Bringing Dems & The Far Left Together Results In Clarity

There is a certain kind of symbiosis that occurs when the far left, steeped in narcissim and wholly unmoored from reality, meets with the senior Democratic leadership who are cynically using the far left and being used by them. Gone is talk of the surge, or any pretense that it matters a wit. Gone is the pretext that our generals might be incompent or less then honest. Gone is the fiction that Iraq is in a civil war. Gone is talk of succeeding in Iraq and leaving it with a stable government. Gone is talk of our national interests or national security. Gone is talk of "supporting the troops" who are fighting and dying in Iraq. Gone is any consideration of the costs of surrendering in Iraq. Gone, in short, is all the spin and prevarication.

What is left from this symbiosis is the pure and unadulterated truth. The far left believe that the '06 election was their victory alone. The far left want their agenda to control the Democratic Party. The far left want nothing less then the complete repudiation of any policies dealing with conservatives or George Bush. The far left wants an immediate end to the war with no consideration of the cost. The far left wants us out of Iraq whether we are succeeding or not. And the Democratic leadership has bought in - they are part and parcel of the far left in America today. Observe the symbiosis in action:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) yesterday reaffirmed her commitment to end the war in Iraq, but her words were greeted with skepticism and some boos by anti-war liberal activists.

Addressing the liberal pressure group Campaign for America’s Future, Pelosi called the war in Iraq a “tragedy” and a “grotesque mistake,” but her words elicited catcalls for her to do more.

. . . The Democratic-led Congress has taken a pounding in recent opinion polls, with many Democratic voters unhappy that lawmakers have not been able to change President Bush’s policies in Iraq. Noting that Bush vetoed legislation setting a timeline for withdrawal last month, Pelosi explained to the audience why the Democrats cannot enact stringent benchmarks or set a date to begin withdrawing U.S. troops.

“We don’t have 60 votes in the Senate or the president’s signature … those are facts and obstacles,” Pelosi said.

“Those are facts, those are obstacles; we have to overcome them and we cannot wait until November 2008 to do so,” she added. “Your impatience with the war is totally justified.”

But she did not offer details about how House Democrats might use the 2008 House defense appropriations bill to force Bush’s hand to end the U.S. commitment to Iraq. Some Democrats have discussed two measures, introduced by Reps. David Price (D-N.C.) and Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), respectively, which would revoke Bush’s authority to wage war in Iraq.

Even Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a leading anti-war Democrat and close Pelosi ally, did not escape the taunting as he introduced Pelosi.

“She’s worked tirelessly to end” this war, Murtha said.

“No she hasn’t,” shouted a woman in the crowd.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) acknowledged the same political landscape last week.

“We raised the bar too high. [The public] thought we could continue to send the bill back to the president — with 49 [guaranteed] votes, we couldn’t do that,” he said.

Reid announced last week that there would be votes on amendments to the defense spending bill that would withdraw troops within 120 days of passage, set strong troop readiness standards, and block spending on a future military presence in Iraq after April 2008.

Speaking before Pelosi, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) troubles with the anti-war left were also on display, as her Iraq talking points were met with boos for the second year in a row.

Despite boasting of her vote against the most recent Iraq supplemental spending bill, Clinton was still hit by anti-war groups, including the persistent members of Code Pink.

Shouts of “Get us out” and “Stop the war” were audible throughout Clinton’s remarks, but the part of her speech devoted to the war sparked widespread boos that eventually yielded to an outbreak of cheers and support from Clinton’s supporters in the room.

“I see the signs [that read] ‘Get us out of Iraq now,’” Clinton said. “That is what we are trying to do.”

A number of those attending said they were undecided on the 2008 race, but several of those interviewed by The Hill said they could not vote for Clinton because of her war record.

“I thought it was the same old, same old,” Carol Dragone, of Virginia Beach, Va., said of Clinton’s speech. “I don’t know how you can change so quick.”

Dragone and others said Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) seemed insincere in their denunciation of the war, particularly after casting several votes to continue funding. . .

Read the story here.

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The BBC Biased? Could It Be?

I grew up loving the BBC from across the pond. It always had the best programming as far as I was concerned. Thus it came as an utter shock to me when, later in life, it became apparent just how insidiously and dangerously biased the BBC's news division was - and had been for generations. It has become particulalry toxic to the functioning of a Western democracy since 9-11. I am reminded of the period prior to WWII when the BBC carried water for the world's most infamous appeaser, Neville Chamberlin, while refusing to give any coverage to Winston Churchill. Churchill would later label the BBC a "communist organization."

To be fair, the BBC does still on occaision come up with some amazing work. Undercover Mosque, by BBC 4, was as first rate and important a piece of investigative journalism as one will ever find. And the bulk of the BBC's work, when not on topics that lend themselves to left wing, avant garde causes or anti-americanism, is even handed and quite good. In what remains, which is a sizable portion of their reporting, there is a clear, if not at times over the top, anti-war, anti-american, anti-conservative bias and an embrace of suicidal multiculturalism - particularly a pro-Muslim bent - that pervades their work. Indeed, it sometimes pervades its work to a high degree of comedy. The BBC certainly seems to have a preference for political parties in its own country. And how many news rooms do you know contain a picture of Bush in Hitlerian garb? The Beeb's bias is both active and passive - it is evident in what the BBC chooses to report, and also in what the BBC chooses to simply omit from its coverage. And over the past few years, it has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer pounds to in a court battle to keep the "Balen Report" secret - an internal report on pro-arab, anti-semetic bias at the Beeb. The website Biased BBC does an excellent job of documenting BBC outrages, both active and passive on a daily basis.

The BBC has for years claimed the outrageous fiction that they are unbiased. Thus, it was good to hear today at least some small note of reality - that the BBC is at least acknowledging a portion of this bias in a report released but not yet up on the BBC website. The Times has the story:

There are some things you do not need an official report to tell you - that John Prescott thinks he is a babe magnet, that President Mugabe is not entirely in favour of white farmers and that Al-Qaeda takes a pretty dim view of the West. The report commissioned by the BBC into itself concluded with something equally blindingly obvious. It said that the organisation is institutionally biased and especially gullible to the blandishments of politically driven celebrities, such as Bono and Bob Geldof. Almost anyone in Britain could have told the BBC that for free, but maybe it’s better to have it in an official report.

All media organisations are biased and that applies especially to newspapers. But our bias is openly declared. If readers want different views they have no compulsion to pay and can go elsewhere. The BBC is in a different category; everyone has to pay for it and it is in the tricky position of being founded to be free from bias. It is meant to be a beacon of objective truth in a wildly polarised world. A tall order. In theory even rabid rightwingers and demented leftists can listen or watch (and increasingly read online) the BBC without discerning any tilt. But what emerges from the report is a picture of an organisation with a liberal, anti-American bias and an almost teenage fascination with fashionable causes. The report singles out the BBC’s overwhelming and uncritical backing for the campaign over Live Aid and now the Live Earth concerts on global warming.

That the BBC should investigate itself is perhaps admirable, but only if it acts on the conclusions. The likelihood is that it will lament its shortcomings, pledge to do something and carry on much as before. Changing its cosy culture will take more than a report; some who have worked there say it would require a small neutron bomb. The BBC is a self-perpetuating liberal arts club. Recruitment is the key. It needs to employ more nonconformist journalists whose paper of choice is not The Guardian.

Read the story here. And then there is this from the Telegraph:

The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded.

The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased - and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement.

It warns that celebrities must not be pandered to and allowed to hijack the BBC schedule.

After a year-long investigation the report, published today, maintains that the corporation’s coverage of day-to-day politics is fair and impartial.

That last statement is simply ridiculous and why I am incredibly cynical about this report doing anything but provide the BBC a whitewash. The BBC's day to day reporting is often its most objectionable. Just click on a few of the links I have included above to see for yourself. To continue:

. . . The report concludes BBC staff must be more willing to challenge their own beliefs.

It reads: “There is a tendency to 'group think’ with too many staff inhabiting a shared space and comfort zone.”

A staff impartiality seminar held last year is also documented in the report, at which executives admitted they would broadcast images of the Bible being thrown away but not the Koran, in case Muslims were offended.

During the seminar a senior BBC reporter criticised the corporation for being anti-American.

The report was jointly commissioned by BBC managers and the board of governors and will be published by the BBC Trust, which has since replaced the governors.
It has been approved by a committee headed by BBC trustee and former ITN editor-in-chief Richard Tait. Other members include BBC deputy director-general Mark Byford, head of BBC News Helen Boaden and creative director Alan Yentob.

Writing in The Observer yesterday, Mr Tait said that “the BBC cannot allow its output to be taken over by campaigning groups” and added: “At the BBC impartiality is and must remain non-negotiable because it is vital to safeguard the BBC’s independence.”

The report offers 12 new principles for the corporation to adopt to safeguard its impartiality.

These include: “Impartiality is no excuse for insipid programming. It allows room for fair-minded, evidence-based judgements by senior journalists and documentary-makers, and for controversial, passionate and polemical arguments by contributors and writers.”

A BBC spokeswoman said: “This report is about looking forward and how we are going to face the challenges of impartiality in the modern world.”

I apologize for being cynical, but the bias at the BBC news division is far too much for me to stomach, particularly since not only are its toxins infecting the UK, but it is also being pumped into the US. This internal BBC report seems more of a whitewash then anything else.

The BBC is, by law required to be objective in its reporting. The people of Britain are required by law to fund the BBC through a licensing fee on all television owners. Only half of the equation is being upheld at the moment.

There is no reason whatsoever for the BBC's news division to remain on the public tit, particularly when it is so clearly failing in its legal mandate. But even beyond that, there is no reason that the BBC news division should not compete in the marketplace as do nearly all other news divisions in the world outside of dictatorships and communist countries. The New York Times is watching its stock values plummet because of its one sided reporting. There is no reason the BBC should not enjoy the same opportunity.

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The Democrats Prepare To Pay Back Far Left Enviromentalists

It is utter insanity that we do not do far more to end our dependence on foreign oil and reduce the costs of energy. In any sane world, we would be drilling for oil in Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico, and we would be fast tracking the creation of new atomic power plants. Additionally, we would be developing new refineries to lower the cost of gas even as we seek alternative fuels. Yet every attempt to do any of these things is invariably fought tooth and nail by far left radical environmentalists opposed to almost any human development. Their detrimental effect on America is very high indeed - and, at times, devastating. For example, it is quite possible that lawsuits brought by environmentalists against the Corps of Engineers in the 1970's were causitive factors in the break of New Orleans' levees in the aftermath of Katrina.

One of radical environmentalists favorite tools for opposing development has been litigation over the 1970 Endangered Species Act, an Act has created more then a fair bit of tension between government regulation and the rights of private property owners. At its best, the Act has been used to protect and repropogate several important species that were near extinction, such as wolves. At its worst, the Act has been regularly manipulated as a tool by far left environmentalists to tie up private property rights and prevent construction, logging or any of a host of other human endeavors.

Other then litigation, radical environmentalists have also done two other things very well. That would be lobbying and raising money for Democrats who will champion their special interests in Congress. And now, with the Democrats in controll of Congress, it is payback time for their support, just like it was not too long ago with big labor. Democrats showed then that they are quite willing to sacrifice the traditional rights of Americans to payback their special interest supporters. And now, in paying back the far left radical environmentalists, that means a significiant attack on private property rights as well as hindering any property use for the creation of energy. The WSJ has this story of the unholy alliance of our nation's largest environmental groups and the Democrats who have allowed the environmentalists to oversee the House's pending energy legislation:

. . . That is, if "energy" is the right word for West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall's green-payoff of a bill. Ostensibly the legislation is a rollback of any energy production advances of recent years. But also tucked deep in its heart is an extraordinary new tool to allow environmentalists to lock up private property across the country. Bill presented; bill paid.

Like union and trial-bar groups, the extreme environmental community forked over a hefty wad of cash last year to help put Democrats in the majority, as well as to keep key environmental allies in their seats. But they also went the extra mile, singling out Republicans viewed as most ideologically hostile to liberal green goals and targeting them in campaigns. Most Wanted was former House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo.

The Californian was an environmental innovator, one reason he leapfrogged past far more senior members of the Resources Committee to take its helm in 2003. His subsequent successes lay in getting rural-state Democrats to come along with pioneering overhauls of outdated, 1970s-style environmental policy--from the Healthy Forests Act to reform of the Endangered Species Act and public-lands drilling. Those victories, and Mr. Pombo's commitment to property rights, enraged coast-state Democrats and environmental groups, who viewed him as slightly less progressive than Attila the Hun.

Their fury was unleashed in last year's campaign. By some estimates, a half-dozen environmental groups spent north of $3 million to get Mr. Pombo sacked. Defenders of Wildlife opened an office in his Stockton district, staffed with a dozen people, for that purpose. Since most of Mr. Pombo's constituents admired him for his environmental work, their tactic was character assassination. The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund (a 527) sent out mailings with the jaw-dropping suggestion that since Mr. Pombo didn't hold a hearing about supposed abuses in the Marianas Islands (a U.S. territory) that he supported "forced abortion," "child prostitution" and "sweatshop labor." Nowhere was the word "environment" even mentioned.

The smear campaign worked. Mr. Pombo was ousted, along with other key environmentalist targets, . . . The broader Democratic victory slipped the Resources chairmanship to Mr. Rahall, who may hail from rural West Virginia, but votes like a resurrected Rachel Carson. (Last year he earned a 92% voting score from the League of Conservation Voters, which takes effort.) With his most worthy ideological opponents banished, he's been largely free to pursue a pure green agenda, handing out goodies to the environmental crew that helped get him his job.

But first, housekeeping. In a little semantic poke to their opponents, Democrats quickly changed the title of Mr. Rahall's group to the Natural Resources Committee. This was accompanied by the heave-ho of moderate Democrats who had signed on to Mr. Pombo's reform agenda. .

They were replaced with better spawn of Mother Earth, including Lois Capps (California), Patrick Kennedy (Rhode Island) and John Sarbanes (Maryland). Mr. Rahall also sprinkled staff jobs on greens, including from groups active in the 2006 campaign. Two of three senior policy advisers hail from Defenders of Wildlife and the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics; others come from the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club.

These are the folks who helped write the "energy" bill that passed committee this week. Broadly, the bill fulfills one big ambition of environmental groups in recent years: a rollback of any smarter use of public (or even private) lands for energy use. Gone are previous gains for more drilling, more refineries, more transmission lines. But the big prize was an unprecedented new power allowing green groups to micromanage U.S. lands. That section creates "a new national policy on wildlife and global warming." It would require the Secretary of the Interior to "assist" species in adapting to global warming, as well as "protect, acquire and restore habitat" that is "vulnerable" to climate change. This is the Endangered Species Act on steroids. At least under today's (albeit dysfunctional) species act, outside groups must provide evidence a species is dwindling in order for the government to step in. This law would have no such requirements. Since green groups will argue that every species is vulnerable to climate change, the government will be obliged to manage every acre containing a bird, bee or flower.

It's a green dream come true, carte blanche to promulgate endless regulations barring tree-cutting, house-building, water-damming, snowmobile-riding, waterskiing, garden-planting, or any other human activity. The section is vague ("protect," "assist," "restore") precisely so as to leave the door open to practically anything. In theory, your friendly Fish & Wildlife representative could even command you to start applying sunblock to your resident chipmunks' noses.

The draft of Mr. Rahall's bill was greeted by a glowing letter from 13 environmental outfits--EarthJustice, Environmental Defense, American Rivers, the usual crew--voicing their "strong support" for the legislation. As they might, since it appears they wrote it. A May 29 letter from Defenders of the Wildlife Executive Vice President Jamie Rappaport Clark--President Clinton's onetime wilderness guru--crowed that her group "worked with committee and congressional staff as they developed" the new global warming wildlife program. She also extols the big bucks that will flow to federal and state wildlife agencies as a result of that global warming initiative.

Mr. Rahall's bill still has a long way to go. Other sections of an energy policy are still mired in the House; the Senate has yet to weigh in; and President Bush, with any luck, will veto any legislation that grants a freeze of every dirt clod in America--publicly or privately owned. Still, when it comes to rewarding their friends in the green community, don't blame House Democrats for not trying.

Read the entire article here. As always, I stand in amazement at what has happened to the Democratic Party since World War II - and their potential for doing mortal damage to our country.

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Britain Falling

American commentator Cal Thomas opines this morning that the end result of 60 years of hard left multiculturalism, social experimentation, socialist government policy and EU / British immigration policy is now culminating in the suicide of Britain. I can't say that I disagree. Britain's domestic policies and politics have become particularly indefensible as it has become more and more obvious that there is an existential threat posed to the UK by its immigration policy and its infestation by Wahhabi / Salafi Islamists. While no one is more appreciative then I of Tony Blair as a true ally of the U.S., from this side of the pond at least, looking at British domestic politics, it seems that he has done nothing to stem the suicidal tide set in motion by the UK's leaders early in the past century. To the contrary, he appears to have hastened it:

There are two ways to destroy a nation. One is from without by an invading military force. The other is from within when the people of the nation no longer embrace and promote the history, language and culture that brought it to prominence and power. Britain has chosen the second option, which is national suicide.

In addition to its indefensible immigration policy, which is rapidly diluting British culture, the nation's public schools are giving up classical teaching in history, science and English literature in favor of trendy things to make the subject matter more "popular." It isn't working. Students increasingly find the new curriculum as unpalatable as school lunches.

According to the British think tank, Civitas, no major subject area has escaped the blight of political interference. The Civitas report is called "The Corruption of the Curriculum." It says history classes teach from speeches by Osama bin Laden and what Arab media say about Sept. 11 with no balancing material from American sources. "History has become so divorced from facts and chronology that pupils might learn the new Œskills and perspectives' through a work of fiction, such as ŒLord of the Rings,'" says the report.

Science classes are dominated by debates over abortion, teaching about genetic engineering and the use of nuclear power, rather than emphasizing laboratory work. In English, the pursuit of gender and racial equality has led an exam board to produce a list of modern poems from everywhere but England and Wales, where many of the greatest writers were born. The English literature exam features 32 contemporary poems and only 16 poems written prior to 1914. Exam candidates must choose two about which to write, being careful to select one from each gender (what no gay or transgender writers?).

The Civitas report says, "The traditional subject areas have been hijacked to promote fashionable causes; teachers are expected to help to achieve the government's social goals instead of imparting a body of academic knowledge to their students."

The Daily Telegraph reports on another study which shows that attempts to make science more popular with the culturally trendy has had the opposite effect, "with pupils less interested in the subject and less keen to pursue it than they were under the previous, more fact-based lessons."

Private schools continue to teach the old subjects in the traditional manner and that is why what some are calling "educational apartheid" is becoming more obvious and a major concern. The study of science classes concludes that future scientists will be even more likely to come from these independent, or private schools, because the public school courses will leave state school students ill-equipped for further study.

A nation that lacks sufficient confidence to teach the next generation its own history, culture and even science is a nation that is unlikely to mobilize the national will to resist an invading enemy.

My own theory is that prosperity has a lot to do with this jettisoning of the past. When a nation focuses on profits, instead of prophets, and sexual pleasure instead of fidelity and virtue, it dooms itself to eventual extinction. . . .

Read the entire story here. I am an anglophile with a tremendous appreciation for the rich history of Britain and all of the good that it has done throughout the world. Britain is the mother of modern capitalism and democracy. Everywhere that Britain left its footprint the deepest during the age of empire, what the Brits left in their wake were the foundations of capitalism, a solid educational system, an equally solid legal system, and democracy. Were you find nations today that are the most free and who enjoy the highest standard of living, you will often find the footprint of Britain. The small island nation of Britain has been the great engine of historical development over the past millenium, really.

To my own thinking, it is the praetorian and avant garde left encapsulated by the BBC, that has led this charge to the cliff. But Britain's end is far from writ in stone. I still believe that, in its darkest hour, the sons and daughters of Chruchill, Nelson, Wellington, Adam Smith, William of Normandy and countless other legends of history will take back their country.

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The Costs of Freedom

Freedom has costs. Those costs must be paid up front in blood and treasure if freedom is to be maintained. We have been fortunate to have a nation and leaders who both understood these fundamental truths and who had the wisdom, foresight and imagination to know when such costs had to be paid. We live in freedom today because of the blood and gold spent in dear cost by our forebearers.

That is a historical lesson that seems to be denied today by many of our citizens and leaders. Their failure of foresight and imagination to determine when such costs must be paid, or their craven denial of the necessity of such costs, can only have one of two consequences. Either it will end in a loss of freedom to others who desire to conquer, or it will end with a much higher cost in blood and treasure to be paid at a later date. Such is the message today of David Warren in an exception essay, "No Price Too HighFor Human Liberty."

. . . it would seem that [Bush] has failed to mobilize the American electorate behind the "Bush doctrine," as declared so eloquently in the months after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington; and failed even to mobilize the U.S. bureaucracy, which has consistently resisted direct presidential orders throughout both his terms, and in such cases as the CIA and State Department, often sabotaged them. His principal allies within the administration have been successfully demonized by America's media and entertainment industry, and most have been driven out of public life. So that one wonders if anything of the Bush doctrine -- that America will fight not only terrorists but the dictators who support them -- will survive his administration.

. . . Here are several statements made at the Prague conference, by leading pro-democracy dissidents from around the world, collected by Anne Bayefsky:

Natan Sharansky, of Israel: "Today there are dissidents in many different contexts but the underlying battle is the same -- freedom versus fear. We improve our influence by uniting as dissidents against totalitarian regimes."

Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, of Sudan: "U.N. handling of the Sudanese government has legitimized it regardless of the fact this government is killing its own people. Western states are sending the wrong message -- that democracy is primarily about elections, whereas it requires much more."

Garry Kasparov, of Russia: "Russia today is a police state masquerading as a democracy where elections are theatre. The problem is that the G8 treats Putin as an equal. ... Putin must be sent a message that he cannot act like an Alexander Lukashenko or Robert Mugabe and be treated like a democrat."

Saad Eddin Ibrahim, of Egypt: "We ask Western democracies to stop supporting dictatorships and the darkness of theocrats in the name of stability and continuity."

Bassam Eid, of Palestine: "The Arab world ... is not helped by the fact that the international community applies a double-standard to it -- refusing to insist that the society, including Palestinian society, must ready itself for democracy before handing millions to the security forces of autocracies."

George W. Bush, of USA: "Freedom can be resisted, and freedom can be delayed, but freedom cannot be denied."

This last is the only statement I'll contest. In my view, and my experience, freedom can be resisted, delayed, and denied, and moreover, it can be in decline, as it is in the West, where the nanny state grows insidiously and constantly -- regardless of who is elected to government -- with the expanding power of the self-appointed elites who control our legal systems, and regulatory regimes.

It is nice to say rhetorically that freedom will prevail, but we must realize that such statements apply to heaven and not to earth. For down here, civic freedom is invariably obtained at the cost of human blood and treasure. It is not obtained by negotiating with dictators, except from a position of invincible force, and then only when one is fully prepared to use it. The very argument used against the wisdom of invading Iraq -- that it costs blood and treasure -- is itself the signal of surrender.

Aristotle once wrote that the magnificent man "does not count the cost." He understood also the virtue of prudence, the need for calculation and tact. But prudence itself is not finally calculated in blood or treasure. In the words with which my own country, Canada, was once mobilized against the Hitler menace: "No price too high!"

There is no price too high for human liberty, and those who dispute this are, and deserve to be, slaves.

Read the entire story here. This article articulately sums up how I feel about the far left of this nation. They revel in a suicidal narcissim, seeking only political power. The fact that they now control the Democratic Party, driving its Congressional leaders and would-be presidential nominees into lemming-like lock step is a national tragedy. We are fighting two wars at present - the War on Terror and an internal war against far left forces who would destroy our nation through their embrace of fanatasy and their desire to do good - as they would define it. Failure to win both wars can only lead, at best, to the precipitous and long-term decline of our nation, and at worst, the very loss of our freedom as described by Mr. Warren.

(H/T Steve Halter)

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The Far Left's Inquisition To Insure Ideological Purity

Its been clear for at least the past year that the boast of the far left cliques - George Soros's MoveOn.org, Kos, Michael Moore, etc., - that they "own the Democratic party" is not mere talk. Their initial success was the creation of wildly popular websites, particularly the Daily Kos and Huffington Post. They followed that success with raising money for Howard Dean's presidential run. And then came the purging of Joe Lieberman from the ranks of the Democratic Party. Now, every elected Democrat listens to what the far left has to say, even to the extent that MoveOn.org and other major anti-war groups meet with the Congressional Democratic leadership on a daily basis. For a Democrat not to toe the new far left's line is to come under intense pressure and to court electoral defeat in the next primary - including defeat in the Presidential primary.

This far left coup has worked a very distinct change to the terms of debate in modern politics. There is an exceptional article in The New Republic, "The Left's New Machine" by Johnathan Chait in which he thoroughly documents and analyzes this change. As he concludes, the new far left has no concern for intellecutal honesty. They are solely concerned with defeating conservatism and destroying George Bush. For the new far left, the ends justify any means. One aspect of this dispensing with intellectual honesty is that new far left does not belive in free speech and does not accept any principled dissenting voices. So vociferous is their attack on any who do not parrot their meme that Joe Klein, a classical hard left opinion columnist for Time Magazine, has devoted his latest column to complaining about this internecine inquisition:

A strange thing happened to me the day the House of Representatives voted to pass the Iraq-war-funding bill. Congresswoman Jane Harman of California called as the debate was taking place. "Look, I would love to have cast a vote against Bush on this," she told me. "We need a new strategy, and I hope we can force one in September. But I flew into Baghdad [with 150 young soldiers recently]. To vote against this bill was to vote against giving them the equipment... they need. I couldn't do that." I posted what Harman said on Swampland, the political blog at Time.com, along with my opinion that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had changed their positions and voted against the funding for the worst possible reason: presidential politics.

And then Harman changed her position. After we spoke, she voted against the funding. The next day, I was blasted by a number of left-wing bloggers: Klein screwed up! I had quoted Harman in the past tense—common usage for politicians who know their words will appear after a vote takes place. That was sloppy and... suspicious! Proof that you just can't trust the mainstream media. On Eschaton, a blog that specializes in media bashing, I was given the coveted "Wanker of the Day" award. Eventually, Harman got wind of this and called, unbidden, to apologize for misleading me, saying I had quoted her correctly but she had changed her mind to reflect the sentiments of her constituents. I published her statement and still got hammered by bloggers and Swampland commenters for "stalking" Harman into an apology, for not checking her vote in the Congressional Record, for being a "water boy for the right wing" and many other riffs unfit to print.

This is not the first time this kind of free-range lunacy has been visited upon me. Indeed, it happens, oh, once a week to each of us who post on Swampland (Karen Tumulty, Jay Carney and Ana Marie Cox are the others). A reasonable reader might ask, Why are the left-wing bloggers attacking you? . . .

First, let me say that I really enjoy blogging. It's a brilliant format for keeping readers up to date on the things I care about—and for exchanging information with them. . . . I've found that some great reporting takes place in the blogosphere: Juan Cole's Iraq updates are invaluable, Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo did serious muckraking about the U.S. attorneys scandal, and Ezra Klein (no relation) is excellent on health care. I love linking to smart work by others, something you just can't do in a print column.

But the smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere. Anyone who doesn't move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed—especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable. Some of this is understandable: the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful—and politically successful—tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

And that is precisely the danger here. Fury begets fury. Poison from the right-wing talk shows seeped into the Republican Party's bloodstream and sent that party off the deep end. Limbaugh's show—where Dick Cheney frequently expatiates—has become the voice of the Republican establishment. The same could happen to the Democrats. The spitballs aimed at me don't matter much. The spitballs aimed at Harman, Clinton and Obama are another story. Despite their votes, each of those politicians believes the war must be funded. (Obama even said so in his statement explaining his vote.) Each knows, as Senator Jim Webb has said repeatedly, that we must be more careful getting out of Iraq than we were getting in. But they allowed themselves to be bullied into a more simplistic, more extreme position. Why? Partly because they fear the power of the bloggers to set the debate and raise money against them. They may be right—in the short (primary election) term; Harman faced a challenge from the left in 2006. In the long term, however, kowtowing to extremists is exactly the opposite of what this country is looking for after the lethal radicalism of the Bush Administration.

Read the entire story here. As you can tell from the above, Joe Klein is himself far left. I note as an aside that his attempt to claim that the new far left is only aping what has gone on with moderates and conservatives is particularly disingenuous. Regardless of what labels and adjectives Mr. Klein may apply to conservatives and libertarians, there is nothing among those groups that even remotely resembles what is going on today with the new far left. Conservatives and libertarians, even those who express stongly held views that Mr. Klein finds distasteful, have never jettisoned anlayisis or intellectual honesty, nor have they conducted an inquisition of the type going on today in the left wing.

That aside, what set's Mr. Kline, a classical liberal, apart from the new far left of Kos, MoveOn.org, et al, is that Klein believes in analysis and intellectual honesty - misguided though his inellect may be. And that is what makes him a traitor to the cause of the new far left.

Klein can contiue doing what he does at Time Magazine - at least as long as he can stomach the attacks from the new far left - with little concern for his future. The same is not true of any Democratic office holder. It does not matter whether a Democrat in his campaign for the '06 election promised to support the war effort or to legislate against a precipitous withdrawal. They better now vote against the war effort or they will face implacable opposition from the new far left. That, coupled with the jettisoning of inellectual honesty from the terms of debate, has worked a fundamental change to the paradigm of modern politics for liberals, moderates and conservatives alike.

(H/T Steve Halter)

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Murtha Continues His Offensive Against Our Military In Support of Shared Al Qaeda & Democratic Goals

GODDAMNIT. SOME SENATORS AND CONGESSMEN WITH BALLS NEED TO GET ON THE SIX O'CLOCK NEWS AND IN THE EDITORIAL PAGES AND START ATTACKING THE PURE BULLSHIT COMING FROM THE FAR LEFT AND THIS WORTHLESS SON OF A BITCH, JACK MURTHA. THAT OR WE NEED TO PREPARE FOR WHAT LIES IN THE FUTURE. LEARN ARABIC.

Todays latest far left obscenity from Murtha:

Looking ahead to a post-veto Iraq spending bill, appropriators are looking at either a two-month or five-month bill, and House Defense Appropriations Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) said Thursday he thinks one can be passed in two weeks.

The Senate passed the Iraq supplemental Thursday on a 51-46 vote, and President Bush is expected to veto the conference version next week.

“We want to assess it again in two months,” Murtha said. “Two months sounds good, but it’s complicated. There was a time when I had confidence in the military, but these guys have lied to us so much. They’re so intimidated by the White House.”

WHAT THE FUCK? "THE MILITARY HAS LIED TO US SO MUCH . . . ?" THE MILITARY IS LIEING TO AMERICA BECAUSE "THEY ARE SO INTIMIDATED BY THE WHITE HOUSE?"

We have young men and women fighting and dieing overseas today and Murtha says that they are being sacrificed for lies? WHAT AN UTTERLY WORTHLESS SON OF A BITCH. BUT THAT IS THE FAR LEFT MEME NOW. MURTHA IS NOT SAYING SOMETHING THAT HE, REID, AND OTHERS HAVE NOT ALREADY SAID BEFORE WITHOUT A SINGLE CHALLENGE.

Bottom line - we as a nation are fucked. The Democrats are cowardly hypocrites that seek power regardless of the cost to America. Indeed, many on the far left will not be happy until the U.S. is beaten into a position of weakness for the many alleged sins that they see. It is absolutely fucking suicidal and cowardly beyond measure. Yet the middle and right in Congress have proven wholly ineffectual in responding to attack after attack. FDR said that just because you constantly repeat a lie does not make it true. FDR never met the politicians of today - either the far left who repeat lies in soundbite form before every microphone they can find, nor the moderates and conservatives who sit on their asses, responding one time in one hundred to the sound bites, and then not calling the far left to account. There is no emotion. There is no outrage. No, FDR did not meet these people.

Bottom line, your grandchildren will need to learn the Koran. The immediate future we face is being written by Murtha and it is a future of Reid and Pelosi domination of Washington in 08. The future that your grandchildren will face is being written by Saudi and Yemeni suicide bombers in Iraq, by al Zawahiri from a madrasa in Pakistan's NWFP, by Mickey the Fucking Terrorist Mouse in Palestine, by Iranian proxies laying EFP's on Iraqi roads, by Saudi Arabia who is spreading the poison of Wahhabism and radical Islam throughout the world, and by Khamenei who is overseeing the development of an Iranian nuclear arsenal. These are people who cannot possibly match our might. These are people who have given nothing of any value to humanity. But, with help from Murtha and his ilk, it is they that are writing our grandchildren's future. And that is a future being written in Arabic.

We have gone from a nation of FDR, Eisenhower and Patton that fully deserved the mantle of super-power in the post World War II era to a nation of weak, narcissicistic pussies who are enjoying the benefits bought and paid for in blood by men and women far more principled then most of us will ever hope to be. Every male member of my family has served in military for as far back as I can trace my family line. And as a first, my daughter is in the Army Reserves today. And most of us have been infantry soldiers. More then a little of my families blood has been spilt in foreign lands, and there are detached limbs of my family probably still feeding the flowers in France. Until today, until I heard Murtha's assault on our military, I was very proud of that service and believed every bit of the sacrifice warranted. Murtha today is the final straw.

It is clear to me now that, with but a few exceptions, the Republicans in Congress are by and large every bit as weak and narcissicistic as the far left and, if the polls are correct, a significant majority of Americans agree with them. There is just nothing left for our military to defend. No one in Congress is listening on the left or the right. No one is beating their chest and taking on the incessant bullshit of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha. Whom do you think will call Murtha to account for this obscenity today? And is there anyone reading this who believes that General Petraeus was lying to us in his last brief to the nation, or that he will lie to us or twist facts in September? Or is the obscenity of Murtha today simply seeding the ground for the Democrat's counterargument in September?

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE AMERICANS? WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE PEOPLE I AND MY FAMILY HAVE SUPPORTED FOR MORE THEN A CENTURY WITH OUR BLOOD AND SWEAT IN FOREIGN LANDS. WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

THE ONLY THING THAT I ASK FROM YOU IS TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST MURTHA AND HIS ILK. GET OFF YOUR OWN GODDAMN DEAD ASS AND START MAKING OUR IDIOT REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS RESPONSIVE. THAT WILL FULFILL YOUR COMMITTMENT TO PROTECTING YOUR COUNTRY FOR THE BENEFIT OF YOU AND YOUR PROGENY.

I have no problem with reasoned arguments about Iraq and what to do there. But there are no such reasoned arguments in Congress. There are weak kneed republicans maintaining silence. There are Murtha, Pelosi and Reid and a host of Democrats now controlled by the far left of their party who are speaking in sound bites stating just the most outrageous and outlandish untruths - for example, "General Petraeus said that no military solution is possible in Iraq, therefore we need to pull our military out." WHAT PURE UTTER FUCKING BULLSHIT. BUT WHERE IS THE RESPONSE. WHY ARE THE PEOPLE WE ELECTED AS LEADERS SITTING WITH THEIR THUMBS UP THEIR ASSES AND LETTING THIS HAPPEN?

WHY ARE NOT THE FIRST WORDS IN RESPONSE FROM SOME REPULICAN SITTING NEXT TO CHUCKIE SHUMER ON RUSSERT "WHAT PURE BULL. YOU ARE DELIBERATELY LIEING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FOR POLITICAL GAIN. YOU ARE NOT AN AMERICAN. YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A WOTHLESS POLITICAL ANIMAL."

Ladies and gentlemen, just like al Qaeda in Iraq who is getting their asses handed to them by U.S. and locals in Iraq today, we are down to the end game. The only way we can possibly lose to the likes of Islamic militants is if we choose to do so as a nation. That's it. And I fully agree with Bernard Lewis, the one man in a position to understand all the ramifications of such a loss, that the change it will work in the dynamics of radical Islam and the ramifications for America will be deep and long lasting. If that is acceptable to you, so be it. You are a cowardly fucking idiot not worthy of the freedom that others have bought for you in blood, but so be it. If it is not acceptable to you, yet you sit on your ass not doing anything, then you are a part of the problem. This is it folks. Either get energized and start having come to Jesus meetings with your elected representatives or get fucked and enjoy the next few years at the expense of the future and all that our forefathers have worked to produce. Your call.

I apologize for the use of expletives. I try to refrain from them except on the rare occasion when they are warranted. One occasion is today.

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Thomas Sowell on Left Brain versus Right Brain

Thomas Sowell has one of his always insightful articles out today, this time discussing the fundamentel differnce in paradigm between the left and the right. He opines that elite left's belief, that by their superior knowledge, they can better govern by fiat then can the unwashed masses by voting, is fundamentally and fatally flawed.

Radically different conclusions about a range of issues have been common for centuries. Many have tried to explain these differences by conflicting economic interests. Others, like John Maynard Keynes, have argued that ideas trump economic interests.

My own view is that differences in bedrock assumptions underlying ideas play a major role in determining how people differ in what policies, principles or ideologies they favor.

Millions died of starvation when the economic ideas of Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China were inflicted on the population living . . . under their iron rule. . .

Yet what the political left, even in democratic countries, share is the notion that knowledgeable and virtuous people like themselves have both a right and a duty to use the power of government to impose their superior knowledge and virtue on others.

They may not impose their presumptions wholesale, like the totalitarians, but retail in innumerable restrictions, ranging from economic and nanny state regulations to "hate speech" laws.

If no one has even one percent of all the knowledge in a society, then it is crucial that the other 99 percent of knowledge - scattered in tiny and individually unimpressive amounts among the population at large - be allowed the freedom to be used in working out mutual accommodations among the people themselves.

These innumerable mutual interactions are what bring the other 99 percent of knowledge into play - and generate new knowledge.

That is why free markets, judicial restraint, and reliance on decisions and traditions growing out of the experiences of the many - rather than the groupthink of the elite few - are so important. Elites are all too prone to over-estimate the importance of the fact that they average more knowledge per person than the rest of the population - and under-estimate the fact that their total knowledge is so much less than that of the rest of the population.

Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed.

The ignorance of people with Ph.D.s is still ignorance, the prejudices of educated elites are still prejudices, and for those with one percent of a society's knowledge to be dictating to those with the other 99 percent is still an absurdity.

Read the entire story here.

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Poison Pills, Iraq War Funding and the Factually Challenged NYT

If you want to know the likely Democratic strategies for Iraq, they usually get floated first in the opinion section of the New York Times. And what appears there today is a prescription for putting barely disguised poison pills into the supplemental appropriations bill.

This is now a race to defeat. General Petraeus has promised to brief our elected leaders in September (assuming Murtha and Pelosi can make that briefing) on the status of counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. It seems a reasonable bet, based on all that has occurred since February, that General Petraeus will be reporting significant progress.

This leaves the Democrats in a quandry. In what must be the craven low point of partisan politics, Harry Reid and Jack Murtha have already begun attacking the honesty of General Petraeus. But that will be nowhere near enough. The far left of the party is demanding an outright end to the war, irrespective of the President's veto. And given their stranglehold on Democratic politics today, they have touched off a bidding war among Democratic presidential candidates to see who can surrender the fastest - with Ms. Clinton submitting the latest bid.

There is of course no chance of such legislation passing into law, but it greatly complicates what Democrats in Congress will seek to put into the bill. The NYT tells us today that it will be benchmarks tied to penalties. There is nothing wrong with crafting reasonable benchmarks that are grounded in reality and take into account on-going hostilities. That is not what the Democrats have in mind. In articulating this strategy, the NYT attempts to deligitimize Maliki, falsely painting him as inept and partisan, unable and unwilling to do what is necessary to govern Iraq:

Whether out of blind loyalty or blind denial, most Congressional Republicans are prepared to back up President Bush’s veto of the Iraq spending bill. It is now essential that the revised version not back away from demanding that Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, finally deliver on the crucial national reconciliation measures he has spent the last year dodging.

In the last year, Prime Minister Maliki has broken ranks with the Sadrists, overseen the adoption of a major security effort targeting al Qaeda, ex-Baathists and Shia militants, he has submitted an oil sharing law that is now with Parliament, he has drafted a law to restart pensions for retired Baathists, he has proposed a de-Baathification law that is now in the cabinet, and he has travelled to Anbar province to meet with Sunni leaders. Does that sound like dodging? Ah, but one cannot expect the NYT to evince intellectual honesty. Broad slanders are more their style.

What Mr. Maliki needs to do to slow Iraq’s bloodletting is no mystery. Iraq’s security forces must stop siding with the Shiite militias.

Today, U.S. and Iraqi forces are permanently encamped in Sadr City, Sadr is in hiding in Iran, and splinter groups of his militia are being pummled from Diyala to Sadr City. All of this is occurring with the explicit approval of Maliki and has been ongoing for months. Again, the NYT does not let facts get in the way of argument.

Iraq’s oil revenue must be apportioned fairly. . . . Then there is the endless soap opera that is one day supposed to produce a fair share-out of Iraqi oil revenues. The Bush administration prematurely popped champagne corks in February when Mr. Maliki’s cabinet agreed on a preliminary draft. Now, in May, there is no share-out, no legislation and even the preliminary agreement is starting to unravel.

The oil sharing law is with Parliament and is expected to be voted on this month. It provides for oil wealth of the nation to be centrally collected then spent on a per capita basis. You cannot get fairer then that. There is no hold up from Maliki on this. The Kurds are screaming bloody murder because they want to break away and create their own state eventually - thus, they want to control the oil wealth in their sector of the country. But, the Kurds do not have the numbers in Parliament to stop this legislation. It should be voted on in the last week of May. The NYT is trying to use this one as a bad fact while they still can. Unfortunately for the NYT, all of this negative press only insures that, when the law passes, it will be hailed as a major development. That is the danger of this type of partisan overreaching in which the NYT is engaging.

Anti-Baathist laws now used to deny Sunni Arabs employment and political opportunities must be rewritten to target only those responsible for the crimes of the Saddam Hussein era.

This is a red herring. It was long thought that a quick de-baathification would draw Sunni support for the government and winnow them away from al Qaeda. Events have overtaken this one. The Sunnis have given their support over to the government for a host of reasons, and are rueing the fact that they abstained from taking real part in the elections. For Shias, they are afraid of a quick de-Baathification because of fears of Sunnis back in power. Given Iraq's history, it would be unrealistic to ignore that the Shias hold those concerns. Pushing this really will be a poison pill. Legislation is in cabinet for de-baathification. It was submitted in March. When it will be out is anyone's guess. But to put it in perspective, how about our legislation on border countrol and illegal immigrants? We have been at that one for years now, and it is nowhere near as divisive as de-Baathification.

Without these steps, Mr. Maliki and his allies cannot even minimally claim to be a real national government.

Like it or not, NYT, this is the government voted on by millions of Iraqis. How you can claim them to be illegitimate is beyond me. Well, no, its not. This is simply another attempt at deligitimizing the Iraqi government. It makes it much easier to turn your back on them when the first opportunity presents.

With them, there is at least a chance that Iraqis can muster the strength to contain the chaos when, as is inevitable, American forces begin to leave.

That is an unusual and ominous sentence. It would seem that the NYT is laying the groundwork for a quick retreat, irregardless of the situation on the ground, does it not? They will lay the blame for the chaos on Bush and Maliki, rather then on al Qaeda, Iran and their own policies. I wonder how long that fallacious construct will stand?

Mr. Bush acknowledges that these benchmarks are important. Yet he refuses to insist, or let Congress insist, that Baghdad achieve them or face real consequences.

This is laying the groundwork for the argument that refusal to put in poison pills that Iraqis cannot meet is partisanship and unreasonableness on the part of Bush.

Consider the Baghdad security drive. Last week, The Washington Post reported that Mr. Maliki’s office had helped instigate the firing of senior Iraqi security officers who moved aggressively against a powerful Shiite militia. After betting so many American lives, the combat readiness of the United States Army and his own remaining credibility on this bloody push to secure the capital, it is a mystery why Mr. Bush would allow the Iraqi leader to undermine it.

It might be helpful to reread that Washington Post article and pick it apart. There is no claim that Maliki had any role in the firing of the sixteen officers, nine of whom were Sunni. Further, most of them were relieved for corruption and/or lack of effectiveness. There is a question about a few of the firings. But to paint Maliki as a sinister force attempting to block attacks on Shia militias because of that is just baseless slander. Or, as the NYT refers to it, objective journalism.

The leading Sunni Arab party in Mr. Maliki’s cabinet is now threatening to withdraw its ministers, declaring that it has “lost hope” that the Iraqi leader will deal seriously with Sunni concerns.

This is hardball politics, nothing more. This has absolutely nothing to do with the effectiveness of the Maliki government, and everything to do with the Sunnis in government seeing an opportunity to leverage America to get concessions. See here. This is just another NYT red herring.

Mr. Bush, by contrast, sees “signs of hope” in the Baghdad security situation, urges Americans to give his failed policies more time and seems offended that Congress wants to impose accountability on Baghdad and the White House.

Thus we are given a choice, I guess, between Bush's "failed policies" and the NYT/Democrat "policies to insure failure." I think I will opt for the former.

The final version of the spending bill should include explicit benchmarks and timetables for the Iraqis, even if Mr. Bush won’t let Congress back them up with a clear timetable for America’s withdrawal. If Mr. Maliki and Mr. Bush still don’t get it, Congress will have to enact new means of enforcement, and back that up with a veto-proof majority.

This is nothing more then the NYT floating the idea of poison pills that the Democrats are trying to put back into the supplemental appropriations bill. If there was any interest at all in actually suceeding in Iraq, the NYT would acknowledge the yeoman's effort of Maliki in leading the country and would focus benchmarks on security, reconstruction and the provision of basic services.

Our military has not and will not lose this war. Only our government can do that for us. And if that is the goal, then they should do it up front and take responsiblity for it, not by trying to sneak poison pills in the backdoor.

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The Left's Knickers Are Showing, President Sarkozy

Nicholas Sarkozy, a conservative who ran for President of France on a platform of signficant economic and social change, won the election decisevely with well over 80% of all eligible voters casting their ballots. One would think that this would give him a mandate to aggressively pursue his conservative adenda. Well, one would think that so long as one were not the far left of center NYT:

Arrogant, brutal, an authoritarian demagogue, a “perfect Iago”: the president-elect of France has been called a lot of unpleasant things in recent months and now has five years to prove his critics wrong.

That is a textbook reaction of the left. Yes, Mr. Sarkozy won the election and, indeed, may even have won a mandate for his political views, but for him to be successful, he must spend a good part of the next five years of his presidency proving his critics wrong? He must pander to those who did not vote for him and who do not share the views of the majority? Ridiculous - and not to mention a sure recipe for failure. Mr. Sarkozy has the next five years to pursue his conservative agenda on behalf of France. The NYT and others of their ilk have the next five years to complain about it and write hand-wringing op-eds.

This casual observation of the NYT is truly a knee jerk reaction of the left to any victory by conservatives, regardless of the mandate. If you look how "bipartisan" is defined by those left of center, it is "to convince the other party to do precisely what we propose." One can see it in action in all the left do, whether from France to our own House and Senate. Their sense of entitlement does not end simply because some misguided voters did not see the higher truth of which they are the guardians. In America, when that happens, it is invariably accompanied by ridiulous charges of voter fraud or intimidation (though these same left of center types seem to have no problems with voter intimidation when it comes to paying back big labor).

Do read the entire article here. Ahhh, the left, thy name is intellectual dishonesty.

Update: Sigmund, Carl & Alfred find related faults with this NYT story.

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Handicapping The Iraq War Funding Negotiations .

Today's Washington Post reports on the initial steps by all parties to come to a conclusion on the badly needed funding for the military in Iraq. The Democrats have agreed to drop their more egrigous positions legislating defeat on dates certain during the next year. That said, it seems pretty clear that the Democrats are far from done trying to poison the well.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who but a little more then a week ago called the Iraq war "lost" and the surge "failed," is making an amorphous demand now that any agreement will have to "effect war policy" and "transition" the mission in Iraq. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, still vociferously clinging to an alternate reality in which the war in Iraq is somehow seperate and apart from the larger war against al Qaeda and radical Islam, reiterated her position that she is committed to "ending the war."

Maryland Congressman Steny Hoyer is calling for bench marks with significant reductions in aid if the bench marks are missed. Bush has already indicated a willingness to discuss such benchmarks. In all liklihood, negotitations will center over what bench marks to use, how to quantify them, and what will be the adverse consequences for failing to meet them. And there, the Democratic devil will be in the details.

As to the major political benchmarks that both parties have long discussed - the oil law, the de-baathification law, and the federalism issue - the first two are in various legislative stages, and the latter issue of federalism will likely be rendered substantially moot by resolution of the oil law.

In a very significant development, the oil law has been reported out of the cabinet and will be voted on this month. Actually, if it is approved, it will go a long way to answering the federalism question that is also hanging out there. The oil law would collect the oil profits within the central government and require that they be spent or granted to the provinces on a per capita basis. The Kurds, who dream of a seperate Kurdistan state and want to control the oil and the oil wealth in their provinces, are screaming bloody murder at this. But with less then 60 seats in the 275 member Parliament, it seems certain they will be unable to stop it. Further, I would imagine that the pressure on them from the Bush administration to accept this one as is will be enormous.

The de-baathification law has been submitted by Maliki to the cabinet. This law is still on track. Prior reports claimed that the law would be D.O.A. because Grand Ayatollah Sistani criticized it. Those reports were untrue. Hopefully the law will be reported to Parliament before their proposed summer recess, however truncated that may end up being.

The one benchmark no one is talking about is possibly the most important. It is reconstruction and the provision of services - water, sewage, electricity, health care - into each area that is secured by Coalition Forces. Clean running water and 24/7 electricity will likely do more to bring peace and stability to Iraq then any other single thing the government could do. If anything, that should be the lasar focus of Maliki and the U.S. government. How much do you want to bet it does not get mentioned in the negotiations?

All of the other "bench marks" being tossed out by the Democrats now seem likely to be poison pills designed to force defeat by the back door. Specifically, they are bench marks such as "quelling religious violence and disarming sectarian militias," as suggested by Hoyer.

One, those proposed benchmarks are the whole purpose of the counterinsurgency strategy now being overseen by General Petraeus. Two, both defy anything but the most speculative of quantification. Three, because this is a war and month to month success is not guaranteed -- al Qaeda, Syria and Iran are unwelcome players in this too -- it would make no military sense to use these as benchmarks. To put it in perspective, it would be akin to requiring the Army to retreat from Europe after the D-Day invasion because the Germans launched a significant counter-attack at the Battle of the Bulge.

It is one thing to use as a bench mark whether the Iraqi government is setting up any systemic block in the way of "quelling religious violence and disarming sectarian militias." At this point, there is nothing to indicate that Maliki is doing that. Regardless, looking to those benchmarks from the stanpoint of systemic blocks would make sense. But I seriously doubt that is what Hoyer has in mind. And any attempt to go beyond that would be a gross intrusion into the decision-making arena of the military commanders on the ground.

It is too early to tell just how far the Democrats will go in trying to insure defeat and retreat. Certainly, the increasingly dominant far left of the party - motivated seemingly in toto by varying combinations of generic anti-war sentiment, hatred of all things Bush, and the partisan politcs of electoral victroy in 08 - will be satisfied with nothing less then the defeat that Harry Reid has already proclaimed. Given that the party leadership is so thoroughly in the far left camp, look for the Democrats to do all they can to prevent the surge from succeeding between now and September, and look for them to try and backdoor provisions in these negotiations likely to produce defeat through very ambiguous standards coupled with signficant penalties.

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Be Careful When Confronting the Left With Unpleasent Facts . . .

They respond . . . and respond, and then respond some more, just all with very little coherence and an overabundance of vitriol. Or to put another way . . . it's not nice to show facts that suggest the hypocrisy of the Goracle. See here. I guess if you are rich enough to afford the carbon credits while the rest of us have to drastically change our lives, you get a free pass from a certain segment of society.

Hattip: Instpundit

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The Far Left - Let No Voice Be Heard But Their Own

The last time the Democratic Party went to the far left, it culminated with the nomination of George McGovern for President, circa 1968. It proved disastrous in the long run for the Democrats. Is there any reason to believe that a hard turn to the left will result in any different consequence now?

The far left are every day speaking louder and louder, and all members of the Democratic Party are listening with uneasy attention. The first real demonstration of the far left's new found power was the successful inquisition directed at ousting Joe Lieberman from power, thus insuring ideological purity. Now, the far left feels they hold the trump card over most, if not all Democrat office holders. The party of Roosevelt and Truman is now the party of Kos, Moveon.org, Michael Moore and George Soros.

A hallmark of the far left seems to be that speech should only be free if it is in concordance with their own deeply held views. Certainly, the hallmark of free speech and open debate is precisely that -- you seek out others whose views differ, and you debate them. Not so for the far left, and today is but the latest example.

The Nevada State Democratic Party is pulling out of a controversial presidential debate scheduled for Aug. 14 in Reno and co-hosted by Fox News, according to Democratic insiders.

The debate was being hosted by Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio, the Nevada State Democratic Party and the Western Majority Project.
. . . .
The state party has been under pressure from progressive activists across the country, led by MoveOn.org, to cut its ties with the debate.

According to MoveOn, more than 265,000 people signed a petition sent to the Nevada State Democratic Party.

To his credit, Harry Reid had the correct take on a debate hosted by Fox News --

In announcing the event, a statement posted by the state Democratic Party has Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) offering high praise of the debate partnership with Fox.

“This is more great news for Nevada,” he said in the statement. “I'm happy FOX News will be a partner for the August presidential debate. Western issues will be a major focus of this debate in particular. With FOX News as our partner, candidates will have an opportunity to not only speak to Nevada voters, but voters across the West who will be instrumental to electing a Democratic president in 2008.”

In other words, Reid looked forward to reaching out to the conservatives and moderates who make up the Fox News viewer base -- which just happens to be the largest in Cable News.

But such was not to be allowed in the far left corner of the world dominated by Kos and MoveOn.org. Harry Reid proved once again his lack of any principles and, as the shrill cries came from the far left, he quickly folded. Reid now allegedly shares "activist concern about the event."

I personally think this is suicidal. Not that I am complaining, mind you. The ever greater drift to the left of the Democratic party left me behind a decade ago. But those voters still in play - the swing voters who do not share the purity of the belief of the far left -- are watching. And grossly ideological acts like this which both cast a pall over freedom of speech and evince a refusal to countenance any other opinion to be heard cannot be good for the Democratic Party.

Update: The following official statement from Fox News appears on Drudge:

News organizations will want to think twice before getting involved in the Nevada Democratic Caucus which appears to be controlled by radical fringe out-of-state interest groups, not the Nevada Democratic Party. In the past, Moveon.org has said they ‘own’ the Democratic party — while most Democrats don’t agree with that, it’s clearly the case in Nevada -- David Rhodes, VP

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Free Speech - Not Quite

If a news organization does not shill for Democrats, then it is not a legitimate news organization. Well, at least not according to the Kos kids, MoveOn.org, and several other of the far left. They believe that any such news organization is unworthy and must be silenced. Which has the liberals once again demonstrating how they view the concept of freedom of speech -- that speech should only be free if it is in consonance with their own beliefs.

In that vein, the far left -- who more and more seem to be in total control of the Democratic Party -- are demanding that Fox not be allowed to host a debate among Democratic primary candidates for President. And when the far left makes demands, all current members of the Democratic Party listen. Joe Lieberman is excluded from that group, of course, following the far left pogrom to insure ideological purity. But not such other luminaries as Harry Reid or John Edwards. Edwards has been the first candidate to jump on the far left side of the bandwagon, stating that he will not attend the debate hosted by Fox news.

Edwards' campaign said the involvement of Fox News, which is often accusedby liberals of having a conservative bias, was part of the decision to pass on the Aug. 14 debate in Reno. . .

The two Democratic presidential frontrunners, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, have not indicated whether they will attend the Nevada debate. .

Online activists and bloggers quickly hailed Edwards' decision as a victory in their campaign to urge Nevada Democrats to drop Fox News as a partner. MoveOn.org Civic Action says it has collected more than 260,000 signatures on a petition that calls the cable network a "mouthpiece for the Republican Party, not a legitimate news channel."

Fox News Channel vice president of news David Rhodes issued a statement calling it "unfortunate that Sen. Edwards has decided to abandon an opportunity to reach the largest mainstream cable news audience in America." On the language of the petition, Rhodes has said: "Everyone has a right to free speech."

Democratic Party officials and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid initially touted the partnership with Fox News as an opportunity to reach out to a different bloc of voters. But in a letter posted Wednesday on the party's Web site, Democratic Party Chairman Tom Collins said Reid now shares activists' concerns and "has asked us to take another look." . .
. . . .
"The Fox debate should just be canceled and a more legitimate news source should be found," Green said.

Read the rest of the story here.

The bottom line is this: If anyone ever tells you that the left in America are or would ever be the best protectors of our rights -- and I mean those rights explicitly set out in the Constitution -- then they are being something even less then dishonest. Open your eyes and time after time, you will see the left do all that they can to suppress any speech not in agreement with their own. This is but the latest example.

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A FAR LEFT INQUISITION to insure ideological purity. If there is any doubt that the far left wing of the Democratic Party is bent on -- and succeeding -- in taking over the Democratic Party, then please read this from the Washington Post about their attacks on "centrist" democrats and how it is altering their politics.

Update: These comments from Powerline:

On the front page of today's Washington Post, we learn that "liberal bloggers" have made a "target" of centrist (sort of) Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California. This is the kind of story that some conservative bloggers used to argue shows the destructive influence of the liberal blogosphere on the Democratic party. But that was before some conservative bloggers started doing the same thing to Republican
members of Congress.

But at least conservative bloggers don't get quoted making bombastic pronouncements like this one from the power-crazed (but to-date impotent) "Subcomandante" Markos of the Daily Kos -- "Absolutely, we could take her out."

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