Calling Obama: Time to Denounce Anti-American Extremism

When Michelle Obama said last month that throughout her adult life she'd never been proud of America, commentators could perhaps be justified in saying she misspoke in the heat of an impassioned campaign speech.

But, that wasn't all: As I've shown, Barack Obama, in his San Antonio concession speech, said that young Americans travelling abroad today cannot hold their heads high and proudly proclaim: "I Am an American."

The truth is, Obama's words actually pack a lot of power, and folks need to pay attention to the significance of his considerable language of opposition to America's traditions and standing in the world. Indeed, things have gotten out of hand for the Obama campaign, illustrated by the controversy surrounding the Illinois Senator's ties to the Jeremiah Wright, senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Reverend Wright has been Obama’s close mentor and religious influence. But as Ronald Kessler points out at today's Wall Street Journal, Wright represent the most vile elements of the America-bashing contingents on the far left-wing fringe:

In a sermon delivered at Howard University, Barack Obama's longtime minister, friend and adviser blamed America for starting the AIDS virus, training professional killers, importing drugs and creating a racist society that would never elect a black candidate president....

"We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he began. "Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."

Mr. Wright thundered on: "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."

His voice rising, Mr. Wright said, "We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ."

Concluding, Mr. Wright said: "We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . ."

The Wright controversy has been brewing for some time, and Obama has not denounced the language of hate and opposition being spouted by his spiritual mentor.

Kessler goes on:

Hearing Mr. Wright's venomous and paranoid denunciations of this country, the vast majority of Americans would walk out. Instead, Mr. Obama and his wife Michelle have presumably sat through numerous similar sermons by Mr. Wright.

Indeed, Mr. Obama has described Mr. Wright as his "sounding board" during the two decades he has known him. Mr. Obama has said he found religion through the minister in the 1980s. He joined the church in 1991 and walked down the aisle in a formal commitment of faith.

The title of Mr. Obama's bestseller "The Audacity of Hope" comes from one of Wright's sermons. Mr. Wright is one of the first people Mr. Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in 2004. Mr. Obama consulted Mr. Wright before deciding to run for president. He prayed privately with Mr. Wright before announcing his candidacy last year.

Mr. Obama obviously would not choose to belong to Mr. Wright's church and seek his advice unless he agreed with at least some of his views. In light of Mr. Wright's perspective, Michelle Obama's comment that she feels proud of America for the first time in her adult life makes perfect sense.

Much as most of us would appreciate the symbolism of a black man ascending to the presidency, what we have in Barack Obama is a politician whose closeness to Mr. Wright underscores his radical record.

The media have largely ignored Mr. Obama's close association with Mr. Wright. This raises legitimate questions about Mr. Obama's fundamental beliefs about his country. Those questions deserve a clearer answer than Mr. Obama has provided so far.

Let me restate Kessler's last point, which I've raised previously: Obama's close relationship with Wright indeed "raises legitimate questions about Mr. Obama's fundamental beliefs about his country."

It's time for Obama to make a major campaign address denouncing his relationship to those who demonize the United States, and he needs to clarify the question of patriotic both he and his wife have created.

Ross Douthat clarifies the matter further, focusing on the religious angle:

So far, Obama has attempted to laugh off Wright's penchant for inflammatory rhetoric, comparing him to "an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," and suggesting that this is "what happens when you just cherry-pick statements from a guy who had a 40-year career as a pastor." But as Wright's America-bashing gets more airtime -- and as his Obama-boosting sermons put his church's tax exemption at risk -- Obama may have to go further down the road to explicitly disavowing his pastor. His connection to Wright isn't the equivalent of John McCain's going to Liberty University to make nice with Jerry Falwell. It's the equivalent of John McCain taking his wife and children, most Sundays, to Jerry Falwell's church. And the disconnect between Obama's studied moderation and his congregation's radicalism requires more of an explanation than he's offered so far.

That's right, and that's why I'm putting out the call for Barack Obama to denounce the extremism and pledge his allegiance to the basic values of patriotism of the United States.

Petraeus Lowers Expecations on Iraq

Via Memeorandum, the left blogosphere is in a heavy lather over General David Petraeus' comment yesterday that Iraqis weren't making sufficient progress toward political reconciliation:

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

Petraeus' remarks are clearly geared to lowering political expectations before his congressional testimony, and are also offered as signaling expectations to the Iraqi leadership to step-up implementation of the remaining benchmarks for forward political progress in Iraq.

Petraeus also provided commentary on the overall situation in Iraq:

The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has won passage of some legislation that aids the cause of reconciliation, drawing praise from President Bush and his supporters. But the Iraqi government also has deferred action on some of its most important legislative goals, including laws governing the exploitation of Iraq's oil resources, that the Bush administration had identified as necessary benchmarks of progress toward reconciliation....

In what appeared to be a foreshadowing of his congressional testimony, which his aides said he would not discuss explicitly, Petraeus insisted that Iraqi leaders still have an opportunity to act. "We're going to fight like the dickens" to maintain the gains in security and "where we can to try and build on it," he said.

While violence has declined dramatically since late 2006, when thousands of Iraqis were being killed each month, U.S. military data show that attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians have leveled off or risen slightly in the early part of 2008. "I don't see an enormous uptick projected right now," Petraeus said, speaking in his windowless office in the U.S. Embassy, which is housed in Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace. "What you have seen is some sensational attacks, there's no question about that."

Petraeus said several factors may account for the recent violence, including increased U.S. and Iraqi operations against insurgents in the northern city of Mosul -- which has lately become one of Iraq's most dangerous -- and insurgent efforts to reestablish some of their havens in Baghdad. And Petraeus said U.S. commanders could not discount the possibility that insurgents "know the April testimony is coming up."

Given the radical demonization campaign against Petraeus' testimony last September - recall "David Betray Us" - it's no surprise that the antiwar nihilists are already sharpening knives in preparation of round two.

Matthew Yglesias, a beer-swilling lefty Flophouse blogger, simply declared the past year's military and political progress a lie:

I dunno about that, certainly it seems to me that a lot of the current U.S. government's allies have been arguing, falsely, that there has been adequate progress toward reconciliation.

FireDogLake's come out swinging, interpreting Petraeus' statements as tantamount to admitting the folly of the surge ("Petraeus Admits The Surge Has Failed").

The hard-left's really behind the curve on Iraq progress. What's interesting with all the hard-left attacks on the surge and surge-supporters is the absence of serious analysis. Spencer Ackerman, another of the Flophouse boys, just cusses, moans, and sputters about how "worthless his journalism is" in stopping the war.

Well, I have to agree on the worthlessness of it, although surprisingly these folks have sway on the Democratic side of things.

Which is why I just keep setting the record straight.

The truth is that we're seeing unheralded political progess in Iraq. Prior to the this month, Iraq had met 9 of the 18 congressional benchmarks set a year ago. In the last few weeks the Iraqi regime has met three more, putting progress up to the two-thirds mark. We still have some way to go, but to say political progess is a lie, or that the surge has failed, is simply the deployment of the postmodern version of knowledge handily available to those implacably opposed to American military success.

The Democrats will continue to struggle with this, as facts on the ground make the party's surrender agenda increasing out of step with both strategic and political reality.

Photo Credit: Washington Post

Americans Question Leaving Iraq

As I've noted in recent posts, public opinion on Iraq shows Americans rejecting an immediate pullout from the conflict, despite antiwar agitation for an unconditional surrender.

The latest Gallup survey provides more data on this, "Americans Concerned About Impact of Leaving Iraq":

Most Americans think the United States has an obligation to remain in Iraq until a reasonable level of stability and security has been reached.

Although about 60% of Americans perceive that the United States' initial involvement in the Iraq war was a mistake, fewer than 20% say the United States should initiate an immediate withdrawal of troops.

Why is this the case? A review of the responses to several questions on Iraq in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll provides some indication of the reasons an apparently conflicted American population is hesitant to recommend immediate withdrawal despite its basic feeling that U.S. involvement there has been a mistake.

As the accompanying graph indicates, almost two-thirds of Americans believe the United States has an obligation to establish a reasonable level of stability in Iraq before withdrawing all troops....

Additionally, more than 60% of Americans feel al Qaeda would be more likely to use Iraq as a base for its terrorist operations if the United States withdraws its troops than if it keeps its troops there, mirroring one of the Bush administration's (and presidential candidate John McCain's) most frequently used arguments against an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

A majority of Americans also believe more Iraqis would die from violence in that country if the United States withdraws its troops than would be the case if the United States keeps its troops there.

Half of Americans say the likelihood of a broader Middle East war would increase if the United States withdraws its troops from Iraq, while just 35% say that prospect is more likely if the United States keeps its troops in Iraq.

Americans are not convinced, however, that the possibility of terrorist attacks against the United States would increase if the country withdraws its troops from Iraq -- about as many say such attacks are more likely if the United States keeps troops in Iraq as say they are more likely if the United States withdraws its troops.

Implications

Americans have -- perhaps inevitably, given the complex nature of the war in Iraq -- a set of somewhat ambivalent attitudes about the situation there. In Gallup's latest poll, 59% of Americans say U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq was a mistake. One might think, therefore, that a similar majority would favor an immediate withdrawal of troops from that country. But that's not the case. Less than 20%, in fact, say the United States should withdraw troops immediately. The rest say either that troops should stay in Iraq as long as necessary, with no timetable for withdrawal, or that there should be a gradual timetable for withdrawal.

The data reviewed here suggest that there are reasons Americans hesitate to recommend an immediate withdrawal of troops. A majority of Americans believe that withdrawing troops from Iraq would lead to a greater possibility of al Qaeda using Iraq as a base for terrorist operations, a greater number of Iraqi deaths from violence, and a greater likelihood of a broader Middle East war. Additionally, Americans believe the United States has an obligation to remain in Iraq until that country is stable, and recent poll results suggest that a majority of Americans do not believe a level of stability has yet been reached.

(Americans are not inclined to believe there would be an increased chance of terrorist attacks against the United States if its troops were withdrawn.)

The next U.S. president will face this confused landscape. Americans obviously are negative about the entire Iraqi enterprise (a recent Gallup Poll question shows a majority saying history will judge the U.S. involvement in Iraq to have been a failure), but -- perhaps realistically -- they believe the attempt to extricate the U.S. military from that country is not going to be a simple or straightforward matter.

As Gallup's results indicate, Iraq has become a wearisome foreign policy problem for Americans.

Yet, the data, once again, do not show anything near an immediate public demand for a troop redeployment. This situation places a tremendous burden of proof on the Democratic Party, and particulary on the antiwar left. How can they justify their continuing demonization of the Bush administration and the war and remain a credible party on national security in 2008?

The great majority of people want to see America stay on in Iraq to see the job to a more stable conclusion, and until the Democrats change their tune, this fact will redound to the benefit of GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain

I'll have more opinion analysis forthcoming.

America's New Isolationism?

Andrew Kohut offers an intriguing look at public opinion trends in rising isolationism:

Disillusionment with the Iraq war has ushered in a rise in isolationist sentiment comparable to that of the mid-1970s following the Vietnam war. Pew surveys have found as many as four in 10 Americans saying the United States “should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.”

This is a significantly higher percentage of people than subscribed to this view at the beginning of the decade. A rise in isolationism has signaled a diminished public appetite for the assertive national security policy of the Bush years and, in general, a less internationalist outlook. For example, in the summer of 2006, polls found majorities of Americans saying the United States was not responsible for resolving the conflict between Israel and other countries in the Middle East during the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

American public opinion is also extraordinarily partisan. Consider, Iraq. It remains number one on the public’s foreign policy issue agenda, yet there is hardly a consensus as to what to do next. While a late February Pew poll found a continuing majority of respondents (54 percent) saying the war was a mistake, opinions were evenly divided about how and when to extract United States forces.

About half of those surveyed (49 percent) said they favored bringing troops home as soon as possible, but most (33 percent) favored gradual withdrawal over the next year or two, rather than immediate withdrawal. Similarly, just under half (47 percent) said that the United States should keep troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized. But those who wanted to “stay the course” were divided too, with 30 percent saying that no timetable should be set and 16 percent favoring a timetable.

What the candidates say about Iraq in the general election will be further tested by the huge partisan gap in responses: a 54-percentage-point divide between Democrats and Republicans about keeping troops in Iraq.

With rising concerns about the economy and jobs in particular, trade is a prime example of a tricky issue for the candidates, let alone the next president. While most Americans continue to think that global trade is a good thing, the number feeling this way is sharply lower than it was in the past. Just 59 percent of Americans say trade with other countries is having a good effect on the United States, down sharply from 78 percent in 2002.

Trade is a tougher challenge for John McCain than it is for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama because a key element in the Republican base — the business class — remains heavily pro-trade. This may explain why, as of this writing, Senator McCain’s official web site does not name trade as one of the 15 issues “of focus.”

While the American public is divided on Iraq, and increasingly wary about trade, it also remains divided on the so-called war on terrorism. A narrow majority (52 percent) continues to say it is right for the government to monitor the communications of suspected terrorists without first getting court permission; 44 percent say this is wrong.

The use of torture is a similarly divisive issue, with about half saying it can be justified often or sometimes when used against suspected terrorists to gain important information. A modest majority (52 percent) believes that the detainees the United States is holding at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are being treated fairly.

But again there is a wide partisan divide on these issues. Nearly twice as many Republicans as Democrats believe it is right for the government to conduct surveillance of suspected terrorists without court permission (74 percent versus 39 percent). The partisan differences in the treatment of Guantanamo detainees are nearly identical: 73 percent of Republicans say the government’s policies toward detainees are fair, compared with 39 percent of Democrats.

Obviously, on these — and just about all other foreign policy questions — Senator McCain and his Democratic opponent will be confronted with the daunting task of appealing not only to their bases, but also to independents, who have decidedly different opinions about these issues. And as we have already seen, both campaigns will be drawn into foreign policy, nonetheless, because Senator McCain will run on his experience and Senators Clinton and Obama will attempt to tie him to President Bush’s record. In turn, each side will work hard to show that the opposition’s way of thinking about foreign policy is out of touch with a moderate point of view.

Reading through Kohut's essay, there appears to be less isolationist sentiment than one might think. On trade, sure, job losses have created pressures among voters on the left and right to realign America's trade agreements to protect American jobs.

But an in ward turn in foreign policy on the Iraq and the war on terrorism is less pronounced. And for all the talk of which candidate is seen as best on international experience McCain holds his own against either potential Democratic opponent.

I've noted in a couple of recent posts that progress in Iraq is likely to help Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain (see here and here).

The Wall Street Journal 's new survey provides some support. Thirty-five percent of those surveyed said John McCain has the right approach on Iraq, compared to 30 and 27 for Clinton and Obama respectively. McCain plans to continue the U.S. troop deployment for some duration, so for all the talk of isolationism, there's real evidence that Americans are committed to seeing victory through in Iraq, a priority of GOP foreign policy.

Iraq Will Shape Presidential Campaign

USA Today reports that a majority of the public thinks the Iraq war was a mistake, yet less than 1 in 5 Americans believes the U.S. should withdraw immediately, no matter the consequences (a result in line with Gallup's recent poll finding just 17 percent in favor of an immediate, unconditional withdrawal).

The USA Today findings bolster the argument I made today in rebuttal to Glenn Greenwald's unprincipled attack on David Kuhn and his piece today at the Politico, "Support for War Effort Highest Since 2006."

Here's the summary from USA Today:

The debate over Iraq is likely to be sharpened in this year's presidential campaign in a way not seen since President Bush ordered the invasion launched in 2003.

McCain has been the invasion's most consistent defender on Capitol Hill and an early critic of how the administration was executing the war. He's likely to stand against Illinois Sen. Obama, who has made his opposition to the war the foundation of his presidential bid, or New York Sen. Clinton, who says she would withdraw her vote to authorize the Iraq war if she could and promises to start a pullout within 60 days of taking office.

"This election is going to be a referendum, to some extent, on the war," says Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory University who studies public opinion on Iraq.

In the USA Today poll, six in 10 Americans said the United States should set a timetable for withdrawal and stick to it no matter what. Just 35% said U.S. troops should remain until the situation in Iraq gets better, a number as low as it's ever been.

That would seem to be a boon to Democrats, but the politics of Iraq aren't that simple.

Among the groups of anti-war voters, McCain draws support from one-third of those who are the most pessimistic about the future of the Iraq conflict, a group that includes a mix of Republicans and Democrats. In a head-to-head contest against Clinton, McCain also wins one-third of those who want to get out but feel obliged to achieve more security first. He has argued to them that, whatever differences they have on the wisdom of the invasion, he is the candidate best able to stabilize Iraq.

McCain's appeal to some anti-war voters makes it possible that he could put together a majority coalition — or at least neutralize the issue — despite the downturn in public opinion toward the war.

"You cannot go into a country and destroy everything and leave it in chaos without helping them rebuild some kind of infrastructure," says Jennifer Curry, 59, one of the Delaware residents who joined the roundtable discussion. She supports withdrawing U.S. troops but only when Iraq is reasonably stable.

"I mean, there's a limit," she says, "but I think we owe it to them to give them a shot."

"If we leave there now, what will happen?" counters Burkett, a former Marine. "If we wait a year and leave there, what will happen? The answer will still be the same whether we're there six months or whether we wait 10 years and leave."

Notice here how even people who are tired of the deployment want some assurance that the U.S. leaves Iraq relatively stable, which could require a longer deployment.

Also, check out Abe Greenwald at Commentary, who identifies the problem facing the Democrats in November:

Here is their unenviable task: to tell the American voter that his or her confidence in America’s ability to win at last is misplaced; to convince them what we need to do instead is pull our troops out and call for a troop surge in Afghanistan. Even more challenging for the Democrats is that time is not on their side. As recently as September 2007, only 42 percent of Americans believed the U.S. would succeed in Iraq. That number jumped 11 points in five months. The Democratic national convention is another five months away, and the benefits of the troop surge continue to mount. Just imagine the presidential nominee having to tell 64 percent of the country that they’re wrong about American victory.

The Democrats hitched their presidential hopes to a sense of national defeat that wasn’t sustained by circumstances. If there’s one thing every military expert will tell you, it’s that war is fluid. Defeatism does not allow for this fluidity. Once you declare a war lost, you’ve closed the door on the possibilities that arise with the changing nature of the fight and any potential innovations to capitalize on them. In this sense, defeatism is a practical handicap, whereas striving for victory necessarily depends upon the ability to adapt to a shifting landscape.

Enter John McCain. He recognized the failings of the Rumsfeld plan and, determined not to quit, pushed for new ideas. Having backed the Petraeus plan that’s responsible for the shift in Iraq, he doesn’t need to dance around the pro-victory majority—let alone convince them to throw in the towel. Seeing these new figures, the Democrats will at some point try to back off on the defeatist rhetoric, but there’s only so far they can go and not seem preposterous. A 180-degree turn on Iraq would create too much fallout about flip-flopping, experience, and character. It’s not clear how the Democrats are going to wriggle out of this one. But the man who changed when it most mattered can stay in one place for a while.

See also today's earlier entries, "Public Support for Iraq at Highest Since 2006," and "Supporting the Troops."

Photo Credit: USA Today

Glenn Greenwald is Wrong About Iraq Public Opinion

Glenn Greenwald's mounted a hack and smear attack against David Kuhn and his piece today at the Politico, "Support for War Effort Highest Since 2006."

Here's Greenwald:

The Politico today published one of the most blatantly one-sided, journalistically flawed "news" articles on the Iraq War in quite some time and promoted it as its featured story, filled with dramatic proclamations certain to attract (by design) significant attention. The central theme is one which the political establishment is most desperate to believe -- that Americans are now supporting the Iraq War again and this will drastically re-shape the presidential race in favor of the pro-war McCain....

It repeats this pro-GOP assertion over and over. "The repercussions will be most acutely felt in the presidential contest." And: "Democrats' resolute support for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces may soon position them at odds with independent voters, in particular, a constituency they need to retake the White House." And: "The uptick in public support is a promising sign for Republican candidates who have been bludgeoned over the Bush administration's war policies. But no candidate stands to gain more than McCain."

You'll want to read the whole thing.

As I noted in my last post, I've been doing a lot of recent writing on public opinion trends, and the record shows that the Politico piece is not so outlandish as Greenwald alleges.

What's the beef here?

Greenwald essentially has a problem with the article's wording, where Kuhn suggests that "American public support for the military effort in Iraq has reached a high point unseen since the summer of 2006." That may be a poor choice of words (and the article's mistitled as well).

Why?

Kuhn's actually stressing a different issue, that a majority of Americans now believes that the U.S. will succeed in Iraq. The findings are from a late-February Pew survey, which I discussed in an earlier post.

So it's not so much that Americans "support" the war as it's that they see that we're making progress. When Kuhn's article is framed correctly as such, the analysis is uncontroversial. Kuhn notes, for example:

Democrats’ resolute support for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces may soon position them at odds with independent voters, in particular, a constituency they need to retake the White House.

Half of self-identified independents polled now believe the United States should “keep troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized,” according to polling data assembled by Pew at Politico’s request.

These claims are in line with other recent surveys (which show very little support for an immediate withdrawal), so in that sense the perception of progress in Iraq can indeed hold implications for this fall's election, which is a major argument in the piece.

Now, you can see more to Greenwald's outrage in his comments about Michael O'Hanlon:

The whole article cites only one on-the-record source: the media's favorite all-purpose war cheerleader Michael O'Hanlon, who warns -- yet again -- that the public will soon come to see McCain's pro-war views as the "correct narrative."

Liberal bloggers have sought to discredit O'Hanlon for alleged apostasies (he's with Brookings, which is supposedly a left-of-center think tank, and he's recently been trumpeting U.S. military success in Iraq with his periodic progress reports).

But, while Greenwald is certainly entitled to criticize the Kuhn article for lack of balance, he's not in the right to dismiss the data presented there.

Greenwald goes to a lot of trouble to cite polling statistics indicating that a majority of the public thinks the war was a mistake, or that the Pew survey's an "outlier" contradicted by more recent findings. For example, Greenwald notes that:

A Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted after the Politico's poll found that Americans believe we are "not making significant progress" in Iraq, by a 51-43 margin.

All of this is true, but incomplete.

Polls certainly indicate that Americans think the war's a mistake (check Greenwald's link). That's understandable: Iraq's been expensive, in material and human terms, and it's been less than a year that we've been able to show substantial progress. Americans like results, and sentiment on Iraq has followed public opinion trends in earlier conflicts, such as Vietnam, whereby support for the war fell as the level of casualites increased.

But what Greenwald refuses to acknowledge is the dramatic improvement in public perceptions of the war, which is what Kuhn's really addressing.

If you look at Greenwald's own polling data, the number of respondents indicating that the U.S. "is not making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq" has fallen 15 percent since December 2006, which was a month before the initiation of President Bush's new surge strategy.

Moreover, Greenwald makes it sound as if the public wants to head for the exits, for example, when he says:

Polls - all ignored by the Politico - have continuously shown that even when American perceive that the "surge" has decreased violence, they still are against the war as much as ever before and support withdrawal.

But again, that's not complete.

American's don't support withdrawal. Particularly, only 17 percent of those polled in a recent Gallup survey indicated they'd like to remove "all U.S. troops from Iraq as rapidly as possible, beginning now."

To put this differently, a large majority of Americans opposes an unconditional retreat from Iraq. This is significant, because both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been pandering to the hardline retreatists in the Democratic Party base, even though that's a fringe position.

Frankly, those who are calling for an immediate withdrawal - which apparently includes Greenwald himself - are the outliers.

Note more from Greenwald:

How could a war that is so deeply unpopular - and that remains so regardless of claims of "progress" - possibly benefit the candidate and party perceived as being responsible for that war?...

What is the point of writing a big feature article claiming that Americans are moving towards support for the Iraq War again and this is dramatically re-shaping the political landscape in McCain's favor while purposely ignoring the mountain of extremely recent empirical data completely negating that claim?

Actually the war's not as deeply unpopular as Greenwald indicates. In fact, while
Gallup recently showed a moderate majority saying the war was a mistake, the data found a huge partisan split on public perceptions:

Attitudes about the war are strongly related to one's political point of view, ranging from 91% opposition among liberal Democrats to 80% support among conservative Republicans. Thus, while the war will be a major issue during the fall presidential campaign, its impact is less clear, since war supporters (largely Republicans) will most likely support the GOP candidate and war opponents (largely Democrats) will probably back the Democrat.

Overall, the problem for Greenwald is he's unprincipled in his analysis.

True, the war's not wildly popular.

It's not true, however, that American perceptions have not improved. As security in Iraq has increased - and as casualites have declined - there's been dramatic improvement in the number of people indicating that the U.S. is making progress (Washington Post) and of those saying that the U.S. is now likely to prevail (Pew).

Thus, Kuhn's piece in the Politico is not so off target after all. Democrats indeed may be at odds with trends in public opinion. If Clinton and Obama continue to push for a strategic retreat - at precisely the same time that public opinion acknowledges dramatic successes - the political advantage will fall to GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain. The Dems will be vulnerable to merciless attacks as hopelessly out of touch with the facts on the ground and in public sentiment.

Finally, Greenwald jumped the gun in attacking Kuhn, falsely claiming that the author relied on no other data than the Pew survey. He's now posted a retraction, but further down Greenwall offers methodologically flawed conclusions surrounding the Democratic pickup of Dennis Hastert's congressional seat last week:

Less than a week ago, Democrat Bill Foster was elected to Congress in Denny Hastert's long-time, bright red district in Illinois. The centerpiece of his campaign was opposition to the Iraq war, and he defeated a pro-war candidate whose policies mirrored those of John McCain. Might that development have merited a mention by the Politico in this piece? Public opinion on the Iraq War is "re-shaping the political landscape" alright -- just in exactly the opposition direction as Kuhn claimed here.

Greenwald's essentially committed a variation of the "ecological fallacy" in statistical research, which is the error of making individual inferences derived from aggregate-level data.

Actually, in Greenwald's case, he's extrapolating from a single-seat special election to a national level problem, victory in the general election. While it's certainly the case that this year looks to be a Democratic year, it's incorrect to say that John McCain won't be competitive nationally on the basis of the election results in one congressional election.

In sum, Greenwald's wrong about Iraq and public opinion.

Public opinion indicates that the war remains unpopular. The data also support the notion that we're winning. These are facts that are hard for the nihilist leftists like Greenwald to recognize, much less accept.

Public Support for Iraq at Highest Since 2006

As regular readers know, I've pumped up the volume on my writing output this year, with the presidential primaries and everything.

One topic on which I've posted quite a bit is on public opinion trends on the campaign trail, especially on Iraq.

Thus it's fairly satisfying that some of my commentary and reporting turns out to be ahead of the media curve, as evidenced by this morning's story at Politico, "Support for War Effort Highest Since 2006." According to the article:

American public support for the military effort in Iraq has reached a high point unseen since the summer of 2006, a development that promises to reshape the political landscape.

According to late February polling conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 53 percent of Americans — a slim majority — now believe “the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals” in Iraq. That figure is up from 42 percent in September 2007.

The percentage of those who believe the war in Iraq is going “very well” or “fairly well” is also up, from 30 percent in February 2007 to 48 percent today.

The situation in Iraq remains fluid, of course. A surge in violence or in troop deaths could lead to rapid fluctuations in public opinion. But as the war nears its fifth year, the steady upturn in the public mood stands to alter the dynamics of races up and down the ballot.

I agree.

Indeed, I reported on the Pew survey February 28, in my entry, "U.S. Will Succeed in Iraq, Poll Finds."

It's also true that the situation on the ground is fluid, subject to changing operational fortunes. But as even the major liberal newspaper editorial pages have acknowledged, security gains have contributed to political gains, so much so that victory appears increasingly likely.

The recent spate of bombings in Iraq goes to show that challenges remain, but they are not signs that the surge has failed, despite the claims of antiwar commentators implacable hostile to the mission (for example, here and here).

There's also the problem of media bias. It's just recently that the big national papers have offered regularly upbeat reporting on Iraq (see, the New York Times, "Ending Impasse, Iraq Parliament Backs Measures").

But as Jules Crittenden notes in discussing David Kuhn, from the Politico, the media's afflicted with a "yeah, but" complex in its war coverage:

Kuhn notes that a surge in violence could reverse perceptions and reactions in the notoriously fickle and easily swayed electorate. What Kuhn doesn’t note is that over the past week, with several violent incidents, the “Yeah, But” narrative is being fired up again. Yeah, violence is still way down. But despite the military’s insistence of dramatic progress, some bombs just went off. High successful military campaigns and the turning of the Sunni tribes against al-Qaeda took months to gain any recognition. Al-Qaeda, by all accounts still very much on the ropes, gets off a handful of attacks, and the terrorism amplifier kicks in:

AP: Iraqis Fear Return to Violent Days....

AP: Iraq Violence Sees Spike....

AP: 3 US soldiers die.....

NYT: Stalemate....

The bizarre dynamic of American reporting in this war is that terrorists, no matter how hamstrung they may be, will always applauded for their resilience. The United States military and its allies, no matter how much progress they make in hamstringing terrorists, will always be fighting a rearguard action. The dramatic developments of the past year are typically dispensed with in boilerplate, often presented in a manner to indicate the U.S. military’s role was incidental. Sunni tribes turned, Shiite militias stood down. The U.S. military’s role in encouraging them to do that is rarely noted. The most critical measure of success or failure that the military is constantly required to address remains the strategically least relevant: the tragic tally of isolated incidents and death.

Least relevant, except that in the hands of al-Qaeda’s amplification service, when that is the narrative and measure that is presented to the American public and American politicians, it can and will influence the political debate. The sense of unease AP describes in Baghdad is precisely what al-Qaeda wants to create … in the American electorate.

Crittenden's a journalist, so his inside perspective is particulary important.

But as I concluded in my earlier post, "This meme on the "demand" for withdrawal will continue, and I'll continue to debunk it."

The "meme," of course, is the endless denial on the left that the U.S. is making progress in the war, and as Crittenden points out, it's not just radical left bloggers who perpetuate it.

Supporting the Troops

Well, it's not new for the hard left to renounce support for the troops. Daily Kos usually has a post now and then demonizing American soldiers as the jackboots in the Bush administration's new thousand-year reich.

Recall "Lurxt" at Kos a while back:

Supporting the troops essentially means supporting the illegal war. It seems that us anti-war types have been doing all sorts of mental and philisophical gymnastics to try and work around this. What has emerged is a sort of low impact, mealy-mouthed common wisdom that is palatable to everyone but is ultimately going to allow us to stay in Iraq for years to come.

So, with all of the recent nihilist antiwar activity (attacks on recruiters in Berkeley and New York), it's par for the course to see more forceful statements against the administration, the troops, and the war.

Here's the latest to that effect, from Kenneth Thiesen:

In the recent political battle around the Marine recruiting station in Berkeley there has been much confusion around the concept or slogan of “supporting the troops,” but opposing the unjust wars of the Bush regime. Many who oppose the Bush regime wars also say they “support the troops.” Let me say it straight out—I do not support the troops and neither should you. It is objectively impossible to support the troops of the imperialist military forces of the U.S. and at the same time oppose the wars in which they fight.

The United States has over 700 military bases or sites located in over 130 foreign countries. The hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in these countries are not there to preserve or foster freedom and democracy as the Bush regime would like to claim, but to maintain U.S. imperialist domination of the world. The United States now spends more on its military than all the other nations of the world combined.

If you “support the troops” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other more than 100 countries in which they are located, you also objectively support U.S. hegemony in the world. I believe that the vast majority of people who say they support the troops do not wish to support U.S. imperialism, but that is what they are really doing by putting forth the slogan of “support the troops.”

We need to oppose the recruitment of men and women into the military. We need to support resisters within the military who have realized what they are doing and now choose to resist the role of the U.S. military....

We need to expose that those in the U.S. military are trained to be part of a “killing machine.” While not every member of the military is an individual murderer, they are all part of a system that commits war crimes, including aggressive wars, massacres, rape, and other crimes against humanity, all in the service of U.S. imperialism. The bottom line is that even if these people are relatives or friends, you can not support the troops without also supporting the objective role that these troops play in the imperialist system.

United States troops are acting as destructive and murderous forces of invasion and occupation. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan see this on a daily basis. Hundreds of thousands have died as a direct result of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions are either internal or external refugees. Tens of thousands have been detained in prisons, with thousands of these tortured and scores murdered. Haditha, Iraq where 24 Iraqis were massacred is just the best known of the massacres. Women and children are routinely described as “collateral damage” by military spokespersons when they are murdered in military operations.

“Support for the troops” has become political cover to support the wars. In Congress, many of those who claim they oppose the wars, use “support of the troops” to vote for hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the wars. These politicians are political opportunists, but there are also people who genuinely oppose the war, but who also say “I support the troops.”

But to decide whether U.S. troops deserve support you must analyze what they actually do in countries occupied by the U.S. The wars these troops are engaged in have the goal of maintaining and extending U.S. hegemony throughout the world. They are unjust, illegal, and immoral wars. Can you support the troops in these wars? Why is this any different from a German in World War II saying, “I oppose the wars launched by Hitler, but I support the troops of the German army which are making these wars possible.” When the Marines in Haditha massacred Iraqis, including women and children, would it have been correct to say I supported the Marines who killed those people, but not the massacre? This would be ridiculous, but no more so than supporting the troops engaged in the war that made the Haditha massacre possible in the first place.

In 1933 Marine Major General Smedley Butler clarified the role of the U.S. military. He stated, “War is just a racket…It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses…I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps…In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism...”

Like Butler, Watada, and Mejia, those in the military today must take responsibility for what the military does. Just like the German soldiers of World War 2 could not hide behind the “I was just following orders” excuse, military personnel today also can not hide behind it. Those of us who oppose the unjust wars of the Bush regime must struggle with those in the military and those that support them to expose what role the troops objectively play. Supporting the troops engaged in making war against other nations and people on behalf of U.S. imperialism is not acceptable.

Well, there you have it: One should hate American troops because they're "just like German soldiers" in World War II, stormtroopers for the evil "Bush regime." All of this is standard fare for the anti-American left.

There's nothing I could write here to persuade Theisen or his backers that the U.S. is a force for good in the world. For all the voluminous academic research on U.S. imperialism, the truth remains that America is not an empire.

That being the case, the rest of the resistance to the war is just boilerplate hatred for all things military, or conservative and traditional, for that matter (the military's one of the most conservative institutions of modern democracy, without which freedom would not survive).

Why do I do this, then? Why give attention and exposure to what some might say are marginal ideological fringe elements?

Frankly, I don't think these people are "fringe elements." The military today is increasingly isolated from the broader society. With an all volunteer force, service under arms is reserved to a very narrow demographic, and the national elan that is part of the ethic of duty to country is not built in today's generation of youth.

Instead, young people today are constantly bombarded with school curricula teaching oppositional multiculturalism and moral relativism. Kids are taught that fighting - and killing - for a way of life is inherently evil. These are the same kids who wear Che Guevara gear, illustrating they have no idea what freedom really means.

When attacks on recruiters go beyond dissent, to intimidation and bombing, and when the leftist candidates on the presidential trail fall all over themselves pandering to the antiwar hordes, the matter is no longer an issue of marginal importance.

The case for American goodness and power - in support of our military and operations overseas - is the great issue of the day. The economy will get better, and society will find ways to insure everyone in health markets.

But if we dismantle our military the world's forces of dictatorship and death will be at our doorstep. We have to protect the homeland, as we always have.

That's why I support the troops.

Prostitution, Biology, Morality, and the Law

Eliot Spitzer's resigned the office of Governor of New York.

I'll no doubt be posting on the political implications of the decline and fall of the "Enforcer," but for now I'm increasingly intrigued by the partisan and gender-based splits on the ethics and legality of sex-for-trade (recall last night's rebuke of Jane Hamsher for refusing to call for Spitzer's resignation and endorsing prostitution).

At today's Los Angeles Times, David Barash, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Washington, essentially justified Spitzer's ethical behavior on biological grounds:

One of the most important insights of modern evolutionary biology has been an enhanced understanding of male-female differences, deriving especially from the production of sperm versus eggs. Because sperm are produced in vast numbers, with little if any required parental follow-through, males of most species are aggressive sexual adventurers, inclined to engage in sex with multiple partners when they can. Males who succeed in doing so leave more descendants....

Around the world, high-ranking men have long enjoyed sexual access to comparatively large numbers of women, typically young and attractive. Moreover, women have by and large found such men appealing beyond what may be predicted from their immediate physical traits. "Power," wrote Henry Kissinger, "is the ultimate aphrodisiac"....

Part of being successful, moreover, is a tendency to feel entitled and often to be uninhibited -- in part because one outcome of our species-wide polygamous history is that successful men have been those who took risks, which paid off....

Some readers may bridle at this characterization ... but the evidence is overwhelming. That doesn't justify adultery, by either sex, especially because human beings -- even those burdened by a Y chromosome and suffering from testosterone poisoning -- are presumed capable of exercising control over their impulses....

But even a smidgen of evolutionary insight suggests that maleness plus money plus political power isn't likely to add up to the kind of sexual restraint that the public expects.

Well, despite the obligatory nod to human will, Barash appears to give Spitzer a pass: Genetics and power overdetermined his promiscuity.

I'm not buying it, sorry. Man is not enslaved to his biological needs, and as Spitzer was married - to a fabulously beautiful woman, no less - the ethical impropriety of his own sexual wanderings are all the more inexcusable.

Now, to continue along a slightly different avenue, if we accept that men have a physical need to spread their essence, should this incline us to make distinctions (gender-based, for example) on the propriety and legality of prostitution?

Check what Megan McArdle's talking about on the politcal libertarianism of sex-trading:

Revulsion against sex work isn't unique to female prostitutes. We're also repulsed by men who sell themselves to women, even though there's a general cultural assumption that a healthy man wants to have sex with nearly every female he sees. Something about sex work violates a deep belief--whether cultural or hard wired I don't know--that sex should only be traded for affection.

But if the only prostitutes were men selling themselves to women, no one would want to make it illegal. Supporting yourself that way might bring social opprobrium, like becoming a Morris dancer or eating live chickens--can't you find something better to do? But we wouldn't criminalize it in the name of protecting them from violence, criminals, or the untold horrors of multiple anonymous sexual encounters. A bizarre "We must destroy the village in order to save it" mentality permeates the discussions about legalization on both left and right.

Ross Douthat responds:

Um ... I would still want to make it illegal. I wouldn't want to make it illegal in the name of protecting gigolos from violence or unprotected sex, but then again, that's not fundamentally why I think female prostitution should be illegal either. I think the "protecting vulnerable women" case against legalizing sex work is a perfectly reasonable supplemental argument for keeping the ban in place, but ultimately the case for the ban stands or falls on one's view of morals legislation: First, whether it's appropriate for the law to restrain people from activities that are freely chosen but ultimately self-abusive and morally degrading, and second, whether prostitution, female and male alike, is sufficiently self-abusive and degrading to warrant legal sanction.

You'll have to read the rest of Douthat's post.

I frankly haven't thought about the ethics and legality of prostitution from such a deeply philosophical perspective. I can appreciate a libertarian regime of legalized prostitution, from the point of view of consenting adults entering into rational exchange to satisfy some set of mutually agreed interests.

The problem is that life doesn't follow a strictly non-personal logic of idealized rational decision-making. Power, venality, immaturity, poverty - among just a few factors - intrude into the mutual choice transaction framework surrounding prostitution. The unpredictability of life messes up the model.

Frankly, prostitution's not something that seems clean and respectabe. Even if it was legal, I'd guess most self-esteeming people would have qualms about sex-trading simply on the basis of Judeo-Christain ethics.

The morality of right is what allows us to overcome the biological urges that Barash uses to excuse the polygamous behavior of men in power. That morality doesn't disappear if society - on libertarian grounds - legalizes an activity likely to reflect inequalities of power in income, gender, race, and social status.

In any case, as promised, I'll have more on the fall of Spitzer as things develop.

See Memeorandum in the meanwhile.

No Pride: The Left's Patriotism Gap

I noted previously, after the Texas primary, how Barack Obama claimed that young Americans today, traveling abroad, can't hold their heads high and proclaim: "I Am an American."

Obama's sentiments - which echo his wife's own anti-Americanism - should not be considered some peripheral issue bound to get lost in all the talk of health care and national security. No, the question of pride in nation goes beyond specifics to the fundamental qualities of what we want in our president, an American president.

Obama's a powerful speaker, but his elegant, lofty words cannot hide the considerable specificity to his unpatriotism.

Jonah Goldberg reminds us to attend to the essence of Obama's spoken prose, and how his ideas reflect on the contemporary left:

'Unity is the great need of the hour. ... Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country. I'm not talking about a budget deficit. ... I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny."

So quoth Barack Obama in Atlanta on Jan. 20, but it might as well have been last week, so central is unity to his presidential campaign. And then there's Michelle Obama. "We have lost the understanding that, in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another," the would-be first lady told a rally last month. "That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done."

What is fascinating here is not the sentiment, but what's missing from it. The P-word.
To invoke patriotism seriously is to brand yourself either an old fogy or a right-wing bully. If Obama spoke about patriotism with the sort of passion he expends on unity, many would take him for some sort of demagogue.

But what on Earth could he mean by unity other than a kind of patriotic esprit de corps for the good of his country? Indeed, patriotism is far, far preferable to mere unity. (Mafia syndicates and terrorist cells are unified, after all.) Patriotism is a species of unity that has some moral and philosophical substance to it. In America, patriotism -- as opposed to, say, nationalism -- is a love for a creed, a dedication to what is best about the "American way." Nationalism, a romantic sensibility, says "my country is always right." Patriots hope that their nation will make the right choice.

If you read the speeches of leading Democrats before the Vietnam War, it's amazing how comfortable they were with patriotic rhetoric. "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country," stands foursquare against so much of our entitlement culture.

Vietnam, of course, changed that. "The tragedy of the left," wrote Todd Gitlin in his 2006 book, "Intellectuals and the Flag," "is that, having achieved an unprecedented victory in helping stop an appalling war, it then proceeded to commit suicide."

Suicide might be strong, but the left certainly amputated itself from full-throated patriotic sentiment. Most Democrats speak mellifluously about unity but get tongue-tied or sound as if they're just delivering words plucked from a political consultant's memo when they turn to patriotism. (Virginia Sen. Jim Webb being a major exception.) Sen. John Kerry, who made his name vilifying the Vietnam War, suddenly wanted patriotic credit for the same service when he ran for president in 2004. His line at the Democratic convention -- "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty" -- was cringe-inducing. The words came out as ironic, almost kitschy. The message seemed to be, "I can play this game better than that chickenhawk, George W. Bush."

When Democrats do speak of patriotism, it is usually as a means of finding fault with Republicans, corporations or America itself. Hence the irony that questioning the patriotism of liberals is a grievous sin, but doing likewise to conservatives is fine. That's how then-candidate Howard Dean could with a straight face insist that then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft "is no patriot. He's a direct descendant of Joseph McCarthy."

See also, Mona Charen, "Obama's Self-Portrait."

American Nihilism: The Escalating War on Military Recruiters

I deeply disagree with Michelle Malkin on immigration reform, and I've obviously not been pleased with her attacks on Senator John McCain.

But no one in the media or the right blogosphere is doing more to publicize the nihilist left's unending campaign of destruction against U.S. military recruitment programs, attacks which demonstrate the pure hatred of America and its martial institutions among many (if not most) in the antiwar cadres.

Malkin has published a new report on the dangerously escalating war on America's armed services at home. The report should be a read widely as a wake-up call in the aftermath of last week's Times Square bombing, :

Ideas have consequences. Inaction has consequences. For the past several years, I've chronicled the left's escalating war on military recruiters -- and the apathetic, weak-kneed response to it. The anti-recruiter thugs on college campuses and in liberal enclaves have thrived thanks to a combination of public indifference, law enforcement fecklessness and left-wing ideological apologism.

It has now been a week since the Times Square military recruitment center bombing. The investigation continues -- and so does the left's denial of the ongoing campaign against military recruiters. At a national conference of anarchists in Washington, D.C., last weekend, a "solidarity sticker" glorifying the biker bomber made the rounds. On the Internet, "peace" activists threatened the Gathering of Eagles, a national military support group that organized a rally at Times Square last weekend. From Pittsburgh to Berkeley, anti-war extremists have smeared recruiters as "death pimps" and "child predators." The militant Code Pink group continues to organize in-your-face protests to drive recruiters from major metropolitan areas.

The Times Square bombing was not an isolated incident, but an all-too-predictable symptom of reckless tolerance for dangerous "peace" peddlers skating on the edge of sedition. Lone nuts? Here is a brief history of the anti-military recruitment movement's mounting acts of vandalism and violence.

Malkin lists over two dozen incidents of intimidation and violence against recruiter in the last few years, for example:

January 20, 2005: At Seattle Central Community College, Army recruiter Sgt. Jeff Due and his colleague Sgt. 1st Class Douglas Washington were hounded by an angry mob of 500 anti-war students. The recruiters' table was destroyed; their handouts, torn apart. Protesters threw water bottles and newspapers at the soldiers. The far-left Students Against War had been agitating to kick the recruiters off campus. The college administration refused to punish the radicals.

The most recent incidents include Code Pink's violent campaign against recruiters in Berkeley, and the Times Square recruiting center bombing.

I wrote on the Times Square case, here, here, and here.

Malkin sees no end in sight to the antiwar mayhem:

When will this escalating war end? There will be no end in sight until lawmakers, law enforcement, the media and the public open their eyes to the hate, connect the dots, and stop coddling the increasingly crazed and emboldened anti-military militants before more bombs go off -- and innocents get harmed -- in the name of "peace."

Her concern is not unwarranted.

As Gayle at Dragon Lady's Den reports, in the wake of the New York bombing, there are new threats against the pro-victory support organization, Gathering of Eagles, which is planning a series of demonstrations this weekend.

Clearly deranged, the activist making the threats has now called on all "imams" to issue a fatwah ordering the assassination of Michelle Malkin.

Just a crazy extemist, right? An isolated case, which is nothing compared to Republican fear-mongering, some might argue.

I don't think so.

Terrorists Deliver Severed Fingers to Washington

If you check Memeorandum, there's not one post up on the news of the delivery to Washington of the severed fingers of five hostages in Iraq. This is a very grisly story, and given the increasing desperation of Iraq's terrorist groups, we might as well expect the delivery of decapitated heads.

McClatchy has the story:

U.S. authorities in Baghdad have received five severed fingers belonging to four Americans and an Austrian who were taken hostage more than a year ago in Iraq, officials here said today.

The FBI is investigating the grisly development, and the families of the five kidnapped contractors have been notified, American officials said on condition of anonymity because only Washington officials are permitted to publicly discuss the matter.

Authorities have confirmed that the fingers belonged to hostages Jonathan Cote, of Gainesville, Fla., Joshua Munns, of Redding, Calif., Paul Reuben, of Buffalo, Minn., Bert Nussbaumer of Vienna, Austria, and Ronald J. Withrow, of Lubbock, Texas.

My hope and prayers go out to the hostages and their families (and I indeed prayer for my fellow Americans before I lay down to sleep).

The depravity of our enemies is unlimited, although left-wing blog coverage of their deeds is defeaningly the opposite.

See more news and anaysis at the Washington Post and Jawa Report.

Organized Labor Mounts McCain Smear Campaign

Labor organizations have launched a smear campaign against GOP nominee John McCain. The atttacks paint the Arizona Senator as a "100-Year-in-Iraq" Bush clone, for example, in this "McSame as Bush" ad, from the Campaign to Defend America (via YouTube):

Here's more from the Los Angeles Times:

With two celebrity-class candidates, Democrats have seen their presidential contest draw record voter turnout and an influx of Latinos and younger Americans to the party. But some are becoming concerned that the party now risks losing its hold on a more established set of needed supporters: blue-collar workers.

The fears are strong enough that the AFL-CIO today will announce a multimillion-dollar campaign to discredit Republican candidate John McCain among union households and link him to President Bush's unpopular economic policies.

A separate labor-backed group, the Campaign to Defend America, has launched a television ad portraying McCain as "McSame as Bush" on issues including the Iraq war, economics and energy policy. The spot ends with a picture of the two men embracing.

What explains organized labor's unhinged attacks?

Sheer desperation, as recent election data suggest that McCain has a huge opportunity with moderate Reagan Democrats, folks who are obviously not too thrilled about all of the gender and race politics taking over the Democratic primaries, not to mention the calls for a relentlessly retreatist foreign policy among the antiwar left:

The AFL-CIO became concerned after polls and focus groups found considerable willingness among union members to consider supporting McCain, regardless of which Democrat won the nomination.

Republicans have signaled that they have the Reagan Democrats at the top of their target list. Ken Mehlman, a former GOP national chairman who is informally advising McCain, said the campaign's blue-collar outreach would attract Reagan Democrats for the same reason the former president did: McCain is seen as frank, a good leader, strong on defense and opposed to tax increases.

Some analysts say the threat of defections to McCain will be particularly acute if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee. In many of this year's caucuses and primaries, Obama has lost working-class white voters to rival Hillary Rodham Clinton. Holding on to those voters in swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania will be one key to the party's efforts in November against McCain, the presumed GOP nominee.

Look for organized labor and the radical left to become increasingly fanatical in their efforts to discredit McCain.

The Arizona Senator continues to match-up competitively in trial-run dead-heats against either potential Democratic opponent in public opinion surveys.

Media Enablers in Spitzer Scandal

Eliot Spitzer's rise to power was facilitated by a fawning press that abandoned its responsibility as the public's watchdog. Spitzer's now disgraced. Kimberly Strassel argues the press should share his ignominy:

The fall of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer holds many lessons, and the press will surely be examining them in coming months. But don't expect the press corps to delve into the biggest lesson of all -- its own role as his enabler.

Journalists have spent the past two days asking how a man of Mr. Spitzer's stature would allow himself to get involved in a prostitution ring. The answer, in my mind, is clear. The former New York attorney general never believed normal rules applied to him, and his view was validated time and again by an adoring press. "You play hard, you play rough, and hopefully you don't get caught," said Mr. Spitzer two years ago. He never did get caught, because most reporters were his accomplices.

Journalism has many functions, but perhaps the most important is keeping tabs on public officials. That duty is even more vital concerning government positions that are subject to few other checks and balances. Chief among those is the prosecutor, who can use his awesome state power to punish, even destroy, private citizens.

Yet from the start, the press corps acted as an adjunct of Spitzer power, rather than a skeptic of it. Many journalists get into this business because they want to see wrongs righted. Mr. Spitzer portrayed himself as the moral avenger. He was the slayer of the big guy, the fat cat, the Wall Street titan -- all allegedly on behalf of the little guy. The press ate it up, and came back for more.

Time magazine bestowed upon Mr. Spitzer the title "Crusader of the Year," and likened him to Moses. Fortune dubbed him the "Enforcer." A fawning article in the Atlantic Monthly in 2004 explained he was "a rock star," and "the Democratic Party's future." In an uncritical 2006 biography, then Washington Post reporter Brooke Masters compared the attorney general to no less than Teddy Roosevelt.

What the media never acknowledged is that somewhere along the line (say, his first day in public office) Mr. Spitzer became the big guy, the titan. He had the power to trample lives and bend the rules, while also burnishing his own political fortune. He was the one who deserved as much, if not more, scrutiny as onetime New York Stock Exchange chief Dick Grasso or former American International Group CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg.

What makes this more embarrassing for any self-respecting journalist is that Mr. Spitzer knew all this, and played the media like a Stradivarius. He knew what sort of storyline they'd be sympathetic to, and spun it. He knew, too, that as financial journalism has become more competitive, breaking news can make a career. He doled out scoops to favored reporters, who repaid him with allegiance. News organizations that dared to criticize him were cut off. After a time, few criticized anymore.

Strassel notes how media boosters continued their fawning Monday night, suggesting a tragedy in Spitzer's fall, to which Strassel concludes:

There's little that's tragic about Mr. Spitzer, unless you consider his victims (which would appear to include his own family). The press would do well to meditate on that, and consider how many violations they winked at and validated over the years. Politicians don't exist to be idolized by the press, at least not by any press corps doing its job.

See also the conflicting reports on the governor's tenure, "Spitzer Resists Calls to Resign," and "Spitzer Aides Say Governor Will Resign Today."