantages that I stated earlier carry the day.

    Unfortunately for the Democrats, the GOP in the Senate decided to show a little spine and force the Dems to lay down their cards. Then, the administration decided to get just a little vocal about both plan and progress.

    With just this slightest provocation, the Dems were forced on the defensive and the media was forced to cover the great big blue crawdad move, as Dem pols scattered in different directions and their weaknesses were exposed. Here’s some media coverage of the anarchy currently under the Dem banner.

    Democrats divided over Iraq timetable

    Democrats nationwide generally say that the United States should withdraw its troops from Iraq but remain divided over how and when.

    Like their party leaders in Washington, members of the Democratic National Committee offered a range of opinions Friday about the recent call from Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a Vietnam War veteran and strong military ally, for a complete pullout within six months.

    “I think the presence of American troops are incendiary to all parties in Iraq,” said Robert Bell, who agreed with Murtha’s proposal. “I think eventually there’s going to be a civil war. It’s time for the Iraqis to take care of their own problems.”

    The DNC was holding a three-day meeting in Phoenix.

    […]

    Democrats seemed split over whether the party has been able to capitalize on problems nagging the administration, including the war in Iraq and federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

    […]

    Gaetan DiGangi, a committee member from New Hampshire, said the Democrats shouldn’t take a mean-spirited approach in pointing out Bush’s failings.

    “We are looking to offer something that’s an alternative, and I think we are moving towards that,” DiGangi said.

    Democratic Lawmakers Splinter on Iraq (hat tip to Captain’s Quarters and its coverage of the article)

    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s embrace Wednesday of a rapid withdrawal from Iraq highlighted the Democratic Party’s fissures on war policy, putting the House’s top Democrat at odds with her second in command while upsetting a consensus developing in the Senate.

    For months now, Democratic leaders have grown increasingly aggressive in their critiques of President Bush’s policies in Iraq but have been largely content to keep their own war strategies vague or under wraps. That ended Wednesday when Pelosi (D-Calif.) aggressively endorsed a proposal by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, leaving only a much smaller rapid-reaction force in the region.

    The move caught some in the party by surprise. It threw a wrench into a carefully calibrated Democratic theme emerging in the Senate that called for 2006 to be a “significant year of progress” in Iraq, with Iraqi security forces making measurable progress toward relieving U.S. troops of combat duties. Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said last month that “it’s time to take the training wheels off the Iraqi government.”

    What’s more, House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) issued a statement Wednesday that was in marked contrast to Pelosi’s. “I believe that a precipitous withdrawal of American forces in Iraq could lead to disaster, spawning a civil war, fostering a haven for terrorists and damaging our nation’s security and credibility,” he said.

    Catering to all is a losing strategy

    DEMOCRATS, especially those with presidential ambitions, think they’re being so clever. They have devised a line of argument they believe will help them benefit politically from President Bush’s troubles in Iraq.

    But it turns out they aren’t so clever after all. What they’ve come up with stands a good chance of backfiring and doing Democratic candidates more harm than good. Even though Iraq seems to be a huge liability for the president and the Republicans, it’s possible that the war will eventually hurt the Democrats as much as anyone.

    That’s a shame. The Bush administration has made plenty of mistakes in Iraq — starting with the fact that it didn’t send enough troops, and didn’t provide adequate supervision for some of the troops it did send. Remember Abu Ghraib? This country could stand an honest and vigorous debate, not about how we got to this point but about where we go from here.

    But this much is certain: If a debate comes, it’ll be no thanks to Democrats. The best they could dream up goes something like this: “We were hustled. Sure, we voted to authorize President Bush to use military force to invade Iraq, but we were misled. Not that we regret toppling Saddam Hussein. We only regret that we weren’t given all the necessary information to make a more informed decision.”

    The “we were hustled” approach offers something for everyone. If you support the war, you can applaud Democrats for backing the president. If you oppose the war, you sympathize with them for being conned by what you’ve probably already decided is a devious bunch.

    But Democrats are forgetting one crucial detail, something they should have learned from recent presidential defeats: Americans hate politicians who duck responsibility for their actions by relying on parsed phrasing and other word games.

    Dems Split on Iraq War Approach

    A day after his latest speech detailing progress in Iraq, Bush stood next to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who wants U.S. troop withdrawals to begin before the end of this year.

    “You don’t need 160,000 people to be doing what we are doing in Iraq today. This is not World War II, this is not Korea, this is not Vietnam,” Kerry said after the White House ceremony commemorating the late civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

    Kerry is using his Web site and billboards in New Hampshire and Indiana to push his proposal to bring 20,000 troops home before Christmas and “bring home most of our combat troops in 2006.” He seemed to contradict himself, however, when speaking with reporters Thursday at the White House.

    “The truth is, yes, it is going to take a lot longer and many of us believe that, in fact, that goal is not the most realistic one in the short term, that you’re going to have a longer-term struggle in that regard. Now, what we need to do is provide a sufficient level of security and stability so that American forces can begin to come home,” Kerry said.

    That is in essence what the president argued Wednesday and for the last two years. Reinforcing that the White House already had that in mind, spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday that some troop withdrawals could come after the Dec. 15 election in Iraq.

    “We fully expect, as the Pentagon has indicated, that we’re going to be able to reduce some of the troop levels that we increased heading into the elections after the elections take place,” McClellan said. “I think some have talked about how next year could be a period of significant transition.”

    While that might seem to be what Kerry wants, the Massachusetts senator said he and his fellow Democrats are largely united in their opposition to Bush strategy.

    “There is much greater agreement between all of the Democrats, then there is a difference between all of us,” Kerry said.

    But Kerry’s assertion doesn’t follow the recent call for troop withdrawal in six months by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa

    White flag Democrats

    And the Democrats wonder why they are considered weak on national security? It’s not because anyone doubts their patriotism. It’s because a lot of people doubt their judgment and toughness.

    As if to prove the skeptics right, Democrats have been stepping forth to renounce their previous support for the liberation of Iraq even as Iraqis prepare to vote in a general election. Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, John Edwards, John Murtha — that’s quite a list of heavyweight flip-floppers.

    […]

    There are some honorable exceptions to this defeatism — Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton and Wesley Clark have remained stalwart supporters of the war effort — but they are clearly in the minority of a party steadily drifting toward Howard Dean-George McGovern territory.

    Just a few years ago, it seemed as if the Democrats had finally kicked the post-Vietnam, peace-at-any-price syndrome. Before the invasion of Iraq, leading Democrats sounded hawkish in demanding action to deal with what Kerry called the “particularly grievous threat” posed by Saddam Hussein. But it seems that they only wanted to do something if the cost would be minuscule. Now that the war has turned out to be a lot harder than anticipated, the Democrats want to run up the white flag.

    They are offering two excuses for their loss of will. First, they claim they were “misled into war” by a duplicitous administration. But it wasn’t George W. Bush who said, “I have no doubt today that, left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons [of mass destruction] again.” It was Bill Clinton on Dec. 16, 1998. As this example indicates, the warnings issued by Bush were virtually identical to those of his Democratic predecessor.

    The Democrats’ other excuse is that they never imagined that Bush would bollix up post-invasion planning as badly as he did. It’s true that the president blundered, but it’s not as if things usually go smoothly in the chaos of conflict. In any case, it’s doubtful that the war would have been a cakewalk even if we had been better prepared. The Baathists and their jihadist allies were planning a ruthless terrorist campaign even before U.S. troops entered Iraq. Their calculation was that if they killed enough American soldiers, the American public would demand a pullout.

    So far the terrorists’ plan seems to be working. Even most Republican senators are demanding a withdrawal strategy. But it is the Democrats who are stampeding toward the exits. Apparently the death of about 2,100 soldiers over the course of almost three years is more than they can bear. Good thing these were not the same Democrats who were running the country in 1944, or else they would have pulled out of France after the loss of 5,000 Allied servicemen on D-day.

    Even as a self-proclaimed Reagan revolutionary, I voted for the Libertarian Party candidate in every presidential election I was able to until 9/11. Yes, I voted Libertarian in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000.

    I voted for George Bush in 2004.

    I cannot respect the Libertarian Party’s view of international realities, and I cannot believe for a moment that the bulk of today’s Democrats care more about the future hopes I hold for my possible children and grandchildren and the state of our republic than they do about their own temporary political gain.

  • Pager-forced Link Dump

    I have been owned by the oncall pager, but here’s some reading for y’all.

    ‘This is our Belgian kamikaze’

    Belgians were trying to come to terms Thursday with the news that a working class woman from an industrial southern city had turned from a “nice” shop assistant into a suicide bomber who blew herself up in Iraq.

    “This is our Belgian kamikaze killed in Iraq,” headlined the newspaper La Derniere Heure on Thursday over a picture of a thoroughly normal-looking, smiling girl looking into the camera.

    When her mother, Liliane Degauque, saw police coming to her doorstep on Wednesday, she immediately knew what it was about. The evening before, she had heard the reports there had been a terrorist attack on Nov. 9 by a Belgian woman.

    “When I saw the first pictures, I said to myself, ‘it is my girl.’ For three weeks already I tried to contact her by telephone but I got the answering machine,” she told the RTBF network on Thursday.

    Authorities on Thursday formally arrested 5 of the 14 suspects they detained in dawn raids the day before and charged them with involvement in a terrorist network that sent volunteers to Iraq, including Degauque’s daughter Muriel, who died at 38.

    Nine were released. Those placed under arrest were a Tunisian and four Belgians, three of whom had foreign roots.

    “This action shows how international terrorism tries to set up networks in western European nations, recruit for terror attacks in conflict areas and look for funds to finance terrorism,” said Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

    In her younger years, Muriel lived a conventional life in the Charleroi area. Media reports said she finished high school before taking on several jobs, including selling bread in a bakery. “She was so nice,” said her mother. The picture in the paper dated from that time.

    She told media, however, that her daughter could easily be influenced.

    Muriel changed first when she married an Algerian man and later one with Moroccan roots. She was increasingly drawn into fundamentalist religion.

    “It is the first time that we see that a Western woman, a Belgian, marries a radical Muslim, and is converted up to the point of becoming a jihad fighter,” said federal police director Glenn Audenaert.

    Belgium. France. The Netherlands. All have been served notice of the Islamist danger in their midst. None yet have taken their individual national wake-up calls seriously enough yet. This is not just a condemnation of these three countries but also of all around them. After all, to paraphrase Otto von Bismarck, any fool can learn from his own mistakes, but it is preferable to learn from the mistakes of others, as well.

    Ramadi Insurgents Flaunt Threat

    Armed fighters claiming allegiance to Abu Musab Zarqawi took to the streets of a western Iraqi provincial capital Thursday in a fleeting show aimed at intimidating Iraqi Sunni Arab leaders taking part in dialogue with U.S. Marines in a stronghold of the insurgency, provincial officials, residents and other witnesses said.

    The scene — lean figures, many in masks and dark tracksuits lugging shoulder-mounted rocket launchers or wielding AK-47 assault rifles — reinforced what the U.S. military has acknowledged is the strong insurgent presence in the Euphrates River cities and towns of Anbar province, an overwhelmingly Sunni area near the Syrian border. The appearance of the fighters dismayed many of the residents of Ramadi, the war-blighted provincial capital.

    […]

    The armed fighters on the streets left statements in the name of Zarqawi’s group, saying their show of force was in response to negotiations between the “Sunni midgets and the stooges of the occupation forces.” The statements contained pledges to kill each Sunni leader participating.

    The U.S. military, which maintains Marine bases and thousands of troops on the outskirts of Ramadi, denied the accounts of unrest, saying that the city was largely calm Thursday and that insurgents were manipulating the news media. “Today I witnessed inaccurate reporting, use of unreliable sources, media using other media as sources, an active insurgent propaganda machine, and the pack journalism at its worse,” Capt. Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division, said in an e-mail to news organizations.

    Witnesses in Ramadi said they saw some of the armed fighters instruct a journalist for an Arabic-language news outlet to report that Zarqawi’s group, al Qaeda in Iraq, had taken over the entire city. The Arabic outlet by late Thursday was reporting only that the fighters had held some streets of the city center — a description of events in line with the eyewitness accounts and reports from other news organizations. News directors for the organization did not respond to requests for comment. The news organization is not being identified for security reasons.

    This is about as clear evidence as you can have that there are two wars being conducted — on the battlefield and in the media. The terrorists know this and, unfortunately for them, showed themselves to be truly crippled if little stunts like their assaulting and briefly holding a couple of city blocks comprise their current hope to pull of a Tet offensive-type media success.

    Germany: No ransom for Iraq kidnappers

    German leaders said Thursday they still have had no contact with the kidnappers of a German woman seized in Iraq and Chancellor Angela Merkel said considering paying a ransom was “not up for discussion” at this time.

    Susanne Osthoff and her Iraqi driver were taken last Friday, and were pictured in a videotape blindfolded on a floor, with militants – one armed with a rocket propelled grenade – standing beside them.

    The militants are reportedly demanding that Germany cease its dealings with Iraq’s government or they will kill the hostages. Germany was an ardent opponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has refused to send troops there, but has been training Iraqi soldiers and police outside the country.

    Merkel indicated in a speech Wednesday that Germany will not change its Iraq policy, stressing that the country “will not let ourselves be blackmailed” over Osthoff’s abduction.

    On Thursday, Merkel told reporters that the government was “doing all its can to save her life and that of her companion.”

    Asked if Germany would consider paying a ransom, Merkel said that was “not up for discussion at all now.”

    “At the moment it is about very elementary questions … First of all, we are interested in finding out how to make contact” with the kidnappers, Merkel said.

    Well, that’s not actually a very strong stance. Hopefully, Merkel will prove to have more of a spine than to cave in to terror and help finance future bloodshed for short-term political gain. You know, like the Philippines. Or allegedly the Italians and French.

    Finally, two blog must-reads:

    The Telegraph’s Nose Just Grew Ten Feet

    Should we hold newspapers accountable for exagerating or just lying? No, I do not mean legally, but as consumers we do drive their paychecks to print out blatent lies and mischaracterizations. Take for instance the following article in The Telegraph [headlined US ‘paid journalists to lie about war’]

    […]

    As a member of the free press, that is unless George Soros has purchased The Telegraph, the rag should know how the same press they operate under works. Apparently they do not. First things first though in this abysmal piece of journalism. Even though The Telegraph cites the Los Angeles Times for breaking the story, no where in the LA Times piece is there any information regarding the United States “paid journalists to lie about war” as stated in the title. I urge everyone to read the original LA Times piece to verify.

    Read it all. This story is growing and needs to be seen for its absurdity as early as possible.

    Picturing Polls, Red vs. Blue

    Here are recent (already outdated) poll numbers put into picture form of President George W. Bush’s approval ratings as seen on numerous Leftist websites.

    Not a good show for Chimpy-Bushitler, that is for sure!

    Too bad their data is no longer accurate. The current and respected Rasmussen Report has his approval rating back to 46%.

    These earlier polls do make you assume that if “W” is having such a hard time, then surely his democratic opponents are reaping the benefits. Right?

    But, looking at Congressional Democratic approval ratings you get this…

    Go see Gateway Pundit’s collection of red-blue maps. Interesting and unheralded, though not surprising.

  • Carnival of Liberty XXII

    This week’s installment of the Life, Liberty, Property community’s Carnival of Liberty is up over at Below the Beltway. Go read another fine collection of posts from a libertarian slant.