Large Majority Opposes Immediate Iraq Withdrawal

Americans oppose a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, a new Gallup survey finds.

And while the public continues to back some form of timetable to begin the redeployment of American troops, public opinion is at odds with the war proposals of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination:

Roughly one year after the United States began increasing the number of troops it has in Iraq, Americans give the "surge" their most positive assessment to date.

Nevertheless, basic attitudes about the war are largely unchanged, including views about setting a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal. The majority of Americans continue to favor a timetable for withdrawal, though relatively few favor a rapid withdrawal, similar to what Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is advocating. Six in 10 express opposition to the war effort more generally.

The Feb. 8-10 USA Today/Gallup poll was conducted just before Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced his probable support for a "pause" in U.S. troop withdrawals this summer after several brigades are removed as planned, which would result in the United States at least temporarily maintaining a troop force larger than pre-surge levels. Gates argues that a pause may be needed to evaluate whether the security gains made in Iraq can be maintained with smaller forces.

According to the poll, 43% of Americans say the surge of U.S. troops in Iraq is making the situation there better, a slight increase from 40% in late November, but up more substantially from 34% in early November. This is the most positive review of the surge Gallup has measured since it began. Thirty-five percent now say the surge is not making much difference, and just 21% say it is making things worse.

Republicans, Democrats, and independents have divergent views of the surge. Seventy-five percent of Republicans say it is making things better in Iraq, compared with 40% of independents and 21% of Democrats. Democrats are most likely to believe the surge is "not making much difference"....

The poll finds a large majority favoring gradual withdrawal, rather than an unconditional draw-down:

Those who favor a timetable are more than twice as likely to favor a schedule of gradual troop withdrawal (67%) as they are to prefer a more immediate removal of troops (32%). All told, 18% of Americans favor removing troops from Iraq as rapidly as possible.

Both Democratic presidential candidates, Obama and Hillary Clinton, favor a timetable, while the GOP's likely nominee, John McCain, strongly opposes one. Obama is advocating a fairly rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, which would have all troops out within 16 months of his taking office. Clinton favors a slower withdrawal, which would be complete by 2013. Thus, no candidate's position really represents the views of most Americans, but the poll suggests that currently McCain's and Clinton's positions are closest to the largest number of Americans. This is not to suggest that Americans would necessarily oppose any of the candidates' Iraq policies should they be elected president.

Antiwar activists (often unhinged in their fervor) repeatedly call the war a failure, demanding a complete and immediate surrender of Iraq to the forces of terrorist mayhem. The Democratic candidates are not far behind.

Such views are not supported by current public opinion trends.

Evangelicals in Exile

Remember how I've noted on occasion that base conservatives have become increasingly marginalized this election. Well, here's an early post-mortem on the far-right evangelical movement's failure to elect its nominee of choice this year.

From Dan Gilgoff, over at USA Today:

As co-founder of the blog Evangelicals for Mitt, Nancy French spent the better part of the past two years trying to persuade fellow born-again Christians to back a Mormon for president. A Tennessee-based author whose main job is raising two kids while her Army reservist husband serves in Iraq, French knew she had her work cut out when she launched the blog in 2006. After all, it wasn't so long ago that French herself considered the idea of voting for a Mormon more or less sacrilegious.

But after learning of what she calls Mitt Romney's "heroic effort" to combat gay marriage as the governor of Massachusetts, where the state supreme court had legalized it in 2003, about his opposition to abortion rights and federally funded embryonic stem cell research — the product of an admittedly recent ideological conversion — and his stances on issues such as terrorism, French was won over.

"My heart changed," she says....

Romney's withdrawal from the presidential race this month testified to French's failure to persuade enough evangelicals to see things her way. In the Super Tuesday primaries, a handful of evangelical-rich Southern states that Romney was banking on went instead to Mike Huckabee, an ordained evangelical preacher, while John McCain's victories elsewhere established him as the national front-runner.

But as Huck's not looking to be the nominee, French is dejected:

"We got used to having one of our own in the White House for eight years" — George W. Bush — "when in reality, that's not the way the Christian right usually operates," says French. "That's why we haven't had Alan Keyes in the White House."

Or Pat Robertson. Or Gary Bauer. As presidential candidates, evangelical religious leaders have always found it difficult to break out of their born-again base. So French and millions of other evangelicals are now forced to decide whether they'll hold their noses and vote for McCain in November. If Romney runs again in four years, French says, she might resurrect Evangelicals for Mitt. Until then, she's thinking about changing its name to Evangelicals in Exile.

Captain Ed put some of this in perspective:

The problem the Religious Right had in this primary was the hang-up over religion, which their movement had avoided for most of its period of influence. In the end, their leaders couldn't see past religion to policy, and that left Romney twisting in the wind....

They got used to having an evangelical in the White House and didn't want to consider supporting any other kind of candidate. Dobson and Tony Perkins announced last year that they might form a third party for evangelicals because of their dissatisfaction with the slate of Republican candidates -- even though the first primaries were months out and they could have found Republicans to support around the country.

When they finally engaged with Romney, they liked his agenda and his ability to organize. Pat Robertson endorsed Rudy Giuliani, but most evangelical leaders lined up behind Romney, but refused to support Romney rather than just attack everyone else. They could not bring themselves to explain why Romney's Mormonism shouldn't matter, and indeed emphasized their analysis of it as a non-Christian religion, something Mormons hotly dispute. They lost sight of the political agenda and instead got tripped by their doctrinal agenda.

Their constituents simply didn't follow them at the polls. Instead, they voted for Mike Huckabee in Iowa and in the South. The voters followed the leadership's obvious desire to see an evangelical in the White House rather than the focus on policy -- and then discovered that evangelicals still represent only a portion of the Republican vote. Huckabee couldn't convince non-evangelicals to turn out in large numbers, and that left the field to John McCain.

Now Dobson wants to compound his error and that of his movement by petulantly sitting out the 2008 election. He's free to do so, of course, but he's losing credibility by the day. We're not electing a Pope or a Minister-in-Chief. James Dobson and the evangelical movement used to understand that, and their failure to remember it makes them an unreliable coalition partner for Republicans.

Unreliable coalition partners?

Evangelicals aren't the only ones. The conservative talk radio constituency - whose members are fired up about McCain's alleged apostasies on global warming, immigration and coercive interrogations - are also becoming increasingly marginalized.

You can still see some kicking and screaming, but at some point most on the right - who aren't afficted by MDS - will be hopping on the Straight Talk Express to high-tail it out of the political wilderness.

Left-Wing McCain Phobia: Early Indications

John McCain's the left's deepest general election nightmare.

Kos' earlier call to vote Romney in Michigan -"Democrats for Mitt" - was more than a round of crossover shenanigans, but a not-so-subliminal indication of the hard-left's quaking at a McCain Straight Talk steamroller.

Many hard-lefties resort to comic relief, lamely attacking the Arizona Senator as "old man" McCain, or he's ridiculed as hoplessly out of touch with antiwar public opinion.

But Arianna Huffington's put out the call to lift the blinders on McCain, alleging softball treatment of "The Maverick" by a spineless media corps:

What is it going to take for the media to snap out of its starry-eyed -- stuck in 2000 -- view of John McCain?

Despite an avalanche of evidence showing that McCain the Maverick has long ago been replaced by McCain the Pandering Pawn of the Party's Right Wing, the press refuses to believe its own eyes.

The latest demonstration of the enormous lag time between the presentation of a new reality and the media's willingness to update the conventional wisdom comes via those bastions of the traditional media, The New Yorker and the New York Times.

The latest New Yorker features a loving 7,000+ word profile of McCain by Ryan Lizza that portrays him as a moderate who has "the rare opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a Republican."

Let's see, McCain has bowed to the party's lunatic fringe on tax cuts, immigration, the intolerance of religious bigots, and torture... so exactly how is he reinventing what it means to be a Republican? By shortening the amount of time it takes before a candidate is hijacked by the Right, perhaps?

Don't forget, George W. Bush, circa 1999, was presented as something of a maverick -- a Republican who espoused "compassionate conservatism," got along with Democrats in Texas, was going to win over Latinos, end his party's longstanding hostility toward minorities, and govern from the center.

"My friends, this is going to be a different kind of convention for a different kind of Republican," said 2000 RNC chairman Jim Nicholson at that year's convention. "Gov. Bush has shown time and time again that he is a different kind of Republican," echoed Bush spokesman Ray Sullivan on the campaign trail.

That different kind of Republican evaporated the moment W's hand hit the Bible on inauguration day. McCain hasn't waited that long. He's already offered his proof of fidelity to the Right.

But Lizza doesn't want to buy it. Even as he lists all the examples of McCain's "brazen pandering," he insists that McCain is "principled" and "has a record of sticking to a position even when it puts his political future at risk." Other than all the times he's shifted his position in order to advance his political future, I suppose.

The media are so reluctant to give up their entrenched view of McCain that "principled" and "pandering" are no longer seen as mutually exclusive terms. Indeed, that was the animating premise of Nicholas Kristof's head-scratching column in Sunday's New York Times: that McCain has become the world's most principled panderer....

In the New Yorker piece, Newt Gingrich, in full stand up comedy mode, claims that McCain's looming nomination "is the victory of the moderate wing" of the GOP -- of which he now counts himself a member! -- and that with McCain, "for the first time since Eisenhower, you have someone who has clearly not accommodated the conservative wing winning the nomination. That is a remarkable achievement."

It says everything you need to know about how strong the Right's stranglehold on the Republican Party has become that Newt Gingrich, the original barbarian at the GOP gate leading the 1994 right wing revolution, is now considered a voice of moderation. And that capitulating on torture and tax cuts and immigration and intolerance and out-Bushing Bush on Iraq can be seen as "not accommodating" the right. Memo to Newt: making that claim while maintaining a straight face is the true "remarkable achievement."

Despite the disastrous failures of the Right on everything from Iraq to the economy to health care to the environment to global warming to civil liberties to national security, the lunatics running the Republican asylum are stronger than ever.

That's why Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and Ann Coulter have felt so comfortable taking on the role of rhetorical dominatrixes, forcing McCain to bow down and lick their boots, and why McCain -- "with distaste," of course -- has so thoroughly obliged. Even after all-but-locking-up the nomination, he still felt compelled to jettison his most deeply held belief and vote against the torture ban.

McCain hasn't even won the nomination yet - nor has he yet "bowed down" sufficiently to the far right - and Huffington's already attacking him as if he's the second coming of Attila the Hun!

Yep, the more vehemently the hard-left attacks McCain, the more obvious McCain's formidable November threat has become.

See more lefty phobia at Memeorandum.

Joseph Lieberman: Neoconservative Apostate

Joseph Lieberman's a real tough guy. His reelection to the Senate in 2006 defeated antiwar netroots-backed insurgent Ned Lamont, discrediting the notion of anti-Bush online revolution in politics that year.

It turns out the experience was liberating for the Connecticut Senator, a big backer of assumed GOP nominee John McCain. The New York Times has the story (via Memeorandum):

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, not so long back the Democratic nominee for vice president, has become chief endorser, campaign companion and all-around champion for his buddy Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential standard-bearer.

So inseparable are these men lately that the question often arises: Would Mr. Lieberman consider another tilt at the vice presidential lists, this time on the Republican ticket?

A smile crossed his face like a cloud, and the white-haired senator began waving his hands.

“Oh, no, no,” Mr. Lieberman insisted in an interview in his Capitol hideaway, a nook that he occupies between votes and that once belonged to none other than Mr. McCain. “Been there, done that”....

For the longest time, Mr. Lieberman was a regular Democratic Joe. He clambered up the party ladder, serving as state attorney general before taking a Senate seat in 1988. Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham volunteered in an early campaign while at Yale Law School.

He flapped like a hawk on foreign politics and sang like a moderate bird on domestic affairs. He annoyed the White House when he denounced Mr. Clinton’s conduct in the Monica Lewinsky affair, but he voted against impeachment.

In 2000, Al Gore tapped him for the No. 2 slot. Mr. Lieberman did not flash the dirk as often as Gore aides preferred, and he went curiously passive in Florida, when the election hung in the balance. But he worked the trail as if plying the tables at Grossingers, the Catskill resort hotel. “Have you heard our campaign slogan?” he would tell the crowds. “Gore-Lieberman: No Bull, No Pork.”

Later he become a mentor to Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, sharing lunches with the freshman. Their offices are 148 feet apart.

In 2004, Mr. Lieberman alighted in New Hampshire as the presidential candidate with the broadest name recognition. But voters criticized his support for the war in Iraq, and he lectured them, and this did not go well. He finished fifth and soon folded his tent.

Mr. Curry had lunch with Mr. Lieberman in December 2005 and warned about the antiwar sentiment sweeping Connecticut. “This is not an argument over the capital gains tax,” Mr. [Clinton advisor Bill] Curry recalled telling him. “This is the biggest foreign policy mistake in the history of the country.”

Mr. Lieberman, who often praised the defense secretary at the time, Donald Rumseld, shrugged off this advice. He saw the war as an epic struggle against Islamic terrorism; bombing Iran might not be a bad idea, either.

This is the latest steeply graded curve in the long, strange trip that is Mr. Lieberman’s career. Eight years ago he exhorted sweaty ironworkers in Boynton Beach, Fla., to join the Democratic cause. Four years ago he told voters in New Hampshire that President Bush was “a divisive leader.”

But four weeks ago, he returned to Boynton Beach to address 250 Republicans at a country club. This time, he deplored the Democrats’ “visceral” anger at Mr. Bush. He is skipping the Democratic National Convention in Denver, but may turn up at the rostrum of the Republicans’ conclave in Minneapolis.

“I suppose if Senator McCain is going to be nominated, and he asks me, I will go,” Mr. Lieberman said.

I can see Lieberman as secretary of defense in a McCain administration, which would help cement the "Maverick's" neoconservative foreign policy direction.

Still, McCain might not want to campaign too much with Lieberman, who's traditionally liberal on many hot-button issues, like global warming; and don't even think about a McCain-Lieberman ticket...

McCain's had enough problems with the GOP base as it is!

McCain in Wisconsin: Will Follow Bin Laden to Gates of Hell

John McCain, campaigning in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, says he'll go to the "Gates of Hell" in tracking down Osama bin Laden (via YouTube):

Frankly, that's an extremely lofty campaign pledge, considering President Bush has repeatedly said he'd track down bin Laden and bring him to justice (with no luck).

McCain's commitment in pursuing bin Laden is admirable, and he's certainly playing to the crowd.

I have no doubt that the Arizona Senator's genuine in his rhetoric, although political science reasearch has demonstrated that capturing bin Laden's hardly the central element in a campaign of victory over the forces of global terrorism (recall that we will never completely defeat the generalized terrorist threat, although al Qaeda itself can be defeated).

Conservatives are divided over McCain's commitment to defeating the jihadis.

While some say McCain strikes fear in the hearts of the world's most implacable state sponsors of terror, McCain's suggestion to close Guantanamo's causing considerable discomfort (if not fits of rage) among some on the right.

Hat Tip: Blogs for McCain

Progress in Iraq: Our Continued Responsibility

It's no surprise that hard left bloggers have yet to hail progress in Iraq. Indeed, many continue to hammer away with all their pre-surge venality on the administration and the military, adamant on calling the war a failure.

One change for the better we are seeing - halting as it may be - is the recognition among major left-wing media outlets that Iraq's political progress is a complete game-changer, to the point where folks now agree on de facto victory in the conflict.

This morning's Los Angeles Times offers a noteworthy lead editorial on victory in Iraq, although the editors see increasing political accomodation as the signal to roll-up the deployment and bring the troops home:

It has taken nine bloody and difficult months, but the deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. troops appears at last to have brought not just a lull in the sectarian fighting in Iraq, but the first tangible steps toward genuine political reconciliation.

Last week, the parliament passed a crucial package of legislation that reflects real compromise among the many factions on three of the thorniest issues that have bedeviled Iraq....

Ironically, all this good news might make it harder to get American military personnel out of the country. The better things go in Iraq, the less likely it is that U.S. generals (or politicians) will want to risk jeopardizing their hard-won gains by drawing down. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has agreed to a request by Gen. David H. Petraeus to return to the pre-surge level of about 130,000 troops by August, and then allow a "strategic pause" to evaluate whether more can come home.

Battlefield commanders know best how many troops are needed to keep the country stable, but as a political and economic matter, U.S. forces must leave Iraq eventually -- sooner, if voters choose a Democratic president, much later if the president-elect is Republican John McCain. Either way, the United States needs a logical, orderly exit strategy that minimizes the risk that civil war will resume when our troops leave.

If the momentum of Iraq's political surge is sustained, it's conceivable that the United States, having torn the country apart in an ill-conceived invasion and a disastrous occupation, could help glue the biggest pieces together on its way out the door. But building a decent government will probably prove even harder than curbing the violence. And even under the rosiest scenario, it will be our moral duty to provide large-scale political, military and humanitarian aid, including support for the refugees who are beginning to trickle back home, for many years to come.

There should be no irony in Iraq's political progress. It's only ironic to those who see American success as a shortcut to longstanding demands for a precipitous withdrawal.

Recall that the antiwar hordes have seized on McCain's remark that the U.S. will be in Iraq for 100 years.

A long time, sure, but is this so unreasonable? We've been in Germany and Japan for nearly 65 years - and this is after we imposed unconditional surrender on the German and the Japanese people, dropping nuclear weapons on the latter to end a war that some historians say Japan was prepared to wage down to the last man, woman, and child.

As the Times notes, we have a moral responsibility to continue with a program of military, economic, and humanitarian support in Iraq. It's irresponsible to perpetuate unhinged left-wing political demands for an "orderly exit," just at the time when the U.S. and Iraq are moving into the phase of a arger, enduring military-strategic partnership for the Middle East.

See also Memeorandum; and Captain's Quarters.

The Left's Conspiracy of Silence

I noted in an earlier post, "Deafening Left-Wing Silence on Islamist Barbarism," how the radical left routinely launches unhinged attacks on the Bush administration and its "faux-warrior" backers, but we hear nary a word of denuciation against the most depraved inhumanities committed by the warriors of the "religion of peace."

I noted:

In the midst of the widespread distribution of the most barbarian videotape on Islamic depravity yet seen, the hard-left blogosphere's been deafeningly AWOL in joining the online campaign denouncing the violence.Instead, we get top surrender voices like Glenn Greenwald waving his own hare-brained bloody shirt against "the handful of Muslim-obsessed faux-warriors" he imagines are the real threat to civilization.

It turns out Dr. Sanity puts some psychiatric analysis to the problem in her post, "A Conspiracy of Silence":

Most family therapists are familiar with the "conspiracy of silence" that occurs in families desperate to avoid an unpleasant realty or painful truth. For example, it can be seen in the unwillingness to talk about a catastrophe or death; to pretend even, that the traumatic event never occurred. The movie Ordinary People showed the destructive power of this kind of silence on one member of a family, which eventually split apart the entire family. The conspiracy can descend when there is sexual abuse going on within the family and other members look away and act like everything is normal, ignoring even the most blatant warning signs. The phrase has also been used to describe the indifference of onlookers when some terrible event is happening to others (e.g., Darfur) and they lift no finger to help.

Elie Wiesel wrote passionately about this sort of conspiracy during the Holocaust. He said, talking about the victims in the concentration camps, "The worse sort of cruelty would have been incapable of breaking the prisoner; it was the silence of those he believed to be his friends—cruelty more cowardly, more subtle—which broke his heart.There was no longer anyone on whom to count … It … poisoned the desire to live… If this is the human society we come from—and are now abandoned by—why seek to return?"

That is why Wiesel believed, "...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all...". Yet it is an all too human defense brought to bear when the consequences of facing reality would be overwhelming.

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud wrote about an "obtuseness of mind, a gradual stupefying process" that occurs when people desperately try to avoid a reality with which they cannot or do not want to cope. Sometimes it is accompanied by real hysterical blindness; or sometimes just an incredible indifference to truth.

This obtuseness perfectly describes the state of mind of the MSM as they try to come to grips with something that goes counter to their multicultural template; a template where all the left's 'approved' victim groups--such as the poor, oppressed Palestinians and other Islamic terrorist groups--are NEVER the perpetrators of violence, but are always the victims of it.

This also describes the nihilist left in the United States, which cheers the deployment in Iraq of mentally impaired women as human bombs:

I think it's just horrible that whoever was behind this latest disaster used Down's women to perpetrate the bombings but I don't see it as a sign of desperation. I see it as a sign of adaptation and a brilliant one at that.

As Dr. Sanity adds:

There is almost always an identified family 'scapegoat' on whom all the problems of the family can be blamed (and who can be the recipient of all that intense affect and emotion which rightfully should be directed elsewhere were it not for the conspiracy of silence).

In the case of the unspoken conspiracy between the poitical left and those in the media when it come to the issue of terrorism, it has been fairly clear for some time that America and the Bush Administration receive the full force of all the anger, rage, and fear they feel.

Psychologically and personally, the separation of affect and emotion from the real issue and its redirection toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid the real threat and to maintain the cherished multicultural dogma they are so invested in is quite comforting for a while. The family members can pretend that they are 'loyal' and good people; especially when they persecute and torment the scapegoat.

On a larger scale, this is, of course, the same type of psychodynamic that lead to genocide. And it all begins with a conspiracy of silence and the obsessive avoidance of an uncomfortable truth.

Note also, as evidenced by the occasional drive-by commenter here (Sheldon), just to point out these trends, for the left, amounts to "The surest sign there is of superficiality of thought."

Oh sure, it's superficial in note that 12 year-old American boys are not beheading captured enemy combatants here in the U.S., who are affording the most generous due process of law anywhere in the world.

No, the truth hurts, and frankly only psychology can explain the intense hatred of the United States and the embrace of our enemies by our most implacable America-bashers here at home.

Obama Must Denounce Che's Revolutionary Terror

It's been a big day for Barack Obama and the swirling associations of hopelessly shady socialism.

But thanks to Jeff Jacoby, who notes Obama's pathetic attempt this week to distance himself from murderous revolutionary Che Guevara, there's no better time for the Illinios Senator to offer a major address denouncing the "snarling enforcer" of early Cuban totalitarianism:

IN 1963, John F. Kennedy was murdered in Texas by a fervent admirer of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. In 2008, a large Cuban flag emblazoned with the image of Che Guevara, Castro's brutal henchman, is prominently displayed in a Barack Obama campaign volunteer office in Houston.

Obama has been widely compared to JFK, most notably by the late president's brother and daughter. President Kennedy, a stalwart anticommunist, despised Castro and his gang of totalitarian thugs. But when word broke last week that Obama's supporters in Houston work under a banner glorifying Che, the campaign's reaction was to brush it off as an issue involving volunteers, not the official campaign. After two days of controversy, the campaign issued a statement calling the flag "inappropriate" and saying its display "does not reflect Senator Obama's views." Would JFK have reacted so mildly?

In December 1962, Kennedy offered a blunt summary of the Castro/Che record. "The Cuban people were promised by the revolution political liberty, social justice, intellectual freedom, land for the campesinos, and an end to economic exploitation," he said. "They have received a police state, the elimination of the dignity of land ownership, the destruction of free speech and a free press, and the complete subjugation of individual human welfare." Eleven months later, in a speech intended for delivery on the day he was assassinated, Kennedy regretted that Castro's "Communist foothold" in Latin America had "not yet been eliminated."

Were he alive today, it's hard to imagine JFK feeling anything but contempt for those who extol a dictatorship that has been crushing freedom and human beings for nearly 50 years. And it would surely pain him that so many of the cheerleaders are members of his own party....

The lionizing of Che, a sociopath who relished killing and acclaimed "the pedagogy of the firing squad," is not just "inappropriate." It is vile. No American in his right mind would be caught dead wearing a David Duke T-shirt or displaying a poster of Pol Pot. A celebrity who was spotted with a swastika-festooned cap or an actress who revealed that she had gotten a tattoo depicting Timothy McVeigh would inspire only repugnance. No presidential campaign would need more than 30 seconds to sever its ties to anyone, paid staffer or volunteer, whose office was adorned with a Ku Klux Klan banner. Yet Che's likeness, which ought to be as loathed as any of those, is instead a trendy bestseller and a cult favorite.

With Che at his side, Castro toppled Fulgencio Batista in January 1959. "As soon as they had seized power...they began to conduct mass executions inside the two main prisons, La Cabana and Santa Clara." As chief prosecutor of the new regime, Che oversaw the bloodbath, ordering hundreds of executions in the first months of 1959....

Like totalitarians of every stripe, Che didn't scruple at the death of innocents. "Quit the dallying!" he ordered Jose Vilasuso, a conscientious government lawyer who was seeking evidence against several prisoners. "Your job is a very simple one. Judicial evidence is an archaic and secondary bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! We execute from revolutionary conviction"....

That this sadistic thug's face also adorns the office of a US presidential candidate's supporters is appalling and disgraceful. That the candidate couldn't bring himself to say so is even worse.

Well said.

See also my post, "Obama's Substance," which contains video footage of Obama's Potomac victory speech; and also, Charles Krauthammer, "Obama Casts His Spell."

Foreign Policy Questions For John McCain

George Will, over at the Washington Post, has a few questions for John McCain:

Foreign policy has slipped to the periphery of presidential politics, displaced by a nonexistent recession as the voters' preoccupation. Come autumn, however, Iraq and Iran may be central subjects, Iraq as a bigger problem for the Democratic nominee than for John McCain and Iran as a problem for McCain. And the presidency may be won by the candidate who embraces a modest conception of that office.

Regarding Iraq, Democrats have won a retrospective argument: Most Americans regret the invasion and execrate the bungled aftermath. But that will not enable the Democratic nominee to argue prospectively that what America's sacrifices have achieved should be put at risk by the essentially unconditional withdrawal of forces that both Democratic candidates promise.

Nancy Pelosi says that the surge has not "produced the desired effect." " The effect"? The surge has produced many desired effects, including a pacification that is a prerequisite for the effect -- political reconciliation -- to which Pelosi refers.

The Democratic nominee will try to make a mountain out of McCain's molehill of an assertion that it would be "fine" with him if some U.S. forces are in Iraq for "maybe 100" years, if Americans are not being harmed. Voters are not seething or even restive because U.S. forces have been in Japan and Germany for 63 years and in South Korea for 58. McCain's real vulnerabilities are related to four questions about Iran and one about Iraq. By answering all five he will reveal what constitutional limits -- if any -- he accepts on the powers of the presidency regarding foreign and military policies.

First, he says war with Iran would be less dreadful than an Iran with nuclear arms. Why does he think, as his statement implies, that a nuclear Iran would be, unlike the Soviet Union, undeterrable and not susceptible to long-term containment unless internal dynamics alter the regime?

Second, many hundreds of bombing sorties -- serious warfare -- would be required to justify confidence that Iran's nuclear program had been incapacitated for the foreseeable future. Does McCain believe that a president is constitutionally empowered to launch such a protracted preventive war without congressional authorization?

Third, why would any president not repelling a sudden attack want to enter the pitch-black forest of war unaccompanied by the other political branch of government?

Fourth, President Bush has spoken of the importance of preventing Iran from having "the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." Does McCain think it is feasible and imperative to prevent, or destroy, such "knowledge"?

The fifth question concerns Iraq and Congress's constitutional role in the conduct of foreign policy. On Nov. 26, Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a "Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship." Pursuant to this declaration, a status-of-forces agreement -- or perhaps something substantially more far-reaching than such agreements often are -- is to be completed by July 31. The declaration says that the agreement will include "security assurances and commitments" requiring the United States to defend Iraq "against internal and external threats," and to "support" Iraq's attempts to "defeat and uproot" all "terrorist groups," including "al-Qaeda, Saddamists, and all other outlaw groups," and to "destroy their logistical networks and their sources of finance."

In a Dec. 19 letter to the president, Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said constitutional law and "over 200 years of practice" establish that such an agreement would require congressional authorization in the form of a treaty, statute or concurrent resolution by both houses. Sen. Hillary Clinton has introduced, and Sen. Barack Obama is co-sponsoring, legislation to deny funds to implement any such agreement that is not approved by Congress. Hundreds of such agreements, major (e.g., NATO) and minor (the Reagan administration's security commitment to the Marshall Islands and Micronesia), have been submitted to Congress. Does McCain agree with Clinton and Obama?

Whoa! Those are some big ones!

Well, let's see what McCain ought to do:

1) Containment assumes national leaders who serve as rational actors who act in the name of the state. Some argue that Iran's leadership is essentially conservative, trying to consolidate the distribution of power in the Middle East after Saddam. Other's have argued that Iran's an unsatified revisionist power. However Iran's viewed, the ravings of a state leader like Ahmadinejad don't bode well for the assumptions of deterrence. Who's to say he wouldn't seek to wipe Israel off the map with intermediate range missiles, the same delivery systems that could reach the European heartland? The research is not definitive on this, although there's by no means a consensus the potential to deter an emerging Third World nuclear power. McCain's on solid ground to suggest Iran might not be deterrable.

2) Hundreds of bombing sorties could be launched in the absence of congressional authorization. The War Powers Resolution authorizes the president to deploy military force for 60 days in the absence of a congressional resolution, and Iran could be buried in cataclysmic rain of death from above in a matter of a few days, or weeks if need be. Would McCain do it? Should he? I watched McCain this morning on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulis," and the Arizona Senator stressed his many years in Congress, and how the experience would incline him toward a legislative resolution on the use of force. I have no doubt that's what he'll do as president, but he doesn't have to if immediate threats arise that do not require a prolonged deployment of U.S. force. (Keep in mind, public opinion will likely demand congressional authorization for war, but should the U.S. or its key allies face hostile military power, McCain could act first and get a resolution later.)

3) I doubt any president would want to enter a "pitch-black forest of war unaccompanied by the other political branch of government." To be honest, G.W. Bush is the one to whom Will should be posing this question. The Democrats in 2007 worked endlessly to thwart the administration's revised strategy in Iraq, and they demonized the war effort as a failure. McCain was in the Senate throughout this period, and he's practiced in defending against a congressionally-imposed surrender. As president - more than any candidate currently in the race - McCain would have both the legislative and national security credentials to avoid a potential circumstance Will suggests.

4) Would or should a President McCain work to prevent Iran from obtaining actionable knowledge on nuclear capability? Well, that's what happening right now, according to the recent NIE. The question's probably moot, the way things are going. Depending on the source, Iran's well along the path to developing nuclear capability, and recent announcements from Ahmadinejad have essentially proclaimed it.

5) Will is right that the "Cooperation and Friendship" agreement with Iraq amounts to a treaty. Indeed, the statement is the basis for a U.S.-Iraq alliance, and a McCain administration would stake its presidency on securing this modus operandi. We are still in Japan and Germany after 60 years. Americans won't expect the U.S. to implement an unconditional withdrawal from Iraq - after years of blood and treasure - without some type of security guarantee in place. The Clinton-Obama pledge to torpedo such an agreement is irresponsible. Will's question here clarifies the differences between the parties on Iraq. McCain's certainly ready to engage these issues.

John McCain may or may not be a "TR" kind of president. The difference? He won't speak softly.

The same can't be said for the Democrats, and the voters have nine months to ponder that.

McCain is Tonic for Post-Bush Republicans

One of my commenters suggested I was falling asleep on the job!

I'm supposed to be pumping John McCain, not wasting my time on some "'third-generation' of Ditto-head denial arguments" against the Arizona Senator.

Okay, okay...we've got a nomination to wrap up, so I'll keep up the pace.

Here's Jonathan Rauch from National Journal, who argues McCain's just the tonic for the Republican Party this year:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., endured boos amid the applause when he spoke at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference. Good for him. And good for the Republicans. Those boos may not have been music to McCain's ears, but they were one indication that he is the healthiest thing to happen to the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan.

This year's primary season has been so full of healthy developments that you could package it with oat bran and hawk it at Whole Foods. The country can thank its lucky stars that the process has pushed forward -- in McCain and in Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama -- the three most formidable figures in American politics. If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, the result will pit the two most widely admired political figures of their generations against each other in a presidential race. The last time the country saw anything remotely like that was when Dwight Eisenhower faced Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956.

Democrats can be grateful they have two tough races on their hands, first for the nomination and then, as now seems virtually certain, against McCain in the general election. Remember LBJ and Jimmy Carter? When Democrats win against weak opponents or crippled parties, they overreach, underperform, and lose touch with the country.

But the healthiest news of all is McCain's emergence as the presumptive Republican nominee. Of all the Republicans in America, McCain is best positioned to undo the errors and correct the excesses of Bush-era Republicanism. If the Bush years were snakebit, think of McCain as an antivenin.

Not all Republicans see it that way, of course. Some would like to see more ruthless partisanship, more fiscal recklessness, more polarization, more presidential monarchism, more erosion of U.S. credibility on human rights, more immigration-bashing. Wiser Republicans, though, know better. They understand that the Big Four of post-Reagan, post-Gingrich Republicanism -- President Bush, Vice President Cheney, former White House strategist Karl Rove, and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- steered the party to a dead end.

Wise Republicans know, to begin with, that the party is lost if it cannot rebuild its own center and appeal to the country's. Bush-era Republicanism was all about suppressing the center and mobilizing the extremes, on the (correct) assumption that conservatives outnumber liberals. It worked, for a while, because of 9/11 and because the Democrats unwittingly cooperated. Forced to choose between the Republican Right and the Democratic Left, independents leaned Republican or just stayed home.

Unfortunately for Republicans, the Democrats wised up and started choosing candidates with centrist appeal. Forced to govern from the center of their party instead of the center of the country, Republicans meanwhile swung too far to the right. Independents cut loose. Blood rushed back into the political center. Republicans found themselves marginalized by their own polarizing strategy. The wiser among them now understand that the only way back is through the middle.

McCain stands unrivaled among Republicans as a proven magnet for moderate and independent votes. He has a long record of working and talking across party lines. He not only understands independents, he needs them, because polarized partisans don't trust him (for good reason). Even if he wanted to, he couldn't run a Bush-style "50 percent plus one" strategy of playing to the base and picking off just enough moderates. "He may be able to bring the party back to the center, and that would be deeply useful," says Steve Bell, who, as a longtime senior aide to Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has observed McCain for years. (Domenici has endorsed McCain, despite past encounters with McCain's epithet-laced temper.)

Democrats control both chambers of Congress and are expected to consolidate their majorities this year. In 2009, a Republican president is unlikely to be able to scare Democrats into submission, as Bush did for a while. Instead a GOP president would have to do a delicate job of triangulating between the Democratic majority and a sometimes truculent Republican base.

With his long record of working across party lines -- on campaign finance law and global warming and judicial appointments and much more -- McCain is uniquely equipped to provide Republicans with the last thing they expected to see post-Bush: a productive Republican presidency. "I think we might actually get some stuff done," Bell says.

Most Republicans understand that their loss of credibility on spending restraint and fiscal responsibility has damaged the Republican brand. Wise Republicans understand, further, that supply-side dogmatism has become part of the problem. The supply-side movement made sense when the top tax rate was 70 percent, taxes rose with inflation, and tax cuts were only one part of a program that also included deregulation and lower spending. It stopped making sense when Bush-era Republicanism turned it into an obsession, fixated on the idea that if you just cut taxes and then cut them some more, lower spending, smaller government, and shrinking deficits will follow.

McCain has a long record of vocal opposition to pork-barrel spending and congressional earmarks; he makes a point of calling for entitlement reform; and he is not a supply-sider, having voted against both of Bush's biggest tax cuts. Supply-siders hate that, and it's true that he has now rallied to them with expensive and unpaid-for promises to extend the Bush tax cuts and abolish the alternative minimum tax. Still, McCain's heart belongs not to the supply-side absolutism of the Bush era but to the tightfisted rectitude of the Eisenhower era. If anyone has a shot at restoring Republican fiscal credibility, it is McCain.

Read the rest.

Rauch takes some cheap shots at the administration, but for the most part he makes a good case.

Deafening Left-Wing Silence on Islamist Barbarism

In the midst of the widespread distribution of the most barbarian videotape on Islamic depravity yet seen, the hard-left blogosphere's been deafeningly AWOL in joining the online campaign denouncing the violence.

Instead, we get top surrender voices like Glenn Greenwald waving his own hare-brained bloody shirt against "the handful of Muslim-obsessed faux-warriors" he imagines are the real threat to civilization:

In response to my post on Friday pointing out that nobody outside of the handful of Muslim-obsessed faux-warriors is moved any longer by the Government's endless exploitation of Terrorism to secure more and more unchecked power, National Review's Mark Steyn said:

He may have a point: It's psychologically exhausting being on permanent Orange Alert, especially as the reason for it recedes further and further in the rear-view mirror. A lot of Americans are "over" 9/11, and, while the event had a lingering emotional power, the strategic challenge it exposed has not been accepted by much of the electorate.

The truth is exactly the opposite. There is nothing more psychologically invigorating than the belief that you are staring down the Greatest and Most Evil Enemy Ever in History, courageously waging glorious war for all that is Good and Just in the world. Nothing produces more pulsating feelings of excitement and nobility like convincing yourself that you are a Warrior defending Western Civilization from the greatest threat it has ever faced, following in - even surpassing - the mighty footsteps of the Greatest Generation and the Warrior-Crusaders who came before them.

For those who crave and glorify (though in their lives completely lack) acts of warrior courage, play-acting the role of the intrepid Warrior is uniquely satisfying. That's why nothing can fill the bottomless spare time of bored, aimless adolescents like sitting in front of a computer commanding vast armies and destructive military weapons, deployed against cunning, scary and evil enemies. That's why the Mark Steyns of every generation create such Enemies, becasue they are purposeless and aimless without them.

Steyn deeply flatters himself into believing that only he and his tragically small (and shrinking) band of warrior-comrades can bear the "psychologically exhausting" burden of defending The West and its freedoms. Sadly, most Americans - he says - are too weak, too brittle, just not up to the task of bearing the heavy burden of prosecuting the war against the omnipotent jihadi super-villains.

But not Steyn and friends. They are society's warriors, the Progeny of Churchill, Patten and Napoleon, bravely and tenaciously manning the barricades of Civilization itself. They'll find a powerful and protective Warrior who leads them; advocate all sorts of fascinating technologies and complex spying schemes to wage the War; spend hour upon hour chatting about battles and tactics and strategies; and endlessly depict themselves as besieged though tenacious. Far from being "psychologically exhausting," convincing yourself that you are all that - as Steyn and comrades explicitly do - is to bathe oneself in self-affirming and self-glorifying virtue. Nothing could ever compete with such glory when it comes to psychological fulfillment.

Greenwald continues to argue, further down, how America's pro-victory leadership lives for perpetual war:

This is why our nation's faux-warriors can never be reasoned with. It's why their greatest fear is having the Threats from Our Enemies be put into rational perspective, alongside all the other garden-variety manageable threats we face. To argue that they are exaggerating and melodramatizing the Enemy and the threat is to take away from them that which is most personally important to them.

Just consider the grandiose, baroque rhetoric they employ. What they are defending -- today's U.S. -- is not merely good. It's not even great. It's not even the greatest thing there is on the Earth right now. No -- it's much more grand than that: it's the Greatest Country ever to exist on the Earth in all of human history. That's what they're defending; that's the magnitude of the burden they bear, the incomparable importance of the crusade they lead.

Conversely, the Enemy they are facing down (from a safe distance) is not merely threatening or evil or scary or formidable. No, it's much, much more than that. This is the greatest Enemy that exists on the planet, the most cunning and nefarious and evil force the world has ever seen -- not just now, but for all of human history. There is nothing remotely like the depravity and power of this particular Enemy -- and there never has been. Ever. Everything these faux-warriors face and defend is superlative; there has never, ever been a war like the one they are waging (inside their heads). None of the old rules apply. This is all unique, unknown, the first and most important of its kind.

You know, I'm a reasonable guy, and while I imagine I know a bit more about international relations than retreatists like Greenwald, I'm usually open to a compelling argument.

That's not the case here. Painting your political opponents in such overly general brushstrokes does nothing for specificity in argumentation. Perhaps some war-backers have focused exclusively on the threat from Islamist terror. That doesn't mean they've wholly concocted some threat out of thin air.

Who's right?

Steyn, who argues the country's moved on from September 11? Or Greenwald, who sees the Bush-Cheney regime as the capstone of a new American warrior class chasing demons to slay across the globe's untamed periphery?

I'd say, unfortunately, that Steyn's much closer to the truth: Generally, folks - if they haven't moved on from September 11 - have become indifferent to it, and are increasingly hostile to a costly, and at-times uncertain, forward policy of expanding American world power in the defense of freedom.

But I digress. I'm mostly just annoyed that for all of Greenwald's fulminations against America's "faux-warriors," I see absolutely no repudiation of the most inhumane atrocties of our enemies:

A 12 year-old Taliban terrorist beheading a hostage?

Doesn't rate in Greenwald's Smithian phantasmagoria.

How about al Qaeda's kerosene-soaked immolation of captives in Iraq?

Nope, not even a blink.

Greenwald, in fact, in his safe hideway over at Salon, provides increasing intellectual encouragement and succor to our nihilists enemies here at home, like the Code Pink protesters hoisting signs this last week announcing their support for "the Iraqi resistance" - support, in effect, advocating the killing of American troops currently at war.

No, I'd say the longer the war goes on, the more utility Greenwald gets in promoting his ultra-anti-American agenda.

But hey, I'm probably one of Greenwald's "faux-warriors," so what could I possibly know about things like courage, honor, and sacrifice (or international relations).

Thoughts of a Conservative Suicide Voter

This letter, published at American Thinker, is the most reasoned argument against John McCain I've seen thoughout all of the right wing controversy of recent weeks:

Critical thought and a rational mind are all conservatives have to protect from the madness of crowds. Supporting John McCain over conservative principles is a bargain with fear.

McCain won recent primaries by modest pluralities with the help of moderates and independents. Other, more conservative candidates split the "conservative" vote. Conservatives have a McCain problem. The vote tallies show it and the radio waves blare it.

If, 20 years ago, someone said a future Republican presidential candidate gleefully and actively undermined the 1st amendment, tried to get amnesty for tens of millions of illegals in the middle of the night with a forced deal, advocated a surtax on the American economy to forestall "global warming," who would find it conceivable? How much more incredible if one then learned---"well, he is the conservative."

When Bush I collapsed with "read my lips," conservatives were told, "well, the alternative is worse."

8 years later, conservatives swallowed "compassionate conservatism." Like "emotional rationalism," or "intrusive privacy" it is nonsense. It is an empty vessel each person fills with his or her own hopes. Its very objective is to evade critical thought.

Applied critical thought might have led to a different result than Bush II, the largest spender-even larger than Bill Clinton. But enough conservatives skipped critical thought because the alternative seemed worse. It was not.

So here we are. Conservatives are told to support McCain because the alternative is worse. Is it?

McCain will select conservative judges? What critical mind thinks McCain will select judges who would challenge his signature issues of McCain-Feingold or the nonsense of man made global warming?

Conservatives are told to hope for tax relief from the McCain who voted, almost alone in the Republican Senate ranks, against modest tax cuts using class warfare language to justify his actions.

Some conservatives believe McCain's claim that only he will fight it out in Iraq. These conservatives are encouraged to throw away principles on virtually every conservative issue for this straw. Is it so?

Both Hillary and Obama are on record stating neither would precipitously withdraw from Iraq. They cannot let the remaining infrastructure with thousands of American contractors, foreign aid workers and U.N. administrators be slaughtered. McCain may be better than any Democrat on Iraq, but he is not much better. McCain wants to close Guantanamo giving full courtroom rights to terrorists. He showboats torture when there is none. In the 8 Clinton years, McCain did nothing to oppose Clinton's significant military reductions. The McCain hope does not justify full abandonment of conservative principle. The only McCain selling point is acquiescence to fear---the alternative must be worse.

Conservative voters are being manipulated to let fear of Hillary or Obama make them vote for a Republican liberal who opposes everything in which they believe. McCain, like Bush, is selling liberalism by the spoonful.

It is time to say "stop!"

The conservative suicide voter says "no" to McCain. Let Hillary/Obama bring on liberalism, not in spoonfuls but in truckloads. Tie the wages of liberalism to a real, labeled liberal. Do not let liberalism hide under the guise of a "conservative" John McCain. Do not sign on to fear and vote for McCain.

When liberalism is in the open, critical minds and their countrymen can see its folly. Conservatism is well served by an open, clear cut battle with liberalism in full bloom. And conservatism, not John McCain is best for America.

I choose to vote "no" to John McCain who will continue to sell out conservatism to liberalism at every turn.

Jay Valentine
Salado, Texas

As noted, I've not seen a better argument against McCain, although I could certainly take apart some of the generalities and stereotypes the author employs. I particularly don't think McCain's going to "sell out" anything. He's a man of pragmatism, and the right could use more of that.

Moreover, the Democrats in recent weeks - especially Obama - have moved so far to the left on the war they're practically in bed with our enemies. I won't sell out my nation's security for ideological purity by pledging for a Democrat or sitting out the election.

Anyway, it's a good letter. I like the reason behind it, which is also lacking in this debate.

Who Are the Superdelegates?

With so much controversy erupting over the potential power of the Democrats' elite convention bloc, the Los Angeles Times takes a look at exactly who these superdelegates are:

In a campaign season that has defied prediction, the final twist could be this: Although Democratic turnout has been high, shattering records in some states, the odds are good that neither Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Barack Obama will have accumulated enough delegates picked through primaries and caucuses to clinch the nomination. Unless some sort of other deal is brokered, the margin of victory would come from the elite segment of superdelegates.

How powerful are superdelegates? In California, 370 regular delegates were allotted based on the votes of more than 4.5 million people in the state's Feb. 5 primary. That means each of California's 66 superdelegates will cast a convention ballot equivalent to a regular delegate picked by more than 12,000 primary voters.

"This is a device to try to reduce the influence of one-person, one-vote," said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the watchdog group Public Citizen. "It's anti-democratic. It's specifically designed for the purpose of having the insiders . . . have some sort of final decision over who the nominee is going to be, regardless of what the voters want."

A recent tally by the Associated Press showed Clinton leading Obama in superdelegates by 77. Not all have committed themselves, and they can shift their allegiance at any time.

Some of the superdelegates are professional politicians; 27 governors are among them, as well as every Democratic member of Congress -- including Rep. William J. Jefferson of Louisiana, indicted last year on corruption charges following an FBI raid that found $90,000 in a home freezer.

Another group consists of "distinguished party leaders" -- 23 elder statesmen and former high-ranking officials, including former Presidents Clinton and Carter and former Vice President Al Gore. Jim Wright, the former speaker of the House from Texas, also falls into this category.

Wright left Congress in 1989, a casualty of an ethics investigation into his financial dealings. Now 85, he teaches part-time and works for a life insurance company in Waco. As for his presidential preference, he said, "I want to support Hillary. That's my plan."

The bulk of the superdelegates are the 411 Democratic National Committee members. These include Millin of Wyoming, Marquez of Colorado and Stampolis of Santa Clara.

They've taken different routes to become members of the national committee. Millin, for example, said he became a member by virtue of serving as Wyoming Democratic Party chairman; Stampolis was elected by the California Democratic Party's executive board.

Many superdelegates already have become the focus of fevered public scrutiny. When one ditches a candidate for another, it can be a sensation. A report last week that Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, an icon of the civil rights movement, might abandon Clinton for Obama made national news.

Both candidates are targeting superdelegates in aggressive lobbying campaigns.

The controversy over the superdelegates' role in a brokered convention continues this weekend, as the Clinton campaign's asserting that the final results of the primary vote will be irrelevant if the nomination goes all they way to Denver.

Frankly, I think the campaign's on solid ground legally, as far as DNC party rules are concerned. On the left-wing American street, however, a brokered convention installing Clinton as the Democratic standard-bearer looks to be a sure recipe for a reprise of the tumult of Chicago 1968.

Will John Hickenlooper be this year's big Democratic Party boss, calling out Denver's finest to crack down on Seattle-style postmodern violence and unrest?

The irony's too rich, since the Democrats' 1968 defeat led to today's party rules, which in turn may lead to new street protests, which could in turn lead to counter-reforms to un-diversify the party's delegate selection process. Got that?

Karl Rove's got to be cracking up, as he watches the Clinton machine make the job a lot easier for Republican Party opposition strategists in '08.

See also the New York Times, "Old Clinton Ties and Voters’ Sway Tug at Delegates"; and also the commentary and analysis at Memeorandum.

The Myth of Iraq's Jihadi Magnet

Reuel Marc Gerecht's got a great piece up at the Washington Post, arguing that Iraq's not a magnet for foreign-bred jihadists:

Among Democrats and even many Republicans, it is by now accepted wisdom that the war in Iraq brought huge numbers of holy warriors to the anti-American cause. But is it true? I don't think so.

Muslim holy warriors are a diverse lot, reacting with differing intensity to the hot-button issues that define contemporary Islamic militancy. For many fundamentalists, what is seen as an unrelenting Western assault on Muslim male honor and female virtue is the core infuriating offense. For others it may be the alienation that second-generation young Muslim men encounter in an immigrant-unfriendly Europe. And for still others, Iraq, Afghanistan, the tyranny of U.S.-backed Muslim rulers and the Palestinian resistance can all come together to convert individual indignities into a holy-warrior faith.

These complexities may help explain, at least in part, why so many secular Westerners seek relief in more easily understood explanations for jihadism (the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict being the usual favorites) -- explanations that don't probe too deeply into Islamic history and the militant Muslim imagination.

Regarding the Iraq war and jihadism, two facts stand out. First, if we make a comparison with the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-89, which was the baptismal font for al-Qaeda, what's most striking is how few foreign holy warriors have gone to Mesopotamia since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

Admittedly, we don't have a perfect grasp of the numbers involved in either conflict. But the figure of 25,000 Arab mujaheddin is probably a decent figure for those who went to Pakistan to fight the Red Army. Most probably did so in the last four years of the war, when the recruitment organizations and logistics became well developed. In Iraq, we see nothing of this magnitude, even though Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is in the Arab heartland and at the center of Islamic history. Moreover, for Arabs, getting to Iraq isn't difficult, and once there they speak the language and know the culture. And of course the United States, the bete noire of Islamists, is the enemy in Iraq.

But according to the CIA and the U.S. military, we are now seeing at most only dozens of Arab Sunni holy warriors entering the country each month. Even at the height of the insurgency in 2006-07, the figure might have been just a few hundred (and may have been much smaller).

In the 1980s the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and most well-organized Islamist movement, was at the center of the anti-Soviet jihadist recruitment effort. But in the case of Iraq, the Brotherhood has largely sat out the war. Even in Saudi Arabia, the mother ship of virulently anti-American, anti-Shiite, anti-moderate Muslim Wahhabism, the lack of commitment has been striking. We should have seen thousands, not hundreds, of Saudi true believers descending on Iraq.

Throughout the Arab world, fundamentalism today is much stronger on the ground than it was in the 1980s. Yet the fundamentalist commitment to the Iraqi Sunni Arab insurgency pales in comparison with that made to Sunni Afghans.

A second striking fact about Islamism and the Iraq war is that the arrival of foreign holy warriors is deradicalizing the local population -- the exact opposite of what happened in Afghanistan. In the Soviet war, the "Arab Afghans" arrived white-hot -- their radicalization had occurred at home in the 1960s and 1970s, when Islamic fundamentalism replaced secular Arab nationalism as the driving intellectual force. On the subcontinent, Arab holy warriors accelerated extreme Islamism among both Afghans and Pakistanis. We are still living with the results.

In Iraq, as we have seen with the anti-al-Qaeda, Sunni Arab "Awakenings," Sunni extremism is now in retreat. More important, the gruesome anti-Shiite tactics of extremist groups, combined with the much-quoted statements made by former Sunni insurgents about the positive actions of the United States in Iraq, have caused a great deal of intellectual turbulence in the Arab world.

It's way too soon to call Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda spiritual outcasts among Arab Muslims, but they have in fact sustained enormous damage throughout the region because of Iraq. The lack of holy-warrior manpower coming from the Muslim Brotherhood is surely, in part, a reflection of this discomfort with al-Qaeda's violence, the complexity of Iraqi politics and America's not entirely negative role inside the country. If bin Ladenism is now on the decline -- and it may well be among Arabs -- then Iraq has played an essential part in battering the movement's spiritual appeal.

Iraq could still fall apart (and if an American president starts withdrawing troops haphazardly, it probably will). The country's descent into chaos and renewed sectarian strife would likely reenergize Islamic extremism. But it is certainly not too soon to suggest that Iraq could well become America's decisive victory over Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and all those Muslims who believe that God has sanctified violence against the United States.

For the debate on troop withdrawals, see Michael Gordon, "Making a Case for a Pause in Troop Cutbacks in Iraq."

Obama's McGovernite Blowout

Robert Novak suggests that Hillary Clinton's campaign's pumping up Barack Obama as the next George McGovern:

Strategists for Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign believe it is imperative to identify her high-flying opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, with the "McGovern wing" of the Democratic Party - but they want to keep their candidate's fingerprints off the attack.

During the two weeks remaining before the important Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, Clinton insiders want to spread the message that Obama represents the radical left-wing politics of George McGovern's 1972 candidacy, which won only one state. But they don't know how to accomplish this. When Clinton herself has launched past attacks on Obama, it has hurt her with voters.

The Clinton campaign is confident of winning in Texas because of the state's Hispanic vote. But it sees the need in Ohio to identify Obama as a leftist in the eyes of lower-income white voters, who often have supported Republican candidates against Democratic opponents they consider too liberal.

What's great about this, to the extent that it's true, is the resulting initial outpouring of intra-party Democratic oppistion research suggesting a McGovernite Obama blowout in November:

Everyone agrees: Obama has run a superb campaign. He's put together a strong coalition of African-Americans, "latte liberals," young people, and the Democratic Party's liberal-left insurgency that was previously attracted to people like Bill Bradley and Gary Hart, and before them, George McGovern.

McGovern, along with Cong. Don Fraser, wrote the rules which governed the 1972 campaign. Four years earlier, in 1968, the Democratic Party had blown itself up in a dispute between the established powerbrokers and the anti-war left. The "McGovern Rules" were mostly about taking power away from "the establishment." In the future, nominees would be chosen in local caucuses and state primaries.

In caucuses, cohesive goal-directed groups can have influence beyond their numbers. This makes them ideal for insurgency-type campaigns. In 1972, we McGovernites took 9 out of 10 delegates in Ellis County, Kansas--a significant achievement especially when George McGovern was not exactly representative of local sentiment among traditional Democrats.

The McGovern campaign did this in thousands of county assemblies all across the nation, particularly in what are now called "red states." Note George McGovern's "red state" victories in this map of 1972 caucuses and primaries and compare it to the states Barack Obama has won through caucuses this year. This is not surprising, of course, considering that the Obama campaign has adopted the McGovern insurgency caucus strategy, added in internet organizing and fundraising, and, what's more, rallied the same McGovern constituency

Obama's certainly not as uncompetitive as McGovern in '72, but you've got to love how hot and sweaty the left gets sometimes!

Barack Obama: Shady Chicago Socialist

You've just got to love partisan politics sometimes. I mean, slinging together the syncopatic adjective-noun combo "Shady Chicago Socialist" to describe Barack Obama is simply the best!

This is what's being portrayed as the right's emerging smear campaign against Obama in the general election (via Memeorandum):

LEADING Republicans believe they can trounce Barack Obama in the presidential election by tarring him as a shady Chicago socialist. They are increasingly confident that his campaign could collapse by the time their attack machine has finished with him.
Grover Norquist, an influential conservative tax reform lobbyist, said: “Barack Obama has been able to create his own image and introduce himself to voters, but the swing voters in a general election are not paying attention yet. He is open to being defined as a leftwing, corrupt Chicago politician.”

Norquist’s comments will be music to the ears of Hillary Clinton, Obama’s Democratic rival, who believes Obama has not been sufficiently “vetted” for the White House. She has been unable to attack him too vociferously without risking a backlash from Democratic primary voters, but Republicans may salvage her campaign by doing the job for her.

Obama has the voting record of a “hard-left” socialist, according to Norquist, from his time in the Illinois state legislature to the US Senate. He was recently judged by the nonpartisan National Journal to have the most liberal voting record in 2007 of any senator.

“It will be easy to portray him as even harder-left than Hillary,” said Norquist. “Hillary could lose the election, but Obama could collapse. People already know Hillary and she is not popular, but the disadvantage for Obama is that Republicans can teach people who don’t know him who he is.”

Frankly, both Obama and Clinton are way over on the left, but as I've noted, Hillary's ideology is patently malleable, based on her own historical single-minded pursuit of political power.

Of course, Obama indeed's got that aura of unfamiliar ideological savoir faire that opens him up to political packaging by the right.

As Jules Crittenden points out:

Did anyone think the right would fold before the second coming of JFMLK?

What's funny about this, as Crittenden notes, is thatObama's second coming as George McGovern's been trumpeted by political progressives, with potential ties to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

When the Democrats start doing the mudslinging dirty work you know November '08 is shaping up as no left wing slam dunk.

Reagan Lacked Early GOP Rally in 1980

A look at the comparative historical data shows that Ronald Reagan - the great model of a conservative presidential candidate - did not overwhelmingly rally Republican voters in the 1980 presidential primaries.

In the 1980 GOP race - before wrapping up the nomination - Reagan had the support of 55 percent of Republican voters, compared to 25 percent for G.H.W. Bush, who challenged the former California Governor for the party's nod.

Today, John McCain's hold on Republicans bears a striking similarity to the dynamics of the 1980 race. The Arizona Senator is backed by a 51 percent Republican majority at this stage of the 2008 primaries, compared to the standing for his last remaining challenger, Mike Huckabee, who comes in at 29 percent.

McCain's support among Republican voters this year is just 4 percentage points lower than Reagan in 1980, a statistically insignificant gap, as it falls within the traditional margin of sampling error. Not just that, the 1980 data are drawn from February 29-March 3 of that year, whereas the 2008 data are drawn from February 11-13 of this month, roughly three weeks earlier in the nomination season.

Thus, McCain, who's been disparaged as RINO - with at least two far-right wing conservative pundits pledged to vote for the Democratic nominee - resides in a historical comparison that measures up favorable to President Reagan, the icon of the conservative movement, and one of the 20th century's greatest chief executives.

Here's more from Gallup:

Gallup Poll Daily election tracking makes it possible to place McCain's current status as his party's presumptive nominee in historical perspective by providing the basis for a comparison to the support other front-runners have enjoyed in previous elections.

At some point in every election, once a party's nominee is essentially known and agreed upon, Gallup has quit asking members of that party about the nomination process and has moved to asking about the general election. So the "final" nomination survey each election year serves as an interesting indicator of the overall support level that nominee was receiving among members of his party at the time he was deemed (by Gallup editors at any rate) to have the nomination sewn up.

McCain is not quite yet at that point. But the analysis of where previous front-runners were when they were assumed to have the nomination in hand provides a framework to use in calibrating just how "wounded" a nominee McCain may be. At this point, it can be said that while McCain's current 51% support for his presumptive candidacy is not overwhelming based on Gallup's historical record, it is not unprecedentedly low either. And there is still room for McCain to improve his standing in the days ahead.

A look at other GOP election matchups shows McCain generally further behind the frontrunner for that contest, including McCain's own 57 to 34 percent gap behind G.W. Bush in 2000.

There are, of course, many Republicans among the conservative base who have still not rallied to the McCain banner, and many never will. But it's not accurate to say that McCain's failed to rally the support of his party.

See also the Gallup video, "GOP Yet to Rally Around McCain."