19 April 2008

As he campaigns with the weight of a deeply unpopular war on his shoulders, Senator John McCain of Arizona frequently uses the shorthand “Al Qaeda” to describe the enemy in Iraq in pressing to stay the course in the war there.

“Al Qaeda is on the run, but they’re not defeated” is his standard line on how things are going in Iraq. When chiding the Democrats for wanting to withdraw troops, he has been known to warn that “Al Qaeda will then have won.” In an attack this winter on Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic front-runner, Mr. McCain went further, warning that if American forces withdrew, Al Qaeda would be “taking a country.”

Critics say that in framing the war that way at rallies or in sound bites, Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is oversimplifying the hydra-headed nature of the insurgency in Iraq in a way that exploits the emotions that have been aroused by the name “Al Qaeda” since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Of course! The simpleton has not understood the hydra-headed nature of the insurgency in Iraq. Well, my fellow academicians, that's that...we can bring all the troops home now. I, Professor Barry, know every combination and machination of the problem in Iraq, and giving up is the best thing we can do now.

I am ordering my commanders to bring all of our troops home by next Friday. One of them dared to tell me that this could not be done, but I reminded him that the military was under civilian control--MY civilian control, I am The Decider now--and while I might listen to my commanders, I was also known for sleeping through sermons and I didn't want any disrespect out of him.

In longer discussions on the subject, Mr. McCain often goes into greater specificity about the entities jockeying for control in Iraq. Some other analysts do not object to Mr. McCain’s portraying the insurgency (or multiple insurgencies) in Iraq as that of Al Qaeda. They say he is using a “perfectly reasonable catchall phrase” that, although it may be out of place in an academic setting, is acceptable on the campaign trail, a place that “does not lend itself to long-winded explanations of what we really are facing,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, research director at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Oh...Mr. McCain does know better, after all. He's just not academic enough on the trail. Of course...that's why Professor Obama will be better.

But some students of the insurgency say Mr. McCain is making a dangerous generalization. “The U.S. has not been fighting Al Qaeda, it’s been fighting Iraqis,” said Juan Cole, a fierce critic of the war who is the author of “Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi’ite Islam” and a professor of history at the University of Michigan. A member of Al Qaeda “is technically defined as someone who pledges fealty to Osama bin Laden and is given a terror operation to carry out. It’s kind of like the Mafia,” Mr. Cole said. “You make your bones, and you’re loyal to a capo. And I don’t know if anyone in Iraq quite fits that technical definition.”

Whoops, Professor Cole says if we can't find someone in Iraq who doesn't fit, then we must quit.

On alternate Tuesdays the two professors meet to complain about McCain mentioning Iran's role in the whole affair. He says Iran is helping al-Qaeda, they chorus, when everybody we know says Iran is Shia and al-Qaeda is Sunni, and everybody knows that's that, no cooperation possible. We are professors; we know things.

At this point I gave up and joined the move on philosophy; I moved on. Only Liberals can note the hydra-headed nature of the insurgency while at the same time failing to note what's at the other end of the necks. Good God Gertie, and we're thinking about electing a Liberal professor to the presidency? Wright as his spiritual advisor and Juan Cole as his Islam advisor? Now I really am worried.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi soldiers swooped on the Basra stronghold of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday, saying they had seized control of his militia bastion where they suffered an embarrassing setback in late March.

The dawn raid by government troops on the Hayaniya district of the southern oil city was backed by a thunderous bombardment by U.S. warplanes and British artillery. ...

Maliki, himself a Shi'ite, has threatened to ban Sadr's mass movement from political life if the cleric does not disband the Mehdi Army. In response, Sadr has threatened to formally scrap a ceasefire he imposed on his militia last August, a move that could trigger a full-scale uprising.

You may want to note that the U.S., British and the democratically elected government of Iraq are working together here to eliminate a private militia from a specific part of the country.

Actually, Professor Cole said, I don't know if anyone in Iraq quite fits that technical description.

And technicalities, Prof. Barry chimed in quickly, mean everything. Okay, troops, you can go home now.

Lesson Two: Resort to McCarthyism.

Discredit your opponent by associating him or her with someone who is strongly disliked or deemed disreputable.

It matters not that your opponent neither shares nor is influenced by that person's ideas or behavior. The association, if presented skillfully and persistently, may be enough to create doubt about the opponent.

Case in point: Link Obama with controversial figures to call into question his fitness for the presidency. Sen. Joe McCarthy did it by impugning the patriotism of innocent Americans. It worked for him -- for a while.

Guilt by association is being tried again.

With any luck, Mr. King figures you won't notice that he just pulled the McCarthy trick, himself. If you find somebody criticizing Obama by linking him with his associates, link them with McCarthy. Neat.

Will it work? Who linked Obama with Pastor Wright for 20 years? Why, Barry Obama did. When did he become Barack, anyhow? Why is calling him Barack okay but Hussein not? Barry Hussy Obama, instead? Anyhow, calling a critic a McCarthyite is exactly the McCarthy technique in action, but Mr. King apparently figures he's presenting it skillfully enough that you can't tell.

Smoothly, he links Hillary with McCain, Buchanan, Limbaugh, and the talking heads on Fox TV.

The people with whom you choose to associate voluntarily, matters, especially when that association is prolonged and intimate. Maybe the association with the radical bomber from the Weather Underground wasn't fair, but on the other hand you have to wonder why Obama completely left out his later association during the course of his explanation? Frankly, I'd suspected a little McCarthyism, myself, until that curious omission from his explanation, along with the innocent characterization as an English professor. In this case, it isn't the association in question as much as it is the explanation...quite a lot like Hillary's Bosnia adventure. It isn't really about what she claimed as much as it is her explanation about it...such as it has been.

At some point the listener concludes that Hillary simply lied. And as the number of questionable associates mounts, one has to conclude that the explanations for those associations is of more interest than the people involved.

Obama's explanations, like Hillary's, are what are beginning to sound strained and false. When hubby Bill stepped in to help, suggesting that maybe when we were old and up too late that we'd misspeak, too, he made things worse. Hillary later admitted that she said things that she knew to be false...but she didn't say WHY! And that's what we wanted to know.

And it's no different with Obama, although his supporters are trying to make us believe it is, somehow.

The Obama campaign also dismissed a candidate questionnaire from his 1996 run for the Illinois state Senate that showed he supported legislation to "ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns."

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said an aide, not Mr. Obama, filled out the questionnaire and that some of the answers did not reflect Mr. Obama's views then or now.

So what are we to believe of this explanation? That people fill out things for Obama that he doesn't know about? Just like he didn't know about his pastor's "controversial" statements until they were brought to his attention afterwards? Doesn't the repetition of "I didn't know" strike you as a curious qualification for a man seeking the presidency?

Sadly, Mr. King falls for the race thing, telling an illustrative story about the treatment accorded former black slave Frederick Douglass when he tried to speak for himself, using him as an example for:

Right...white folks won't vote for an uppity black, especially a former slave; racism at its finest, Mr. King. Congratulations. Condoleeza Rice and Clarence Thomas might not agree with you, but hey, what do they know? Oprah? Bill Cosby? Too big for their britches and paying the price.

And, choicest of all, what was it that the black community first wondered about Barry Obama? Louder, I can't hear you... Right. The question was whether Barry was black enough to get their support.

There's your racism in action. Colin Powell, what was the knock on him? That he wasn't really black any more, the 'real' blacks complained? Yeah, I remember. What was the name of the white bigot who tried to bring down Clarence Thomas for appearing uppity?

The truth is that Obama is suffering for being 'uppity' in exactly the same way that John Kerry did, and for the same reasons. Also the patrician GHW Bush when he was perceived as being out of touch because he didn't recognize the scanner at a supermarket check-out, or have any idea what the price of staple grocery items was.

That's the lesson for you young folks to learn. Along with the Democrats. If you want to bill yourself as "the party of the people" then for God's sake run a person of the people sometime and quit pretending. Adlai didn't make it, either...remember?

I was reminded of one of Obama's curious statements by this Washington Times item:

What do you suppose Obama imagines is happening with "straw purchasers" who "dump" guns? No criminal is in business to dump something for less money than he paid for it, any more than any legitimate businessman is. I mean, this is one of those academic things which sounds good, but doesn't work out to be true in real life. Even a criminal who steals a gun, thereby getting it for free, doesn't later give it away for nothing when he wants to pass it on. There's a market price for guns on the street in the inner cities, just like anywhere, and people don't buy guns to "dump" them.

What...they have to make sure they take the children away from the right set of parents? And isn't there any kind of civil rights violation going on here?

Of course, Mr. Obama is more vulnerable to being labeled "out of touch" with Middle American values than Bill Clinton was. Unlike Mr. Clinton, Mr. Obama did not grow up in a small Middle American town. A description of the attitudes of mostly white factory-town voters that sounds candid when it comes from Mr. Clinton can sound condescending when it comes from Mr. Obama.

That's the argument Hillary Clinton was trying to make last weekend. Democrats lost when John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale or George McGovern seemed to be too snooty, stuffy, wooden, remote or removed from the lives of ordinary folks. And, it must be said, Democrats won when the Clintons helped cast the elder George Bush in the same aloof terms.

What seems to be attempting to be made allowance for in Obama's case, at least, is the fact Obama, however nice and smart and cool he may be, actually IS out of touch with the things he did not grow up sharing. It's not his fault, but that doesn't mean it isn't a fact, just the same.

Black people like to complain that white people simply are incapable of understanding "the black experience". That's fair enough. But that works both ways, too. Oh.

To underscore what a Regular Guy-Person she is, the New York senator held her own weekend blue-collar tour of regular-people places. They included a bar in northern Indiana where she was cajoled into a beer, pizza and a shot of Crown Royal, a fine Canadian whiskey.

A few journalists saw a geographic irony there.

If you'll recall, I made a remark the other day about the type of bar she had to be in which would serve Crown Royal as their boilermakers, but this is the first time I've seen anyone else mention it, even if Page does only because he sees the geographic irony because of fair trade implications, a different point than mine.

There are a couple of reasons for drinking boilermakers. One is because the drinker wishes to get drunk faster than he can on beer alone, but he actually prefers to drink beer rather than whisky. The second is because the whisky served in that type of bar (boilermakers are not exactly your common drink at the bar on the Top Of The Mark in San Francisco) is usually cheap, aged no more than 4 years if even longer than last month, and the beer chaser is to cut the awful taste of the hard booze. And the burn in your throat.

Crown Royal, on the other hand, is more like Jack Daniels...sippin' whisky that you drink for the flavor, as well as the effect. You'd never make a boilermaker with Jack Daniels.

My God, man, that would be like adding either water or ice to The Macallans!

Curiously enough, another point I made about that hasn't been mentioned by anyone else, so maybe it isn't as important as I thought. But Obama's remarks behind closed doors struck me as quite a lot like talking about the Pennsylvania people behind their backs. If he had made those same remarks in a speech given openly in Pennsylvania, would they have had the same effect? I tend not to think so.

FRIENDS of Sen. Chuck Hagel, the Senate's sharpest critic of President Bush's Iraq pol icy, say there is no chance he will endorse a Democrat for president this year. That doesn't mean, however, that Hagel necessarily will back the Republican candidate, his friend John McCain. That could depend on whether McCain devises an Iraq exit strategy. Hagel and McCain, who occupy offices in the same second floor corridor of the Russell Senate Office Building, have been spotted conferring on two recent occasions.

A footnote: Although the conservative Hagel is an unlikely running mate for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, he conceivably could end up as secretary of defense for either Democrat.

I hope he doesn't get ANY kind of job in the McCain administration! I am not among Hagel's friends, obviously.

Many Democrats would like to see a military man as Obama's running mate, and specifically mention retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni. Zinni is a critic of Bush's national-security policies. Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark is a vice-presidential prospect who, unlike Zinni, has a little political experience. He ran for the Democratic nomination in '04 and actually won a primary (Oklahoma).

If I'm nervous about Obama's presidency, I'm terrified of an Obama/Clark administration!

SENATE Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy hasn't backed down from giving "anti-Catholic comments" as a reason for not acting on the nomination of Federal District Judge Robert Conrad of Charlotte, N.C., to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. But Leahy said he was willing to look again at the views of Conrad, who is a devout Catholic.

Leahy raised Conrad's criticism of Sister Helen Prejean, who in her book "Dead Man Walking" denounced traditional elements of the Catholic Church. Leahy, who also is a Catholic, told this column he based his view on what Conrad wrote in the January/February 1999 issue of Catholic Dossier. The senator added that he'd take a closer look at Conrad's article.

...all executive and judicial officers...shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

And Senator Leahy is the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman, a Democrat, and a Disgrace!

Indeed. Senator Obama’s remarks about poor dumb bitter rural losers “clinging to” guns and God certainly testify to the instinctive snobbery of a big segment of the political class. But we shouldn’t let it go by merely deploring coastal condescension toward the knuckledraggers. No, what Michelle Malkin calls Crackerquiddick (quite rightly — it’s more than just another dreary “-gate”) is not just snobbish nor even merely wrongheaded. It’s an attack on two of the critical advantages the U.S. holds over most of the rest of the western world. In the other G7 developed nations, nobody clings to God’n’guns. The guns got taken away, and the Europeans gave up on churchgoing once they embraced Big Government as the new religion.

How’s that working out? Compared to America, France and Germany have been more or less economically stagnant for the last quarter-century, living permanently with unemployment rates significantly higher than the U.S. ... Obama and far too many Democrats have bought into this delusion, most thoroughly distilled in Thomas Frank’s book What’s The Matter With Kansas?, whose argument is that heartland voters are too dumb (i.e., “moronic muppets”) to vote for their own best interests.

Europeans did “vote for their own best interests” — i.e., cradle-to-grave welfare, 35 hour work-weeks, six weeks of paid vacation, etc — and as a result they now face a perfect storm of unsustainable entitlements, economic stagnation, and declining human capital that’s left them so demographically beholden to unassimilable levels of immigration that they’re being remorselessly Islamized with every passing day. We should thank God (if you’ll forgive the expression) that America’s loser gun-nuts don’t share the same sophisticated rational calculation of “their best interests” as Thomas Frank, Obama, too many Democrats and the European political establishment.

This is the part I liked best, and maybe you can compare it with Obama's intemperate remark:

Were I a Kerry voter, though, I’d feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets. The self-righteous, gun-totin’, military-lovin’, sister-marryin’, abortion-hatin’, gay-loathin’, foreigner-despisin’, non-passport ownin’ red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest d*** in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land “free and strong.” -- Keith Reade, a writer for the London Daily Mirror the day after the 2004 presidential election

I think a healthy society needs both God and guns: it benefits from a belief in some kind of higher purpose to life on earth, and it requires a self-reliant citizenry. If you lack either of those twin props, you wind up with today’s Europe — a present-tense Eutopia mired in fatalism. A while back, I was struck by the words of Oscar van den Boogaard, a Dutch gay humanist (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool). Reflecting on the Continent’s accelerating Islamification, he concluded that the jig was up for the Europe he loved, but what could he do? “I am not a warrior, but who is?” he shrugged. “I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.”

More on Obama's curious explanation of the Weather Underground man he barely knew, from Michael Barone:

The Weather Underground attacked the Pentagon, the Capitol and other public buildings; Ayers was quoted in the New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001, as saying, “I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough.”

It was at Ayers’s house that Obama’s state-senate candidacy was launched in 1995...

Now isn't it curious that Obama managed to forget that? Just like you think it's hard to believe that Hillary could forget not being under sniper fire, isn't it equally hard to believe that Obama would forget whose house he used to launch his state-senate candidacy?