Brokered Convention Could Sink Divided Democrats

The Democratic Party's divisions this year are reminiscent to 1968, when the party, divided by Vietnam, saw rioting in the streets outside Chicago's summer nominating convention - unrest which presaged the party's general election defeat that fall.

Could a similar run of events befall the Democrats in 2008? Michael Cohen has a tantalizing analysis at the Wall Street Journal:

It has been more than five decades since any political party in America has had a brokered convention, and for political junkies a heated battle at the Democratic convention seems like a tantalizing possibility. But for Democrats, a protracted nomination battle, culminating in a convention fight, could undermine the party's hopes of reclaiming the White House this fall.

Since voters in Ohio and Texas breathed new life into Hillary Clinton's campaign, some have argued that the current stalemate will not hurt the party's candidate come November. After all, as several prominent bloggers have argued, wasn't the 1968 Democratic primary battle worse? Didn't eventual nominee Hubert Humphrey go on to lose by a mere 1% of the popular vote to Richard Nixon? If a bitter Democratic race hurts a party's chances in the general election, shouldn't Humphrey have lost by more?

The current struggle between Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama doesn't hold a candle to 1968. Forty years ago that race was capped by a "police riot" against antiwar demonstrators at the party's national convention in Chicago. However, the lessons of that year should be sobering for Democrats today.

Humphrey won the nomination only to find himself at the helm of a party divided between hawks and doves, blacks and whites, and blue collar and white collar. He wasted critical weeks trying to unite the party instead of laying the groundwork for victory in November. It wasn't until late September that he succeeded at bringing Democrats together by pledging a conditional halt to bombing runs against North Vietnam, and appealing to labor by forcefully attacking independent candidate George Wallace.

After, turning his fire on Wallace and Nixon, Humphrey's poll numbers dramatically improved and nearly won him the election. But in the end, his defeat was devastating for Democrats. Four years earlier, Lyndon B. Johnson had crushed Barry Goldwater with 61% of the popular vote. In 1968, Humphrey won just 43%. The nomination fight had exposed fissures that Humphrey was not able to close by Election Day, and which continue to divide Democrats.

While divisions among Democrats today are not as severe, a drawn-out nomination fight could leave the party critically short of the time it will need to build a winning campaign. Recent exit polls show that 20%-30% of Democratic voters will be dissatisfied if their candidate loses the nomination. Those numbers will likely increase if the battle between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama intensifies, and especially if it ends in a bitter squabble over delegates at the convention. Although Democrats are more ideologically unified than any time in recent memory, the party's nominee will still have serious fences to mend. Mrs. Clinton would need to reach out to blacks and first-time voters. Mr. Obama would have to win over blue-collar voters. Unfortunately, with the convention in late August, whoever the nominee is will have little time to unify Democrats. In just two months, he or she will have to bridge party divides while also rolling out a general election campaign against John McCain. As the kids say, good luck with all that.

Cohen doesn't mention the latest controversies stirring the Democrats, from Obama's Wright controversy to the Clinton campaign's call for a blogging backlash against the Obama campaign's planned assault on Hillary.

Not only that, Cohen might be downplaying the Democratic divisions this year. While we have not had massive antiwar street protests and violence on the scale of the Vietnam era divisions, much of the radical antiwar and oppositional sentiment is unleashed online. We're seeing a level of political alienation with establishment politics that rivals earlier eras, but is challenging in new ways.
The left blogosphere holds itself up as the new grassroots of the Democratic Party, mounting a puritanical campaign against big pro-war Democrats such as Senator Joseph Lieberman. If Barack Obama - who's the hope of the alienated left-wing fringe - ends up losing to Clinton at a brokered convention, the 1968 analogy could prove more powerful than many suspect.

Already, under-the-radar left-wing cells are planning for major "direct action" against the Democrats at the Denver convention in August. If radical organizations were to combine with larger numbers of disaffected groups - especially the same college-age cohorts who've turned out in massive numbers for Obama's nominating caucuses - the possibilty of a more full-blown 1968-style conflict can't be entirely ruled out.

My blogging buddy, Jan, who blogs over at Vinegar and Honey, forsees racial unrest on the scale of the Watts riots in 1965:

With the current racial divide in this country, it is not a stretch to think that if Senator Obama, for any reason, loses the election that there will be a revolt unequalled by any other that we've seen here. Again, I believe, the white establishment will be targeted, in the belief that the election was stolen from him in some way. Add to this the mindset that there is no justice for blacks, and that they still do not have equal rights.

I'm sympathetic to the argument, although I would suggest that rather than a localized, spontaneous revolt, a broader, underground movement to violently disrupt the Democrats in Denver could emerge as the result of months of planning among hard-line groups currently making up the nihilist antiwar organizational structure.

We're already seeing efforts to "recreate '68," so, again, possibilties are in the air, especially as more and more "insider" radicals - who regularly proclaim their solidarity with the world's socialist revolutionary forces - become increasingly disillusioned and more open to dramatically unconventionial (and potentially violent) political mobilization.

See also, the Politico, "Antiwar Movement Wrestles with 1968."

White Men Emerge as Key Voting Constituency

Will this election be remembered as "The Year of the Man," or the white man, to be more specific?

It could be.

In a campaign season increasingly dominated by hard-left identity political and anti-patriotic demonization of the United States, the political dynamics of the election have shifted attention to the role of white male voters, who could end up being a key constituency supporting Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party's upcoming primaries.

The Washington Post has the story:

In the fierce campaign between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, a battle dominated by questions of race and gender, white men have emerged as perhaps the single critical swing constituency.

The competition for the support of white men, particularly those defined as working class, will shape the showdown between Clinton and Obama in Pennsylvania's Democratic presidential primary on April 22. Obama (Ill.) won majorities among those voters in what appeared to be breakthrough victories in Wisconsin and Virginia last month. But he badly lost working-class white men to Clinton (N.Y.) in Ohio and Texas two weeks ago, keeping the outcome of the Democratic race in doubt indefinitely.

The results in Ohio in particular raised questions about whether Obama can attract support from this crucial demographic. They also brought to the forefront the question of whether racial prejudice would be a barrier to his candidacy in some of the major industrial battlegrounds in the general election if he becomes the Democratic nominee.

An examination of exit polls in Wisconsin and Ohio, states with striking similarities, shows that many more working-class white men in Ohio said race was a factor in their vote on March 4 than was the case in Wisconsin. The analysis makes clear that race was not the deciding factor in the Ohio primary but did contribute to Clinton's margin of victory.

In the past week, racial issues have dominated the campaign dialogue. Former Democratic vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro was forced to quit the Clinton campaign after her comments about Obama and race brought sharp criticism from the senator and his allies.

On Friday, Obama had to distance himself from his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., former pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, over statements widely viewed as being anti-American. Obama has been a member of the church for two decades.

Obama's advisers have sought to play down the idea that racial prejudice was a major factor in Clinton's victory in Ohio. They suggest that Obama's poor performance among working-class white men reflects broader generational divisions that have marked the Democratic race.

David Axelrod, senior adviser to Obama, said he is uncertain how concerned the campaign should be about the influence of race on working-class white voters. "It bears some closer examination," he said. "I think for older voters, it's more of a leap than for younger voters. But I don't think it's an insuperable barrier."

Obama has sought to transcend race in his campaign, and found considerable success in that pursuit in many states. Racial divisions have shown up in Southern states, as they did last Tuesday in Mississippi and earlier in Alabama. In both primaries, Obama overwhelmingly carried the black vote and Clinton overwhelmingly carried the white vote. But in smaller states outside the South -- such as Iowa, Kansas and Utah -- where there are far fewer minorities, Obama has done extremely well with white voters.

The implications of these trends go beyond the Democratic Party.

In Zogby's recent poll showing John McCain leading possible dead-head matchups in the general election, the data indicate that McCain runs strong against Obama in generic mathcups and with the male demographic:

An interesting factor in this race: the inroads McCain has made into Obama’s base and vice versa. McCain wins 19% support from Democrats, while Obama captures just 67% of voters in his own party. Obama wins 15% support among Republicans, compared to 73% for McCain....

Among men, McCain leads Obama 48% to 34%, while Obama holds a slim 43% to 41% edge over McCain among women.

White Americans are more likely to vote than ethnic minorities, so, depending on the nature of the fall campaign itself, the same trends that may help Hillary Clinton in April, could bolster the GOP ticket in the fall, with either a woman or a black as the Democratic nominee.

Calling All Bloggers: Obama's "Full Assault" on Hillary

Peter Daou, Hillary Clinton's internet director, and the founder of " The Blog Report," has a call out for bloggers to challenge Barack Obama's "full assault" on Hillary's character.

Taylor Marsh, who's published a copy of the Daou's original e-mail, suggests that "this is a first." Check it out:

Peter Daou is Clinton's Internet director. I just found out that he has sent out an email to a group of bloggers with a challenge: "I challenge my online friends to call this "full assault" on Hillary's character for what it is."

I got a copy of the email he sent out so I'm going to post it in its entirety. The subject title reads as follows: Barack Obama's "Full Assault" On Hillary Clinton. The email text is below:

I'm writing this to a group of bloggers. Some of you are Hillary supporters, some not, some neutral.

I want to address a pervasive misconception, namely, that Senator Obama hasn't run a negative campaign against Hillary. I think it's time to put that misconception to rest.

The truth is that for months, the Obama campaign has been attacking Hillary, impugning her character and calling into question her lifetime of public service. And now the Chicago Tribune reports that Senator Obama is preparing a "full assault" on her "over ethics and transparency." To those who contend that Senator Obama is the clear frontrunner, I ask, to what end this "full assault" on Hillary?

On CNN last Tuesday, Senator Obama said, "Well, look, Wolf, I think if you watch how we have conducted our campaign, we've been very measured in terms of how we talk about Senator Clinton. ... I have been careful to say, that I think that Senator Clinton is a capable person and that should she win the nomination, obviously, I would support her. You know, I'm not sure that we have been getting that same approach from the Clinton campaign."

The facts of this election stand in stark contrast to that statement. Senator Obama and his senior campaign officials have engaged in a systematic effort to question Hillary's integrity, credibility, and character. They have portrayed her as someone who would put her personal gain ahead of the lives of our troops, someone who would say or do anything to win an election, someone who is dishonest, divisive and disingenuous. They have adopted shop-worn anti-Clinton talking points, dusted them off and unleashed a torrent of unfounded character attacks against her. Among other things, they have described Hillary - and her campaign - as:

"Disingenuous"

"Too polarizing to win"

'Divisive'

"Untruthful"

"Dishonest"

'Calculating'

"Saying and doing whatever it takes to win"

"Attempting to deceive the American people"

"One of the most secretive politicians in America"

"Literally willing to do anything to win"

"Playing politics with war"

To top it off, they have blanketed big states with false radio ads and negative mailers -- ads and mailers that experts have debunked time and time again. They have distributed health care brochures using Republican framing. They have tried to draw a nexus between Hillary's votes and the death of her friend Benazir Bhutto. And one of Senator Obama's top advisers (who has since left the campaign) recently called Hillary "a monster."

Read the whole thing.

I love the bibliography!

But I love even more the fact that Daou's call transcends the Clinton-backing left-blogosphere. Here's a chance for left and right to work in common cause to defeat Obama's unprincipled, unpatriotic, and hate-embracing campaign.

I noted in my post last night ("Juan Williams Unloads on Obama") that the Wright controversy could fade in MSM coverage, although I'm seem more replays of the "GOD DAMN AMERICA" sermon on CNN's "American Morning" right now.

Maybe some bipartisan internet cooperation repudiating this "full assault" on Clinton will help keep media attention on Obama's audacity of hatred.

Juan Williams Unloads on Obama

Via Hot Air and Memeorandum, check out this video of Juan Williams taking down Barack Obama:

Link: sevenload.com

Also, Right Truth's got an essay that really captures my thinking on Obama's Wright controversy:

How long it will take for the "God Damn America" story to "die down" is anyone's guess. The potential exists for many more "revelations" because the stock of sermons ... is extensive and the news media has only reported on a very limited number.

Yet, while [the controversy] can easily become "yesterday's news" ... this story seems to be very different ... since few people who have seen and heard Rev Wright's "God Damn America" sermon will ever forget.

Logically, this ... should sink Obama's ship. He has so many connections to Wright over a 20 year period, and Wright is the fanatic reverse racist bigot that he is, that there are no good ways open to resolve the problem....

What is astonishing has been the reaction - and non-reaction - of the MSM, with some exception for ABC, and decent coverage on the part of CNN. But otherwise the story has been buried by the Big Press and ignored as much as possible by the TV networks, so far including PBS.

Obama is lying about his relationship to Wright, and the more evidence to that effect that emerges, combined with the explosive nature of black church teachings at Trinity United Church of Christ, and Obama's embrace of them, could damage his campaign irretrievably.

See also my earlier entries, "What Did Obama Know About Wright's Past Sermons?, and "Obama Attended Wright's Hate Sermons."

The Lessons of Iraq

Wednesday marks the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq.

As readers here know, there's little consensus among pundits and political scientists on the nature of military and political success in the conflict, or on the war's long-term significance for the international system.

Jules Crittenden addresses these issues in a penetrating new essay at the Weekly Standard. Crittenden was embedded with A Company of the 4/64 Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division during the march-up to Baghdad during the initial invasion. Here's his take on the big picture:

We're five years into the war in Iraq now. Nearly 4,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. Thousands more Americans and Iraqis have seen their lives shattered in what became the premier killing zone of a global war. But death and combat no longer make the front pages; the drama has been bled out of it, and the war has taken a back seat in the presidential campaign. Rather than maturing in time of war, the American people seem eager to put it out of mind.

After 1989, we were encouraged to believe that war was history. This illusion made the shock of 9/11 all the worse. Even then some people wanted to believe it was an aberration, something we had brought on ourselves and could fix with kind words and deeds. The ease of the Taliban's ouster then created the false impression that we had managed to reinvent war in a more palatable form.

In fact, all we've managed to do as a nation over six-and-a-half years of war is confuse ourselves. This is not a simple war to understand, and it has been going on for decades. It has expressed itself with everything from low-grade terrorism to conventional war to nuclear threats, across multiple continents, and with many, seemingly unconnected, adversaries. Just the part of it we call the Iraq war has involved many different, and not always distinct, adversaries in numerous, overlapping conflicts. Faced with this kind of complexity, it isn't so surprising that vague messages of "hope" and "change" resonate with the American public, and politicians vie for the right to own those terms.

The shallowness of the debate suggests our nation is in danger of failing the test of our time. The abstract circumstances of cause and consequence in this war have fostered an avoidance of reality in some quarters--and at some of the highest levels of our leadership, often quite nakedly for purposes of political gain. Would-be leaders would rather play to emotions than make the hard calculations that adulthood forces on us.

Iraq has become the central battlefield in the 21st century's Islamic war, and may have been destined to be, with or without us. Lying geographically, ideologically, and culturally athwart the Middle East, rich in resources and boiling with rage long before we got there, it is the place where the war will either be settled or truly begun. It is a fitting role for the cradle of civilization to host a war in which the very progress of civilization is being challenged.

While there were terrible errors made in going to war in Iraq, the decision to go to war was not one of them.

Saddam Hussein convinced the world he had active weapons programs. The evidence now suggests he didn't, but how active his programs were, ultimately, is irrelevant. He had demonstrated his desire to dominate the region. Our European allies were eager to do business with him despite their own intelligence reports. Absent any containment, there was potential for more terrible and far-reaching wars. It was inevitable that Iraq would undergo a post-Saddam power struggle with massive ethnic conflict and with interference by Iran and Syria. The question was, and remains, how much influence we would wield in that event.

Five years on, the threat Saddam Hussein posed to regional stability--global stability, if you consider the resources he sought to control--has been neutralized....

Those Americans who have sneered at these fits and starts of democracy are experiencing their own domestic political frustrations. Democrats are demanding more political cohesion from Iraq and Pakistan than they've been able to manage themselves. As Congress presses for disengagement with no practicable plan, we learn--thanks to the candor of a departing foreign policy adviser--that the leading Democratic candidate has no plan whatsoever for his campaign's central plank of withdrawal from Iraq.

The errors committed in this war have contributed greatly to American frustrations. There was a failure to recognize the extent of the challenge ahead, even as ambitious plans were being laid starting in late 2001. The Bush administration could have had a blank check and recruits lined up around the block, but instead insisted on taking us into war with a post-Cold War military that is only belatedly being built up. The administration failed to seize control of Iraq with sufficient urgency and, when a complex insurgency was well underway, failed to move with sufficient skill to quell it until late in the day. The greater failure was to not adequately communicate the mission to Americans and to the world.

All wars go through evolutions, and it is unrealistic to expect no missteps. In this case, however, they are cited most frequently not as arguments to improve the war effort, but as excuses for abandonment. The Bush administration has made good at last with a counterinsurgency strategy that has hobbled Al Qaeda in Iraq and has the Shiite militias in a box. Iraqi military capabilities are improving, and the next president appears likely to inherit a somewhat pacified, reconciled Iraq; an enhanced American position of influence in the Middle East; opposing terrorist organizations that are sharply compromised; and a string of nascent democracies. At considerable cost of American blood and treasure, the United States is now in a position of marked if precarious influence in the most dangerous part of the world. The new president will have to consider how much of that he or she wants to throw away or build upon.

The antiwar camp and their candidates hold a childish hope that our problems will just go away if we withdraw. They argue that Iraq was an artificial cause, that our presence fuels violence and our departure will end it, that Iran can be a helpful partner in this process, and that al Qaeda can be fought from afar. They desire nothing but a return to the innocence we enjoyed before September 11, 2001, ignoring the fact that our enemies had been emboldened by decades of American demurring, disengagement, and half measures.

The American people have been allowed to believe that getting out of Vietnam was the best thing we did there, and that there was no penalty for cutting our losses. It should not be surprising that so many believe the same of Iraq. Looking past the immediate victims of that historic abandonment, the Soviet Union was emboldened by our show of weakness, invading Afghanistan and triggering a fateful string of events. Iran, seized by Islamic zealots, staged the 1979 hostage crisis to kick off three decades of support for terrorism and a bid for regional domination. In both cases, the belligerents knew we would do nothing about it. Figures like Osama bin Laden, among others, noted this void, and created the circumstances we are currently compelled to address.

The United States has commitments to Iraq and the larger region and a pressing interest in the defense of free and open societies. If we avoid our responsibilities we simply plant the seeds of further conflict. The pressing question of the 2008 presidential campaign is whether the part of this global war that began five years ago will be prosecuted to a satisfactory conclusion, or whether the effort to end the Iraq war will be marked by a different kind of waffling, whining noise than that one I heard at dawn five years ago, followed by more devastating explosions.

This is perhaps the best recent essay I've read on the entire cultural, miltary, and political significance of the war, and I've read a lot.

There's not much more I can add except to reinforce the notion that this is the conflict of our time, and that for all the cost and sacrifice, also on the line is America's reputation as the world's leading power.

War opponents will continue to berate and demonize the war. Today the Bush administration is vilified for its foreign policy failures in 2003 through 2006, but very few are willing to concede the huge foreign policy learning that the adminstration undertook to set a new course toward victory. We are not done, as General David Petraeus said this week, but the level of violence in Iraq over the last year has dropped so dramatically that the conflict has all but disappeared from the front pages of the newspapers.

The notion of Iraq as FUBAR among implacable antiwar forces - as well as mainstream journalists - will be difficult to dislodge.

The truth, of course, is that we're winning in Iraq, and while considerable debate over the strength of al Qaeda or other anti-democratic groups will continue, the fact remains that we can simply either recognize the phenomenal progress we've made - and commit American resources and will to seeing the job through - or we can succumb to a cost-sensitivity that will set back American foreign interests more disastrously than at any time since Vietnam - an earlier, regrettable retreat from war that left the world's correlation of forces dangerously advantageous to the evil designs of Marxist-Leninist totalitarianism.

We cannot afford to do the same today.

Crittenden's right: Iraq is now the world's ground zero in the battle against 21st century Islamic war. There's no retreat from the struggle, no matter the political dynamics at home. Our enemies won't rest until they've achieved their goal of the complete and utter destruction of the United States, by any means necessary.

That's a lesson that can never be forgotten this campaign season.

Photo Credit: Jules Crittenden

McCain Pulls Ahead in New Zogby Poll

Zogby's had spotty accuracy in recent polling, but I thought I'd get the firm's latest poll findings up here to add to the debate on the general election.

John McCain has a six-point lead over Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup for November, which is the largest lead I've seen in recent polling:

Riding high after locking up his party’s presidential nomination, Republican John McCain of Arizona has moved ahead of both of his potential Democratic Party rivals in a national general election test, the latest Zogby telephone survey shows.

Perhaps profiting from the continuing political battle across the aisle, McCain would defeat Hillary Clinton of New York by six points and Barack Obama of Illinois by 5 points, the survey shows. Clinton and Obama are locked in a tight battle to win the Democratic Party nomination, a fight that has grown nasty at times recently and threatens to continue on all summer long until the party’s national convention in Denver this August.

Zogby also finds that Ralph Nader taking 5 percent of the vote, which if that number holds, could be very signicant, as the former Green Party candidate more likely siphons votes from the Democratic Party.

Also, Michael Hirsch at Newsweek, in his essay, "Why McCain Might Win," argues that the Democratic bloodletting is seriously damaging Democratic Party prospects for the the fall race:

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama show few signs that they're aware of it, but the general election campaign has already begun. And appropriately for the eve of St. Patrick's Day, the pair have begun to destroy each other like the two crazy Irish cats of Kilkenny. The upshot is that both of them are already losing the general to John McCain. By the time the Democratic convention rolls around in August and the nomination is finally awarded, the battle may already be over.

Hirsch's analyis excludes analysis of the Wright scandal on the dynamics of the election, and the changing fortunes of the Democrats.

Given the "God Damn America" controversy, the likelihood of this thing being over is even greater than some might think.

For more on Obama's liabilities, see "What Did Obama Know About Wright's Past Sermons?"

McCain's Straight Talk Express Goes to Iraq

Captain Ed offers his analysis of John McCain's trip to Iraq (via Memeorandum):

John McCain took some time off of the campaign trail and hit the ground in Iraq this morning. The media calls it a “surprise visit”, but he had given indications that he would visit Iraq after he clinched the nomination in order to get a fresh assessment of the progress being made by General David Petraeus and the troops. He intends to meet with Iraqi leadership, who might get a glimpse of the McCain temper for their foot-dragging on reconciliation....

McCain’s visit will have at least one salutary effect — it will force news agencies to cover the drop in violence in Iraq yet again. As the news has gotten better from the effort, it has also become more rare and less prominently placed. For a day or two, newspapers will include the improvements seen from the surge, which McCain had demanded for three years before its eventual implementation.

Iraqi leaders have met with McCain before, but not as a presidential nominee. That may give McCain a little more leverage with Nouri al-Maliki and the other political leaders in the Iraqi central government. Before now, McCain’s criticisms of the Iraqi leadership had been moderated by his status as just another American legislator, albeit one with more clout than some of the other drop-in visitors to the Green Zone. Now that McCain may be the best friend they have left in the upcoming presidential election, they may take his suggestions on speeding up reconciliation efforts closer to heart.

Another point that the American media might make is that this is McCain’s eighth trip to Iraq. He has visited in bad times and while improvements were being made. How many trips has Barack Obama made to Iraq? How many meetings has he had with Iraqi leadership?

See also, Jeff Jacoby's essay on McCain today at the Boston Globe.

What Did Obama Know About Wright's Past Sermons?

By now it's very clear that Barack Obama's not being completely truthful about his knowledge of Jeremiah Wright's sermons.

A number of bloggers have provided some evidence that Obama's attended fire-and-hatred sermons at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago (see, for example, Gateway Pundit, "BUSTED... Obama Knew Wright Was Wrong Last Year").

The mainstream media, to my disappointed, are behind the blogoshpere on this one, but the issue's not going to go away. We are appropriately, seeing some more smoking gun style coverage emerging, for example in Jake Tapper's piece from ABC News:

In his Friday night cable mea culpas on the incendiary comments made by his spiritual adviser Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., repeatedly said, "I wasn't in church during the time that these statement were made. I did not hear such incendiary language myself, personally. Either in conversations with him or when I was in the pew, he always preached the social gospel. ... If I had heard them repeated, I would have quit. ... If I thought that was the repeated tenor of the church, then I wouldn’t feel comfortable there."

Obama told CNN that he "didn't know about all these statements. I knew about one or two of these statements that had been made. One or two statements would not lead me to distance myself from either my church or my pastor. ... If I had thought that was the tenor or tone on an ongoing basis, then yes, I don't think it would have been reflective of my values."

But according to a New York Times story from a year ago, the Obama campaign dis-invited Wright from delivering a public invocation at Obama's candidacy announcement.

“Fifteen minutes before Shabbos I get a call from Barack,” Wright told the Times. “One of his members had talked him into uninviting me."

In a phone call with Wright, Obama cited a Rolling Stone story, “The Radical Roots of Barack Obama," (the name of which has curiously been changed on the RS website) and told him, according to Wright, “You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.”

That story included the following passage: "The Trinity United Church of Christ, the church that Barack Obama attends in Chicago, is at once vast and unprepossessing, a big structure a couple of blocks from the projects, in the long open sore of a ghetto on the city's far South Side. The church is a leftover vision from the Sixties of what a black nationalist future might look like. There's the testifying fervor of the black church, the Afrocentric Bible readings, even the odd dashiki. And there is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a sprawling, profane bear of a preacher, a kind of black ministerial institution, with his own radio shows and guest preaching gigs across the country. Wright takes the pulpit here one Sunday and solemnly, sonorously declares that he will recite 10 essential facts about the United States. 'Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college,' he intones. 'Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!' There is thumping applause; Wright has a cadence and power that make Obama sound like John Kerry. Now the reverend begins to preach. 'We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. ... We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. ... We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!" The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax: 'And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS S***!'"

This was more than a year ago.

So ... what did Obama know then and what did he just all of a sudden learn?

I'm confident that as more information becomes available, and Obama starts looking increasingly more venal, the pressure on his campaign will mount for a major prime-time announcement clarifying all angles of the scandal. Anything short of that - which must include complete denunciations of Wright's church and all recent expressions of the campaign's anti-patriotic sentiment - and the Obama campaign will risk complete implosion and collapse.

See also my earlier post for some smoking gun evidence, "Obama Attended Wright's Hate Sermons."

Counterinsurgency Firepower in Iraq

Sunday's New York Times has a five-year symposium on the Iraq war. The compiliation includes nine brief articles, of which I've read about half so far. The Bush adminstration's not coming out looking so well, and I'm waiting to read Paul Bremer's contribution until morning.

In the meantime, I think Frederick Kagan addresses the most important point of the war: the shift to an aggressive and effective counterinsurgency strategy that may indeed prove to be the saving element of the entire enterprise:

FROM the moment the Bush administration took office, I argued against its apparent preference for high-tech, small-footprint wars, which continued a decade of movement in that direction by senior military leaders and civilian experts. In 2002, I questioned the common triumphalism about American operations in Afghanistan, and particularly the notion of applying the “Afghanistan model” of low-manpower, high-precision operations in Iraq. I supported the 2003 invasion despite misgivings about how it would be executed, and those misgivings proved accurate.

However, the most surprising phenomenon of the war has been the transformation of the United States military into the most discriminate and effective counterinsurgency force the world has ever seen, skillfully blending the most advanced technology with human interactions between soldiers and the Iraqi people. Precision-guided weapons allowed our soldiers and marines to minimize collateral damage while using our advantages in firepower to the full.

Once we pushed most of our combat forces into close interactions with the Iraqi people, the information they obtained ensured that the targets they hit were the right ones. Above all, the compassion and concern our soldiers have consistently shown to civilians and even to defeated and captured enemies have turned the tide of Iraqi opinion.

Within a year, our forces went from imminent defeat to creating the prospect of success, using a great deal of firepower, killing and capturing many enemies, but binding the local population to us at the same time. The intellectual framework came from Gens. David Petraeus and Ray Odierno and their advisers. But the deep understanding, skill and compassion that made it work came from service members and the many civilians who put their lives at risk for the benefit of their country and Iraq.

See also the new American Interest for another set of brief and varied essays on Iraq five years on.

Obama Attended Wright's Hate Sermons

Allahpundit at Hot Air is reporting that Barack Obama, despite his denials yesterday (here, here, and in the video below), attended at least one sermon in which Reverend Jeremiah Wright defiled the United States in hateful, oppositional language.

Hot Air links to this story from Jim Davis at Newsmax:

Presidential candidate Barack Obama preaches on the campaign trail that America needs a new consensus based on faith and bipartisanship, yet he continues to attend a controversial Chicago church whose pastor routinely refers to "white arrogance" and "the United States of White America."

In fact, Obama was in attendance at the church when these statements were made on July 22.
Obama has spoken and written of his special relationship with that pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

The connection between the two goes back to Obama's days as a young community organizer in Chicago's South Side when he first met the charismatic Wright. Obama credited Wright with converting him, then a religious skeptic, to Christianity.

Recall yesterday Talking Points Memo asked: "Is Wright a "Death Blow" to Obama?" Not only that, remember Noam Scheiber's ruminations on the gravity of Obama's relationship to Wright:

How plausible it is that Obama wouldn't have known about Wright's, er, greatest hits. Obama strongly implies he didn't know his pastor had a habit of giving nutty sermons up until the outset of his presidential campaign. Is that believable? Is there any way to disprove it? If the answers are "yes" and "no" respectively, then he'll weather this. If not, it could get uncomfortable.

Well, I'd say things should be getting particularly uncomfortable right now, especially if the latest information on Obama's 2007 church attendance gets widespread play in the major media.

Note how The Autonomist summarizes things:

Barack Obama has attended Wright's sermons for over twenty years. By his own admission, Obama consults with Wright before making any "bold political decisions." Obama calls Wright his "spiritual advisor." He calls Wright one of his prime mentors. Obama got the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope," from a Wright sermon of the same name. He says that Wright was extremely important in shaping his life and his views. Obama and his wife were married by Rev. Wright. Reverend Wright baptized Obama's daughters. Barack Obama donated over $20,000 to Wright's church in 2006. He continues attending services in Wright's church.

And now we have information that possibly disproves Obama's key assertions on the scandal. I'd say that's getting pretty well into "death blow" territory.

The "Resilience" of Al Qaeda in Iraq

It was just last fall when both pundits and reporters were declaring the destruction of al Qaeda of Iraq.

Now we have Robert Burns of the Associated Press proclaiming al Qaeda's here to stay:

Al-Qaida is in Iraq to stay. It's not a conclusion the White House talks about much when denouncing the shadowy group, known as al-Qaida in Iraq, that used the U.S. invasion five years ago to develop into a major killer.

The militants are weakened, battered, perhaps even desperate, by most U.S. accounts. But far from being "routed," as Defense Secretary Robert Gates claimed last month, they're still there, still deadly active and likely to remain far into the future, military and other officials told The Associated Press.

Commanders and the other officials commented in a series of interviews and assessments discussing persistent violence in Iraq and intelligence judgments there and in the U.S.

Putting the squeeze on al-Qaida in Iraq was a primary objective of the revised U.S. military strategy that Gen. David Petraeus inherited when he became the top commander in Baghdad 13 months ago. The goal _ largely achieved _ was to minimize the group's ability to inflame sectarian violence, which at the time was so intense that some characterized Iraq as trapped in a civil war.

However, the militants are proving they can survive even the most suffocating U.S. military pressure.

"They are not to be underestimated. That's one thing I've seen over and over," said Col. John Charlton, commander of the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. His unit has fought al-Qaida for the past 14 months in a portion of Anbar province that includes the provincial capital of Ramadi.

"I'm always very amazed at their ability to adapt and find new vulnerabilities," Charlton said in a telephone interview this week from his headquarters outside of Ramadi. "They are very good at that," even though they have largely lost the support of local citizens.

The U.S. and Iraqi government intent is to chip away at al-Qaida until it is reduced to "almost a nonentity," Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno said March 4 shortly after finishing his tour as the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq. "Unfortunately with these terrorist organizations, they will always be there at some level."

Demonstrating anew their remarkable staying power, the militants are thought to be behind attacks in recent days in Baghdad and beyond, including bombings in the capital March 7 that killed at least 68 people.

Now that U.S. troop reinforcements are beginning to go home, Petraeus and the Bush administration will be watching closely to see if American-trained Iraqi forces can keep up the pressure on al-Qaida.

Note, though, that military commanders are very careful about pumping up excessive expectations, as was the case this week with the reports from General David Petraeus and Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno.

Last fall, as well, commentators were careful to put the victory over al Qaeda in perspective. As Austin Bay remarked:

The evidence that al-Qaida has suffered a major strategic information defeat in Iraq continues to mount....

Is this victory in Iraq? No. But it suggests we've won a major battle with potentially global significance.

As for the Associated Press claim that al Qaeda in Iraq is "here to stay," recall Jules Crittenden's words this week:

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.

Keep this last point in mind when reading forthcoming AP updates on al Qaeda's "resilience."

Daily Kos is Ugly and Destructive

Alegre, a diarist at Daily Kos, has denounced the deterioration of debate at the popular left-wing weblog as "ugly and destructive":

I’ve been posting at DailyKos for nearly 4 years now and started writing diaries in support of Hillary Clinton back in June of last year. Over the past few months I’ve noticed that things have become progressively more abusive toward my candidate and her supporters.

I’ve put up with the abuse and anger because I’ve always believed in what our on-line community has tried to accomplish in this world. No more. DailyKos is not the site it once was thanks to the abusive nature of certain members of our community.

I’ve decided to go on "strike" and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution....

Instead, I will put my energy into posting at sites where my efforts aren’t routinely trashed, spammed and ridiculed by a handful of angry, petty and spiteful folks who clearly have too much time on their hands.

This is a strike - a walkout over unfair writing conditions at DailyKos. It does not mean that if conditions get better I won't "work" at DailyKos again. As a regular contributor to the discourse in our community, I would certainly hope to take part in the conversation at DailyKos again some day if we ever get to the point where we’re engaging each other in discussion rather than facing off in shouting matches. But not now. Writers need a safe place to reach out and exchange ideas, to communicate and challenge one another. DailyKos should be that place, but its tone, its essence has evolved into something ugly and destructive. Good writers can't survive in that kind of atmosphere. Democrats shouldn't have to put up with that from fellow Democrats.

Well, actually, I dont' think Americans should have to put up with that from anyone, Democrats or otherwise.

What's interesting about this is Alegre's framing of the controversy as a "job action," a move taken under the assumption that withholding labor will help to bring the administration to its senses, and change working conditions.

Alegre would have been better to have offered a more compete condemnation of Daily Kos, and to have quit posting at the nihilish hell-hole once for all. "Working conditions" will not get better, since there's nothing to improve. The whole mindset from Markos on down is that Kos is the Democratic Party's future - an affliction I've called "Daily Kos Syndrome." They think they know everything, and if Obama's the massiah, look out for anyone not toeing the radical line.

Every now and then some of the stuff that comes out at Daily Kos that is just unbelievable, absolutely beyond the pale.

A couple of weeks ago a Kos poster blamed the Times Square bombing on some extreme right-wing fearmongering conspiracy. In December, a Kos post from "Troutfishing" equated Christian evangelical military personnel as religious soldiers, no better than Palestinian suicide bombers.

Markos Moulitsas encourages it all, and that's what really is sick about the whole Kos enterprise (since Kos positions himself as a mainstream leader of the party, while his blogging minions mount the most unhinged attacks and smears imaginable).

What's happening now at Kos and the Alegre "strike" is the latest in the disastrous internecine bloodletting taking place at the base of the Democratic Party.

See my earlier post to that effect, "Crash: More on the Coming Democratic Train Wreck."

See also the additional analysis at Memeorandum.

Army Sergeant Testifies to Iraq Success, While Left Keeps Head in Sand

Anthony J. Diaz, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve, argues at today's Washington Post that success in Iraq is real and undeniable, and political progress continues apace (via Memeorandum):

One often reads of the chaos plaguing Iraq. Yet the media accounts only infrequently seem to grasp the successes being achieved....

Late last year, I witnessed something inspirational in a rather unlikely setting: an ordinary neighborhood advisory council meeting. Attendance was the highest I had yet seen, with about 40 prominent locals present. The coalition was represented by our squadron commander, a few colonels from the embedded provincial reconstruction team and a political officer from the U.S. Embassy. Discussions ranged from the persistent lack of electricity to sewage problems to economic development. What struck me were the comments of some Sunni workers from the district's power station, who came to complain that the (mostly Shiite) Iraqi army had mistreated them and accused them of distorting the distribution of electric power, something over which these workers have little control. The men said they would strike until they received better treatment and pleaded with the council chairman, a Sunni, for help. That was an unlikely outcome, given the entrenched animosity between Shiites and Sunnis and the lack of substantive political reconciliation even at the highest levels of government here. But these men did something many Americans would take for granted: They voiced grievances and sought assistance. These are the seeds of representative government, citizens coming forth and demanding change from their representatives. Much work remains to be done, but we have clearly made a start.

Even the Iraqi army has taken a turn for the better here. Not long ago its troops were seen as an obstacle to reconciliation and were accused of arresting locals without evidence, only to request ransoms for their release. There are still occasional incidents of graft and abuse, but now Iraqi troops provide security and make efforts to build rapport with the populace.

Through continuous prodding, our squadron has influenced the local army contingent's understanding of the values of civil affairs. One particularly adept Iraqi captain has coordinated numerous efforts to hand out humanitarian assistance, organized medical and dental missions in local schools, provided security for deliveries of much-needed fuel, and even delivered wheelchairs himself.

There is still much left to be accomplished in Iraq. But the successes of the men and women serving in this once explosive area of Baghdad cannot be overstated. Sitting here in Adhamiyah, one thing is certain: The surge has worked.

That's the straight story from an Army reservist, but note as well what Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno said this week:

Explaining the reduction in violence and its stra­tegic significance has been the subject of much debate. It's tempting for those of us personally con­nected to the events to exaggerate the effects of the surge. By the same token, it's a gross oversimplifica­tion to say, as some commentators have, that the positive trends we're observing have come about because we paid off the Sunni insurgents or because Muqtada al-Sadr simply decided to announce a ceasefire. These assertions ignore the key variable in the equation--the Coalition's change in strategy and our employment of the surge forces.

That oversimplification - indeed, dissonance - is hard to resist. At the same time that more and more indicators of success become available, hard-left nihilist forces here at home continue to deny military and political progress in Iraq.

Newshoggers, while not on the top-tier of the America-bashing left blogosphere, nevertheless is relentless in its campaign of demonization and denial of America's emerging victory. See here:

I stick by my assessment that the US Surge is preordained to fail - that internal Iraqi dynamics dictate that as soon as the various factions have cause to fight instead of hold fire, they will do so and that none are invested in finding cause not to fight while the U.S. acts as buffer and protector to all. Which means that, eventually, there will be a fight in which the US can either take sides, be shot at by all sides or withdraw. Better to withdraw first.

Preordained?

Well, all of the military improvement this last year has discounted any predetermination of defeat. The Newshoggers' post is windy and confused, in any case, but the conclusion is what really matters: "Better to withdraw first"

There you have it, damn the consequences.

The U.S. will be in Iraq for a long time. Depending on what happens in the short-term politically, we're likely to have as many as 70-80 thousand service personnel in the theater a decade from now.

The odds of that happening will be better, of course, if this fall's election results in the accession to power of an administration not beholden to a nihilist, defeatist antiwar war fringe unable or unwilling objectively assess the dramatic turnaround of America's strategic fortunes in Iraq.

See also, Captian Ed, at Hot Air.

Congressional Ratings Sink Further

President Bush's job approval ratings have been in the doldrums for some time.

But public support for the Democratic Congress is even worse, and sinking, as a new Gallup survey shows:

The public's job approval ratings of President Bush and Congress continue to be very low from a historical perspective, with Bush's ratings in the low 30% range and Congress' in the low 20% range this year.

The latest Gallup Poll, conducted March 6-9, finds 32% of Americans approving of Bush and 21% approving of Congress.

Bush's job approval rating has been stable in recent months, ranging narrowly from 31% to 34% so far this year. His approval rating has been below 40% for 18 months, since September 2006. It has not been at the 50% level since May 2005, shortly after his second term in office began. Bush's low point in office was a 29% approval rating in July 2007. The all-time low for any president is a 22% approval rating for Harry Truman in a February 1952 Gallup Poll.

Congress' current approval rating is just 3 percentage points above the all-time low -- 18% readings from March 1992 and August 2007. Congress' approval rating has been below 30% since May 2007.

Despite Bush's low overall ratings, nearly three in four Republicans, 72%, still think he is doing a good job. Only 23% of independents and 9% of Democrats agree. Congress' ratings are low among all three party groups -- 24% among Republicans, 18% among independents, and 21% among Democrats. The Democratic Party controls both houses of Congress, but that apparently does not endear Democrats to Congress very much.

Well, when Republican operatives start attack-planning for the fall campaign, comparatively, incumbent public opinion ratings won't be as big a drag on the GOP nominee as some might think.

Not only that, if Barack Obama survives the current Wright sermon scandal, we might be seeing some juicy "red phone" style campaign spots: "Is this the kind of judgment Americans expect in the Oval Office?"

See also, "McCain Sitting Pretty While Dems Self-Destruct."

Wright's Statements Not Outliers for Church Flock

I've commented quite a bit on the Barack Obama's Wright scandal.

I have, for example, argued that Obama's statement repudiating Wright's sermons is not enough, that the Illinois Senator needs to cut all ties with a church that proselytizes hatred.

It turns out, as the New York Times reports, that despite some claims that Wright's controversial statements are aberrations in years of work promoting traditional Christian theology, members of the Trinity United Church in fact flock eat up Wright's hated-filled sermons:

Mr. Wright, 66, who last month fulfilled longstanding plans to retire, is a beloved figure in African-American Christian circles and a frequent guest in pulpits around the country. Since he arrived at Trinity in 1972, he has built a 6,000-member congregation through his blunt, charismatic preaching, which melds detailed scriptural analysis, black power, Afrocentrism and an emphasis on social justice; Mr. Obama praised the last quality in Friday’s statement.

His most powerful influence, said several ministers and scholars who have followed his career, is black liberation theology, which interprets the Bible as a guide to combating oppression of African-Americans.

He attracts audiences because of, not in spite of, his outspoken critiques of racism and inequality, said Dwight Hopkins, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, in an interview last year.

But Mr. Wright’s blistering statements about American racism can shock white audiences.

“If you’re black, it’s hard to say what you truly think and not upset white people,” said James Cone, a professor at Union Theological Seminary and the father of black liberation theology, who has known Mr. Wright since he was a seminary student.

You think?

I mean, what good natured, patriotic white person would be upset at hearing Wright's venomous and paranoid attacks on this country?

Saddam's Terrorist Friends

Stephen Hayes sets the record straight on the report last week, seen in the mainstream media, that the Pentagon found no link between Saddam Hussein's regime and international terrorist activity:

This ought to be big news. Throughout the early and mid-1990s, Saddam Hussein actively supported an influential terrorist group headed by the man who is now al Qaeda's second-in-command, according to an exhaustive study issued last week by the Pentagon. "Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda's stated goals and objectives." According to the Pentagon study, Egyptian Islamic Jihad was one of many jihadist groups that Iraq's former dictator funded, trained, equipped, and armed.

The study was commissioned by the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia, and produced by analysts at the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded military think tank. It is entitled "Iraqi Perspectives Project: Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents." The study is based on a review of some 600,000 documents captured in postwar Iraq. Those "documents" include letters, memos, computer files, audiotapes, and videotapes produced by Saddam Hussein's regime, especially his intelligence services. The analysis section of the study covers 59 pages. The appendices, which include copies of some of the captured documents and translations, put the entire study at approximately 1,600 pages.

An abstract that describes the study reads, in part:

Because Saddam's security organizations and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some way, a 'de facto' link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust. Though the execution of Iraqi terror plots was not always successful, evidence shows that Saddam's use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime."

Among the study's other notable findings:

In 1993, as Osama bin Laden's fighters battled Americans in Somalia, Saddam Hussein personally ordered the formation of an Iraqi terrorist group to join the battle there.

For more than two decades, the Iraqi regime trained non-Iraqi jihadists in training camps throughout Iraq.

According to a 1993 internal Iraqi intelligence memo, the regime was supporting a secret Islamic Palestinian organization dedicated to "armed jihad against the Americans and Western interests."

In the 1990s, Iraq's military intelligence directorate trained and equipped "Sudanese fighters."

In 1998, the Iraqi regime offered "financial and moral support" to a new group of jihadists in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

In 2002, the year before the war began, the Iraqi regime hosted in Iraq a series of 13 conferences for non-Iraqi jihadist groups.

That same year, a branch of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) issued hundreds of Iraqi passports for known terrorists.

There is much, much more. Documents reveal that the regime stockpiled bombmaking materials in Iraqi embassies around the world and targeted Western journalists for assassination. In July 2001, an Iraqi Intelligence agent described an al Qaeda affiliate in Bahrain, the Army of Muhammad, as "under the wings of bin Laden." Although the organization "is an offshoot of bin Laden," the fact that it has a different name "can be a way of camouflaging the organization." The agent is told to deal with the al Qaeda group according to "priorities previously established."

In describing the relations between the Army of Muhammad and the Iraqi regime, the authors of the Pentagon study come to this conclusion: "Captured documents reveal that the regime was willing to co-opt or support organizations it knew to be part of al Qaeda--as long as that organization's near-term goals supported Saddam's long-term vision."

As I said, this ought to be big news. And, in a way, it was. A headline in the New York Times, a cursory item in the Washington Post, and stories on NPR and ABC News reported that the study showed no links between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

How can a study offering an unprecedented look into the closed regime of a brutal dictator, with over 1,600 pages of "strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism," in the words of its authors, receive a wave-of-the-hand dismissal from America's most prestigious news outlets? All it took was a leak to a gullible reporter, one misleading line in the study's executive summary, a boneheaded Pentagon press office, an incompetent White House, and widespread journalistic negligence.

Read the rest.

Antiwar activists and the left-wing media don't want to lose their assumed upper hand in the tired meme calling "Iraq and unmitigated disaster."

To the contrary, the Pentagon report, as reported by Hayes, indicates that the U.S. toppled a regime that was of supreme danger to international security.

See also William Kristol (via Powerline), who explains why the administration's hesitant to trumpet the true significance of the report:

If you talk to people in the Bush administration, they know the truth about the report. They know that it makes the case convincingly for Saddam's terror connections. But they'll tell you (off the record) it's too hard to try to set the record straight. Any reengagement on the case for war is a loser, they'll say. Furthermore, once the first wave of coverage is bad, you can never catch up: You give the misleading stories more life and your opponents further chances to beat you up in the media. And as for trying to prevent misleading summaries and press leaks in the first place--that's hopeless. Someone will tell the media you're behaving like Scooter Libby, and God knows what might happen next.

So, this week's fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war will bring us countless news stories reexamining the case for war, with the White House essentially pleading nolo contendere.

As I've learned, in my many discussions of the antiwar left, virtually no amount of argumentation or evidence will dislodge the opinions of those irretrievable hostile to the United States.

The administration's hesitance indeed shows the power of the postmodern world of political debate.

Thank goodness for the Weekly Standard's writers for reminding us that there's a truth that exists, even if in some quarters that truth is irrelevant.

The Surge at One Year

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno offers an analysis of Iraq on the anniversay of the surge strategy, "The Surge in Iraq: One Year Later":

From January to June 2007, the surge forces deployed gradually to Iraq, but we adjusted our strategy even before the first additional Brigade Combat Team arrived. Implementing the surge involved much more than throwing extra resources at a problem. It meant committing ourselves to pro­tecting the Iraqi populace--with a priority to Bagh­dad--while exploiting what appeared to be nascent progress against AQI in Anbar.

It meant changing our mindset as we secured the people where they worked and slept and where their children played. It meant developing new tac­tics, techniques, and procedures in order to imple­ment this concept. We began to establish Joint Security Stations and Combat Outposts throughout Baghdad. We erected protective barriers and estab­lished checkpoints to create "safe neighborhoods" and "safe markets," improving security for Iraqis as they went about their daily lives....

Obviously, it's entirely too early to declare victory and go home, but I think it's safe to say that the surge of Coalition forces--and how we employed those forces--have broken the cycle of sectarian violence in Iraq. We are in the process of exploiting that success.

Explaining the reduction in violence and its stra­tegic significance has been the subject of much debate. It's tempting for those of us personally con­nected to the events to exaggerate the effects of the surge. By the same token, it's a gross oversimplifica­tion to say, as some commentators have, that the positive trends we're observing have come about because we paid off the Sunni insurgents or because Muqtada al-Sadr simply decided to announce a ceasefire. These assertions ignore the key variable in the equation--the Coalition's change in strategy and our employment of the surge forces.

Suggesting that the reduction in violence result­ed merely from bribing our enemies to stop fighting us is uninformed and an oversimplification. It over­looks our significant offensive push in the last half of 2007 and our rise in casualties in May and June as we began to take back neighborhoods. It overlooks the salient point that many who reconciled with us did so from a position of weakness, rather than strength. The truth is that the improvement in secu­rity and stability is the result of a number of factors, and what Coalition forces did throughout 2007 ranks among the most significant....

Generally speaking, when security conditions improve, a narrow focus on survival opens up and makes room for hope. Hope provides an opportuni­ty to pursue improvements in quality of life. Along these lines, the surge helped set the stage for progress in governance and economic develop­ment. In a very real way and at the local level, this subtle shift in attitude reinforced our security gains--allowing Coalition and Iraqi forces to hold the hard-earned ground we had wrested from the enemy while continuing to pursue extremists as they struggle to regroup elsewhere....

To capitalize on the reduction of violence in 2007, Iraqi leaders must make deliberate choices to secure lasting strategic gains through reconciliation and political progress. This set of choices and their collective effect will be decisive, I think. This view puts things in context.

The future of Iraq belongs to the Iraqis. The improved security conditions resulting in part from the surge of 2007 have given the Iraqis an opportu­nity to choose a better way. In the last week, several major pieces of legislation have been passed by the Iraqi parliament: accountability and justice, provin­cial powers, and amnesty law.

See also my earlier analysis of General David Petraeus' statement yesterday, "Petraeus Lowers Expecations on Iraq."

The Wright Message?

Here's a "Good Morning America" news segment on the Obama church controversy, "Obama's Preacher: The Wright Message" (via YouTube):

FOX News has a transcript of Wright's controversial sermon:

In a fiery sermon taped and available on DVD, Barack Obama’s longtime pastor and spiritual adviser can be seen and heard saying three times: “God damn America.”

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., in his taped sermons, also questioned America’s role in the spread of the AIDS virus and suggested that the United States bore some responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Confronting the content of some of Wright’s sermons, parts of which have been aired this week on FOX News, Obama on Friday moved to condemn the remarks in his firmest statement on the matter to date, after initially stopping short of a full repudiation.

Check the link for the transcript.

See also my previous entry, "Buyer's Remorse: Will the Left Throw Obama From the Train?"

Buyer's Remorse: Will the Left Throw Obama From the Train?

I just saw something strange. A reader at Talking Points Memo, one of the biggest Obama boosters on the web, is having deep second thoughts about Barack Obama:

The Wright time bomb appears to be detonating, now that the horse race narrative has stalled and the media needs new material. The inadequacy of Obama's response is deeply discouraging. I was very excited about Obama, but I suddenly think Wright is going to deal a death blow to him on the "electibility" front. Michelle Obama's comments and now the man who lead him to Jesus is saying "God Damn America", and all BO can say is "I disagree"? He has to thow him under the bus and then back up over him again, but it does not appear that he will. Not clear it would even help that much, given the depth and length of their relationship. Sad to say, but it's best this happen now rather than in October. As distasteful as her tactics have been, I suddenly think we may be better off in November with Hillary. Wright is cancer.

Now, will the left throw Obama from the train? Are these reservations about Obama himself, or about his electability following the Wright controversy? One TPM readers sees Wright's "God Damn America" hatred as perfect attack fodder for John McCain in the fall.

Jane Hamsher's got no doubts about all of this, not unsurprisingly: It's all "anti-Obama right wing propaganda."

I'd bet that Hamsher endorses Wright's sentiment.

Far from denouncing his views, statements like Wright's, "America is still the No. 1 killer in the world," are not far from the views featured regularly in FireDogLake posts.

As always, I'll have more updates of the left's anti-Americanism as things develop.

Not Enough: Obama Wright Repudiation is Lacking

Barack Obama has published a denunciation of Reverend Jeremiah Wright at the Huffington Post:

Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

Because these particular statements by Rev. Wright are so contrary to my own life and beliefs, a number of people have legitimately raised questions about the nature of my relationship with Rev. Wright and my membership in the church. Let me therefore provide some context.

That's a good start, but it's not enough.

Obama spends the rest of his essay defending Wright's patriotism and service to country. He argues he was not there at the particular sermons where Wright's spewed his hatred, but that's evasive.

Obama then says that because he was married in Wright's church, and his daughters were babtized there, he "did not think it appropriate to leave the church."

That's not sufficient. No matter his previous ties to the church and his pastor, "categorical" includes those instance of previous assocation with such hatred, sentiments that raise deeply troubling issues of judgement for Sentator Obama.

Obama has said that "Michelle and I look forward to continuing a relationship with a church that has done so much good."

Well, that's not going to cut it. If Obama's real - if he's genuinely serious about ending this nation's debilitating hyperpartisanship - there's no better place to begin than by completely renouncing any past or present ties to a religious institution that's served as a sanctuary for views that are implacably contrary to the values of this great nation.

See my call for a major statement of denunciation from the Obama campaign, "Calling Obama: Time to Denounce Anti-American Extremism."

See more reaction at Memeorandum.

*********

UPDATE: Some folks are having a hard time seeing that Obama's got big problems. Here's Noam Scheiber, wondering if Obama's HuffPo repudiation was enough:

The more I think about it, the more I think Obama needs to go further....

I think Obama needs a more striking gesture of his own. Like announcing that he's removing Wright from his (largely honorary) position in the campaign, maybe giving a high-profile speech about his faith.

You think?