89 Comments

1. buddy larsen:

jeez, wretchard –that’s intense stuff, man. mercy.

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:18 pm 2. Doug:

Bill and Bernadine have become respectable professionals, Bill an expert on guiding and educating the young.
Despite the fact they were DIRECTLY involved in the deaths of innocents, Bernadine with her own hands.
Not to mention the terrorizing of thousands of others.

But the Big Lie that they never planned to harm anyone, never DID harm anyone, has been told so many times in so many venues that it has become truth, to all too many.

“Proof” of Bill, Barry, and Bernadine’s mainstream acceptability was provided by reports of working with well-known REPUBLICANS in Chicago.
Despite the fact that John Kass is telling us that there are no parties in Chicago, there is just the machine.

Benj will no doubt again inform us in great detail what a pure, noble, and selfless idealist BHO is, and how blessed we are to have this priceless gift, even though we are too blind to see.

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:21 pm 3. buddy larsen:

what is truly unforgiveable, on a different plane altogether from the widows and orphans and devastated parents of the “just a few” people killed by Ayres’ gang, is that after he & wifey got a little bored at the barricades, they arranged with “the system” they had killed people in order to fight against to come in, take a pre-fixed wrist slap before settling in to arranged upper class professional careers in two industries entirely contructs of the success of that system.

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:31 pm 4. Doug:

From Amazon:

Ann Coulter calls out liberals for always playing the victim – when in fact, as she sees it, they are the victimizers. In GUILTY, Coulter explodes this myth to reveal that when it comes to bullying, no one outdoes the Left.GUILTY is a mordantly witty and shockingly specific catalog of offenses which Coulter presents from A to Z.

Do read her impression of “The New York Times” squealing over Obama the way a teenage girl does over a rock star (page 227). Hilarious.

My favorite part of the book was when Miss Coulter spoke truth to single mothers. It needed to be said and it was long overdue.
She certainly has strong thoughts on the problems caused by this issue, but she also has lots of hard data to support her contentions. She talks about how they “are not only ‘unsung heroines,’ as the title of a recent book puts it, they are perennial victims – the unwitting victims of sex with men they’re not married to.”

Ms. Coulter calls them ‘phony victims’. She strongly advocates that rather than raising children alone, women place them for adoption. She says that a failure to do so ‘they consign their children to starting life with second-class status’. Her position is rather hard core, much more so than my own, but she makes a solid case for it.

Citing crimes and other societal problems, she asks the reader to ‘imagine an America with 70 percent fewer juvenile delinquents, 70 percent fewer teenage births, 63 to 70 percent fewer teenage suicides, and 70 percent to 90 percent fewer runaways and you will appreciate what the sainted single mothers have accomplished.’

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:35 pm 5. maineman:

It pays to remember, in times like these, that the ascent of man has continued unabated, if often attenuated, and seemingly against all odds.

That is why we are addicted to our dreams. We all know what is to happen — that the march forward must and will continue — whether we choose to promote it, deny it, rebel against it, or simply acquiesce to the greatest sin, self-complacency.

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:38 pm 6. buddy larsen:

they sit now in their sedate, leafy, settled and moneyed neighborhood, on expensive furniture in expensive clothes, raising crystal wine glasses to smirking lips after long hard days of assuring grubby freshmen wanna-be morons occupying expensive parent-paid dorms across the nation and world, that they have merely changed tactics now, to “fight the system from the inside”.

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:39 pm 7. buddy larsen:

meanwhile dead men, killed in the middle of young families, continue as shadows in the memory of loved ones sunk as long as they shall live in the wrongness of the taking.

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:45 pm 8. Mongoose:

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. -Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Wretchard, it is unclear to me that the implied moral equivalence between the Bsuh and the Obama administrations in your post is warranted.

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:54 pm 9. Doug:

The children raised and ministered to by single mothers and Bill Ayers are not victims, but lucky recipients of the heroic sacrifices of their brave elders, giving of themselves despite their victimization by helping the children!

Just as Barry gives of himself, despite the fact that he is a genuine victim:
A Poor Black Child raised by a single mom on foodstamps.

Whiteness, middle class grandparent/caretakers, an absent philandering (corrupt black Muslim politician) father, Punahoe, Claremont, Columbia, and Harvard are NOT part of that story.
(That’s for telling at another time and place, there being one for everything.)

Feb 3, 2009 - 2:55 pm 10. Mongoose:

Buddy: they will stand before God. And on this earth, in their hearts they know they are guilty they have narrowed their own spirit just to live with themselves. Small compensation for the victims, I know, but more is coming.

There is a larger guilt: The world does not ostracize them.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:00 pm 11. RWE:

The Left is obsessed with perfectionism rather than reality. There are two reasons for this.

First, if nothing is ever good enough they have a reason to make the big tent still bigger to bring in more suckers, er…, constituents, and thus increase their power. So we have the inauguration of the first black president and a black poet stands up and decries racism. Or we increase the money spent on schools at a rate higher than anything else and for the Teachers’ Union that is still not good enough.

Second, their grand schemes will work only if they are perfect, and operated and used by perfect people. In reality, there are welfare cheats, tax cheats, lawsuit-for-profit conductors, crooked Medicaid recipients and providers, simple lazy bums, and all the rest. The answer they come up with is to make the programs perfect, and, of course, they never get there.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:00 pm 12. 3Case:

“Principled liberal” is an oxymoron.

“The rights of man don’t mean a damn here in The Age of Stars.” – Willie Nile, Cell Phones Ringing

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:01 pm 13. Mongoose:

Narcissists are generally perfectionist. So are tyrannts.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:05 pm 14. 3Case:

“So we have the inauguration of the first black president and a black poet stands up and decries racism.”

What’s that old saying? If their only tool is a hammer, then every problem is a nail.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:13 pm 15. buddy larsen:

“perfect systems” such as the Stimulus Bill, which among other stars in the sky numerous squirrleyisms, awards the Milwaukee school system, owner of 15 perfectly empty vacant school plants, the same student number pro-rata dollars (somewhere around 100 million of them but that’s another topic) as the most overcrowded school system in the nation.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:25 pm 16. buddy larsen:

yep, you gotta love the “for the children” party, which loves them so much it wants to decorate & festoon them with enough chains of debt and law and guilt as to keep them clanking & sobbing happily forever.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:35 pm 17. maineman:

It wouldn’t be surprising if we saw a sharp uptick in the sudden curtailment of the activities of a number of these parasites in the near future. This isn’t Europe, no matter what might be imagined.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:41 pm 18. ricpic:

Naive idealists will be the death of us all.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:46 pm 19. buddy larsen:

every ugly dangerous unliveable neihborhood in every dreary depressed broken city in every banckrupt woebegone fast-emptying state in the union is a gift from the Democrats to “the children”.

Feb 3, 2009 - 3:51 pm 20. Walt:

While murd’rous muslims slink like rats
Obamaman relaxes
Appointing honest Democrats
With trouble with their taxes
The Daschleman he know not rules
He thinks that cars and drivers
Are free to those from elite schools
And gummint nine to fivers
The Treasuryman he pay no tax
Is put in charge of henhouse
The Doddman’s sweetheart mortgage backs
Enough to keep his penthouse
Obie say close Gitmo down
And no more wiretapping
But he look good in sleeping gown
It’s time for some more napping
While dangers round each corner lurk
Just who’s gonna defendya
This just elected piece of work
This noble man from Kenya
I know there’s plenty say so what
Is honor just to serve him
I know the man’s the prez we’ve got
But I’m not sure we deserve him

Feb 3, 2009 - 4:03 pm 21. Brock:

It’s not unfortunate to be an idealist. What’s unfortunate is how few of us are. Damn all those parasites.

Feb 3, 2009 - 4:05 pm 22. buddy larsen:

walt, you gotta get a payin’ gig with that stuff –if not you, who? if not now, where? if not here, when?

Feb 3, 2009 - 4:24 pm 23. Ricardo:

“their grand schemes will work only if they are perfect, and operated and used by perfect people”
LOL, Man, you NAILED IT!
That’s why it’s so easy to sell leftism. Tell me, what do you buy, the flawless yellow bananas, or the spotted ones?

Feb 3, 2009 - 4:37 pm 24. Walt:

Buddy —

Thanks, but I just like to scribble
And somehow rhymes just seem to dribble
Upon the page without much pain
Like raindrops ‘pon the fruited plain

Feb 3, 2009 - 4:44 pm 25. Lifeofthemind:

The real tragedy for Mr Pearl is his son’s widow taking his grandchild and sucking up to the anti-Semitic elites who efface everything that he taught his son.

Feb 3, 2009 - 4:55 pm 26. wretchard:

It’s cool to be edgy, dark, cynical. Better at least than being Dudley Do-right or Sgt Preston of the Yukon. How many people can admit to brushing their teeth and eating cornflakes and milk for breakfast because it “starts their day right” without humiliation? Better to stagger up to the kitchen counter and knock back a jigger of whiskey, light a cigarette and make some coffee. How many people will confess to going to church on Sundays?

If rape and poison, dagger and burning,
Have still not embroidered their pleasant designs
On the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,
It’s because our souls, alas, are not bold enough!

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:09 pm 27. cjm:

every once in awhile a Cromwell shows up and cleans things up, at least for a little while. looking on the bright side, it seems pretty likely that the dems will pay severely at the 2010 congressional elections.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:26 pm 28. Mike Sylwester:

Judea Pearl makes a good point about Gilad Shalit being a POW for 950 days with no Red Cross visitation. The people who holler all the time about the Geneva Convention seem to have forgotten — or don’t care about — or perhaps even approve — this particular violation.

For the past eight years, liberals have been people being kidnapped and then imprisoned and tortured in “Black Sites.” One of Barack Obama’s first acts as US President was to denounce and prohibit such Black Sites. Might not some meek voice inquire humbly from the back of the cheering crowd whether Gilad Shalit isn’t being held in a Black Site operated by Hezbollah? Might President Obama spare a minute from his busy schedule to order one of his State Department minions to call Hezbollah to account on that matter? (As far as I know, President Bush never did.)

Might someone ever interest Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch or some other such organization — or even the United Nations — in this violation of the Geneva Convention?

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:28 pm 29. Mike Sylwester:

For the past eight years have been hollering about people being kidnapped ….

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:29 pm 30. Karen:

The Left knows there are no schemes for righting the world that will give justice for Daniel Pearl. That’s why they have to forget him. And concentrate instead on his victimizers. Justice in this world for Daniel Pearl is an impossibility, and that must be minimized or overlooked. They must harden their hearts in order just to go on. The cruelty of the liberal left is what I hate most about them.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:39 pm 31. steveaz:

I read his father’s plea and it all came rushing back.

I revere Danny Pearl, and I can’t say that about many people. He was what I thought a journalist was supposed to be: he went to the story, even if it killed him.

His murder stopped my life, a lot like the 9/11 attacks did, so I’m glad to see that his employer the WSJ is taking good care of Danny’s memory.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:42 pm 32. programmer:

darkness draws nearer
The light holds against the surge
Taxing isn’t it

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:44 pm 33. Peter Grynch:

I would like to coin the term “Realistic Idealist” it’s similar to liberal idealist, but grounded in reality.

Maybe it could replace “Compassionate Consevative” in the REpublican lexicon.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:50 pm 34. maineman:

The cruelty of the liberal left is a function of who they are. Any sensitivity would require dealing honestly, rather than projecting, their feelings of inadequacy and failure.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:50 pm 35. wretchard:

The virtue of the Guantanamo Bay was it put some of the cards on the table. If you believed that certain interrogation techniques were morally in bounds, whether or not they were sanctioned under Geneva, there was the chance to make, or the lose the case. One could have said, “we believe this was necessary and this is why”. Ultimately the political and criminal system would have accepted or rejected the justifications, but it would have been up front, open for debate. As I’ve pointed out in previous postings, the Guantanamo Prison was established in response to the Clinton-era rendition system which delivered prisoners up for real torture to the secret services of other countries and did not yield intelligence besides. Guantanamo was a place where America could hold prisoners. Some might have it rough, but eventually everyone would walk out with all their fingers and toes.

However, the body politic rejected this course and we are now back to sweeping things under the carpet. Few if any prisoners will be kept in American custody. They will be rendered and there will be a lot less fingers and toes. However, the public can avoid thinking about that and politicians can avoid responsibility for that because it all happens overseas in other people’s custody.

This goes back to the question of which is the more important: not to evade taxes or not to be caught evading taxes. For many, I think, the real rule is Though Shalt Not Get Caught. This is terribly corrosive because in the end we will wind up with a culture of virtuous appearances rather than virtue. In the end you get Chicago, but it’s OK as long as it can presented as Hope and Change. Or is it?

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:52 pm 36. Heh:

In the end you get Chicago, but it’s OK as long as it can presented as Hope and Change. Or is it?

Brilliant. Sums all our modern culture.

Feb 3, 2009 - 5:58 pm 37. RWE:

Wretchard: And I believe we had a discussion here about how covert methods were better than overt ones because you avoided the policy debate that way. Didn’t Obama say something about secretly invading other countries, ala the US in Cambodia and Laos? Same principle applies. He is in favor of a lot more Bay of Pigs ops rather than more like Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Feb 3, 2009 - 6:16 pm 38. wretchard:

Back during the anti-Marcos underground days a lot of people were caught an interrogated under torture. ‘Where is that safehouse? Where can I find this person?’ Those who refused to answer under duress were upholding their principles at great inconvenience to themselves. It’s unfortunately true that practically all beliefs are bought at a price.

Societies often choose to cherish certain principles and are prepared to pay for them. So if you’re about to drive down a road along which an IED may be emplaced, principles prevent you from screwing the information out of someone who may know. You take the risk and drive down the road, watchfully, using detectors, etc, but without using a proscribed method, not because it won’t work, but because you’ve decided that accepting the inconvenience and danger is a price you’re willing to pay to avoid transgressing your beliefs. Whether you are the anti-Marcos underground man or the soldier driving down the road, you pay for what you uphold by the risks you take.

But now we are told that if a man is believed to know information which could save the life of a high value target — maybe a Senator, a group of Congressmen, some muckety mucks — that it is theoretically possible to issue a finding that will make the suspect go somewhere dark where we can ask him the questions. Now why is it proper to do this when a high value target is at stake and not licit when we ask a man to drive down an IED-strewn road? Why can we ask little people to assume risks for the sake of our moral values and not ask the big people to do the same?

I think a principled opposition to torture would be one in which you refused to exercise it, even if you were sure it would save your only son from torment and death. If you ban it only when the sons of others are at risk; only when the small fry are on the line and not the big boys, it’s not principled opposition at all, just hypocrisy. Some will argue that there must be exceptions to every rule, but in the nature of things the exceptions, as Mr. Daschle has shown, usually special things and special people. Now I propose we look at it this way. Let’s oppose torture, or what we define as torture, but be prepared to pay the price for forgoing it.

Back in World War 2, FDR refused to employ poison gas against Iwo Jima, even if it was not technically illegal and even though they knew its use might save lives.

There is considerable evidence that the Joint Chiefs considered the use of poison gas during the Iwo Jima planning phase. Neither Japan nor the United States had signed the international moratorium, there were no civilians on the island, the Americans had stockpiles of mustard gas shells in the Pacific theater. But President Roosevelt scotched these considerations quickly. America, he declared, would never make first use of poison gas. In any case, the use of poison gas on an area as relatively small as Iwo Jima, whose prevailing winds would quickly dissipate the gas fumes, became moot. This left the landing force with no option but a frontal amphibious assault against the most heavily fortified island America ever faced in the war.

They knew then what we have forgotten now. You can do whatever you want; even, like Jean Moulin, refuse to answer a question when they are killing you slowly. But you have to pay the price. Virtue may be the worth the price. But there is a price.

Feb 3, 2009 - 6:22 pm 39. Peter Boston:

Guantanamo Bay detention center can be closed but Gitmo cannot – unless Dear Leader intends to let the catives free and forebear on all military action in return for a “promise” from Al Qaeda that they will not attack US interests.

According to GeostrategyDirect.com, a newsletter published by The Washington Times’ ace national security reporter Bill Gertz, “Diplomatic sources said Barack Obama has engaged several Arab intermediaries to relay messages to and from al Qaeda in the months before his elections as the 44th U.S. president. The sources said al Qaeda has offered what they termed a truce in exchange for a U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. ‘For the last few months, Obama has been receiving and sending feelers to those close to al Qaeda on whether the group would end its terrorist campaign against the United States,’ a diplomatic source said. ‘Obama sees this as helpful to his plans to essentially withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq during his first term in office.’ ”

Washington Times

Feb 3, 2009 - 6:27 pm 40. Lifeofthemind:

You are a Lieutenant or a Captain in command of a platoon or a company of 30 to 140 men. Your Top Sergeant a Sergeant Fist Class or First Sergeant is a man with 10 to 20 years more in the Army than you have. You have just relayed to him the orders that the Colonel had received regarding the care and interrogation of prisoners and the closure of Gitmo. You have also been informed that before you reported to the unit a journalist photographed one of your squad leaders shooting a man in a mosque. You are now telling your Sergeant that the man in question will report to the Judge Advocates office for an interview first thing tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon you are to lead your unit on an operation in the same neighborhood as the incident being investigated. The Colonel is also unhappy that his Intelligence officer is unhappy and needs more data from the field.

How will you keep the next journalist alive? How will you keep the next prisoner alive? How you keep yourself alive?

Feb 3, 2009 - 7:19 pm 41. Lifeofthemind:

BTW, your Sergeant knew all about those orders before you did.

Feb 3, 2009 - 7:20 pm 42. Kinuachdrach:

“Obama has been receiving and sending feelers to those close to al Qaeda”

Interesting that a US President would know people close to al Qaeda who were not immediately terminated with extreme prejudice.

Interesting that kind of rumor about a US President no longer seems impossible.

Wonder if Slo Joe Biden had to fly on a supersonic Blackbird to talk with the aforementioned people close to al Qaeda?

Feb 3, 2009 - 7:24 pm 43. buckets:

Karen @ 30

So true. I often wonder if cowardice motivates many of them. They’re tough and brave when screaming at a U.S. soldier, because it’s easy to attack someone whose moral code prevents them from hitting back. As Wretchard observed recently, the American Left is cloaked in cultural and legal armor.

I’d like to see them try protesting in Russia.

You should post more.

Feb 3, 2009 - 7:34 pm 44. Doug:

Agree, I had planned on this:

30. Karen:

The Left knows there are no schemes for righting the world that will give justice for Daniel Pearl.
That’s why they have to forget him.
And concentrate instead on his victimizers.

Justice in this world for Daniel Pearl is an impossibility, and that must be minimized or overlooked.

They must harden their hearts in order just to go on.
The cruelty of the liberal left is what I hate most about them.

34. maineman:

The cruelty of the liberal left is a function of who they are. Any sensitivity would require dealing honestly, rather than projecting, their feelings of inadequacy and failure.

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:06 pm 45. Doug:

I have yet to think through the calculus of not gassing soldiers on a remote island while firebombing men, women, and children in Tokyo.

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:10 pm 46. Doug:

One practical result that comes to mind is that the Japanese could easily have gassed our soldiers, but they were unable to firebomb our cities.

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:12 pm 47. Herb:

Pearl was an individual human being with a soul and important to Americans.

HAMAS is a group and important to the Left.

Screw him.

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:15 pm 48. RWE:

I read about the plan to use poison gas on Iwo Jima. It was described in a fascinating book entitled “Of Spies and Stratagems” about the OSS technical development efforts. The poison gas attack would be coupled with a radio message a month or so before, sent in a code known to be broken by the Japanese, that described the successful but unexpectedly lethal test of a new Death Ray. The Japanese would put two and two together, assume the fall of Iwo Jima was due to the new death ray, and sue for peace. The plan got approved all the way until it hit FDR, who nixed it.

Of course, the ironic part is that the Manhattan Project was indeed developing a “death ray” of unimaginable lethality and it was used on civilian targets, not just purely military ones.

Part of the problem with so publicly preventing torture is that it limits methods. What if you could take two terrorists, take one out and pretend to torture him, complete with sound effects, and let that noise break down the other one? Would listening to fake torture be considered torture? In any case, if they know you won’t do it that won’t work anyway.

In WWII suppose we had done as some said we should have, and demonstrated the atomic bomb on an uninhabited island with Japanese observers. But before that told them that we would never, ever use the weapon against their cities?

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:15 pm 49. fred:

“The cruelty of the liberal left is what I hate most about them.”

They don’t see it that way, and that’s part of the reason why I am glad I’ve burned my bridges to that camp a long time ago. Not that I was ever a cruel person. But in the day when I was on that side I noticed too many attempts to excuse and rationalize the barbarities of socialist states for my own comfort and conscience.

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:18 pm 50. Herb:

What Buddy said @ #1.

Mr Fernandez has hit close to or on a central issue as usual.

“Thou Shalt Not Get Caught” At what.

We are in a fight for survival with a religion which has clear goals of our obliteration or conversion. To most of those on this site the question is not what shall we do? It is lets do it. The American zeitgeist tends to the former.

We should be celebrating the Pearls, the resisters.

The Daschles are chiselers working themselves against us. Taking defense money for their ends. Screw them.

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:30 pm 51. Doug:

Fred,
Couldn’t we then say you were complicit when you were on that side, making you a crueler person than you are now?
I was both complicit and cruel, but not quite on the Ayers/Dohrn level, needless to say.

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:39 pm 52. buddy larsen:

Peter Boston @ 39: –maybe the Gertz piece explains this –Kremlin wanting to make moot our evacuation of Afghanistan before we can wring a truce with AQ out of it.

This guy, USAF(ret) Col. Sam Gardiner, was on a last-weekend news show, apprising us of the coming Feb 20 meeting of the Russian Federation Security Council.

Congress has a vote coming up re officially labeling “Genocide” on the Turkey/Armenian well, genocide. Looks like congress will have a chance to really support Putin and get the west shut out of Black Sea. Bye bye, oh, every ally we have from eastern europe to south africa if that happens.

We’re picking a helluva time to orderlily and responsibly abandon our Iraqi allies –not to mention the rest of the dominoes, such as Cambodia oops i mean Saudi Arabia.

Oh well, we’ll still have friends in Asia. Uhh, right?

Hey, lets call our congressfolk and tell ‘em to forget that 10% cut in defense, ok?

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:47 pm 53. buddy larsen:

(all those links except Col. Gardiner are h/t instapundit just last few hours)

Feb 3, 2009 - 8:57 pm 54. Alexis:

wretchard:

Yes, there is always a price to pay. The morally depraved do what they can to make sure somebody else suffers because of the decisions they make.

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:11 pm 55. fred:

I wonder if Wretchard, since he is a Harvard man, could communicate his thoughts on this.

This evening I was perusing some articles touching on the broad political changes in the country, especially with respect to Islamic jihad and its global threat. In the U.S. I sense that people increasingly agree with an article written by a Harvard graduate by the name of Glenn L. Carle (ex-CIA man).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102710.html

Now, his opinion is not necessarily infallible. Nor is it the only viewpoint within the policy community. But in the balance his seems to be ascendant. Which is, in my opinion, worrisome.

In recent decades, I see a trend at work in the country. In policy circles and in politics, Harvard men and women (and others from other Ivy institutions) dominate and their influence is decidedly left of center.

So, Wretchard, what do you think of Mr. Carle’s analysis? Also, is there a danger to the country that Harvard people tend to dominate policy and political trends?

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:26 pm 56. fred:

Doug,

There is not a cruel bone in my body, as my wife, daughters, family, and friends can attest. In fact, I detest cruel people. By cruelty on the Left, I understood it to be the ethics of expediency. Everything was permitted, if it served the revolution. Interestingly, that same dualistic ethic of expediency pervades Islam too.

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:30 pm 57. buddy larsen:

Good article in the WaPo, Fred. Maybe he’s right. Who could know, tho, outside intell professionals with the latest dope? That’s why these opinions are hard to take seriously –there is so much that is necessarily secret. All you can do is fasten onto what those in the loop say –and base your opinion on whether or not you trust them.

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:44 pm 58. buddy larsen:

BTW, column left @ fred’s WaPo link, Robert Kagan with “Five Reasons Not to Cut Defense”.

Feb 3, 2009 - 9:47 pm 59. Alexis:

If the terrorist were such an exaggeration, how come Mr. Carle didn’t prevent the September 11 attacks?

Those attacks were not a fluke. It was one among many attempts that have happened since 1993. American intelligence failed and that failure is largely the responsibility of men such as Mr. Carle. As a rule, one should always take one’s enemies seriously. It is the utter complacency in an intelligence establishment of which Mr. Carle is an exemplar that should lead one to wonder if the United States ought to eliminate the CIA and start from scratch.

The United States pays good money for its intelligence services. American intelligence services had better get results.

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:04 pm 60. fred:

Buddy,

Interesting Kagan article. I’m very gloomy about the outlook across the entire list of policy areas for the next four years. I don’t think the economic recovery is going to be a strong one, and we may face higher inflation in 2011-12, principally because we are not going to address critical energy issues. I think we are looking at the 1970’s pattern of stagflation, which will pretty much make this guy a four-and-out one. Foreign policy, in my estimation, will be a disaster. National defense and the military will suffer.

The Left has all these pent-up demands and wishes they’ve been accruing since the late Carter days. They couldn’t get ‘em during the Clinton years, because of the 1994 elections. But right now, while I think Republicans will gain significantly in 2010, they won’t get it all back in both Houses. The President will retain control, but his mandate will shrink. But not for one moment will the Left’s perception that it still has a mandate shrink its demands. And this President is showing so far that he falls back on his base and governs from the Left. It’s his comfort zone. This guy is not a leader.

By 2012 I think many of the people who were fooled by him in 2008 will have a serious case of buyers’ remorse. That 68% of under-30 vote that went to him I think will be whittled down to 40% to 45%, which should be enough to tilt things the other way. I do not expect the female vote to change dramatically, because he will have them anchored with the abortion on demand law.

All of this assumes the Republicans put up a stronger candidate than John McCain. It would help if so-called independents were not allowed to vote in Republican primaries.

Those are my predictions. I can see no way that this President’s policies are going to work. If they do, I’ll publicly don sack cloth and ashes and do penance.

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:17 pm 61. Mongoose:

Fred: when a ex-spook like this tells you not to worry, then it is time to worry. How many times have these people been right.

They sure did not catch 911. They fumbled the Cold War.

The problem is that we now have a self-acclaimed aristocracy of “experts” but they have achieved there ascendancy though only politics, not through any meaningful demonstration of expertize oe wisdom. It is a false gentry. The social and intellectual equivalent of a Ponzi scheme. We are finally flailing apart after 70 years of this nonsense.

This credentialed buffoon is more concerned about protecting his social standing than he is in protecting the country. He is man as a loon. We should be thankful that he is retiring and amazed at the Lord’s mercy that we survived his career.

:istening to these people in the first place got us in this mess. When the next assualt comes he will not even admit that he was wrong, let alone admit that he had a part in the carnage by weakening resolve.

Obama really intends to surrender. it will have enormous and far ranging consequences, all of them extremely bad for us. They really think that the WOT was just an invention of GWB to hold on to power, or a stupid over reaction. They cannot fathom what it all means. They are just to decadent. It is too troublesome for them to think it through, it is requires too mach manhood for them to act with principals to stop this. They do not care that America is humiliated. Their vanity is to thick for them to understand what that means. they do not care if she in endangered. They are solipsistic narcissists.

That is why it took Reagan to end the Cold War. If these idiots had their way we would still be jabbering away with the USSR’s tyrants.

Explain that to the next person that you hear this drivel from.

It is particularly absurd to decouple terrorism from a nuclear Iran or a threat to either India or Israel. It is absurd as well to imagine that all of the assualts on the USA since Carter are trivial or that they will just go away. But the greatest vanity is to imagine the AQ will keep their word once we withdraw–that they will do it for Obama. This level of vanity is plainly psychotic. It will be a complete replay of viet Nam with all that goes with it.

The democrats always betray civilization. They are perverse and perverted.They can be no other thing. It does not matter if they havee a Harvard degree and live in Georgetown, or are Union punks taking bribes on the docks. They are of the same clothe. It is in their souls.

It will not change until their power structures are destroyed, and that includes the getting over notion than anything but idiocy will ever come out of Harvard University.

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:25 pm 62. wretchard:

I’m not sure having gone to school for a few years has anything to do with the validity of one’s judgment, but simply on the basis of logic one can say that Mr. Carle, like anyone else, is entitled to assign a probability and degree of seriousness to any given event.

September 11 was a low probability, but high impact event which happened to come off. Now we might argue that bad as it was, since the US did not experience repeated subsequent September 11s that can be taken as evidence that al-Qaeda is fundamentally weak and therefore, attacks like 9/11 were rare events that we ought not over-react to. So you can say, ‘well, we might have the odd mass casualty attack every so many years, but it will not be an existential danger and therefore we ought not distort the world with a War on Terror to avoid the death of 3,000 people every decade’.

There are two problems with this, one of which was already described by Frank Tipler in the previous post. First, we don’t have a world in which a War on Terror was not waged as a control case against which to compare the alternative. If the US had done nothing or done something different after September 11 what would the world look like? It could be far better, or far worse, but which, who can say?

The second problem is more general. The War on Terror was largely an intelligence war. Even in Iraq the conventional combat component was small in terms of ammunition expended and casualties (both sides) experienced by comparison with 20th century campaigns. I suspect there won’t be a “next” September 11. The next crisis will take a different form; maybe a nuke or bioweapon; maybe an attack on the economy or financial system of the West. Maybe we will finally get to see what cyberwarfare is like. But to the proposition is “radical Islamic extremism” now spent, I think the answer is no. I know that some intel analysts believe that we are only at the beginning of a long period of cognitive or memetic warfare with radical Islam. It may be true that the “al-Qaeda” style conflict with radical Islam is now in decline, but the growing population of the Muslim world, it’s sources of revenue and it’s ideological stridency all indicate that it is far from a declining force. If anything, it is the West that seems to be losing the battle of ideas within its own borders.

Having said that, I think it is fair to accept the idea that maybe the future will not be reruns of Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe the things we need to do going forward will be different. Part of the challenge is to evolve, but that evolution is tactical. I don’t think it wise to declare victory over Islamic extremism in a strategic sense yet.

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:34 pm 63. Doug:

Fred,
The ethics of expediency is what I was thinking about when the word complicit came to mind:
I was thinking we were all aware, even at the beginning, that we were going along with some people or events that were at odds with what we had come to know was right or wrong, the denial of that truth being based on the cause, the greater good, of being on the side of defending the “victims of the system/status quo.”

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:40 pm 64. fred:

The thing about Mr. Carle’s analysis that struck me was how it was devoid of context. It seemed un-moored from ideology and culture, which we know is a fatal mistake when the topic is Islam. It seems that all of these people from the more liberal-Left academic settings (in Mr. Carle’s case, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the Institut d’études politiques de Paris, France)do not add the religious template to the Muslim world. They underestimate the passion that comes out of the Qur’an. They seem unaware of the fourteen centuries of jihad conquest across almost every continent.

What will it take for these institutions to finally see the handwriting on the wall? The Muslim Brotherhood has not given up its long range goals. What is even more frightening is that our old adversaries, the Russians, have not given up employing the Iranians as proxies in their war with us. I predict that in the future our past neglect will result in a horrific butcher’s bill.

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:57 pm 65. Doug:

You’re the financial guy, Fred, what do you think about the prospects of future inflation also being driven by the money that seemingly will have to be printed to finance this colossal waste of treasure and national focus known as the “stimulus package?”

Feb 3, 2009 - 10:58 pm 66. buddy larsen:

Harvard is our 1930s Cambridge, a magnet for the Internationale.

Mongoose, we need to worry not just about Iran’s coming nuke, but Russia’s modernized nuke force. Added to my several links in #52 here’s a set of current Instapundit links, including this which itself includes several links.

According to the small group of the highly worried, Russia has a huge underground facility for the nomenklatura, spent on civil defense in the 1990s 65 billion vs our 900 million. I think it’s time –past time, way past time –that our CIA wrote some WaPo articles on this.

Feb 3, 2009 - 11:15 pm 67. fred:

Doug,

Right now we are in a deflationary cycle. So the real question is: when will the reflation begin? There is the Friedman school that thinks inflation is always, always a function of a lack of monetary restraint. I mostly agree with that, but not always. We saw in the 1970’s how oil prices surged and their dramatic increases had nothing to do with Burns’ Fed policies. Of course, the easy money did not make things any easier. Although other factors certainly were in play, don’t you think the run up in oil prices from 2006 to mid-summer 2008 played a role in the recession? I think it did. A large role. I took a bet with my wife in May. She said that she thought that oil would go above $200 a barrel and that gasoline would get to five bucks a gallon. I took the contrary view, and collected the bet’s winnings (dinner) because I knew a bubble was forming and that it was not sustainable. Just as I thought the run up in housing prices was also an unsustainable bubble. Now, did easy money contribute to all of this? It would be hard to say it didn’t, but we don’t know how much of role it played. That’s the thing about forecasting based upon a macroeconomic theory: you just don’t know all the variables’ roles at any given time and when it all will go down.

Here’s what I think about the monetary expansion (that isn’t evident from the money supply figures right now): if the recovery is weak, we may not get runaway inflation. But, even if it is weak, if energy prices snap back with a vengeance we could very well see inflation break out of the acceptable range. If there is weak capital investment, weak productivity growth involved, yes I certainly think we could see advancing inflation probably around 2011 and 2012. Again, stating it as a probability, I think it probable. And likely. But not certain.

I honestly do not think Obama and his people really understand these things. Lawyers are rent-seekers, not true investors or capitalists. And since the Democratic Party IS the party of lawyers, you could say that we are f***ed.

Feb 3, 2009 - 11:23 pm 68. Doug:

I guess a “180 degree prism” would be a mirror!
Figures that’s how the narcissists would see it!

Feb 3, 2009 - 11:39 pm 69. rickl:

54. fred:
In recent decades, I see a trend at work in the country. In policy circles and in politics, Harvard men and women (and others from other Ivy institutions) dominate and their influence is decidedly left of center.

I’ve noticed it too, and I think that attitude was at the root of the unbelievable hatred and vitriol unleashed against Sarah Palin. She’s not an Elite. She’s not One Of Us. How dare she presume to govern?

That attitude is toxic and is utterly un-American.

Feb 3, 2009 - 11:41 pm 70. Doug:

As Prager says, some things can only be believed by those with college educations.
Certainly Global Warming could have only gained a foothold in a populace in which a majority have post-unionized “educations” and many have college degrees from Post-Sixties Universities.

Feb 4, 2009 - 12:01 am 71. buddy larsen:

…since the Democratic Party IS the party of lawyers, you could say that we are f***ed

Most small service businesses’ 2nd highest expense (after wages & salaries) is insurance, often amounting to 25% of total. A great fraction of this is to protect against the tort bar, which has put the nation’s entrepreneurs not in a position of being safety minded, but in the position of having to think of every conceivable opening the biz has to any criminal mind with plenty of time to study the operation (much like a walker in rattlesnake country has to study every stone or shrub or shadow for a waiting & nearly invisible viper).

Because of the tort bar’s seemingly (but really not) adversarial relationship with the insurance industry, that industry’s fraction of speculative investment portfolio, due in some large part to the very tort problem that in effect underwrites that portfolio, largely ignores venture capital for small business (heavens, small biz is just so exposed to failure) instead to chase leverage, and help thereby to pump up financial bubbles instead of helping create the growth and new jobs made unaffordable by such (what amounts to) extortion by rent-seekers who’ve had some laws drafted while the hicks were busy getting their hands dirty producing society’s real wealth.

So the whole main street & farm economic machine just does less work with fewer people, the opportunity cost of the tort parasite being blue sky and never quantified in a way to educate Joe and Jill about the heritage robbery, and with that, build the groundswell political defense needed to cut it back down to rightful size –say, relative to about 1940 or so, when a judge & community would and could throw thieves out of their courtrooms with the conviction of a people who still knew what their rights were.

Feb 4, 2009 - 12:09 am 72. Karen:

buckets @ 43: thank you for those kind words. Too kind, really, I don’t deserve it. Posting is hard partly because of time constraints but mostly because so many of Richard’s threads reach so deep the only response I can manage is an inarticulate “wow.” And the many great replies by all the posters here every day! seemingly off the top of their heads – I can add nothing. But it’s a good thing to come here and spend some time in the virtual company of those who understand that there is something terribly wrong in the West and there is going to be hell to pay.

One of the things that seems so wrong is, as has been remarked upon here, the arrogance of our new leadership. Doug said @ 51: “Couldn’t we then say you were complicit when you were on that side, making you a crueler person than you are now? I was both complicit and cruel…” Ah but Doug, that is confession – a thing that arrogance absolutely forbids. We will never hear a confession from the old warriors of the liberal left; they will never reach the turning point that you did. As long as they are leading us, we are damned.

Feb 4, 2009 - 12:31 am 73. Doug:

@ dinner I was talking to the wife about the impunity with which bureaucrats make decisions which are devastating to businesses.
The first time we visited Honolulu many of the shops and restaurants could only be reached by navigating over a subsurface construction project on foot.

Later, we read of a more serious example when many small businesses were completely cut off from the street. I mentioned that politicians thought nothing of obstructing businesses for 3 or 4 months.

She replied that in that instance, many were cut off much longer than that. I said, yes, but look at the number of businesses that will be put OUT of business by “just” 3 or 4 months.

All the while, over the last two decades the Pols have been toiling to get one of them beloved Light Rail 2% People Movers, which would put all previous projects to shame in terms of amount of cost, chaos, and bankruptcies.
…assuming that only those most unworthy will continue to profit most in the coming era of Eternal Bailouts.

Feb 4, 2009 - 12:32 am 74. Doug:

Wows and Confessions are often all that I’m up to, but thanks!
…but mostly we just enjoy shooting the breeze, and I join with buckets in inviting you to visit as often as is comfortable.

Feb 4, 2009 - 12:38 am 75. buddy larsen:

agree w/ doug, Karen must post –distinctive voices able to put them ghosts and bumps in the night into words –help us all, and all us help do need we.

Feb 4, 2009 - 1:46 am 76. JMH:

Cynicism is what happens when you’re let down or betrayed one too many times. Ilsa turned Rick into a cynic by dumping him at the Paris Rail station. A lot of Americans are feeling a bit let down by their fellow citizens who lined up gape-jawed and drooling to elect a two-bit America-trashing conman of a failed ward heeler as President. And they’re feeling let down by a Republican Party that can’t communicate, won’t fight, and might be better than the other guy but isn’t anywhere near good enough.

So what woke the sentimentalist back up in Rick? It was Laszlo of course. The magic that Victor Laszlo had for inspiring resistance in the face of evil and persistence in the face of dispair. The movie never quite explained how that magic worked, though as I get older the scene where he leads the band in La Marseillaise gets more emotional. As a kid I thought it was corny. Now, well, I dislike the song, but somehow the emotion of the scene still comes through. Hell, it even turned Yvonne around.

Who is our Laszlo? Another Victor – VDH? No, though I treasure his writings. VDH reminds us of what we’ve squandered and of how poorly we measure up to those who came before. We need that message too, but in some ways it fuels the cynicism. Rush Limbaugh? Probably not. He’s too self-consciously an entertainer and too much of a cynic himself to eradicate cynicism. Not O’Reilly or Hannity – both too angry, though anger has its place too.

Maybe it’s Wretchard. Maybe it’s Wretchard.

Feb 4, 2009 - 1:55 am 77. Karen:

Aw thanks, Buddy, you shouldn’t encourage me, I’m too gloom-and-doom, which is embarrassing among the actual constructive comments – and boy do we need those – as well as the funny ones, like the ones where you have me trying not to laugh loud enough to waken the household.

JMH, the movie may never have explained how the magic worked but it gave hints when Victor Laszlo asked Rick how, in his past, he always seemed to be found fighting on the right side. So we’re given to understand he’s a basically decent guy underneath all the cynicism and it got rekindled in the course of the movie. I love that Marseillaise scene too where the Nazis get drowned out and finally have to shut up and sit down. Now what’s it gonna take to get the elites to do that?

Feb 4, 2009 - 2:30 am 78. Karen:

darn, forgot to close the italics!

Feb 4, 2009 - 2:31 am 79. nilsonian:

If Obama has been foolish enough to make those contacts with Al Quaeda intermediaries he has provided anyone who has details with the ability to blackmail him–or make his impeachment possible if a successful terrorist attack happens. Didn’t vote for him-don’t like him-I do not believe he would originate such contacts. That some journo or foreign diplomat may be inflating his own importance and contacts is much likelier–and the offer may be ‘real’, in the sense that someone said it to the ‘inflating’ wannabe.

Feb 4, 2009 - 3:43 am 80. Doug:

All I know is I’m very CONCERNED about Tom Daschle.
This is very troubling, and I think we’re all CONCERNED about that.

Feb 4, 2009 - 6:29 am 81. maineman:

Regarding cynicism and romanticism, it pays to remember that they are opposite sides of the same coin. We must move beyond romanticism by coming to grips with and giving up cherished illusions. The ONLY alternative is to become infected by cynicism when our romantic ideals are scuttled by reality.

That’s how maturity and true self-confidence develop. And that’s what has eluded many of the Boomers to date, which is why they will never move beyond their narcissistic defenses.

Maybe you can plug that into the Casablanca concept, but I haven’t seen it recently enough.

Feb 4, 2009 - 6:45 am 82. Robohobo:

“And the same idea may now be crossing the minds of those who believed that electing Democrats into power would mean cleaner government, world peace and a high moral tone only to realize …”

The same as it ever was. There is the ‘idea’ of a better world but the facts are it is still peopled by fallible humans.

Mongoose: “Narcissists are generally perfectionist. So are tyrants.” Also, tyrants are generally narcissists. See:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/obama.html

Feb 4, 2009 - 1:32 pm 83. sf:

Astonishing analyses above, as always.

If some of you need some positive news, consider this: Have you ever read anything remotely comparable to the above in any newspaper or magazine? I suspect not. This medium is a magnet that attracts people of similar spirit, and in that sense it’s an engine that may be powerful enough to save our way of life.

Especially when teamed with a dozen 150 kiloton warheads. (kidding)

Separately, Fred @ 54 linked to a WaPo article by a former CIA hand who claimed there was no “global jihad” threat. It’s well worth a look, because it so clearly shows the total lack of reasoning skills from those on the left. For example, he claims “We do not face a global jihadist ‘movement’…”, but in the very next ‘graf he writes, “Al-Qaeda is the only global jihadist organization and is the only Islamic terrorist organization that targets the U.S. homeland.”

Writing such self-contradictions so close to each other, it’s impressive that his head didn’t explode.

Feb 5, 2009 - 6:56 am 84. 2-05-09 | Drive Time Happy Hour:

[...] Richard Fernandez: The tax compliance problems of Tom Daschle, Nancy Killifer, Timothy Geithner and Charlie Rangel provide an interesting backdrop to Judea Pearl’s article about the contrast between the idealism of public life and its harsh reality.

Feb 5, 2009 - 12:19 pm 85. Bill Orly:

God you people are stupid.

Feb 5, 2009 - 1:08 pm 86. bogie wheel:

Hey, since we’re talking “Casablanca,” go and re-watch (those of you who have a copy available) the very first scene where we see Rick. He’s playing chess. But there are two very interesting aspects about it. First, there’s no one else at the table … so, is he dueling himself? Ahh, symbolism! And the very first chess piece we see him pick up and move is … yah, you guessed it … the white knight.

And, from “Judgment at Nuremberg,” Judge Haywood’s (Spencer Tracy’s) speech at the end, when he is delivering the verdict:

“A decision must be made in the life of every nation, at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. When it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Only, the answer to that is: Survival as what? A country isn’t a rock; it’s not an extension of one’s self. It’s what it stands for. It’s what it stands for when standing is the most difficult. Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here in our decision, this is what we stand for: Justice … truth … and the value of a single human being.”

So I don’t know much, but I *do* know movies!

Feb 5, 2009 - 5:58 pm 87. bogie wheel:

Wretch, I’ve always thought “Dover Beach” was one of the most simultaneously beautiful and depressing poems I’ve ever read. It’s probably in my top 10 from college (and being an English major, I read a LOT of poems).

Thank you for reminding me of Mr. Arnold’s masterpiece.

Feb 5, 2009 - 6:02 pm 88. buddy larsen:

bogie wheel, i caught 1938’s “You Can’t Take It With You” the other night on TCM. Wow, talk about a major anti-banker screed, hiddin inside a light comedy of manners, almost a dingbat farce (what is that term –i know it’s not ‘dingbat farce’ but it is in that vein). And it starred Jimmy Stewart –who a few years later was flying combat missions for the 8th AAF over Europe!

Feb 7, 2009 - 12:22 pm 89. RM3 Frisker FTN:

OFF-TOPIC – When trying to SHARE post this to Facebook, the snippet posted to Facebook has nothing to do with Wretchard’s article. The SHARE-THIS application appears to focus on the top few lines of the webpage (e.g. “BlogPanel: Silencing Rush, O’Reilly, & PTJV? And President Obama’s (Spending) Surge. Breitbart: Big Hollywood & The Culture War”) which really has nothing to do with Wretchard’s article

Feb 7, 2009 - 4:28 pm

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