Islamic State Fighters Flee Ramadi (VIDEO)

At the Wall Street Journal, "Islamic State Militants Flee Ramadi Stronghold Amid Iraqi Offensive":

BAGHDAD—Islamic State fighters fled their last bastion in the center of Ramadi Sunday night as Iraqi security forces encircled the area and prepared a final push to clear out any remaining fighters or explosives, Iraqi officials said.

State television beamed images of people celebrating in streets across the country, though the army had not yet declared Ramadi completely under its control. A number of Iraqi leaders said they were confident the city would fall within days, if not hours.

A defeat in the capital of Anbar province, which is just 60 miles from the capital Baghdad, would be Islamic State’s third major loss in as many months to Iraqi security forces and allied paramilitary groups. Those forces retook the oil refining town of Beiji in October and in November, Iraqi Kurdish forces drove the Sunni Muslim extremist group out of the strategic city of Sinjar.

A decisive victory in Sunni-majority Ramadi could strengthen national unity and soothe sectarian conflict in the Shiite-dominated country where Sunnis often complain of discrimination. It would also augur well for the coming battle to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and Islamic State’s main stronghold in Iraq.

“My eyes are filled with tears now upon hearing that security forces managed to defeat Daesh in Ramadi,” said Sheikh Ghazi al-Goud, a member of parliament from Anbar province, using another name for Islamic State. “This is a victory for all Iraqis. Iraqis proved through the Ramadi fight that they are united, Sunnis and Shiite.”

One reason for the Ramadi operation’s slow progress has been the Iraqi government’s reluctance to include Iran-backed Shiite militia groups who have so far carried most of the fight against Islamic State. Moderate Iraqi leaders and U.S. officials worried that deploying the Shiite-majority militias to Ramadi could spark further sectarian strain, or lead some Sunni civilians to fight with Islamic State.

Iraqi troops, backed by U.S.-led airstrikes, have spent nearly three weeks fighting their way into Ramadi.

By late Sunday, Islamic State militants were fleeing Ramadi’s eastern suburbs along with their families and civilian hostages they had been using as human shields, a security official said.

Their departure came after Iraqi security forces encircled the city center and began pushing into a former government compound that had been the group’s last bastion in the city. Iraq’s military said they had occupied only one building in the government compound, a blood bank owned by Iraq’s ministry of health.

Iraqi troops picked their way through cratered city streets and booby-trapped buildings left behind by more than a month of almost continuous fighting, military officials said...

More.

Waha Bar and Grill Won't Serve Brands Promoting National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC)

At KLEW CBS 3, Lewiston, Idaho, "Waha Bar and Grill owners don't carry popular brands due to Christian beliefs" (also at Northwest Cable News, Seattle, and Memeorandum).

At the video, the homosexual extremist group GLAAD spews lies about how Waha Bar's Christian policies will lead to bullying and violence against homosexuals. This is typical leftist bull. Frankly, folks like the Waha owners are just doing what more and more Americans will be forced to do in the years ahead, as the ungodly radical leftists bully mainstream institutions into endorsing their hate and bigotry. Towleroad has more on the hateful gay extremists: "Idaho Bar Refuses to Sell Pepsi, MillerCoors Over Gay Support: VIDEO." (At Memeorandum.)

Obama Seeks to Ban People on No-Fly Lists from Buying Firearms (VIDEO)

Amazingly, the president actually acknowledged the terrorist threat. He didn't utter the phrase "radical Islam," but there was a noticeable difference in his speech. A low bar, I know. But still.

No matter though. Our strategy against Islamic State will remain unchanged, while stateside the administration is ramping up its efforts to strip law-abiding citizens of their constitutional rights.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Terrorist Threat Has ‘Evolved’ Into a New Phase, Obama Says":

President Barack Obama, in a rare Oval Office address on Sunday, outlined his administration’s intensified efforts to combat “a new phase” of terrorist threats in the U.S., aiming to boost confidence in his national-security strategy after last week’s deadly attack in San Bernardino, Calif.

Mr. Obama said the attack underscores that the threat of terrorism in the U.S. “has evolved into a new phase.”

President Barack Obama, in a rare Oval Office address on Sunday, outlined his administration’s intensified efforts to combat “a new phase” of terrorist threats in the U.S., aiming to boost confidence in his national-security strategy after last week’s deadly attack in San Bernardino, Calif.

Mr. Obama said the attack underscores that the threat of terrorism in the U.S. “has evolved into a new phase.”

“This was an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people,” he said, standing behind a podium inside the Oval Office.

The prime-time address marked a turning point in his administration’s fight against Islamic State and other terrorist groups that previously had largely played out on foreign soil. The San Bernardino massacre—the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001—shattered any sense among Americans that the battle was one waged overseas. The challenge now for Mr. Obama lies in assuring the country that the government is doing everything it can to prevent similar attacks.

Mr. Obama didn't announce an overhaul of his counterterrorism strategy or any sweeping changes in the U.S.-led military campaign in Iraq and Syria against Islamic State. Instead, he sought to reassure a jittery nation by emphasizing a boost in national-security measures designed to blunt terrorists’ ability to strike in the U.S., and in elements of his Islamic State strategy.

“We will prevail by being strong and smart, resilient and relentless,” he said.

Mr. Obama forcefully called for Muslim leaders to do more to stop radicalization.

“Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda promote, to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity,” he said.

The president also called on Congress to pass provisions he believes would further reduce terrorist threats in the U.S., including legislation that would ban assault weapons and gun sales to people who are on the terrorist no-fly list. Such an approach has some bipartisan support, but Republican leaders have opposed it, saying it would violate the Second Amendment rights of Americans who are on the list erroneously.

The president urged lawmakers to pass a new resolution authorizing the military campaign against Islamic State. That measure has stalled in Congress.

Mr. Obama called for a review of the program that waives visa requirements for foreigners from certain countries mainly in Europe and Asia. Last week, the Obama administration laid out changes to the program, which allows people from 38 countries, largely in Europe and Asia, to enter the U.S. without visas. The program will now include a check for any visits to countries that are considered havens for terrorists.

In the wake of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people, Mr. Obama spoke out sharply against legislation in Congress to halt the resettlement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the U.S. But the visa-waiver program has emerged as a potential point of agreement between the two major political parties.

While Mr. Obama called for streamlining technology that allows law enforcement to better track potential threats, he didn’t seek to renew the debate on surveillance. The administration is also looking into tackling the use of encrypted messages to plan attacks.

While declaring the San Bernardino attack, which killed 14 people and injured 21, an “act of terror,” Mr. Obama on Sunday appealed to Americans to resist reacting in ways he believes would alienate Muslims in the U.S. and fuel the extremist ideology perpetuated by groups like Islamic State...

The terrorists at CAIR are rolling over in laughter. All of this plays right into their hands. Meanwhile, law-abiding Americans are going to be increasingly targeted, on gun rights, and with a crackdown on so-called "hate speech," of which there's no First Amendment exception. Leftists don't care about the legality of their agenda, of course. It's ideology all the way down.

More.

Senior Democrats Slam Congressional Leaders After Party's Epic Thrashing in Midterm Elections

At the Hill, "Dems fault leaders for brushing off losses."

The criticisms are going to fall on deaf (and dumb) ears. With the Obama-Dems it's like a runaway train to far-left extremist oblivion.

Biden Under Pressure to Delay U.S. Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan (VIDEO)

Well, this is the administration that claims to want to "use diplomacy" and "rebuild" alliances in order to "restore America's standing in the world." 

Well, what's to restore? 

The Trump administration had, no doubt, perhaps its greatest successes in foreign policy. At the video below, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gives a somber, reasoned defense of his leadership, at both the CIA and the State Department, while serving on President Trump's foreign policy team. Pompeo notes that no American diplomats or CIA operatives were killed or bombed under his watch. He also defended the Trump administration's record at maintaining and building alliances, particularly in the Middle East, where the U.S. entered into historic agreements that have literally shifted the balance of power away from enemies such as Iran, in favor of our longtime friends and allies, especially Israel. 

Under the Trump administration, high-value and dangerous enemies intent to take out American troops and other U.S. government officials (and regular American citizens) were liquidated with very carefully-targeted actions that left minimal collateral damage (for example the pinpoint drone strike against Iran's Qassim Suleimani, the Commander of Iranian Forces, who had in the past been the Iran's leading strategist on Iran's attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and elsewhere, and U.S. intelligence reports indicated that more attacks were in the works under Suleimani's leadership). To say, as Joe Biden does a the video linked above, that "America's back" is bluster and hubris from the new Democrat administration filled with idiotic war-hawks. 

Now while I'm no isolationist, at all, I prefer to fight back when America is threatened and attacked, and screw lame "diplomacy" when U.S. vital interests are at stake. But restraining U.S. power, especially when the use of credible threats remain always in the background, is preferable to the all-out bluster approach under the new administration's foreign policy team. I mean, Pompeo notes that no new wars were hatched under President Trump, that troop withdrawals were taking place, and that in fact, it was the previous Democrat administration of Barack Obama who "lost Crimea" to Russian aggression in that southern zone of Ukrainian sovereignty, and it was the Obama administration that stood aside as Russia's "Little Green Men" launched a clandestine incursion into Ukrainian territory proper, to destabilize the legitimate government there in Kiev. 

So now we're going to KEEP troops in Afghanistan. We've been there for almost 20 years, and saying this as a big supporter of our goals in Afghanistan from the start, enough is enough. If the Taliban don't want peace, and they don't appear to be heading in that direction, abandon those losers, work with real hard diplomacy, and wield the stick of our military forces to send the big message to those backtracking on previous agreements with the U.S. government under the Trump administration that they will bear heavy costs. Maybe a few well-placed Predators drones targeting the renascent al-Qaeda ready to come out from the hillsides and safe-zones in the mountainous regions in Pakistan, will get the message that the U.S. means business, and that's without any boots on the ground. 

Everybody with a cool and calm demeanor, and personal self-honestly knows this. It's the new "globalists" in this new Biden administration who will misread the tea leaves and end up botching the current peace, and Biden himself will go down as a freakin' authoritarian and warmongering nincompoop.

In any case, at LAT, "Will Biden follow through on Trump’s plan to pull remaining troops from Afghanistan?":

WASHINGTON — President Biden is under pressure to delay the withdrawal of the remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a decision that has forced a vexing early debate within his national security team about whether ending America’s longest war will plunge the violence-plagued country deeper into chaos.

It’s a decision that Biden inherited from former President Trump, who negotiated a withdrawal timetable with the Taliban but left the final and most difficult step of actually ending the war to his successor.

Though Biden has long favored shrinking the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, current and former national security officials warn the president that even after nearly two decades in Afghanistan, the departure of U.S. forces there could lead to a resurgence of Al Qaeda, the militant group behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Biden’s national security team is looking for ways to pressure the Taliban to reduce attacks, break with Al Qaeda and return to peace talks before the final 2,500 troops are scheduled to depart in four months, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.

But senior military and intelligence officials are skeptical about prospects for an Afghanistan peace deal, contending that Taliban militants have shown little willingness to reduce violence or enter into a power-sharing agreement with the Afghan government, the officials said.

“We believe that a U.S. withdrawal will provide the terrorists an opportunity to reconstitute, and that reconstitution will take place within about 18 to 36 months,” said retired Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump. Dunford offered that assessment Wednesday, during the unveiling of a congressionally mandated study on policy options in Afghanistan.

But Biden faces at least as powerful political pressure not to put off withdrawal indefinitely — from liberals in his party as well as many other Americans who favor bringing troops home — even with the risk that terrorist groups will grow stronger.

“This is unacceptable,” tweeted Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) after hearing the study group recommendation to delay withdrawal. “Those who had any part in getting us into this 20 year war should not be opining about keeping us mired in it.”

At the height of the war a decade ago, U.S. forces numbered more than 100,000. By Trump’s last year in office, however, that figure had dropped from 14,000 to only 2,500 — the lowest number since the invasion in 2001.

At the same time, Taliban attacks on Afghan government troops have surged, along with assassinations of government officials and activists. Peace talks between the government and the Taliban that began last fall have stalled, and many Afghans have grown fearful that a U.S. withdrawal will cause the fighting to worsen.

If the U.S. pulls out on schedule, but without progress on a peace settlement, the Taliban is likely to step up its attacks on Afghan troops and suicide bombings in urban areas, officials say.

But an order by Biden to halt the withdrawal is likely to reignite the U.S. shooting war with the Taliban, extending American involvement in the two-decade-old conflict.

Another option is for Biden to announce a delay in the U.S. withdrawal, in hopes of convincing Taliban officials that their only option is to negotiate with the Afghan government.

“It’s going to be a tough call,” said a senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions who agreed to discuss deliberations under the condition of anonymity. “If we stay after the deadline, the Taliban is likely to take that as a sign that we are not leaving and start attacking us.”

The Afghanistan Study Group, a congressionally mandated panel of former military officers, diplomats and lawmakers charged with recommending a future path, called Wednesday for the Biden administration to extend the May withdrawal deadline “in order to give the peace process sufficient time to produce an acceptable result.”

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, is conducting an administration review of the withdrawal agreement signed by the Trump administration and the Taliban last February and is expected to recommend options to Biden within weeks, officials said.

Biden has kept Zalmay Khalilzad, the Trump official who negotiated the deal and has led efforts to push the peace talks along, in his post, a possible sign that Biden hopes to salvage at least some of the Trump exit strategy.

The Trump-Taliban agreement set the May deadline for U.S. forces to leave, along with more than 10,000 Pentagon contractors who play an important role in assisting Afghan troops fighting the Taliban. In return for a hard deadline on withdrawal, the Taliban agreed to halt attacks on U.S. troops, a commitment it has honored.

But Biden administration officials say the Taliban has not complied with other parts of the deal, including a commitment to seek a cease-fire and to prevent Afghan territory it controls from being used by Al Qaeda members. Taliban officials have accused the U.S. of violating the deal in carrying out airstrikes to help Afghan troops — a charge the U.S. denies.

One likely outcome of Sullivan’s review is a renewed U.S. push for a cease-fire, or at least a temporary reduction in violence, between the Taliban and the Afghan government. That would keep alive the prospect that U.S. troops could leave on schedule or close to it, several U.S. officials said.

The Biden administration “is committed to a political settlement in Afghanistan, one that includes the Afghan government,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters Tuesday. He added that any decision to reduce U.S. troops below 2,500 would be “conditions-based,” a Pentagon term meaning not tied to a fixed timetable.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III sounded out the views of Marine Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the top commander in the Middle East, in a telephone call Monday, according to a Defense official.

McKenzie and Army Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, oversaw the steep drawdown of U.S. forces last year, but are said by associates to have deep reservations about a full withdrawal.

There are also about 8,000 troops from other countries under NATO command in Afghanistan, who would also depart if the U.S. left.

During the presidential campaign, Biden promised to “bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan” and to “focus our mission on Al Qaeda” and Islamic State, extremist groups with small but entrenched followings in Afghanistan.

He has long argued that if Al Qaeda ever reemerges in Afghanistan — where it mounted devastating terrorist attacks against the United States 20 years ago — the militants could be dealt with by small special operations teams and with airstrikes, instead of large numbers of ground troops...

 

Beyond Cairo Embassy Attack, Israel Senses Wider Siege

See New York Times, "Beyond Cairo, Israel Sensing a Wider Siege":

JERUSALEM — With its Cairo embassy ransacked, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the United Nations, Israel found itself on Saturday increasingly isolated and grappling with a radically transformed Middle East where it believes its options are limited and poor.

The diplomatic crisis, in which winds unleashed by the Arab Spring are now casting a chill over the region, was crystallized by the scene of Israeli military jets sweeping into Cairo at dawn on Saturday to evacuate diplomats after the Israeli Embassy had been besieged by thousands of protesters.

It was an image that reminded some Israelis of Iran in 1979, when Israel evacuated its embassy in Tehran after the revolution there replaced an ally with an implacable foe.

“Seven months after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Egyptian protesters tore to shreds the Israeli flag, a symbol of peace between Egypt and its eastern neighbor, after 31 years,” Aluf Benn, the editor in chief of the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote Saturday. “It seems that the flag will not return to the flagstaff anytime soon.”

More at that link, and see also, Barry Rubin, "Ten Years After September 11: Who’s Really Winning the War On Terrorism." Rubin looks at the range of extremist terrorist groupings outside of al Qaeda --- Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt --- and suggests that terrorism is on the march. Israel is right smack-dab in the middle of it all. As a challenge for U.S. foreign policy, the war on terrorism is hardly won.

The Poison of Identity Politics

Following-up, "President Trump Repudiates White Supremacists: 'Racism is Evil' (VIDEO)."

An excellent editorial, at WSJ, "The return of white nationalism is part of a deeper ailment":

As ever in this age of Donald Trump, politicians and journalists are reducing the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday to a debate over Mr. Trump’s words and intentions. That’s a mistake no matter what you think of the President, because the larger poison driving events like those in Virginia is identity politics and it won’t go away when Mr. Trump inevitably does.

The particular pathology on display in Virginia was the white nationalist movement led today by the likes of Richard Spencer, David Duke and Brad Griffin. They alone are to blame for the violence that occurred when one of their own drove a car into peaceful protesters, killing a young woman and injuring 19 others.

The Spencer crowd courts publicity and protests, and they chose the progressive university town of Charlottesville with malice aforethought. They used the unsubtle Ku Klux Klan symbolism of torches in a Friday night march, and they seek to appear as political martyrs as a way to recruit more alienated young white men.

Political conservatives even more than liberals need to renounce these racist impulses, and the good news is that this is happening. The driver has been charged with murder under Virginia law, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions opened a federal civil-rights investigation and issued a statement condemning the violence: “When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated.” Many prominent conservatives also denounced the white-nationalist movement.

Mr. Trump was widely criticized for his initial statement Saturday afternoon that condemned the hatred “on many sides” but failed to single out the white nationalists. Notably, David Duke and his allies read Mr. Trump’s statement as attacking them and criticized the President for doing so.

The White House nonetheless issued a statement Sunday saying Mr. Trump “includes white supremacists, KKK, Neo-Nazi and all extremist groups” in his condemnation. As so often with Mr. Trump, his original statement missed an opportunity to speak like a unifying political leader.

Yet the focus on Mr. Trump is also a cop-out because it lets everyone duck the deeper and growing problem of identity politics on the right and left. The politics of white supremacy was a poison on the right for many decades, but the civil-rights movement rose to overcome it, and it finally did so in the mid-1960s with Martin Luther King Jr. ’s language of equal opportunity and color-blind justice.

That principle has since been abandoned, however, in favor of a new identity politics that again seeks to divide Americans by race, ethnicity, gender and even religion. “Diversity” is now the all-purpose justification for these divisions, and the irony is that America is more diverse and tolerant than ever.

The problem is that the identity obsessives want to boil down everything in American life to these categories. In practice this means allocating political power, contracts, jobs and now even salaries in the private economy based on the politics of skin color or gender rather than merit or performance. Down this road lies crude political tribalism, and James Damore’s recent Google dissent is best understood as a cri de coeur that we should aspire to something better. Yet he lost his job merely for raising the issue.

A politics fixated on indelible differences will inevitably lead to resentments that extremists can exploit in ugly ways on the right and left. The extremists were on the right in Charlottesville, but there have been examples on the left in Berkeley, Oakland and numerous college campuses. When Democratic politicians can’t even say “all lives matter” without being denounced as bigots, American politics has a problem.

Mr. Trump didn’t create this identity obsession even if as a candidate he did try to exploit it. He is more symptom than cause, though as President he now has a particular obligation to renounce it. So do other politicians. Yet the only mission of nearly every Democrat we observed on the weekend was to use the “white supremacist” cudgel against Mr. Trump—as if that is the end of the story...

Still more.

Leftists Tout Politically-Driven Intelligence Revisions on Obama's Benghazi Massacre Clusterf-k

It's the Republicans playing politics with Benghazi?

That's all we've been hearing for weeks. President Obama even went so far as to feign outrage that Mitt Romney would even question his administration's account of events. So isn't it something now that WaPo's touting some cooked intelligence reports suggesting that the CIA has found no pre-planning for the assault on the consulate. Glenn Reynolds responds with the headline, "CONVENIENT NEW REVELATIONS: CIA documents supported Susan Rice’s description of Benghazi attacks."

Yeah, that's convenient alright. Also at Instapundit:

UPDATE: Reader Ed Holston emails: “Sure looks like the CIA documents that supported Susan Rice’s description of Benghazi attacks were revised from and at odds with the CIA’s own sources who were reporting from on the ground in Libya to Langley.” He sends this: CIA report at time of Benghazi attack placed blame on militants, sources say: CIA station chief in Libya reported within 24 hours that there was evidence US consulate attack was not carried  "CIA report at time of Benghazi attack placed blame on militants, sources say":

Right.

That link at the quote takes us to the left-wing Guardian UK:

CIA station chief in Libya reported within 24 hours that there was evidence US consulate attack was not carried out by a mob.

The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi that there was evidence it had been carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, US officials have said.

It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was carried out by a mob similar to those that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the US.

Those statements have become highly charged political fodder as the presidential election approaches. A Republican-led House committee questioned state department officials for hours about what Republican lawmakers said was lax security at the consulate, given the growth of extremist Islamic militancy in North Africa.

That's an AP report that also appeared at yesterday's USA Today, "Day after Libya attack, CIA found militant links."

So it's not like this news wasn't all over the progressive fever swamps and official Washington. But checking the Memeorandum thread reveals the usual suspects of leftist liars and rogues. Check the link, but you've got socialists like Digby at Hullabaloo and the fanatical homosexual Obama-worshiper Andrew Sullivan touting this as "proof" that Susan Rice wasn't in fact lying to the American people. Well, it's too late now for the morally bankrupt left. Romney's going to crush the president on foreign policy on Monday night, and he'll be especially smart to call out the administration's disgusting deceit and duplicity.

As I said, it's not Republicans playing politics with Benghazi. It's the disgusting progressives who're now freaking out that the American public has caught on to this administration's years-long campaign of lies. Things are very ugly in American politics right now. An ambassador was killed in Libya along with three other Americans and our commander-in-chief dismisses their deaths as sub-optimal.

The reckoning's coming and it's going to be a harsh one. If Gallup is reliable, and I think it is, then Mitt Romney's the election frontrunner at this point. We've got a presidential incumbent underdog looking defeat in the face and the morally bankrupt Democrats will do anything to prop up this impostor's decadence in power.

New SIOA Ads Going Up December 17th

Pamela reports on the latest dhimmi backlash, "NY OBSERVER: QURAN ADS DEBUT IN NY 'PAMELA GELLER IS AT IT AGAIN'." The ads will run with a disclaimer, as noted at the Observer (via Memeorandum):

The MTA’s new disclaimer policy came in September of this year following an incident in which protestor Mona Eltahawy, 45, was filmed spray-painting another AFDI advertisement, which equated Muslims with savages.

The ad stated: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.” It added, “Support Israel. Defeat Jihad,” in between two Stars of David.

Ms. Eltahawy was arrested, and every single advertisement in the series was defaced by the end of the day—a fact that did not go unnoticed. The MTA addressed the issue of salacious advertising at its monthly board meeting. The MTA had previously tried to amend its advertising guidelines so it could refuse “demeaning” ads, a rule that would prohibit “images or information that demean an individual or group of individuals on account of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation,” but that modification was deemed unconstitutional. With its hands tied, it opted to include a disclaimer on ads that expressed a particular viewpoint on “political, religious or moral issues or related matters.”

“A cost of opening our ad space to a variety of viewpoints on matters of public concern is that we cannot readily close that space to certain advertisements on account of their expression of divisive or even venomous messages,” the MTA’s statement at the time read. “The answer to distasteful and uncivil speech is more, and more civilized, speech.”

Following the September incident, Ms. Geller has been busy crafting new advertisements for her campaign beginning December 17. The new ads will be plastered across at least 50 different locations, the MTA confirmed, the result of an ad buy worth more than $10,000.

“I refuse to abridge my free speech so as to appease savages,” Ms. Geller told The Observer. “Thousands of anti-Israel ads have run across the city and not one has been defaced. My ads, 10 went up in New York City, and they were destroyed in hours. You don’t agree with me, fine, run an ad. I have no problem with other people’s ideas.”

She is prepared, however, for the people who disagree with her to take out their frustration on her ads. This time around, she printed twice as many.

That's quite the comment section Pamela's got going over there. I just find it too perfect that we've got all this controversy over a simple message like Pamela's, but when anti-Israel ads run, there's never a problem. One more anecdotal piece of evidence on the left's free speech jihad. Indeed, "The Animal" attacks Pamela as an "extremist," then exhorts its readers, "you know what to do." That is progressivism for you, perfectly.

Sady Doyle Skipped Constitutional Law

In an article last month discussing the forthcoming British Royal Wedding, Sady Doyle confided that she "wasn't the only girl whose mother told her that she might marry William when she grew up." Prince William is 28 years-old, and since Ms. Sady has yet to earn her own Wikipedia entry, I can only guess that's she's roughly the same age. I also haven't the slightest clue as to Ms. Sady's educational credentials. She's listed as a participant at a "Rethinking Virginity" conference held at Harvard earlier this year. The event featured a roster of esteemed panelists, and the participants' educational backgrounds are listed nearly to a one. But we have nothing on Ms. Sady's creds. It matters only so much as to offering an explanation for the sheer mindlessness of her entry at the screencap:

She doesn't link but she's responding to my post yesterday, "Sady Doyle Cheers Penis Amputation in Sweden!" And I'm a little taken aback by her dim take. I posted a disclaimer at top so there'd be no misunderstanding (you can't be too careful these days). I haven't yet seen Sady Doyle cheer penile amputation, although the link there goes not to a reference on "fair use" but to libel law. Seems to me that a hot shot writer like Ms. Sady might have a better handle on stuff like that, especially considering the high-octane allegations she tosses off with some regularity. No doubt she's loaded up more on Gramscian postcolonial feminism than introduction to First Amendment case law. More important, though, is that she's ignored the underlying meme there on Lorena Bobbitt-style feminist resistance. Radical (and deeply embittered) feminists cheered the John Wayne Bobbitt mutilation as striking a blow against "the institution of marriage as a legal cover for the act of rape and the permanent humiliation of women." For the hardcore feminist emancipators, Lorena Bobbitt was "a symbol of innovative resistance against gender oppression everywhere." Sady Doyle obviously gets it. But she doesn't cop to it since that would be giving up the candle for the Dworkinite extremist that she is. Because let's face it: Every man is a potential assailant in the post-modern "dude friend" world of militant feminism. Read her Atlantic essay, for example, "The Boyfriend Myth." Young women who enter relationships (with boyfriends) are basically asking for it since --- stop the world! --- small percentages report having sex when they weren't in the mood and some were "verbally abused" during their relationships. Yeah, it's hard out there ...

Anyway, all of this is mostly academic. Sady Doyle is a bitter hag of a young woman. She's a totalitarian painting a brush of censorship and repression so broad that the Red Guards of China's Great Proletarian Revolution look like amateurs in comparison. Most hilarious is her aggressive campaign to avoid responding to me directly, for example by blocking me on Twitter and abjuring links to my blog. It's a sign of complete anti-intellecualism and insecurity, but that's of course typical for academic feminists that she socializes with at Harvard-sponsored post-virginity conferences featuring such high-brow panels like "Debunking the Virginity Ideal: The Feminist Response to Slut-Shaming & Sexual Scare Tactics."

Populism and the Peace Movement

Dana at Common Sense Political Thought has responded with a thoughtful essay to my earlier post, "Long Beach ANSWER Cell Mobilizes for March 21st Protest."

In "American Power Versus Populism," Dana notes that, " Dr. Douglas tends to post a lot about the behavior of our enemies in the Islamic world ... [but in his comments on the antiwar movement] it seems to me that he may have overthought the problem ..."

I may have, depending how we look at it. But let's review a bit more of Dana's essay, where he responds to my suggestion that the hardline leftist rallies and demonstrations against the "occupation" can't really be all about ending the wars abroad:

Why can’t it be all about “bringing the troops home now?” That President Obama has set a combat troops withdrawal date eighteen months into the future doesn’t mean that our friends on the left will somehow be satisfied with that; they want the troops home now!

Nor do I think that the anti-war movement has taken what he has called it’s “latest direction.” Rather, the anti-war movement, even in the 1960s, was very much a movement against the notions of power, very opposed to the idea that some people have more mower — and money — than others. From this came the simplistic notion that, in any conflict, the side perceived to have the most power is invariably the “bad guy” ....

Domestically, our friends on the left, and, unfortunately, too many people in the middle as well, see the wealthy and “corporations” as the enemy, as people and institutions which have to be brought to heel and made to pay more and more, this even though most Americans who have jobs are employed by, you guessed it, corporations!

It’s really as simple as the notions of populism, a discourse which supports “the people” versus “the elites.” Scholars have attempted all sorts of explanations concerning the origins, philosophy and strength of populism, but it seems to me to be less a philosophy than a catchall for simply envy and resentment; “He has more money than we do, so he must have cheated us somehow.”

The populist notion, which we can date back at least as far as the legends of Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor, has not always led to the best of results. Due to a constant e-mail group dispute with a lady whom I considered to be an out-and-out anti-Semite — Art and Yorkshire know to whom I refer — I decided to read Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf last year. People expect the book to be filled with anti-Semitism and racism, and it is, but through much of the book der Führer uses a populist methodology: not only are the Germans the greatest people and greatest culture in the world, but they have been unfairly cheated of their birthright and oppressed by the undeserving elites, the democratic powers of England and France, and, of course, by the Jews. Even the supposedly Jewish notion of the equality of man is but a lie by people temporarily in advantage to keep down those who really ought to be the leaders of mankind.

The problem with populism is that it is a know-nothing philosophy, assuming it could be dignified with the name philosophy. It is an us-against-them demagoguery, and the kinds or rational and realistic arguments Dr Douglas brings to the table concerning the attitudes and behavior of, say, the Palestinians really mean little or nothing: the populist both supports and identifies with the oppressed little guy, the side with less power, because he is the little guy, the guy with less power, and that is a feeling which occurs on a simplistic and emotional level.

This is an excellent discussion, and the truth is Dana and I don't really disagree all that much about the ultimate agenda of today's hardline leftist coalition.

I'd only add a couple of points, especially on populism as it relates to ideology.

Populism in the United States has never really been revolutionary. Some of the greatest outbursts of populism have resulted from a breakdown of effective governmental performance and popular disgust at the absence of clear choices between the parties. Teddy Roosevelt's probably the most important populist in the sense of rousing enough voters to nearly shatter the two-party consensus in 1912. More recently, Ross Perot very well could have won the White House had he not badly miscalculated by withdrawing prematurely from the presidential race in 1992. Other populists, of course, have tapped into some of the more irrationalist or racist strains of American politics (Ron Paul).

I'm pushing fifty, so I was still a kid during the Vietnam-era protest movement. But my understanding of it has primarily been one of antiwar activism within a period of social-cultural revolutionary change, for example, with the civil rights and women's liberation movements. To the extent that some groups at the time were genuinely radical, in the politics of the New Left and campus radicalism, much of this stuff literally died out by the time I was in high school. In the 1990s there was very little going for traditional "antiwar" groups, and in fact there was hardly any anti-government agitation during the Clinton years.

I was at UCSB throughout the period, and the idea of protests against things like the airwar over Kosovo was practically unheard of. People on the left were generally pleased with the Democrats in power, and to the extent that there were demands for a more "progressive" agenda, it was more of nuisance multiculturalism and political correctness. Indeed, today's radical left is pretty much a direct response to the Bush adminstration's policies and the ascent of conservative power in Washington. International ANSWER, the neo-Stalinist protest organization, formed just three days after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

So, from my own perspective, while it's true that there's certainly much "anti-establishment" politics to the radicalism of the Vietnam generation, the changes in culture, environmentalism, academics, and "free-and-easy" lifestyles are a largely a function of the activism of the 1960s protest generation.

I've been on a college campus, as a student or a professor, continuously since 1986. With the exception of some anti-nuclear activity in the late-1980s (some of my friends were going to the nuclear ranges in New Mexico to protest, as well as the Gulf War demonstrations), my sense is that this past few years has seen the emergence of a critical mass of anarchist-revolutionary activity on the scale of world-historical importance. Perhaps the "Battle of Seattle" anti-globalization protest in 1999 was the harbinger, but today's protest generation is more than just "bring the troops home." This is an anti-Semitic kill-the-Jews culture that seems unprecedented, and even unreal to me.

So, I'm not so much disagreeing with Dana than elaborating a bit more as to where I'm coming from and why I see a qualitative change to the type of radical-left activism at home and around the world today.

By the way, be sure to read John Tierney's essay along these lines, making the case for a new stage of the "peace" movement, "The Politics of Peace: What’s Behind the Anti-War Movement?"

The irony of the modern “peace” movement is that it has very little to do with peace— either as a moral concept or as a political ideal. Peace is a tactical ideal for movement organizers: it serves as political leverage against U.S. policymakers, and it is an ideological response to the perceived failures of American society. The leaders of anti-war groups are modern-day Leninists.

This last notion of today's activists as neo-Lenists (or neo-Stalinists, as I refer to them, given their totalitarianism), is particularly troubling to me, since as a professor on a campus that boasts a local cell of the ANSWER network, I see the world communist movement up close and personal. Rather than educating students into the dominant traditions of Anglo-Protestantism and the American political culture of egalitarianism and individualism, today's leftist academics glorify tyrants and murderers while privileging an ideology of anti-Americanism. Students are shortchanged, and the political, cultural, and economic destruction of this nation continues apace.

Today's Democratic-leftists love it, although they don't always admit what their real agenda is. Indeed, they often align themselves with the extremist anti-Israel factions of today's antiwar right.

If in that sense these folks are "populists," perhaps Dana's approach to all of this is pretty close to mine after all.

Afghanistan Mosque Bombing Kills at Least 38 Shiite Worshippers in Kanduhar

The news for Biden is so-bad all-around there's not enough room for above-the-fold headlines in the nation's newspapers. The bad news is packing it, overwhelming everything else. 

I hate to predict elections (because really, you never know until voters actually vote), but if historical precedent is any clue, 2022 is going to be an electoral tsunami like we've never seen. I feel like we're back in the 1970 and Jimmy Carter is whining about the "malaise" he couldn't fix. 

I'll be surprised if Biden doesn't mandate thermostats lowered to 65 degrees this winter and tell regular folks to put on a cardigan sweaters.

At WSJ, "Afghanistan Mosque Bombing Kills at Least 38 Shiite Worshippers":

A complex suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in southern Afghanistan’s main city of Kandahar killed at least 38 worshipers Friday, breaking two months of relative peace in the Taliban’s historic stronghold and highlighting the threat posed by a spreading presence of Islamic State.

While nobody took immediate responsibility, Friday’s attack followed a suicide bombing claimed by Islamic State that killed some 100 people on Oct. 8 at a Shiite mosque in the northern city of Kunduz. The extremist group’s regional affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISKP, has repeatedly targeted Afghanistan’s Shiite minority in recent months.

Kandahar’s main hospital, Mirwais, said it received 38 fatalities and 72 people who were injured in the blast. Mohammad Qasam, the chief doctor at the hospital, warned that the death toll could rise.

“The prayer had ended. We were preparing to leave the mosque when we heard gunfire outside. A few seconds later, there was a blast inside. I was close to the entrance and managed to escape quickly,” said the witness. He said two suicide bombers detonated outside the mosque and a third blew himself up inside.

While both the Taliban and Islamic State adhere to a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam, the two groups have profound ideological differences and consider each other enemies. Though the Taliban persecuted Shiites in the past, they have since softened their position and say that, under their rule, the religious freedom of Afghanistan’s Shiite community will be safeguarded. Islamic State considers all Shiite Muslims infidels who should be killed. The Taliban condemned the attack and directed their security forces “to find the perpetrators as soon as possible and bring them to justice,” according to a statement released by the group’s chief spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid.

The recent series of deadly bombings present a challenge to the Taliban government. Since the Taliban toppled the U.S.-backed Afghan republic on Aug. 15 and proclaimed a restored Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, improved security has been a key source of legitimacy for Afghanistan’s new rulers. Yet ISKP—the only significant militant group currently operating in Afghanistan—has struck many high-profile targets since then, including a bombing outside Kabul airport that killed 200 Afghans waiting to be evacuated and 13 U.S. service members.

Friday’s blast shows that the Taliban are struggling to guarantee security even in Kandahar, their historical stronghold.

“The Taliban have been dismissive of the Islamic State’s threat—and it is showing how wrong they are,” said Asfandyar Mir, an Afghanistan expert at the United States Institute of Peace. “Carrying out this attack in the Taliban’s heartland is a clear signal that the Islamic State wants to take the fight to the Taliban, bleed their legitimacy and sovereignty over Afghanistan.”

The mosque bombing interrupted a period of unusual peace in southern Afghanistan, home to some of the deadliest battlegrounds of the 20-year war waged by the U.S.-led coalition and its Afghan allies.

“When the Taliban took over the country, I thought we would be rid of war but now I think the situation may get even worse in the future,” said Navid, a resident of Kandahar city who didn’t want his surname to be used. “The harsh truth, which we all have to accept, is that there is no peace in Afghanistan. We will never be able to live peacefully, neither under the previous government nor the current Islamic Emirate,” he added.

Afghanistan has largely avoided the kind of sectarian strife that plagues much of the Muslim world. ISKP, which was formed by spinoff factions of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban in 2014, was the first group to systematically target Shiite Muslims, who make up around a fifth of Afghanistan’s population...

 

What Would You Say if Your Child Said He or She Was Gay?

This clip is just the first five minutes or so from a fifteen minute segment on MSNBC earlier this week. The full link is here, uploading by a radical leftist. Chris Matthews gets visibly angry and berates Tony Perkins for his views and Barney Frank spits out the gay extremist talking points which make absolutely no rational sense and are designed only to make conservatives look uncaring and bigoted. This is the only way progressives can win the argument. They can't win on the merits. And again, the threat of being attacked and demonized is the main factor that explains the shift in support toward acceptance of gay marriage nationwide. Every single time it's been put to a vote at the state level --- 32 times --- gay marriage backers have lost. Perhaps the culture itself is changing along with the younger demographic. But up to the moment the left has only won through lies and intimidation, in legislatures or the courts.

And to answer the question at top: If my boys came out as gay I'd love them just as much as I always do, although it wouldn't change my opinion on what is the best family relationship for family stability, social and economic well-being, and the regeneration of values.

New Fears on Syria's Chemical Weapons

At Independent UK, "Britain and US fear Syrian chemical weapons could fall into the hands of extreme Islamist groups":

The prospect of Syria’s chemical arsenal falling into the hands of extremist Islamists among the rebels fighting the country’s bloody civil war is a matter of mounting concern for the West.

General Sir David Richards, the head of the British military, has raised his worries in Whitehall in recent weeks and there has been a series of meetings over the issue between European and American officials and governments in the region.

The possibility that President Bashar al-Assad may unleash such weapons was one of the key reasons given for the deployment this week of Nato Patriot missiles to the Turkish border.

At the end of last year Barack Obama warned that the use of chemical weapons would mean the Assad regime had crossed a ‘red line’ and must bear the consequences. The regime appeared to have stopped on its tracks in preparing such attacks and defence secretary Leon Panetta stated subsequently that the threat has been reduced.

Although the US and UK governments still hold that a beleaguered regime on its last legs may use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) there is also the clear danger of jihadist fighter getting possession of stockpiles. The Obama administration has prescribed the Al-Nusra Brigade, one of the strongest of the rebel groups and one which declares itself affiliated to al-Qa’ida, as a terrorist organisation.

An SAS team is believed to have attended as observers an exercise carried out by US and Jordanian special forces in preparation for any operation which may have to be undertaken to secure the stockpiles. Defence sources in London stated there are no plans at present to deploy British personnel for such a mission. ( please keep in this paragraph).

There is bound to be public scepticism about claims of the Syrian regime and WMDs after the exposure of similar false reports about Saddam Hussein’s arsenal used by the Bush and Blair administrations to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Western officials insist, however, that there is ample evidence that the Damascus regime has the means to carry out chemical warfare and also evidence, of a more limited nature , that it has a biological warfare programme. One cause of apprehension is that the regime’s command and control for WMDs have been severely damaged by casualties and defections.

More at that top link.

And see "'Chemical weapons were used on Homs': Syria's military police defector tells of nerve gas attack."

Obama Connects al Qaeda to Jet Plot, But Fails to Connect Global Jihad

From the Wall Street Journal, "Obama Connects al Qaeda to Jet Plot":

President Barack Obama drew a direct link Saturday between an al Qaeda group and a foiled attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day.

In his Saturday morning radio address, Mr. Obama went further than he has in previous statements on the attack to connect the extremist group with the Dec. 25 attack. He pledged to work with officials in other nations to combat terrorism, including Yemen, where officials believe Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to destroy Northwest Flight 253, was schooled in terrorist techniques.

"We know that he traveled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies. It appears that he joined an affiliate of al Qaeda, and that this group -- Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America," Mr. Obama said in his address, a copy of which was released by the White House. He delivered the radio address from Hawaii, where he is vacationing this week.

"This is not the first time this group has targeted us. In recent years, they have bombed Yemeni government facilities and Western hotels, restaurants and embassies -- including our embassy in 2008, killing one American. So, as president, I've made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government-training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al Qaeda terrorists," he said.

Even before Christmas, the U.S. has been aiding Yemen battled militants and had already planned to substantially increase spending on counterterrorism operations there this year. Two missile strikes last month, before the botched attack, were aimed at leaders of the al Qaeda branch and a radical cleric U.S. officials believe is connected to the plot.

On Dec. 29, the president ordered a sweeping inquiry to determine how information in U.S. possession before the attack was not assembled into a full picture of the plot. Such a picture would have resulted in Mr. Abdulmutallab being detained for questioning before he boarded a jet with explosives concealed in his clothing, Mr. Obama has said.

The president is currently reading through hundreds of pages of reports submitted by heads of a half-dozen intelligence and other agencies in response to a Dec. 31 deadline he set for them to complete a preliminary review of their roles in the case.

On Tuesday Mr. Obama will convene agency chiefs in the White House Situation Room to discuss next steps in the investigation.

Meanwhile, Congress plans multiple hearings in what promises to be a politically-charged effort to determine who's to blame for intelligence failures.

The text of the president's address is here (via Memeorandum), but I've just listened to the video. I simply cannot believe this man. He claims he'll do "whatever it takes" to defeat our enemies, but then at 2:35 minutes he asserts that the war in Iraq " had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks." Then, at 4:22 minutes, he puffs, let us not succumb to "partisanship and division."

Yeah. Right. Mr. Take-a-Shot-at-My-Predecessor's-Foreign-Policy is urging folks to "renew that timeless American spirit of resolve and confidence and optimism."

What a f***ing joke.

No wonder Americans feel less safe under the Democrats and would be happy waterboarding our diabolical foes who want nothing less the a million 9/11s.

See also, Flopping Aces, "Obama Admin Denies Americans At War With Al Queda":

One should wonder not if Obama is defending the American people (he’s not), but rather…when Al Queda gets a good detonator and succeeds in killing Americans, what will Obama’s excuse be? He can’t blame Bush. He can’t say he was taking the threat seriously (he’s not). He can’t blame Republicans who barely have a minority in Congress. He can’t blame American imperialism as he’s practiced the opposite. So, if all those tried and true excuses and conspiracy theories of the past don’t sell….does that mean HE screwed up, and something (anything) that the Bush Admin did to prevent terror attacks was correct? That’s a question that-if answered in the affirmative, collapses the far left nutroots house of conspiracy theory lies.

Also, from Erick Erickson, "Could this actually be the greatest and potentially the deadliest of Obama’s screw ups so far?" (via Memeorandum).

Town Hall Activists Are 'Bullies'

Here's another version the left's anti-democratic position on conservatives and the town halls. This time it's Steve Benen and the opposition to Obama's death panels. The Senate Finance Committee is stripping that provision from the bill:

Up until very recently, this provision was a common-sense idea that enjoyed bipartisan support. It would help seniors and their families plan for end-of-life care; it would help guide physicians and doctors; it would help save taxpayers money; and it would help honor patients' wishes. Even insurance companies are fine with it.

But after a right-wing temper tantrum, based on confusion and lies, lawmakers are prepared to dump the idea altogether.

Who wins? Unhinged activists, who are effectively being told that they'll get their way if they scream loud enough. Who loses? Everyone else.

It reminds me of kids who give the bully their lunch money thinking, "Well, if I give him the lunch money today, maybe he'll leave me alone tomorrow." I don't think that ever works.

Benen's screed reminds me of another schoolyard analogy: the sore loser.

Meanwhile, Rudy Giulani (no right-wing extremist) says Palin's death panel comments are on the money. See, "Giuliani Slams Dems on 'Death Panels' Issue."

Barack Obama is No Michael Dukakis!

In 2007, Barack Obama racked up the most liberal voting record in U.S. Senate, according to National Jounal's report, "Obama: Most Liberal Senator In 2007."

Now, however, folks are noticing a shift in Obama's campaign rhetoric toward greater centrism.

The lurch to the middle is a regular feature of presidential politics. After wrapping up the nomination, the party standard-bearer needs to heal the party wounds from the primaries and then tailor the campaign's message to voters in the general electorate.

How far to the center can Barack Obama go? Is he a traditional liberal, perhaps like Michael Dukakis, who lost in 1988 to G.H.W. Bush? Or is he further to the left, in radical territory?

A look at Obama's campaign platform indicates an extremely left-wing agenda, on fiscal policy, social issues, and the war in Iraq. Yet as the recent debates over FISA have shown, the Illinois Senator's not far enough to the left for the most implacable forces of the hardline Democratic Party base.

Well, Nate Silver, at 538, argues that Obama's no liberal in the Michael Dukakis mode: "Why Obama isn't like Dukakis":

As several observers have noted recently, including yours truly, June polling has not been a particularly good predictor of November results. In four out of the last five elections, the candidate leading in the polls in June went on to lose the popular vote. The largest discrepancy was in 1988, when Michael Dukakis, 8.2 points ahead in June, would eventually lose the election by 7.8 points -- a catastrophic 16-point swing against the Massachusetts governor.

This election too could move in any number of different directions. While Obama can presently be regarded as the healthy favorite, think of what a 16-point swing would mean in this year's election. If that swing were in Obama's direction (giving him a 21-point victory when added to his current lead of about 5 points) we would project Obama to win all states except Alabama, Idaho, Oklahoma and Utah. If it were in John McCain's direction instead, giving him an 11-point win nationwide, we would have him winning 42 out of 50 states.

The way that the Republicans achieved that big swing in 1988, assisted by a couple of significant gaffes from the Dukakis campaign, was to portray Dukakis as too liberal for the American mainstream. The same basic strategic template was employed against John Kerry in 2004. However, this strategy is unlikely to work in 2008. How come? Barack Obama is already perceived as being very liberal.

Silver goes on to elaborate his argument further, but the conclusion caught my attention:

There is also a school of thought that voters in Presidential elections tend to base their decisions less on the ideological attributes of a candidate and more on the personal ones. Obama's favorability rating presently stands at a +25. By contrast, John Kerry rarely did much better than even on this metric, depending on the specific wording of the question.

Either way, this is a significant problem for the Republicans. If their strategy is to say "Hey! Hey! Barack Obama is a liberal!", the American public's reaction is likely to be "Well, no shit! We're voting for him anyway."

This is not to say that McCain can gain no traction at all by trying to seize the political center. In fact, in an election in which the Democrats have something like a 4:3 edge in party identification, McCain absolutely has to find some way to win a majority of independent voters, and perhaps a fairly substantial one. Moreover, while the voters appear to be ready to elect a President they perceive as liberal, they surely won't be ready to elect one they perceive as radical, and so we can expect the Republicans to continue to play up Obama's associations with figures like Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers. This remains relatively dangerous territory for Obama.

However, if the Republicans attempt to recycle the 1988 or 2004 playbooks, they will probably not find the results to their liking. And if McCain at any point refers to Obama as a "Card-carrying member of the ACLU", you can be pretty sure that this election is over.

Actually, I think the issue's more complicated than that.

Obama is liberal, extremely so. But as Silver notes, he's also an extremely unusual candidate in his genuine ties to a range of ideological elements on the left-wing fringe - extremist radical factions, essentially, groups whose views and history are highly unfamiliar to rank-and-file Americans.

As Andrew McCarthy has demonstrated, in his essay, "Mr. Obama's Neighborhood," Barack Obama has emerged out the Hyde Park political environment - a place unlike any other neighborhood in America, where '60s-era bombers live a few doors down.

Obama's associations became a legitimate issue of the Democratic primaries, and it's foolish to think that Republican voters won't be interested in knowing that William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn are considered "pillars of the community."

Barack Obama may well be the next president of the United States, but if his past associations with radical ideologues - not to mention black liberationists - are not better explained and repudiated, he won't be accepted by moderates making up a large swath of the electorate.

No, Obama's no Michael Dukakis - unless he fully clarifies his past associations, he just might make the former Massachusetts governor look positively center-left.

(Side Observation: Silver's using the term "radical" in the appropriate fashtion: to denote the ideological elements of the extreme left-wing, currently popluated in American politics by the Democratic party "progressive" of the netroots establishment.)

Michael Tracey, Editorial Intern at The Nation, Blows Off Evidence of Alex Knepper Pedophilia as 'Trivial Bunk' - UPDATED!!

Alex Knepper's been laying kinda low this last couple of days, following the explosive evidence of his tendencies toward pedophilia. Alex tweeted yesterday that he'd have a "Statement forthcoming that will put all of this in its proper context." And he tweet this morning that his statement is delayed because "I'm in talks."

Considering the evidence that's been collected on Alex Knepper's pedophilia, particularly his long series of morally repugnant and possibly criminal postings on gay teen message-boards, it's hard to phathom that anyone would want to negotiate these issues over "talks." Seriously. Knepper needs some time off. A long time. Possibly behind bars.

And David Frum needs to fire Alex Knepper. The most recent figure to call for Knepper's termination is Erick Erickson, at Red State, "David Frum and the Limits to Deviancy":

What makes this relevant, despite its sordid nature, is NewsReal Blog having tipped off Frum to his employee’s behavior and other conservative sites giving this Alex Knepper character a forum. You’d like to think that had they known of his predilections, they would not.

Ironically, when I mentioned this on Twitter, the only people who spoke up in the guy’s defense were some of the more rabid socialists defending the guy’s “refreshingly unconventional conservatism,” which is to say he is not a conservative at all.

Nope.

Not conservative at all. With the exception of the faux-conservatives at FrumForum, the only support for Alex Knepper is coming from the extremist fringes of the radical left, including Michael Tracey, editorial intern at The Nation:

And leftists are supposed to represent some "reality-based community"? I guess the reality is that, for socialists, there's no traditional moral standard worth preserving these days. As Erick Erickson indicates:

If we are to accept that Alex Knepper is 20 and therefore a kid, we should not treat this kid as any sort of authority on any vein of conservatism. If we accept he is an adult and we should engage on his thoughts, then we must recognize that his behavior is outside the bounds of acceptable conduct and he should not be rewarded while engaging in perverse behavior.

There is no place in normal society for this — no place at all.

RELATED: "Why is FrumForum Featuring the Internet’s Foremost Defender of Perverts?"

**********

UPDATE: Dave Swindle sends along this response:

"I spent over an hour yesterday on the phone with Michael Tracey explaining the evidence, our motivations for publishing the story, and the background. He struck me as sincere in wanting to uncover the truth, a decent human being, and in no way willing to excuse pedophilia. If he writes a story for The Nation I hope he will do so once he has come to a solid conclusion about whether Alex Knepper actually is a pedophile or not."

And David Frum "fires" Alex Knepper with a counter-attack on NewsReal that's simply insane: "About Alex Knepper."

I'll have some my thoughts on this later this afternoon.

For a Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan, and the Rest of the World, a Crisis Looms

A year-end review, at WSJ, "The new Taliban administration is struggling with a devastated economy. The fallout likely will extend well beyond the country’s borders":

Afghanistan is heading into one of its most difficult years.

The new Taliban administration, devoid of international recognition and cut off by the U.S. from the global financial system, is struggling to restart an economy that has shrunk by more than 40% since the American withdrawal in August. The worst drought in decades, combined with the suspension of many foreign-aid projects, means that millions of Afghans could face starvation in coming months.

“We are on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe that is preventable,” says the United Nations representative to Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons.

Capitalizing on growing discontent, particularly in eastern and northern Afghanistan, the extremist Islamic State group already is launching nearly daily attacks that target the Taliban and the country’s Shiite minority. That terrorism threat, combined with the Taliban’s so-far unyielding position on issues such as women’s education, means that most Western embassies that escaped the country in August won’t be returning soon.

The only question amid this bleak landscape is to what extent Afghanistan’s crisis can be contained within Afghanistan in 2022. Will the looming famine prompt millions of Afghans to try to reach Europe on foot, the way millions of Syrians did in 2014-2015? Will Islamic State garner enough strength to start launching attacks on Western targets from within Afghanistan? And will the year see a record-breaking outflow of opium and other illicit drugs, now the main livelihood of desperate farmers in many parts of the country?

Past experiences suggest that the fallout will inevitably spread beyond Afghanistan’s immediate neighborhood.

Historical lessons

Historically, Afghanistan has gone through cycles of intense American interest, followed by years of neglect that produced dramatic consequences down the line. In the 1980s, Washington invested great effort and capital into fostering the mujahedeen resistance against the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. Then, it turned away when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Backed by regional proxies, victorious mujahedeen engaged in a long and bloody civil war that eventually spurred the Taliban’s rise and led to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Now, after two decades of intense military and diplomatic engagement, the temptation in Washington—and other Western capitals—is to tune out once again. Maintaining the status quo policy of sanctions on Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and minimal engagement with Kabul’s new authorities requires little immediate expenditure of political capital, even though it may be the riskiest approach over the long term. “The West wants to punish the Taliban, but the economic chokehold is self-defeating,” says Graeme Smith, co-author of a recent report on Afghanistan by the International Crisis Group conflict-resolution organization. “History shows that ignoring Afghanistan allows problems to fester and grow. Migration, terrorism, drugs: All of these issues could destabilize the region and spill over into Europe.”

The Taliban, of course, are playing up such concerns to win a reprieve from sanctions, and to persuade Washington to unfreeze more than $9 billion in Afghan central-bank assets.

“The suffering of a child from malnutrition, the death of a mother from lack of health services, the deprivation of a common Afghan from food, shelter, medicine and other primary needs has no political or logical justification,” the Taliban government’s foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, wrote in a recent open letter to the U.S. Congress...

Very sad. 

At one photo, "Wazir Nazari was shot in the face, taking both of her eyes, by Taliban fighters going door-to-door in her village in the Malistan district of central Afghanistan’s Ghazni province in early July, her father said."

Gay Rights Extremists Open Lobbying Front at U.N.

Get a load of this: "In a First, Gay Rights Are Pressed at the U.N.":

An unprecedented declaration seeking to decriminalize homosexuality won the support of 66 countries in the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, but opponents criticized it as an attempt to legitimize pedophilia and other “deplorable acts.”

The United States refused to support the nonbinding measure, as did Russia, China, the Roman Catholic Church and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Holy See’s observer mission issued a statement saying that the declaration “challenges existing human rights norms.”

The declaration, sponsored by France with broad support in Europe and Latin America, condemned human rights violations based on homophobia, saying such measures run counter to the universal declaration of human rights.

Anyone familiar with the workings of the U.N. recognizes that the protection of "rights" at that organization is nothing less than a despicable farce. The real purpose of this declaration is revealed further down in the piece:

Ms. Yade [the French state secretary for human rights] and the Dutch foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, said at a news conference that they were “disappointed” that the United States failed to support the declaration. Human rights activists went further. “The Bush administration is trying to come up with Christmas presents for the religious right so it will be remembered,” said Scott Long, a director at Human Rights Watch.

There you have it. Gay rights activists hope to use this U.N. declaration as another wedge to break down traditional values and resitance to gay marriage rights in the U.S. federal system.

The Human Rights Campaign [HRC] has "the backstory" on the French sponsorship of the declaration at the U.N. Note, of course, that the HRC is the lead pressure group on the extremist left that's now raising an outcry over Barack Obama's selection of Pastor Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation.

The left's radical gay agenda is all coming together, as I've noted previously (see, "Gay Radicalism Key to Left's Agenda Under Obama"). The radical gay rights lobby is up in arms over Obama's sensitivity to the moderate middle of the American electorate. But they also know that Obama has pledged to restore American trust in and reliance on international institutions. So, by going to the U.N. and raising a big public relations battle on the issue, the episode represents a chance for homosexual activists to "multilateralize" the push for gay marriage rights, providing one more avenue for activists to intimidate cultural traditionalists.

Meanwhile, criminal states like Iran, which has been identified as among the leading violators of human rights by the U.S. State Department, get a blind eye from the U.N.'s Human Rights Council.

If this new declaration at the U.N. is to have any legitimacy, U.S. gay rights groups and Western NGOs should be protesting the refusal of a majority of the members states of the U.N. General Assemby, who refused to endorse the resolution, rather than the U.S., where gay Americans enjoy unpredented rights and liberties under American constitutional law.