David Horowitz and Ron Radosh Attack Diana West and American Betrayal

Folks will remember I attended the Diana West book signing last month. It was a lively event and I was excited to meet Diana.

At the time I'd read a couple of chapters of the book. I'm frankly not well read in the historiography of Communist Party infiltration of the U.S. government, although from my own training I thought that some of Diana's conclusions were quite broad, especially on WWII strategic issues and the origins of the Cold War in Europe. Indeed, I mentioned to Diana that I thought her book was very "bold" and that I'd be interested to see the reactions among academic historians.

Unfortunately, this isn't what I had in mind.

It turns out that former Communists-turned conservatives David Horowitz and Ronald Radosh have launched a vicious, personal and ad hominem attack on Diana and American Betrayal. And right off the bat I have to say that any writer/scholar is going to face criticism and pushback against their work. But in an ideal world such criticism comes with an abundance of collegiality, reflecting normative expectations of elevating the community of scholars and scholarship. But with Horowitz and Radosh the attack is actually the exact opposite. It's an attempt to destroy any scholarship that isn't the acceptable form of anti-communism. This is conservative political correctness of the most extremely ugly kind.

Lots of interested parties are weighing in on this, and the heated exchange has seen a flurry of salvos issued at FrontPage Magazine, PJ Media, with Diana responding at her blog. But to be clear, at this point it's not wether Diana's book is right or wrong on facts and interpretations. It's that she's being treated as shabbily as can be, and sadly this is by people I've long held in very high esteem.

Let's start with Diana's initial, shocking email exchange with the folks at FrontPage. See, "If Frontpage Will Lie about This, What Won't They Lie About?" Diana was responding to Radosh's attack on her book at Horowitz's website, which included a nasty disclaimer falsely alleging that Diana refused to publish a response to Radosh at FrontPage. Check that link for the full post. (And note that Horowitz pulled his website's initial glowing review of the book, written by Mark Tapson, "MARK TAPSON ON DIANA WEST’S “AMERICAN BETRAYAL”.") But here's the exchange:

The email sequence starts at the bottom. I note that Horowitz cc'd his email (immediately below) to three other people -- presumably to display his cleverness.

On Aug 7, 2013, at 1:08 AM, david horowitz wrote:

Dear Diana,
Our decision to remove the review of American Betrayal was not because it offered an incorrect opinion that we wanted to suppress. The review was removed because the reviewer was as incompetent to provide an informed assessment of your book as you were to write it.
David [Horowitz]

From: jamie glazov
Subject: Fwd: review of your book
Date: August 6, 2013 7:41:00 PM PDT
To: David Horowitz

I guess we're not friends anymore.

From: Diana West ...
Date: Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 9:38 PM
Subject: Re: review of your book
To: jamie glazov

Dear Jamie,
What gall. You and your crew behave like little totalitarians, suppress an "incorrect" opinion of my book, and, now that you have your "correct" reveiw at the ready, ask me to dignify your nasty tactics by engaging in civil debate. If I deem it worth my while to respond to the Radosh review, I will find another outlet.
Diana

On Aug 6, 2013, at 9:41 PM, jamie glazov wrote:

Dear Diana, I just want to give you a heads up that our review of your book, written by Ron Radosh, will be going up on our site at 9:30pm Pacific time this evening (12:30am Eastern).

David would like me to pass on to you that you are most welcome to write a response to this review, and to feel free to write at length to defend your position (but not longer than the review itself).

Sincerely, Jamie.

I've placed Horowitz's email in bold as the condescension and contempt for Diana is really astonishing.

And the exact same contempt bleeds across the page at Radosh's angry review at FrontPage, "McCarthy on Steroids." He's so fired up that he posted another piece at PJ Media even before Diana was able to respond, "Why I Wrote a Take-Down of Diana West’s Awful Book."

And then on it goes. Here's David Horowitz, "Editorial: Our Controversy With Diana West."

There's also a review by historian Jeffrey Herf, "Diana West vs. History." And then Ron Radosh lashes out again, "Diana West’s Attempt to Respond."

And then back over at Diana's blog, "If Frontpage Lies about This, They'll Lie about Anything, Pt. 2," and "'Professor' Radosh Gets an 'F'."

Again, I'm still reading and evaluating Diana's book, and I expect to be reading more books in the genre of Soviet espionage against the U.S. My argument here is that the attacks on Diana are unscholarly and unprofessional. Nothing here works to elevate the community of scholars above the routine bilge we navigate on a daily basis in the blogosphere. There's a prodigious amount of research that went into American Betrayal, and I'd expect that the work would be seen as advancing an important debate and offering much needed provocation in our current era of official state-sponsored ignorance and the media's capitulation to daily Orwellian lies.

In any case, Robert Stacy McCain, who's very well versed in the works on Communist infiltration in the U.S., has weighed in at his blog, "Diana West Dissed by David Horowitz?" And Edward Cline has this, "FrontPage's Spitballs Strike Diana West":

Why would the editors remove Tapson's review? Because it contradicts Radosh's in substance and in style, in truth, and in honesty. The removal of Tapson's review speaks volumes about the motives of FrontPage's editors. Instead of issuing a statement to the effect that while they respect Tapson's views on West's book, there is another perspective and here is Mr. Radosh's, and even providing readers to a link to Tapson's review. But to remove a contradictory and controversial article is a confession of intellectual weakness and moral turpitude. The editors do not wish readers to compare the Tapson review with Radosh's. They wish to play Big Brotherish Ministry of Truth games with readers' minds.

In his rambling, Alinskyite article, Radosh expects West to have read or consulted every book ever published whose subject was FDR's conscious, insouciant, or unwitting complicity in the preservation of the Soviet Union. He claims she didn't read this or that authority or author. Her knowledge and command of the field of Soviet-American studies ought to have been encyclopedic, and if it wasn’t, then, as far as Radosh and his editors are concerned, she should be shot down, discredited, and her work consigned to a dustbin.

Reading his purported review, I was constantly reminded of that old legal saw, "When did you stop beating your wife?" "But I never beat my wife." "Prove it." "I can't prove a negative." "Too bad. Let the implied charge be entered into the minds of the jury." "Objection!" "Objection overruled."

Reading Radosh's "review," one is first knocked silly by the highly personal animus he nurtures for West. It colors his purported review and does him no favors, and certainly, as West herself points out, does nothing to lend his reputation as a neocon any credibility. I could not shake loose the impression that Radosh was attempting to defend Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, and even Stalin from West's charges. The invective present in his long screed is demonstrable and there for all to see who choose to see.

But rather than attempt to counter Radosh's allegations of West's incompetency and illiteracy – which in itself would require a book-length treatment, something I am not willing to undertake because the soundness and value West's book speak for themselves – I will simply stress that FrontPage's editors have shown their dishonest and manipulative hands by removing Mark Tapson's review. That is an unconscionable and unforgivable journalistic and moral crime.

There's more at the link.

And see the Lonely Conservative, "Front Page Mag vs. Diana West."

And also Kathy Shaidle, "Ron Radosh takes issue with Diana West’s ‘American Betrayal’." And note Kathy's update:

UPDATE: Andrew Bostom sent me two articles critical of Radosh’s reviews of new books about McCarthy, as a sort of “consider the source” thing. So I will check those out.

And yet more from Ruth King, "RON RADOSH: REVIEW OF DIANA WEST’S BOOK “AMERICAN BETRAYAL”….SEE NOTE PLEASE."

The Attacks on American Betrayal: An Update

I linked earlier to Diana West's WND article in which she argues the attacks on her book threaten her very livelihood. Things are heated, so it's logical that she's been both busy and aggressive in smacking down the various salvos against her book.

To call this an "academic debate" at this point is pointless. The behavior of Ron Radosh, in particular, reminds me more of a mafia kingpin eliminating gangland rivals than of a dispassionate analyst clarifying the historical record. It's out of hand.

It turns out Conrad Black has a new criticism up at National Review, "Defaming FDR," and Radosh was quick to send Diana a "collegial email" to give her the heads up:




Diana responds here, "Another Day, Another Attack on American Betrayal."

Plus, it turns out David Horowitz pulled out the big guns for another shot on Diana at Diana. See the big piece from John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, at FrontPage, "Was Harry Hopkins a Soviet Spy?"

It took me a little while to get through that one, it's so detailed. It's very scholarly though, and completely avoids ad hominem arguments, and is thus a vast improvement over the harsh screeds Radosh has been blasting.

And finally, Robert Stacy McCain jumped back into the debate, "Major Jordan, Carroll Reece, Birchers, Buckley and the Attack on Diana West":

I lamented this controversy when it first arose, and declared myself committed to defending Diana West, and remain resolute. Radosh and Horowitz say that they have serious reasons as conservatives for their crusade against American Betrayal, and despite my general admiration for their work, I think they are misguided in this effort.

Whatever West’s errors, she doesn’t deserve this treatment, and I think serious people need to ask what could be so dangerous about West’s book that it has engendered such extreme hostility.

RTWT.

An Evening With Diana West – July 10, 2013 – Luxe Hotel, Los Angeles

As this post goes live, I'm on the road to Diana West's book signing tonight in L.A., "EVENT: American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character – An Evening with Diana West – July 10, 2013."

It should be interesting. I'm reading the book now, an excellent read: American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character.

And don't miss Ed Driscoll, "Interview: Diana West on the Cold War and American Betrayal."

I should be back online late tonight.

Why Academics Hate Diana West

I'm getting a kick out of this.

Vladimir Bukovsky and Pavel Stroilov have a long essay on Diana West's American Betrayal at Big Government, "WHY ACADEMICS HATE DIANA WEST."

Recall that when I met Diana at the book signing in Los Angeles, I mentioned to her that I'd be especially interested to see the response to her research from professional historians. I suggested that her thesis was "bold" and that academic historians would react strongly. Little did I know how strongly, especially in the case of nutjob Ron Radosh. Diana got a kick out of recalling our exchange this morning on Twitter.

If you haven't read it, visit Amazon to pick up your copy, American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character.

Back From Diana West's Book Signing

It was a pleasure to meet Diana West at the book signing last night. She gave a stimulating talk and the crowd reception of her book was phenomenal.

I took exactly one photo, and it's expressively representative

And see Mark Tapson's review of the book, here. And the Amazon book page is, here.

@RSMcCain At Diana West's talk and book signing in L.A. #AmericanBetrayal @Instapundit pic.twitter.com/IyN4PVvSAu
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) July 11, 2013

The Latest on the Bitter American Betrayal Dust-Up

Diana West has a new roundup on her battle with FrontPage Magazine, "American Betrayal: New Links."

And she reports that her older brother, Jed West, tried to comment at the website but was banned. Here's the post at Facebook.

Diana posted a shout out for my essay on Twitter the other day:

@davereaboi Hey, it's a barrel of monkeys, @rsmccain ! Kudos to @AmPowerBlog for tackling and encompassing: http://t.co/1dIDCUBeT1

— Diana West (@diana_west_) August 10, 2013

And I do hope Robert Stacy McCain updates his comments on the debate. ICYMI, he's got a review of American Betrayal at Viral Read, "Top FDR Aide Hopkins Was Soviet Agent; Book Examines ‘Betrayal’."

Meanwhile, Wes Vernon offers an enthusiastic review, "The 80 year sell-out of America."

David Horowitz Responds to Diana West

And to her supporters.

At Big Government, "What Difference Does It Make?' A Response to Diane West":

Let me be perfectly clear: There is no disagreement between West and us over whether the Roosevelt administration was infiltrated by Soviet agents, or whether pro-Soviet dupes and fellow-travelers were influential and affected administration policy. Radosh and other conservative historians whom West chooses to trash actually pioneered the work of tracking these Soviet agents and pro-Soviet influences, and analyzing their impact. There is also no disagreement about the infiltration of the Obama administration by Islamists or the Obama-Hillary support for the Muslim Brotherhood, America’s mortal enemy. The issue between us is not political in this sense, and it would be helpful if West and her followers would acknowledge that and stop treating our disagreement as political treason.

The real question for us is this: Does it matter if conservatives regard Lend-Lease and D-Day as Soviet plots, and describe allied wartime decisions--however mistaken--as being orchestrated not by Roosevelt and Churchill and their generals, but by Joseph Stalin?

Continue reading.

It's his utter condescension that bothers me, but the whole thing should be winding down by now.

I'll be reading more widely on these issues now (the left's treachery), so that's one upside of the debate.

Added: Diana's got a new piece up at WND, "In Defense of My Livelihood."

Diana West: "The Rebuttal: Defending 'American Betrayal' from the Book-Burners"

Diana's publishing her response to the attacks from the David Horowtiz/Ronald Radosh cabal, and I'm happy to announce that she's been gracious enough to include one of my essays in her compilation.

At Diana's blog, "FLASH: Now Available! The Rebuttal: Defending American Betrayal from the Book-Burners."

Click to RTWT at the link, although here's the list of patriots she's included:

I have published both my rebuttal, which originally appeared in three parts at Breitbart News, and a selection of these essays written in my behalf in a new book, The Rebuttal: Defending American Betrayal from the Book-Burners. Authors include Andrew Bostom, Vladimir Bukovsky, Donald Douglas, Edward Cline, M. Stanton Evans, Ruth King, Clare M. Lopez, Ned May, R.S. McCain, Takuan Seiyo, Cindy Simpson, David Solway, John L. Work and more.

And check Amazon, "The Rebuttal: Defending 'American Betrayal' from the Book-Burners."

(In Kindle here.)

And ICYMI, see the astonishing essay right now, "BUKOVSKY & STROILOV ON AMERICAN BETRAYAL."

Recognizing the Wrong People — Implications for U.S. Intervention in Syria

An essay on Diana West's book, American Betrayal, from Clare M. Lopez, which was apparently yanked from the Gatestone Institute's homepage after first being published.

At Diana's blog, "Clare Lopez: Recognizing the Wrong People."

It's not clear what happened, but I like how Ms. Lopez extrapolates from FDR's recognition of the murderous Soviet regime in 1993 to the foreign policy fiascos of the current, Muslim-infiltrated Barack Hussein administration:

As the world confronts the next horror of innocent Syrian men, women, and little children, hundreds of them apparently, killed in late August 2013 by a rocket barrage of the deadly chemical weapon, sarin, the U.S. and the world once again have the opportunity to react rationally, soberly, and with core U.S. national security interests uppermost in consideration. It seems most likely that the Iranian-and-Hizballah-backed regime of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad is responsible for this latest war crime, and the outcry to empower his al-Qa'eda- and Muslim Brotherhood-dominated rebel opposition has become overwhelming. U.S. naval forces are positioned near Syria in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, pending a White House decision on U.S. action. Yet, even as one side of this intra-Islamic sectarian civil war is getting the worst of it, with more than 100,000 casualties racked up so far, and no end in sight, with chemical weapons against civilians introduced into the conflict, there has never been a more critical need for rational, sober-minded thinking about where U.S. interests and responsibility lie. While a 2012 Presidential Intelligence Finding for Syria authorized the extensive clandestine CIA, financial, and Special Forces training support that has been channeled to Syrian rebels (jihadis and non-jihadis alike), in the months since then, any decision to expand that support, now that chemical weapons have been used against civilians in a large-scale attack, demands a significantly better informed assessment of the probable beneficiaries of such assistance than has been the case to date.

Any decision to deploy U.S. military force beyond a punishing strike against the specific Syrian base and military unit that carried out this chemical weapons atrocity must take into consideration the consequences of an al-Qa'eda and Muslim Brotherhood victory in the Syrian civil war. It is hard to see how enabling the replacement of Iranian proxies and Shi'ite jihadis in Syria with Sunni jihadis aligned with al-Qa'eda and the Muslim Brotherhood will advance either U.S. national security interests in the region or those of our closest allies, Israel and Jordan. Providing generous humanitarian assistance to civilian victims is urgent and right; but, before America recognizes any more totalitarian-minded enemies of genuine liberal democracy, it would do well to enlist common sense, good judgment, and a judicious measure of national self-interest. It is high time we stopped empowering those who wish us ill.

Previously on Diana West here.

Syria Withdrawal and Push for Border Wall Demonstrate Trump's 'America First' Worldview

Leftist media outlets have been slobbering all over themselves the last 24 hours, with a concatenation of news events they hope will damage the White House.

Actually, a lot of this is good news. The Mattis resignation isn't out of the ordinary at all. The economy's actually strong and markets are betting on the future, especially Federal Reserve moves that could dampen growth. Fact is, final 3rd quarter numbers show the economy humming along at 3.5 percent growth. Travel numbers for the season are at record numbers and it should be a booming Christmas shopping season.

For the leftist establishment take on Mattis see NYT, via Memeorandum, "Defense Secretary Jim Mattis Resigns, Rebuking Trump's Worldview."

And for the America First viewpoint, make sure you're following Diana West on Twitter:

There is nothing to win in the Islamic world and everything to lose at home. https://t.co/398cEasuM7

— Diana West (@diana_west_) December 21, 2018

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria and build a border wall instead marks a key moment for his 'America first' view":

Trump's decision to withdraw from #Syria and build a border wall instead marks a key moment for his '#AmericaFirst' view: #ThankYouTrump #SyriaWithdrawal https://t.co/15SlZSdHwM @diana_west_

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) December 21, 2018

President Trump, in a pair of tweets Wednesday summarizing his worldview, justified his decision to order American troops withdrawn from Syria while promising that the military would instead put resources into building the wall he’s long espoused along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” Trump tweeted, shortly before his press secretary announced that “we have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.”

That declaration from Trump came shortly after another Twitter missive in which he declared that “because of the tremendous dangers at the Border, including large scale criminal and drug inflow, the United States Military will build the Wall!”

The joint tweets offered perhaps the clearest distillation to date of Trump’s “America first” policy: a simple and abrupt vow to disengage from one of the world’s most nettlesome conflicts, with a potentially premature declaration of victory over the militants of Islamic State, also known as ISIS, coupled with an unlikely promise that the world’s most sophisticated fighting force would be deployed to build a literal fortification around the homeland.

The order to withdraw the roughly 2,000 troops currently in Syria provided the latest example of how Trump’s instinct to turn inward, whatever the risk and costs to the United States’ influence and reputation abroad, may clash with the views of the generals and foreign policy experts who serve inside and outside his administration.

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, for example, a retired four-star general who once commanded American forces in the Middle East, was pushed aside by President Obama for advocating more forceful engagement in the region. Pentagon officials over the last two years have repeatedly clashed with Trump’s desires to limit the kind of muscular U.S. role in the Mideast that Mattis has advocated in the past.

Trump’s announcement raised fears among national security professionals that he might follow the Syria decision with a troop drawdown in Afghanistan, something he has long wanted to do.

Either exit involves a strategic gamble by Trump and could also cost the president politically if Islamic State violence resurges or the region destabilizes during the 2020 election campaign.

“It is a major blunder,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). “If it isn’t reversed, it will haunt this administration and America for years to come.”

As is often the case, many officials worked Wednesday to mitigate the immediate impacts of Trump’s declaration, by slowing the withdrawal timeline and following his instructions only approximately. Others who have grown accustomed to Trump’s splashy promises and the fluidity of his decision-making cautioned that Wednesday’s announcement may not come immediately to fruition or could be tempered by the time the military implements it.

Trump’s about-face came only weeks after some of his own advisors said U.S. troops would remain in Syria until Iran, a key backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, agreed to remove its own troops from the country. That expanded mission appeared to reflect the wishes of anti-Iran hard-liners, including national security advisor John Bolton, rather than Trump’s views.

A senior administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity put the matter bluntly. Asked about the cascade of recent statements by Bolton and others vowing to stay in Syria as long as Iran remained engaged, the official said that Trump is doing what Trump wants to do.

“The issue here is that the president has made a decision,” the official said. “He gets to do that. It’s his prerogative.”

The official conceded that the Islamic State threat has not been eliminated from the region beyond Syria’s borders, even if the militants have been significantly hobbled inside.

Some of Trump’s closest allies in the Republican Party oppose his plan...

Still more.

Freedom or Tyranny: Toward Ideological Reckoning

From Melanie Phillips, "The Clash of Uncivilizations":

The frenzy over the participation of BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question Time this week has been a classic case of failing to identify the real elephant in the room. By fixating on the ‘far right’ as the supremely evil force in British public life, the mainstream political class has failed to grasp that a half-baked neo-Nazi rabble is not the main issue. There is another more lethal type of fascism on the march in the form of Islamic supremacism.

The Islamists, or jihadis, are intent upon snuffing out individual freedom and imposing a totalitarian regime of submission to religious dogma which erodes and then replaces British and Western values. Now these two types of fascism are doing battle with each other — and with the white working class and lower-middle classes caught between them. For it is the intense anger of these people with the fact that — as they see it — they are the ignored victims of the jihadis that is driving them into the arms of the BNP.

There are, of course, many factors fuelling BNP support. Most broadly, increasing numbers at the lower end of the social scale feel the mainstream parties are ignoring their most pressing concerns. Most of these anxieties involve British national identity: uncontrolled immigration, multiculturalism, the loss to the EU of Britain’s ability to govern itself. Most toxic of all, however, is the threat from Islamic supremacism and the concern of the disenfranchised white voters that the political establishment is supinely going along with the progressive Islamisation of Britain.

All around them they see the establishment responding to Islamist bullying with acts of appeasement. Jihadis parade on the streets threatening to behead infidels — but it is white objectors whose collars are felt by the police. The mainstream political parties are all petrified of saying anything about either the steady encroachment of Islam into Britain’s public space or the linked phenomenon of mass immigration.

So the BNP have been handed an extraordinary electoral advantage: it can tell voters that it is the only party prepared unequivocally to denounce such things. The rise of Nick Griffin is intimately related to the unchecked march of Islamism in Britain. The BNP is, in one sense, merely the other side of the jihadi coin.

It is highly relevant that Griffin is an MEP for North West England — and did not stand in the old National Front power base around London. His party’s new appeal is based on a new power base — the north-west and Yorkshire. Research by academics at Manchester University reveals that support for the BNP is highest in areas of high Pakistani and Bangladeshi concentration — but significantly, not where there are concentrations of Indians. Strikingly, BNP support actually falls away steeply in Afro-Caribbean areas.

So to try to damn the BNP as racist misses the point by a mile. Not that the accusation is untrue — despite its attempt to rebrand itself, the BNP remains a racist party with strong neo-Nazi overtones. But it attracts votes talking about religion and culture. Crucially, it is cynically using the Islamisation of Britain as cover for its animus against all Muslims and non-white people.

There are many British Muslims, after all, who are a threat to no one, who want to enjoy the benefits of a secular society and human rights and are themselves potential victims of Islamism and sharia law. But the BNP seeks to elide this distinction. It hates not just Islamism but all Muslims; indeed, it has seized upon the widespread concern over Islamic extremism to morph seamlessly from Paki-bashing into Muslim-bashing.

The fears it exploits are those of ordinary white folk in areas of high Muslim immigration who have watched the transformation of their neighbourhoods from communities of people like themselves into a landscape they no longer recognise. The voters the BNP are seeking are bewildered and distraught that no one in authority seems to notice or care — and that they are dismissed as ‘racists’ for expressing such concerns.

It is this asymmetry of anger which helps the BNP so much. Those who this week seemed to be risking an aneurysm over Griffin’s TV appearance either dismiss the jihadis as an exaggerated problem — or, on occasion, even march behind their incendiary and hate-driven banners. There is no Griffin-style outrage over the regular appearances in the media by the fanatics of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas supporters or Iranian-backed jihadis, even though they endorse terrorism and the extinction of human rights.

Liberal society cannot see them as a threat because, under the prevailing doctrines of multiculturalism and moral relativism, minorities can never be guilty of prejudice or bad deeds. Only the ‘far right’, it appears, can be racist. It is not hard to demonstrate that Islamism is a real and present danger not just to democracy, but to groups such as women, gays, Jews, apostates and liberal Muslims. Yet liberals appear to recognise fascism only if it has a white face.

There's more at the link, but that comment above -- "There are many British Muslims, after all, who are a threat to no one, who want to enjoy the benefits of a secular society and human rights and are themselves potential victims of Islamism and sharia law" -- perfectly captures my thinking on assimilated, even functionally secular, Muslims. In Britain right now, but really no less in this country, if one follows the reporting from anti-Jihad bloggers, a conservative would immediately be denounced as a Nazi by protesting Islamist terrorism with a sign like the one above. The sorry implication is that the radical Islamization of society goes unchecked (for fear of alienating "minorities"); and further, far-right groups become even more extreme in their reciprocal denunciations. That then feeds the media's infatuation with "racists," and the cycle continues on once more. But frankly, those who are doing the best work to combat the true racist Muslim fanaticism are those most willing to speak out against it -- and I would argue that in respectable company it's mainstream neoconservatives who're most willing to call it like they see it. And that includes Melanie Phillips, who when speaking out against "Londonistan," is most likely lumped in with the BNP by her opponents nevertheless, no matter what anti-racist clarity she presents.

And as always, stateside the race card is being slapped down more than ever. If you missed it, go over right now and read Diana West's analysis of the recent Rush Limbaugh controversy -- "Blackballing Conservatism," an essential analysis.

(And by the way, Larisa Alexandrovna continues to pimp out the scourge of "racism" so aggressively she's got race-baiting rug burns to show for it).

So to be clear: I don't hate Muslims, and I don't wish Islam to go to hell. I do think that folks should be to willing to say uncomfortable things about Islam -- like, at its fundamentalist base, it's a "religion of victory." And also, if we're going to fight the Islamists, we're going to need way more clear thinking and differentiation on the threat if the West is to win the battle of public opinion (and the battle over demonic, debilitating political correctness).

Image Credit: Saber Point, "Europe's March to Cultural Suicide."

The Coming Prop 8 Show Trial

Some folks might remember Diana West's phenomenal post on gay marriage totalitarianism from November 2008, "The Stage Is Being Set." As Diana writes there, on the campaign of intimidation and harassment against El Coyote's co-owner Marjorie Christoffersen:

The mainstream media have so far failed to get across the intensity of the ordeal that supporters of Prop 8 may now be subject to--something I realized on coming across this extraordinary blog account of a meeting at the legendary restaurant El Coyote in Hollywood, not far from where I grew up in Laurel Canyon. The meeting was between the elderly Mormon owner, who donated $100 to support Prop 8, and Prop 8 opponents, who are threatening a boycott, and it is as soul- grinding as something out of Soviet show trial history.

It's worth reading the whole thing.

I remind readers of this to highlight how the radical left's campaign of intimidation has now moved all the way to the U.S. federal court system. Michelle Malkin has the details, "The Anti-Prop. 8 Mob Strikes Again":

Yesterday, liberal California Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued an unprecedented ruling that will put the trial involving a challenge to the Prop. 8 same-sex marriage ban on YouTube ....

I generally support more sunshine in all government proceedings. But the judge’s unusual method of securing video coverage is extremely troubling. This isn’t a sincere educational effort to provide transparency to the public. It’s a flagrant attempt at making Prop. 8 a show trial — and intimidating Prop. 8 backers who will be called to testify.

Ed Whelan at Bench Memos lays out Walker’s agenda thoroughly. Start here, then go here, and here. Writes Whelan: “Walker is rushing to override longstanding prohibitions on televised coverage of federal trials so that he can authorize televised coverage of the Proposition 8 trial. Televised coverage would generate much greater publicity for ringmaster Walker’s circus. And, whether Walker desires the effect or is somehow blind to it, televised coverage would surely also heighten the prospect that witnesses and attorneys supporting Proposition 8 would face harassment, intimidation, and abuse. In his eagerness to stack the deck against Proposition 8 and its defenders, Walker has resorted to procedural shenanigans and outright illegality.”

Former federal district judge Paul Cassell weighs in: “Without getting into the merits of Proposition 8 or the legal challenges to it, I agree with Whelan that it seems highly unusual for a judge to authorize televised proceedings for this particular case as part of some new “pilot” project to see how televised proceedings work. Surely if there were going to be a test run of a new idea, it should be in a more run-of-the-mill case rather than this particular highly controversial one. Moreover, it does appear that public comment process has been completely short-circuited.”

More at the link.

The Left's Big Lie: A Chronology of Progressive Deception in the Aftermath of Tucson, 1/8/11

I'm intrigued by the meme this weekend on the blame-righty progressive left. It turns out that Gateway Pundit mistook the closed-captioned "applause' text at the Phoenix Jumbotron for audience prompts at last Wednesday's Obama-Democrat Tucson exploitation rally. And then faster than you can despicable smear, Charles Johnson slams Gateway as a "dim bulb" troglodyte of the "wingnut blogoshpere." But Gateway's Jim Hoft came back with a withering reply: "Figures. Charles Johnson’s Crackpot Hero Arrested For Threatening to Kill Tea Party Leader on National TV." Heh. That's good.

And staying with it for a moment, compare these two screencaps from Little Green Footballs. When James Eric Fuller threatened some conservatives at this weekend's ABC News town hall in Tuscon, Johnson chalks that up to the "Wild West" atmosphere in Arizona. Completely understandable, no doubt.

But just the other day we had news that Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington State received death threats, but that was the work of raving right-wing "lunatic." And Charles chirps in with feigned superiority: "I wonder how the wingnuts will try to explain this one away."

That's typical for the morally bankrupt "husky pony-tailed blogger."

But there's more.

I cruised over to Althouse earlier, and she has a hilarious post picking up on Whiskey Fire's demonic ramblings at Firedoglake: "Hoft gets this through Instadouche and, unsurprisingly, Ann Althouse, who has been looking at pictures again, something that never ends well..." The Whisky Fire proprietor is Thers. He's a classic progressive and morally-bankrupt attack blogger from the TBogg "F*ck Me Pumps" school of racist misogyny and character assassination. Or, as Ann responds, "Heh. I got FireDogLake writing in the anti-Althousiana genre." The link goes to FDL:

Jim Hoft, The Gateway Gobshite, the Dollar Store version of Michelle Malkin, is very possibly the dumbest wingnut on this or any other Internet. To be sure, he has his competition (SASQUATCH ISRAEL!). But he is rather special!

Notice that? The "competition" is me, from last September and my "Sasquatch Israel" gaffe. I noticed some traffic coming in last night from the Sadly No! asshats, and I chuckled this morning at finally figuring out the source. Even better is that I'm lumped to not only with Jim Hoft, but the great Michelle Malkin. Now that's some bragging rights, yo!

But stupid is as stupid does, as they say. Or in this case, as evil does, and you can't touch the left on that. Because as I've been documenting, along with many other voices of moral clarity on the right, the aftermath of Tucson has revealed a depth of progressive depravity thus far unknown to man. I have yet to see a single progressive publish an apology or retraction for their baseless smears that came within minutes of the shooting on January 8th. It's been truly sickening. Here's Thers, for example, at Whiskey Fire, alleging "heated right-wing rhetoric" for the death and destruction at the Gabrielle Giffords event:

Busting wingnut rhetoric for these latest shootings wouldn't be like busting Al Capone for tax evasion. It would be like busting Al Capone for fucking jaywalking.

The reason the Tucson nightmare fearfully resonates is not because of a simple causal relationship between say Glenn Beck and direct incitements to murder, but because "conservatives" have an insatiable appetite for crazy bullshit.

Are wingnuts opposed to incitement to murder because, well, it's incitement to murder, or because they're afraid being caught out doing it might lose them Valuable Political Points?

Dunno! But once you've gone ahead and, say, made excuses for state-sponsored torture, if you want the benefit of the doubt, fuck you.

These people have no shame.

Whiskey Fire posted these lies on Wednesday, fully four days after the shooting. By then it was fully known of Jared Loughner's insanity. But the Democrat-rats smelled a political opportunity, and that night we saw crowds erupt in applause for President Obama at the progressive's University of Tucson progressive pep rally that should have otherwise been an evening of somber reflection. It was just that morning that Zach Osler, a "best friend" to the deranged Loughner, indicated at ABC News that the shooter "didn't listen to political radio, he didn't take sides, he wasn't on the left, he wasn't on the right":

But this is how it all works.

It's the big lie of the progressive-left, as I argued yesterday, as well as Diana West earlier, "Tragedy Exposes 'The Big Lie'":

The suppression of the facts is by no means the most dangerous aspect of any Big Lie. After all, facts don't go away even amid efforts to suppress them. All sorts of inconsistencies, impossibilities and clues remain behind, and sometimes in plain sight, for anyone who cares to look. The real threat the Big Lie poses to society comes when it is not stopped in its tracks, exposed and trashed for what it is -- a lie -- but rather accepted, accommodated and, indeed, treated as if it were the truth. At that point, a Big Lie is a big success, having created an alternate reality that turns its very targets into hapless accomplices.

Unfortunately, that last bit describes most Republicans' supine reaction to the reaction -- the Big Lie -- about the Arizona massacre ....

In the end, though, what's worse than the Big Lie itself is the failure to reject and expose it -- the failure, in this case, to identity the lie as a naked influence operation to mute conservative political expression. This failure is the crime Republicans are guilty of each time they stoop to defend themselves within the phony terms of the lie itself.

I'm not completely down with Diana's condemnation of conservative capitulation to the left's Big Lie. Politically, it would have been much worse to hold back a response in real time, just as the nihilist hordes were building up their deceits and distortions. But she's right to place the lies squarely in the longstanding tradition of leftist totalitarian utopianism. She illustrates her blog post with the image of Joseph Stalin above, and writes: "'Never mind, they'll swallow it', said Stalin, the 20th Century's first successful progenitor of the Big Lie."

Exactly.

I'll have more later.

Meanwhile, the Big Lie continues with the latest from Frank Rich of the New York Times, "No One Listened to Gabrielle Giffords" (via Memeorandum).

RELATED: "The Lies of Bill Maher — And the Epic Struggle Between Good and Evil in the Aftermath of Tucson, 1/8/11."

The Surge in Afghanistan Ends With Whimper

The New York Times has the MSM angle, "Troop ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan Ends With Mixed Results."

But see the utter truth at AoSHQ, "September 17, 2012: The Day We Gave Up In Afghanistan."

Folks like Diana West, and later Pamela Geller, argued long ago that we should get out of Afghanistan. Americans weren't fighting to win but attempting to build a nation not ready for democracy. And that was during the Bush years. Under Obama there was hope that we'd finally make some progress, but it's been a half-hearted policy there from the beginning of this administration.

Here's West's analysis from the other day:

Sniping over withdrawal dates is no substitute for grown-up discussion of the utterly and completely failed COIN strategy of nation-building on the backs of the US military, of strapping leftist, Kum-bay-a theories of "world peace" to the body armor of Americans and Australians and Brits and the rest, and sending them out into the IED-mined field of jihad. Really get to the know the people, said their commanders. Take off those ballistic glasses, and protect them from everything that can hurt them, said the generals. And dump hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain while you're at it.

The defective linchpin of this "strategy" is that there exists an imaginary Islam to which Americans and other Westerners must show fealty in order to win hearts and minds of "good" Islam, thus isolating the "bad" Islam of the fighting enemy. This is a defilement of reality that requires the widespread and permanent corruption of the thought process itself. The main result of this brainwashing has been to bring, as chronicled in this space for years now, the US military under the rules of Islam in our increasingly desperate efforts to win Afghan "hearts and minds."

I'm a bit of a wild-eyed optimist on democracy promotion, frankly. But even the best intentions will be for naught if you're just going through the motions, looking toward the next presidential election. And that's what happened during the Obama years. It's been an enormous case of moral bankruptcy, but then again, that's the story of the entire record of this administration.

Eight U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: Aggressive Attack Shows Insurgents Gaining at AF-PAK Border

It's the big foreign policy story this morning. Both NYT and WaPo have major reports. The fighting took place in the remote eastern section of Afghanistan, in Nurestan province. The news reports describe a brazen offensive featuring tribal militias making cross-border raids. From the Washington Post's report:

The U.S. military said it was not immediately clear how many insurgents were involved in the fighting. The attack involved Taliban fighters and appeared to be led by a local commander of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin insurgent group, which is run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former mujaheddin leader during the Soviet war in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

The attack took place in a sparsely populated area of forested mountains near the town of Kamdeysh. The deputy police chief of Nurestan province, Mohammad Farouq, said the insurgents intended to seize control of the Kamdeysh area and that hundreds took part in the fighting. He said more than 20 Afghan soldiers and police have gone missing since the fighting began and may have been taken hostage.

"Americans always want to fight in Afghanistan," said Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, who took credit for the attack by telephone. "If the Americans want to increase their troops, we will increase our fighters as well."

He said the battle began about 6 a.m. Saturday and involved 250 Taliban fighters. He claimed that dozens of American and Afghan soldiers were killed, along with seven Taliban fighters. Mujahid also claimed that the district police chief and intelligence chief were among the hostages, but that could not be confirmed.

I'm reminded of how I felt in November 2006. Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek's liberal but respected foreign policy analyst, published a heavy-duty essay entitled "The Drawdown Option." The piece threw down the gauntlet on the Iraq war. Go all in or get out. My response, amid the frustrations, was to give the U.S. a year to turn things around. We had face over two years of catastrophic danger in the war, and the radical left had long declared the conflict a debacle. I'm not quite there yet on Afghanistan, but the way the media's spinning this conflict - and the way the Obama administration is positioning itself for a cut-and-run -- I may well soon be.

I wrote of the stakes in Afghanistan last week, following a New York Times report indicating that the Mumbai terrorists were gearing up for a new round of conflict. See, "Another Mumbai? Qaeda-Taliban-Lashkar Ready to Strike Again." It turns out that Dan Twining, at Foreign Policy, wrote a report last week as well, "The Stakes in Afghanistan Go Well Beyond Afghanistan":

The problem with the current debate over Afghanistan is that it is too focused on Afghanistan. There is no question that the intrinsic importance of winning wars our country chooses to fight -- to secure objectives that remain as compelling today as they were on September 12, 2001 -- is itself reason for President Obama to put in place a strategy for victory in Afghanistan. But the larger frame has been lost in the din of debate over General McChrystal's leaked assessment, President Obama's intention to ramp up or draw down in Afghanistan, and the legitimacy of the Afghan election. In fact, it is vital for the United States and its allies to recommit to building an Afghan state that can accountably govern its people and defeat the Taliban insurgency -- for reasons that have to do not only with Afghanistan's specific pathologies but with the implications of failure for the wider region and America's place in the international system.

The facts are lost on congressional Democrats and the hardline antiwar left. But as I noted at my report above, a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will invite another attack on America on the scale of September 11. And both security experts and military personnel agree: "This is a moment in history we must not miss." What's missing is a committed and resolute civilian leadership to see to it that America gets the job done.

*********

UPDATE: There's now a thread at Memeorandum. Jules Crittenden's suggests an "Afghan Tet," which means that the insurgents were in fact decimated, but the press is reporting an American debacle:

Sounds a little like the Taliban would like to pull off an Afghan Tet. Rack up some bad headlines, drive down the poll numbers and panic Congress while the president dithers. You’ll recall that in the original Tet, the Viet Cong and North Vietnam won a Pyrrhic political victory. Though decimated, severely compromed as a fighting force going forward and having failed to hold any ground, they managed to turn American public and political opinion. And won.

Either way, American lives were lost, and the stakes are high, as noted above.

See also, Michelle Malkin, "The Deadly Siege at Kamdeysh." And Weasel Zippers, "Afghanistan: Eight More Heroes Die In Day-Long Taliban Attack ..."

Added: Pamela at Atlas Shrugs links, "EIGHT MORE US SOLDIERS DEAD IN AFGHANISTAN, Obama consults Mother Goose for strategy." Pamela questions not the need for the deployment, but the administration's will to fight it:

Obama has no intention of destroying jihad. He just doesn't. The man grew up in a Muslim country, with a Mulsim father and stepfather and does not reject the Islamic view but prefers it. Hence all the outrech to slaughterers.

So why would I want our most precious resource, our finest Americans, slaughtered in a sloppy, ill-conceived, fairy tale war strategy where our girls and boys can't help but end up dead. Under Obama's reckless, feckless anti-commandership, we have experienced the highest number of deaths in Afghanistan month after month since the inception of the defensive military actions in Islam's war on the US.

Interestingly, but I just saw this yesterday from Diana West, " Losing' Our Way to Victory" (via Baldilocks):

This mission demands a new line of battle around the West itself, one supported by a multilevel strategy in which the purpose of military action is not to nation-build in the Islamic world, but to nation-save in the Western one. Secure the borders, for starters, something "war president" George W. Bush should have done but never did. Eliminate the nuclear capabilities of jihadist nations such as Iran, another thing George W. Bush should have done but never did -- Pakistan's, too. Destroy jihadist actors, camps and havens wherever and whenever needed (the strategy in place and never executed by Bill Clinton in the run-up to 9/11). But not by basing, supplying and supporting a military colossus in Islamic, landlocked Central Asia. It is time, as Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely (USA ret.) first told me last April, to "let Afghanistan go." It is not in our interests to civilize it.

Both Pamela and Diana want to win, but they don't see much sense in trying to nation-build Afghanistan, and especially under a Democratic administration that's uncommitted.

To repeat, I'm not there yet. I'm with Dan Twining above who warns of the larger dangers to the international system found in continued AF-PAK insecurity. We're going to fight, sooner or later. (For more on this, see Let Them Fight or Bring Them Home, "McChrystal's Folly.")

Maybe this president will actually come around to his senses and suppport America, and I'm not saying that to be Pollyanna-ish. At the least, Obama wants to be reelected, and I'm confident -- and as I've said many times already -- success mattters, and increasing progress on the war will keep public support high.

The ball is in the president's court. See, "Success Matters: Public Opinion and the War in Afghanistan."

See also, Common Sense Political Thought, "To Fight or Fold, or Let Fester?"

10 Factors That Will Probably Determine the White House Winner Next Year

Enough with all the political speculation, here's some real political science prognostication!

From Larry Sabato et al., at Sabato's Crystal Ball, "10 Factors That Will Determine the Next President":

Here’s a thought experiment: What if Republicans nominated the 2012 version of Mitt Romney — same fundraising, same baggage, same everything — at their 2016 convention? What sort of odds would that candidate have in 2016?

We suspect the candidate would be a small favorite at the start of the campaign. He would be running against a Democrat who lacked the power of incumbency, and he would be competing in an environment where the public was ready for a change: The most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that about three-quarters of those surveyed wanted the next president to take a different approach to governing than President Obama, similar to how the public felt about how George W. Bush’s successor should act at a similar point in the 2008 campaign. It’s hard to precisely quantify, but there’s a generic desire for change that hampers a party the longer it stays in the White House. To satisfy that general feeling, a generic Republican might do the trick, which is why we cite Romney circa 2012 as an example of what could/should be enough to win the White House: A candidate who is largely average could flip a few percentage points of the national vote from the 2012 results, which is all it will take for the Republicans to win.

However, it’s quite unclear that the Republicans will produce a candidate of even the quality of Romney. After 2012, the party took a hard look at its inadequacies, producing a report that suggested the party needed to do more to reach out to nonwhite voters. Donald Trump, the GOP’s current polling leader, is not helping on that front. The Republican leadership is worried.

What follows is an exploration of 10 factors that will probably determine the White House winner next year. Some of these — many of them, in fact — suggest that the GOP should be seen as a narrow favorite. But a few factors, combined with the live possibility that the next Republican nominee will make Mitt Romney look like Ronald Reagan, indicate to us that, as we turn the page from 2015 to 2016, that the 2016 general election is still a coin flip...

Keep reading for the 10 factors.

I hope Trump's the nominee, mainly because he's so unlike Mitt Romney, particularly in that the latter might have won in 2012 if he'd have adopted some of the former's pugnacity. Conservatives need a fighter, and while Trump's not really conservative, he's definitely fighting on those issues really dear to the conservative base. I mean, Diana West is a movement conservative, as is Ann Coulter, and they see Trump as a savior. [And I forget to mention Phyllis Schlafly --- Phyllis freakin' Schlafly!] Even Michelle Malkin, who's gone a few rounds with Trump (rather nasty rounds, in fact), concedes that she'd vote for Trump if he became the nominee, primarily because he'd indeed fight to reverse the diabolical damage leftists have inflicted on this country.

See also, "Voters Seek Vengeance Against Obama's 'Fundamental Transformation of America' (VIDEO)."

British Progressives Allege Melanie Phillips Took 'Part in the Norway Massacre'

Well, no surprise, as they say.

See Melanie's blog, "A wider pathology." And she writes on Twitter:

Dozens of writers cited in Norway psychopath's ravings. So why am I being singled out? Atrocity ignites left pathology.

Yep, pathology. So clearly obvious by now. Progressives are having a psychotic field day attacking conservatives who've been standing up for freedom and democracy. And Melanie responds:

... Breivik name-checks a vast number of mainstream writers and thinkers, including Bernard Lewis, Roger Scruton, Ibn Warraq, Mark Steyn, Theodore Dalrymple, Daniel Hannan, Diana West, Lars Hedegaard, Frank Field, Nicolas Soames, Keith Windschuttle, Edmund Burke, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Friedrich Hayek, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Ghandi, George Orwell and many others; indeed, it’s a roll call of western thinking and beyond, past and present.

So why doesn’t [Sunny] Hundal refer to any of these people who have also been thus name-checked? Why has he singled me out in this way? It looks like yet another crude attempt to smear me by a writer who has long displayed an unhealthy obsession with my work (see here and here and here for example).

The Hundal reference goes to the progressive blog, Liberal Conspiracy, "Oslo terrorist cited Melanie Phillips in his manifesto." And then an update, "Compare Phillips now to her writing after 7/7." And then "Flying Rodent," another deranged blogger at Liberal Conspiracy, piles on, "What are people like Melanie Phillips calling for then?":

I think that now, more than ever, fingers need to be pointed squarely at those who have been disseminating this poisonous cack, and searching questions need to be asked.

First up – What the fuck did you think you were doing?

And back over at Melanie's blog, she concludes:

Already, through the selective and distorted use of this document and the amplification of such malevolence through Twitter and the net, a blood-lust is building. Thus I am receiving emails such as one from Carsten T Holst-Lyngaard who says:

I congratulate you on your part in the Norway massacre;

or this from Taper Collins:

blood on your hands. hope you’re happy with the effects of your anti-everyone vitriol. abhorrent.

Breivik may be one unhinged psychopath – but what is now erupting as a result of the Norway atrocity is the frenzy of a western culture that has lost its mind.

Word.

ADDENDUM: As I was about to hit publish, Melanie has just published a new essay, "Fanaticism, mass murder and the left."

The suggestion that Breivik’s behaviour resulted from political rage – let alone from reading thinkers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill or Winston Churchill – is frankly itself an opinion in need of treatment.

Melanie notes Bret Stephens and "the millenarian mindset," which I cited as perhaps the best explanation so far as to what happened in Norway. But go RTWT. Now we're getting somewhere.

Deal of the Day: Save $30 on the Fire HD 6

It's a deal at $69.99.

At Amazon, Fire HD 6, 6" HD Display, Wi-Fi, 8 GB - Includes Special Offers, Black.

Also, Save on Select Barska Safes & Optics.

More, Save on J.K. Rowling Thrillers.

See also, M. Stanton Evans, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies.

And, from Whittaker Chambers, Witness.

BONUS: Diana West, American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character, and The Rebuttal: Defending 'American Betrayal' from the Book-Burners.

Public Consistently Opposes Same-Sex Marriage

Pew Research has published a new report, "The Gay Marriage Debate: Where It Stands":

Most supporters of same-sex marriage contend that gay and lesbian couples should be treated no differently than their heterosexual counterparts and that they should be able to marry like anyone else. Beyond wanting to uphold the legal principles of nondiscrimination and equal treatment, supporters say there are very practical reasons behind the fight for marriage equity. They point out, for instance, that homosexual couples who have been together for years often find themselves without the basic rights and privileges that are currently enjoyed by heterosexual couples who legally marry -- from the sharing of health and pension benefits to hospital visitation rights.

Most social conservatives and others who oppose same-sex marriage argue that marriage between a man and a woman is the bedrock of a healthy society because it leads to stable families and, ultimately, to children who grow up to be productive adults. Allowing gay and lesbian couples to wed, they contend, will radically redefine marriage and further weaken it at a time when the institution is already in serious trouble as a result of high divorce rates and a significant number of out-of-wedlock births. Moreover, many predict that giving gay couples the right to marry will ultimately lead to granting people in polygamous and other nontraditional relationships the right to marry as well.

See also Pew's primary report, "Public Opinion on Gay Marriage: Opponents Consistently Outnumber Supporters."

I'm struck by that tailing uptick of opposition to same-same marriage in the chart above. It's not large, but the 5 point increase of those opposed coincides with the extreme left-wing demonization and outing campaign following the passage of Proposition 8 last November. Diana West argued that the brutalization inflicted on supporters of the initiative was as "soul-grinding as something out of Soviet show trial history." And if we recall what's happened in the last 8 months, no state has voted by popular majority to define marriage as including two men or two women. It's just not how it's done. Meanwhile, the survey data show that Americans favor some kind of civil unions for same-sex partners. Gay marriage is not a civil right. Further as we can see, there is some bedrock of marriage traditionalism that transcends partisanship, race, and gender. And the reality is that the radical left has been intent to virtually crucify those not kowtowing to the nihilist agenda.

Interestingly, today's New York Times features the latest example of an enduring traditionalism that rises above the stereotypical categories of radical identity politics. It turns out that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is looking to remove the Rev. Eric P. Lee, its Los Angeles chapter president. Rev. Lee is a gay marriage activist and thus out of step with not just the SCLC, but with the 70 percent of black voters in California who voted to preserve the historic conception of marriage last year. Responding to this, Darren Lenard Hutchinson, the black radical law professor at the American University, attacked the SCLC as a bigoted organization that has betrayed its "rich history of progressive advocacy."

Actually, the old-line civil rights groups have become key constituencies in the fight for the preservation of moral values in society today. Black folks know that it's a slap in the face to equate same-sex marriage rights to the horrors blacks faced through the battles of the freedom struggle. It's kind of sad to see a black professor, Darren Lenard Hutchinson, so deeply ignorant of that element of the civil rights legacy. For more on this, see Eugene Rivers and Kenneth Johnson, "Same-Sex Marriage: Hijacking the Civil Rights Legacy."

More commentary at Memeorandum.

Graphic Credit: Pew Research.

Sick: 'The Nation' Denies Harry Dexter White's Soviet Espionage

Well, this is fascinating, especially given the whole debate over Diana's West's American Betrayal.

It turns out Katrina vanden Heuvel's rag has published a review denying that Harry Dexter White ---- Franklin Roosevelt's man at the U.S. Treasury and Bretton Woods ---- was a Soviet mole.

Jonathan Tobin reports, at Commentary, "Portrait of Denial: ‘The Nation’ and Communist Spies":

You might think that having the most liberal president since Jimmy Carter would free The Nation from their commitment to keep fighting the old ideological battles. There are, after all, a host of contemporary arguments to engage in that, notwithstanding the weakness of the left-wing case, are not vulnerable to disproof by incontrovertible historical evidence as is the case with the delusional effort to defend White. Yet after so many years of pretending that Soviet infiltration of Washington in the 1930s and 1940s was a figment of the imagination of demagogic right-wing anti-Communists, keeping the flag of denial flying is their way of asserting that being left wing means never having to say you’re sorry.

Doing so can be dismissed as a mindless loyalty to their past as a publication, but one suspects there is also something else at work. Admitting the truth about Communist espionage doesn’t validate contemporary conservative critiques of other traditional left-wing positions on the economy like the minimum wage or the folly of socialized medicine and its forerunner, ObamaCare. But at The Nation, the notion that any cracks in what in another era would have been called party solidarity undermines all their beliefs still seems to prevail.

Why else would they bother beating the dead horse of espionage denial if not for the fact that doing so somehow bucks them up in the idea that the right is always wrong, even when it is obviously right.

Word.

Remember, with Democrats, it's always no enemies on the left, and that's to the dying end.

I wrote about this earlier, on Benn Steil definitive reporting on White as the ultimate Soviet mole, even more important than Alger Hiss. See, "Harry Dexter White, Franklin Roosevelt's Man at Bretton Woods, Was Communist Mole Who Passed State Secrets to Soviet Union."

Steil's book is here, The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order.