McCain Derangement Rides Again

John Hawkins, after reexamining John McCain's position on immigration reform, has announced he will not support the Arizona Senator in November:

John McCain is a liar. He's a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration. Quite frankly, this is little different from George Bush, Sr. breaking his "Read my lips, no new taxes pledge," except that Bush's father was at least smart enough to wait until he got elected before letting all of his supporters know that he was lying to them.

Under these circumstances, I simply cannot continue to support a man like John McCain for the presidency. Since that is the case, I have already written the campaign and asked them to take me off of their mailing list and to no longer send me invitations to their teleconferences. I see no point in asking questions to a man who has no compunction about lying through his teeth on one of the most crucial election issues and then changing his position the first time he believes he can get away with it.

Moreover, I genuinely regret having to do this because I do still believe the country would be better off with John McCain as President as opposed to Obama or Clinton. However, I just cannot in good conscience cast a vote for a man who has told this big of a lie, for this long, about this important of an issue.

That being said, although I cannot back John McCain, encourage others to vote for him, or contribute any more money to his campaign, I'm not going to tell you that you should do that same thing. What McCain has done here is a bridge too far for me, but others may not have as big a problem with being told this sort of lie. That's their decision.

Furthermore, I will defend John McCain when I think he deserves to be defended, excoriate Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton at every opportunity, and I will continue to stand behind the sort of Republican candidates who actually deserve conservative support. But, what I will not do is vote for John McCain in November.

What happened? Well, Hawkins says McCain's betrayed his trust on immigration, and offers the two following quotes for some context, from April:

As president, I will honor that pledge by securing the border, thus strengthening our national security. I will also require that, among other things, border-state governors certify that the border is secure before proceeding to other reform measures. However, I also believe that our immigration system must recognize that America will always be that "shining city upon a hill," a beacon of hope and opportunity for those seeking a better life built on hard work and optimism. Once we achieve border security, we must ensure that we approach our remaining immigration challenges with constructive dialogue and solutions that reflect a compassionate approach and the needs of our economy.

And from yesterday:

After several of the business leaders complained about the difficulty in obtaining temporary H1B visas for scientists and engineers, something the Senate immigration bill was supposed to address, Mr. McCain expressed regret the measure did not pass, calling it a personal “failure,” as well as one by the federal government.

“Senator Kennedy and I tried very hard to get immigration reform, a comprehensive plan, through the Congress of the United States,” he said. “It is a federal responsibility and because of our failure as a federal obligation, we’re seeing all these various conflicts and problems throughout our nation as different towns, cities, counties, whatever they are, implement different policies and different programs which makes things even worse and even more confusing.”

He added: “I believe we have to secure our borders, and I think most Americans agree with that, because it’s a matter of national security. But we must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item if we don’t do it before, and we probably won’t, a little straight talk, as of January 2009.”

Mr. McCain asked others on the panels for suggestions about how to “better mobilize American public opinion” behind the notion of comprehensive immigration reform.

Hawkins ommitted this last section from the article he cited above:

Later, Mr. McCain took up the topic again, saying the problem of what to do with illegal immigrants already here needs to be solved, saying “they are also God’s children, and we have to do it in a human and compassionate fashion,” which drew applause from his audience.

I think the key word in that last passage is "compassion."

Have conservatives lost a sense of proportion, to say nothing of fairness (to McCain in this case, but also to those in government who're truly concerned about immigration)? If you ask me, Hawkins deploys emotion over reason. "Border enforcement" and "comprehensive" reform are by no means mutually exclusive, and I don't think the quotes Hawkins provides demonstrate that McCain's a liar. Note how Tamar Jacoby put the issue of controlling the border in the context of overall immigration reform:

Reformers understand the need to retake control, both on the border and in the workplace. Restrictionist opponents maintain that the way to do this is simply to crack down harder, enforcing the laws already on the books. The problem is that the United States has already tried that, tripling the size of the Border Patrol and quintupling its budget over the past decade, to virtually no avail: roughly the same number of immigrants still manage to enter the country each year, albeit by different methods and in different locations. Reinforced efforts and new, more creative tools, particularly in the workplace, can have some effect ... But the cost would be the creation of a virtual police state, with an electric fence and armed guards on the border, roadblocks on every highway, regular raids on all U.S. businesses, a Big Brother-like national tracking system, and extensive use of ethnic profiling. Short of such drastic measures, which still might not succeed in stemming supply and demand, it makes more sense to revise the law to make it more realistic and then use modest enforcement means to ensure it holds.

This is the paradox at the heart of the comprehensive consensus. The best way to regain control is not to crack down but to liberalize -- to expand quotas, with a guest-worker program or some other method, until they line up with labor needs. The analogy is Prohibition: an unrealistic ban on alcohol was all but impossible to enforce. Realistic limits, in contrast, are relatively easy to implement.

Not only is such reform the only way to restore the rule of law; it is also one of the best ways to improve border security. As one veteran Border Patrol agent in Arizona put it, "What if another 9/11 happens, and it happens on my watch? What if the bastards come across here in Arizona and I don't catch them because I'm so busy chasing your next busboy or my next gardener that I don't have time to do my real job -- catching terrorists?" The government needs to take the busboys and the gardeners out of the equation by giving them a legal way to enter the country, so that the Border Patrol can focus on the smugglers and the terrorists who pose a genuine threat.

I'm not happy with the currnet immigration crisis, particulary with the widely recognized and growing threat to traditional American national identity and values from slowing patterns of the historical process of assimilation.

However, I don't like the idea of conservatives advocating a "police state" to control out of control immigration. A rational solution to the immigration by definition must be comprehensive, and thus to hear attacks on McCain as a liar from top conservatives bloggers gets us back to where we were in the primaries, when many conservatives wanted Fred Thompson, and when he jellied-out, Mitt Romney. But note how Roger Simon explains opposition to McCain with reference to Romney:

I have no particular dislike of Romney, other than I find him bland (a very personal reaction, which is not that important.) I followed his career as governor of Massachusetts and thought he did a pretty good job. But, to me, he seemed pretty much of a conventional liberal then, in fact vastly more liberal than I ever regarded John McCain, who I saw and see as more or less of a centrist. I recall Romney running to the left of Ted Kennedy on gay rights (an issue on which I am to the left of both).

Romney claims to have changed and "seen the light" on many issues. I have no idea whether this is true, but I am amazed by all these conservatives who totally and almost slavishly believe this is the real Romney yet equally assuredly distrust McCain when he repeatedly says he would build a security fence. It reminds me of that old shrink's thing about the "need to be right," how it always trips us up. I have seen it happen to me a lot. Anyway, I'm not sure McCain Derangement Syndrome has a cure. People love their anger. It's a security blanket.

To be fair, Hawkins' first pick for the GOP nomination was Duncan Hunter.

But now that we're this far into the race, at a point when Americans have tremendous evidence of the kind of Democratic administration we'll see under a Barack Obama presidency, attacks on McCain as a liar go beyond "political irrationality." Such slurs amount to a reactionary stab in the back.

So, I'm renewing my call, first announced during the primaries: It's time to unify around the GOP nominee so as to unify under a broad conservative coalition on the right: "Conservatives Must Back McCain."

See more analysis at Memorandum.

Community College Professors Fund Scholarships for Low-Income Students

Faculty members at Santa Ana College are making voluntary out-of-pocket contributions to fund a scholarship program for students with severe economic need, the Los Angeles Times reports:

Chemistry professor Jeff McMillan is sick of seeing otherwise capable students drop his courses because it costs too much to go to school.

So much so that he is opening his wallet.

McMillan and about a dozen other faculty and staff members at Santa Ana College have started a scholarship fund that they hope will make it easier for low-income students to afford their classes.Starting this fall, each will fund a student's course fees for a year -- about $600 for a full-time schedule. Professors say the donation comes with the satisfaction of knowing the student their money is helping.

"I won't be just some mysterious person writing a check," said McMillan, who is sharing sponsorship of a student with another professor.

The Opportunity Scholarship will be awarded to students with extreme financial need. Instructors will recommend students who have great potential but are struggling to pay for school. Each student will be paired with one of the faculty sponsors, who will serve as an informal mentor.

"Imagine one of your professors feeling so strongly about you that they're willing to fund your college education," said Sara Lundquist, the college's vice president of student services.

Most likely to benefit will be students who are not citizens and thus are not eligible for federal student aid or a state program that waives fees for low-income community college students.

At the campus -- in the densely populated, impoverished core of Santa Ana -- more than 60% of students receive financial aid. But for the 5% of students whom the college says are immigrants or out-of-state residents, the only way to subsidize their education is with highly competitive, private scholarships.

"Six hundred dollars to most people may not seem like a lot, but for a student who doesn't have any extra income to spend, this may be the difference between going to school or not," said Kalman Chany, president of Campus Consultants Inc., a New York company that helps students find need-based aid from colleges and the government.

Chany said he had not heard of any college having a program like Santa Ana's.

Maximina Guzman, student government president and a former student of McMillan, plans to apply for the scholarship.

Because she is not a citizen -- she and her parents came to the United States illegally when she was 3 -- she is not eligible for financial aid. The biology student has paid her own way, working full time at a hotel gift shop and moonlighting as a telemarketer.

Guzman said her grades have suffered because she had to balance homework, two jobs and family obligations. She usually finds time to study only between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.

If she is awarded a scholarship, she could cut down on weekend work hours, she said.

"It's frustrating to know that I could get better grades if I didn't have to work all the time," she said.

Such competing priorities affect many low-income students, especially Latinos -- about half of the 25,000 students at Santa Ana College. Many of their parents did not go to college, and the pressure to work rather than go to school is strong, students said.

I applaud the professors for these efforts. School and work conflicts are one of the biggest complaints I hear among my students, especially when they're having academic difficulties.

Californians Reject Gay Marriage

A new Los Angeles Times poll finds a slight majority of Californians rejecting same-sex marriage:

By bare majorities, Californians reject the state Supreme Court's decision to allow same-sex marriages and back a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at the November ballot that would outlaw such unions, a Los Angeles Times/KTLA Poll has found.

But the survey also suggested that the state is moving closer to accepting nontraditional marriages, which could create openings for supporters of same-sex marriage as the campaign unfolds.

More than half of Californians said gay relationships were not morally wrong, that they would not degrade heterosexual marriages and that all that mattered was that a relationship be loving and committed, regardless of gender.

Overall, the proportion of Californians who back either gay marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples has remained fairly constant over the years. But the generational schism is pronounced. Those under 45 were less likely to favor a constitutional amendment than their elders and were more supportive of the court's decision to overturn the state's current ban on gay marriage. They also disagreed more strongly than their elders with the notion that gay relationships threatened traditional marriage.

The results of the survey set up an intriguing question for the fall campaign: Will the younger, more live-and-let-live voters mobilized by likely Democratic nominee Barack Obama doom the gay marriage ban? Or will conservatives drawn to the polls by the amendment boost the odds for the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain?

Either way, the poll suggests the outcome of the proposed amendment is far from certain. Overall, it was leading 54% to 35% among registered voters. But because ballot measures on controversial topics often lose support during the course of a campaign, strategists typically want to start out well above the 50% support level.

"Although the amendment to reinstate the ban on same-sex marriage is winning by a small majority, this may not bode well for the measure," said Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus.

The politically volatile issue leaped into the forefront last week after the court made its judgment in a case that stemmed from San Francisco's unsuccessful effort in 2004 to allow gay marriage in the city. The court's decision, on a 4-3 vote by judges largely appointed by Republican governors, came eight years after Californians overwhelmingly banned gay marriage through a ballot measure, Proposition 22.

The court's verdict threw the issue forward until November, when Californians are expected to be asked to amend the state Constitution to prohibit gay marriage. An affirmative vote on the amendment would reinstate the ban and lead to more litigation over the issue.

Before the court took action, opponents of same-sex marriage already had submitted more than 1 million signatures to the secretary of state's office to put the matter on the November ballot. Secretary of State Debra Bowen has said she will determine its fate by mid-June, but the backers are believed to have collected enough signatures to qualify.

That is a slim majority opposed, although California gets some heavy-duty advertising campaigns, and the liberal bastions of the state don't always win out. It will, of course, but a huge indicate of California's complete consolidation of left-wing hegemony if the measure fails.

See also, Benjamin Wittes, "State of The Unions," who makes an argument similar to one I shared last week:

The California justices declared the right to marry a person of one's own gender a fundamental right, and they declared as well that it violates state equal protection doctrine for California to treat gay and straight couples differently for purposes of marriage. California has a domestic partnership law, which grants same-sex couples virtually all of the rights and obligations of marriage, making the current dispute one of nomenclature over the use of the word "marriage," not about the substance of marriage rights. But as their colleagues in Massachusetts did a few years ago, the California justices treated this accommodation as a kind of "separate but equal" institution--which is to say, not an equal one at all.

"[Affording] access to this designation exclusively to opposite-sex couples, while providing same-sex couples access to only a novel alternative designation, realistically must be viewed as constituting significantly unequal treatment to same-sex couples," the court wrote. Those challenging the law "persuasively invoke by analogy the decisions of the United States Supreme Court finding inadequate a state's creation of a separate law school for Black students rather than granting such students access to the University of Texas Law School."

The equation of gays rights to the black American freedom struggle is problematic, analytically and morally. But Wittes goes on, noting how Barack Obama's an advocate of civil unions, not the nomenclature-specific notion of "gay marriage":

In all but a small handful of states, such a compromise would represent a giant step forward for same-sex couples. Yet according to the Massachusetts and California supreme courts, that doesn't matter.

Their states, these courts have held, are constitutionally obliged to afford gay relationships all of the recognition given to heterosexual marriage. And the desire of Obama and millions of like-minded Americans to give gay couples everything but the name "marriage" somehow warrants comparison with the building of parallel African American institutions by way of keeping blacks out of white ones.

The court was not the most strident advocate of this view. The San Francisco Chronicle exulted in response to the ruling that the justices had "strode past the bigotry, fear and blind adherence to tradition that have stood in the way of marriage equality." But what blind, fearful bigots are the Chronicle talking about here? Not just Californians who oppose gay rights entirely, but apparently also those who, like Obama, support civil unions of the type the court rejected.

Something is wrong with this picture. Somehow, we've confused progress on marriage equality with some of the most opprobrious episodes of our legal, cultural, and moral history. For having the guts to move forward while other states were passing nasty constitutional amendments depriving gays of any marital benefits, Californians stand condemned in their own courts for discrimination and in their own newspapers for bigotry.

Few people, of course, really believe this. When we listen to Obama touting civil unions, we hear the progress that he urges, not some appeal to segregation. But it can't be progress when Obama suggests civil unions, and also progress when a court strikes them down as unconstitutionally discriminatory. And there are costs to asking courts to so far outflank our political system that we would admire politicians for advocating things we would simultaneously want judges to toss out.

One of those costs is that venerable phrases like "equal protection" become so twisted that you can get whiplash watching someone like Obama go from progressive to discrimination advocate.

Read that carefully.

For Obama to favor the California decision would put him on the wrong side of civil rights progress.

Anti-Semitic Extremism and the Democratic Party Base

As regular readers will recall, I recently denounced Daily Kos for the publication last week of an extremely anti-Semitic post, "Eulogy before the Inevitability of Self-Destruction: The Decline and Death of Israel."

If you check the link, the post is still available, despite deep criticisms by top conservative blogs (here and here, for example).

In the entry, I asked, "Is this the future of the Democratic Party, announcing the inevitable destruction of the state of Israel?"

But for this one commenter went so far as to say that my attention to the issue shows just as much culpability in sponsoring anti-Jewish hatred as Markos Moulitisas. That's to be expected. I get extremists from the left and the right, and they never denounce the hatred, they never denounce the Muslim calls to wipe Israel to the sea, they never denounce the left-wing cheering at the illness or death of conservatives, and they never denounce the radical alliance between Islam and socialism, which has applauded (if not abetted) the killing of American soldiers in Iraq.

But I want to be out front here in my position: I unequivocally repudiate anti-Semitism, as well as extremist attacks on political opponents. For, example, I pledged earlier today, to "denounce" right-wing extremists just as forcefully as I do the left.

I'll do that right here: In a post Tuesday, Michelle Makin asked:

Put aside your political differences and join me in keeping Sen. Ted Kennedy and his family in your prayers as they grapple with the news of his malignant brain tumor diagnosis.

Unfortunately, some of her commenters were not able to do that:

I just dont feel an ounce of sympathy for this man.

Even if I belived [sic] in something to pray to, I’m not sure i could muster the energy to do so. Perhaps that makes me a monster, but…so be it.

I just cant do it. Sorry.

*****

When Ted crosses over, I’m sure he will be welcomed by the millions of Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese who died because of his wretched policies. He has been the worse Senator of the 20th century and perhaps the most destructive political force in the history of the country.

*****

Sorry I cannot summon any sympathy for the author of the 1965 destructive ‘immigration bill’ that he last year tried to top with an even more destructive ’scamnesty’ bill. He has done more damage to the USA than any other 10 senators put together. So, upon his demise, we are holding an exuberant ‘Irish wake’. Can hardly wait!!

There are more comments like this at the post (note that these are a small minority in the thread).

I most categorically forcefully, and indisputably reject these views (check also Little Green Footballs for some media hypocrisy on "policing" hate comments, "The Beam in Howard Kurtz's Eye").

But to continue with the problem of modern far-left anti-Semitism, in my earlier post, I suggested that by sponsoring extreme Israel-bashing diarists Markos Moulitsas himself endorses anti-Jewish hatred. Further, and more importantly, because Kos claims that his movement represents the mainstream of the Democratic Party, it's not unreasonable to ask: What explains the shift among the grassroots of the Democratic Party toward annihilationist anti-Semitism? How pronounced a trend is this?

Apparently, this is a very serious problem for the Democratic Party. As this story from the American Thinker notes:

Developments in the Democratic Party bode ill for the Jewish people and for the state of Israel — home of up to 40% of the world's remaining Jewish population. The rank and file of the Party has become increasingly anti—Semitic and support for Israel has noticeably fallen....

Democratic Congressmen have reflected this trend in very visible ways: their votes and actions in Congress reveal that support for Israel has eroded in alarming ways. Furthermore, more than a few Democratic Congressman have openly made statements that are either clearly anti—Semitic or can be fairly construed to be at least, 'anti—Semitic in effect, if not intent'.

These disconcerting trends can be observed by a bottom—up approach: looking at the grassroots base of the Democratic Party, how these views are expressed in Congress, and how the Democratic leadership has responded to these developments.

As the American Thinker piece points out, Democratic officials are responding to the intense views of the party's nihilist radical netroots base.

Cinnamon Stillwell, in her reflections on the post-9/11 radical movement, notes what the anti-Jewish views she sees commonly when counter-protesting the "progressive" movement:

I put myself on the front lines of this ideological battle by taking part in counterprotests at the antiwar rallies leading up to the war in Iraq. This turned out to be a further wake-up call, because it was there that I encountered more intolerance than ever before in my life. Holding pro-Iraq-liberation signs and American flags, I was spat on, called names, intimidated, threatened, attacked, cursed and, on a good day, simply argued with. It was clear that any deviation from the prevailing leftist groupthink of the Bay Area was considered a threat to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

It was at such protests that I also had my first real brushes with anti-Semitism. The anti-Israel sentiment on the left -- inexorably linked to anti-Americanism -- ran high at these events and boiled over into Jew hatred on more than one occasion. The pro-Palestinian sympathies of the left had led to a bizarre commingling of pacifism, Communism and Arab nationalism. So it was not uncommon to see kaffiyeh-clad college students chanting Hamas slogans, graying hippies wearing "Intifada" T-shirts, Che Guevera backpacks, and signs equating Zionism with Nazism, all against a backdrop of peace, patchouli and tie-dye.

Being unapologetically pro-Israel, I was called every name in the book, from "Zionist pig" to "Zionist scum," and was once told that those with European origins such as myself couldn't really be Jewish.

It is thus not surprising that Barack Obama, with his huge base of support among neo-progressive activists and radical organizations, as well as his questionable ties to prominent anti-Semitic leaders on the left, is struggling to build support among some main-line American Jewish organizations.

To be fair, note that the editors at Daily Kos have periodically spoken out against the rampant holocaust denial and exterminationist anti-Semitism commentary at the blog, among both the diarists and the commenters.

Nevertheless the hate continues at Kos, as well as at other high-profile blogs on the hard-left.

Daily Kos should should take down its endorsement of the death of Israel. Basic decency demands nothing less.

See also:

* Atlas Shrugs, "Democrats: The New Anti-Semitism."

* Alan Dershowitz, "When Legit Criticism Crosses the Anti-Semitism Line."

* Craid Horowitz, "The Return of Anti-Semitism."

* Seattle Times, "The Democratic Party's Anti-Semitism Problem."

* Wall Street Journal, "Democratic Hold on Jewish Vote Could Slip."

Whoa, I Just Got to Know...

Readers may have noticed that so far I've included only British musical artists in my lightening up series.There's no reason - it's just worked out that way, but I have been meaning to throw in some American artists to start rounding things out.

So, to get started, please enjoy, Junior Walker and the All Stars, "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)?":

The Wikipedia entry for the band is here. "What Does It Take?" was released in 1969, and reached #4 on the pop charts and was ultimately a #1 R&B hit.

I always loved the song for its saxophone, and it's one of those songs that brings memories back from listening to the radio as a child. I never knew much about Junior Walker, but the song was always wonderful to hear.

I'll have more later, but for newer readers, you might see my opening post in the series, where I explain the extraordinary significance of music in my life: "Lightening Up by Gently Weeping."

Rosa Brooks: So Wrong on Iraq, and Why It Matters

Rosa Brooks, at the Los Angeles Times, tries to take down John McCain on the Iraq war, "McCain: So Wrong, But So What?"

Brooks starts with this nifty hook:

Unsolved mysteries of the universe: Where did matter come from? Why did all those ships vanish in the Bermuda Triangle? Is there really a Loch Ness Monster?

And here's a new one to add to your list. In poll after poll, about two-thirds of Americans say they oppose the war in Iraq, believe things in Iraq are going badly for the United States, disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the war, consider even the initial decision to go to war to have been wrong and want the next president to end the war quickly. Yet -- and here comes the mystery -- polls also show that more Americans trust presumptive Republican nominee John McCain than either Democratic presidential candidate when it comes to handling the war in Iraq.

Go figure.

But Brooks really isn't interested in unravelling this "mystery" - there really isn't one, which, of course, isnt' her point.

What Brooks is attempting is a simple smear: She says McCain was wrong about Iraqi WMD; about the "fairly easy" prospects for success on the ground; and about the patterns of violence between Sunnis and Shias.

The conclusion: McCain's just plain wrong, all around.

But Brooks is not so "fair and balanced" in her allegations of McCain's senility.

She omits, for example, the fact that McCain's been calling for more troops for five years. She then compounds her ommission with this inaccuracy on Barack Obama:

McCain keeps boasting of his own national security expertise and insisting that Barack Obama, his chief Democratic rival, is naive and "does not understand ... the fundamental elements of national security and warfare" -- even though Obama, unlike the "experienced" McCain, managed to get it right on Iraq from the very beginning.

One would think that Brooks - who's listed as a co-blogger at Democracy Arsenal, one of the leading left-wing foreign policy blogs - would know better than to make such a statements on the relative experience of McCain versus Obama on Iraq.

The truth is that Obama, "from the very beginning," has proposed precisely the wrong policies for a turnaround in Iraq. The Illinois Senator has advocated more troops when the war was going badly (an opportunistic attack on the administration), and he's called for an immediate withdrawal when things have turned around under General Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy.

As Peter Wehner has argued:

When the Bush administration had the wrong counterinsurgency plan in place, Obama was supportive of it. He told the Chicago Tribune in July 2004, “There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.” While John McCain was calling for more troops and a different counterinsurgency strategy in 2003, 2004, and 2005, Obama was not.

In late 2006, when the situation in Iraq was dire, Obama declared it was time to “execute a serious change of course in Iraq” — but rather than advocating a “surge” in troops, he was advocating a ”phased withdrawal.” His predictive judgment was this: “We cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve.”

In January 2007, when President Bush announced the administration’s change in strategy in Iraq — which included tens of thousands of additional troops and a new COIN strategy led by David Petraeus, Obama declared that nothing in the plan would “make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that’s taking place there.”

Then, in May 2007, Obama did what he had never done previously: He voted against funding for combat operations, claiming as a reason the fact that the bill included no timeline for troop withdrawal. And in September, just three months after the final elements of the 30,000-strong surge forces had landed in Iraq and fairly substantial security progress was discernible, Obama declared that we needed to withdraw combat troops “immediately.” “Not in six months or a year — now.”

It got so bad that Obama at first denied progress was being made, then denied that the surge had anything to do with the progress, and even insisted (in a debate in January 2008) that the reduction in violence was due not to the work of the American military but to the results of the 2006 midterm election in America. Finally Obama was forced by the overwhelming evidence to concede the surge had made progress — yet in the process Obama misrepresented his past position, insisting that when the surge was announced, he had “no doubt” that “if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in violence.”

The facts show, in sum, that it's Obama's who's been wrong from the beginning, and it's Brooks who is wrong in her attack on McCain.

As Ralph Peters notes:

The surge worked. Incontestably. Iraqis grew disenchanted with extremism. Our military performed magnificently. More and more Iraqis have stepped up to fight for their own country. The Iraqi economy's taking off. And, for all its faults, the Iraqi legislature has accomplished far more than our own lobbyist-run Congress over the last 18 months.

When Iraq seemed destined to become a huge American embarrassment, our media couldn't get enough of it. Now that Iraq looks like a success in the making, there's a virtual news blackout.

That blackout's reaching right over to the editorial offices of the Los Angeles Times, where commentators like Rosa Brooks weave their tales of failure while reality passes them by.

There's no mystery there, and pointing that out is what matters.

On Death and Decency: The Absence of Divine Soul on the Contemporary Left

I was saddened with the news of Edward Kennedy's diagnosis of brain cancer. While I deeply disagree with Kennedy's politics, I've long admired him for tirelessly carrying the moral flame of his slain brothers.

I've noticed a number of conservative bloggers who've had wonderfully kind things to say about the stricken Massachusetts Senator, for example:

* Debbie at Right Truth sent Kennedy her best wishes: "I wish him and his family nothing but good wishes and good health."

* Jules Crittenden sent his as well: "Ted K has a malignant glioma in the left parietal lobe. Unclear as yet what that means. Best to him and his family."

* Scott at Powerline had these words: "Our heart goes out to him and his family as he struggles with his current illness."

I too wish the Kennedy family well, as do most Americans, I'm sure.

It's thus troubling to read FrontPageMagazine's report, "Kennedy's Illness, and the Left's":

THE MEDIA KEEP REMINDING US OF THE ISSUES THAT DIVIDE us as a nation: Iraq, different approaches about reviving the economy, socialized medicine, the role of mankind in global warming, gay marriage, social issues, and many others. As Ted Kennedy’s recently diagnosed brain tumor demonstrated, Right and Left are also divided based on whether they display basic human decency when misfortunes befall a member of the other side. The American people seem to be fundamentally cleft about how they treat news of an opponent’s impending death in a conservative manner – with prayer – or a leftist one – with champagne and hate mail.

The Right Way to Greet Death

Immediately upon learning of the diagnosis, Kathryn Lopez posted a blog on National Review Online headlined “Oh No,” adding, “Our prayers obviously...” The May 19 edition of National Review Online carried an article entitled, “Praying for Senator Kennedy.” As of early yesterday morning, the post on Little Green Footballs announcing his illness had 1,036 comments. Here are a few representative samples:

“Well I wish him the best. If a cure is not possible, then as many quality months with his family as are possible.”

“I disagree with Senator Kennedy's politics, but he is a fellow American and a fellow human being so I sincerely pray for his recovery and wish his family well.”

“Prayers for the Ted and Kennedy family. Much strength and peace for them in the coming days.”

The Soros-funded Media Matters, try as it might to find evil right-wingers celebrating, found only a clip from Michael Savage. The average conservative, however much he disagreed with Ted Kennedy, wished him well.

Not "Rest In Peace": "Rot In Hell"

This could be contrasted to the hatred the Left has vented toward so many of those who opposed its agenda. One could begin with its reaction to the death of Kennedy – the Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy. The late minister of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church was one of the least political of all national Christian spokesmen, but when he passed away last September, the DailyKos announced: "Another Hate Merchant Meets His Maker." "This won't be a long diary, but another of the first wave of Mega-church hate peddlers has died," the diarist stated. "He and Jerry [Falwell] and Ron [Reagan] should have plenty to talk about for enternity, [sic.] comparing notes and anecdotes. I won't even get into where, since I'm basically a Humanist." Naturally, the Left had similar thoughts about the death of Jerry Falwell almost exactly one year ago. Amanda Marcotte, former employee of the John Edwards presidential campaign, immediately blogged:

“The gates of hell swing open and Satan welcomes his beloved son. Jerry Falwell's dead. Guess god [sic] — notice the small 'g' — liked the ACLU better after all.” Ms. Marcotte was far from alone.

Hating More Than “Religious Right Pharisees”

The humanists didn’t show much humanity at the passing of Charlton Heston last month, either. The loving Left at Democratic Underground wrote such epitaphs as:

If “liberal” means giving every mean-spirited bastard in the world a break solely on the account that they are a fellow homo sapien?… feeling any sense of loss that some sorry piece of shithumanity such as C Heston has checked out? Then sign me out. I am glad that he is no longer breathing the same air that you and I share. Just tell me the address to where I need to mail my “Liberal” card.

Can’t say I feel sorry for Charlton Heston. From all I heard he was as rightwing as they come.

So glad to hear some good news for a change. - I hope that spreader of misery spends all his glory days around the eternal flames of hell with ol’ Raygun talkin’ ’bout how they really fucked this country - oh they probably won’t even remember, lol. How about we quit glorifying someone just because they had the good sense to DIE.

NOW will somebody pry his cold, dead hands from that frickin’ penis substitute?

he had it coming. - I had no empathy for the aging Nazis, either.

One did not have to actually do anything offensive to the Left to incur its wrath. After 9/11, NFL star Pat Tillman gave up his salary to defend the United States in Afghanistan – the War on Terror that leftists claim to support. He was killed there. Learning this, the Urbana, Illinois, chapter of Indymedia wrote, “Pat Tillman is gone good riddance.” The Portland Indymedia site ran the headline, “Dumb Jock Killed in Afghanistan.”

Ted Rall: The Worst of the Worst

The execrable cartoonist Ted Rall has made a made a career of slurring the dead. Shortly after Reagan’s death, Rall told a reporter Reagan was in Hell “turning crispy brown right about now.” Rall called Pat Tillman an "idiot." He also berated the victims of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and their families as Nazis, and portrayed the grieving wives left behind after 9/11 as money-grubbing media hounds in his cartoon "Terror Widows."

We, the Living

Leftists are not always content to wait for the targets of their hatred to die. Often, they wish – and occasionally, pray – for it when conservatives take ill. (Undoubtedly, one of the few times leftists glance heavenward.) When Dick Cheney’s heart began acting up in November 2006, Huffington Post columnist Tony Hendra offered "A Thanksgiving Prayer for Dick Cheney’s Heart – and a Few Other Favorite Things."The blasphemous entry begins:

I give thanks O Lord for Dick Cheney's Heart, that brave organ which has done its darn-tootin' best on four separate occasions to do what we can only dream about. O Lord, give Dick Cheney's Heart, Our Sacred Secret Weapon, the strength to try one more time! For greater love hath no heart than that it lay down its life to rid the planet of its Number One Human Tumor.

Cheney had to have his heart electrically shocked to correct an abnormal rhythm days later.

There more examples at the article, from the folks who wished upon Americans "a million Mogadishus."

But note this:

Leftists lack the religious grounding to recognize everyone as a divine soul and a tradition that teaches them to “hate the sin but love the sinner.” The faith of the Left is a political faith, not a religious one, their politics The Politics of Bad Faith, their God The God that Failed. As they share a secular religion, they promote a secular demonology: those who fight for The Cause are not “on the side of the angels” – they are the angels. For all their charges that President Bush is a Manichean, it is they who stand at the Battle of Armageddon and fight for the Lord. Those who stand in their way are not good people misled; they are Beelzebub in gray suits. “Progressives” can no more offer quarter to such people in death than in life. Their opponents’ deaths are not a tragic diminishment of humanity; the bell only tolls to signal the end of a round.

This is another reason why I abandoned the Democratic Party.

Muslim Radicalism at UC Irvine

I posted earlier on campus Islamist radicalism, "Muslim Students Association Seeks U.S. Destruction."

In that entry I cite FrontPageMagazine's, "The Muslim Students Association and the Jihad Network."

While the denialist left refuses to acknowledge the MSA's foundation in anti-Western ideology - much less its terror advocacy - student cell organizations continue to advance their anti-Israel agenda, calling for the outright destruction of the Jewish state, as seen here at UC Irvine, via Reut Cohen:

Hey Hey, Ho Ho, the State of Israel Has got to go!/ the occupation has got to go!

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Judaism yes, Zionism no!

See also:

* "The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine"

* "UCI Intifada: Preaching Terror on Campus"

* "UC Irvine MSU Antisemitism Revealed."

Karen Allen "Didn't Do Much" for Harrison Ford

Karen Allen makes a big comeback on the silver screen today, with the opening of the new "Indiana Jones" installment.

I love her!

I thought about posting on Allen last Sunday, when the Los Angeles Times ran a Calendar story on Stephen Spielberg's plea to get Allen to reprise her role as the franchise's original "tough-minded tomboy-fatale Marion Ravenwood."

Allen co-starred in one of my favorite movies, "Starman" from 1984 (more here). But what got me going about her this morning is Newsweek's story, where writer David Kaplan recounts Harrison Ford's feelings for Allen:

When "Presumed Innocent" was being filmed on a soundstage in Queens in the late 1980s, I spent an afternoon interviewing Ford, who was playing the lead. He was articulate, thoughtful, witty. As we were finishing up, I couldn't resist an irrelevant question. "Can I ask you just one more thing?" I said.

"OK, which movie?" he answered.

"But I haven't even told you the question."

"Which movie?" he again replied.

"The first 'Indy' movie," I said, and before I could say more, he offered, "Sorry, I don't have much to tell you," he said. "She didn't do that much for me."

I expressed shock that he could anticipate my crush and perhaps a silly question of what she was actually like, if her personality matched her the appeal of her smile, whether the reality could live up to the ideal. "You and so many others," he said, with a smile and a tsk-tsk. "I understand about the voice and everything, but …" And the 'Indy' director Steven Spielberg didn't seem to be a big fan either. He cast Kate Capshaw in 'Indy' 2 and then married her, and we never saw Marion Ravenwood again.

Well, I like Capshaw too - my wife reminded me of her when we first met.

But there's something about Karen!

Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky...

From Ann Althouse, "Lilac":

My first thought, beautiful; my second, Jimi Hendrix.

Hillary Clinton's Case for Michigan and Florida

I haven't posted on the Democratic primaries in a while. It's been hard, frankly, to dream up something new and interesting to say. For months now everyone's been saying "this thing's going to the convention" or, for the last few weeks, "it's not about the math," which has referred to Hillary's magical momentum in keeping the race alive.

So, now that we've had another split decision at the polls this week, in Oregon and Kentucky, how's it going to be? The media's talking like Obama's the nominee, but as I've said before, Hillary's a Roman gladiator, "Hillary Clinton Maximus Decimus Meridius": She just won't die.

So, check out this little kerfuffle over Hillary's speech yesterday, making the case for counting the Michigan and Florida delegations in Denver this summer.

How should we interpret the rules? Well, it depends on the calendar. Before the primaries began, both candidates agreed to eschew campaiging in the bumped-up states, where the DNC had imposed sanctions, so don't count 'em; but now, with the nomination on the line, and voters having trekked to the polls, civil rights (and the will) of the electorate should trump loyalty (or fealty) to Democratic Party institutions, so let the will of the voters prevail.

Andrew Sullivan's going with the former, in response to Hillary's claim that "not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country - that whenever we can understand the clear intent of the voters, their votes should be counted":

How do you respond to a sociopath like this? She agreed that Michigan and Florida should be punished for moving up their primaries. Obama took his name off the ballot in deference to their agreement and the rules of the party. That he should now be punished for playing by the rules and she should be rewarded for skirting them is unconscionable.

I think she has now made it very important that Obama not ask her to be the veep. The way she is losing is so ugly, so feckless, so riddled with narcissism and pathology that this kind of person should never be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Well, No Quarter's answered Sullivan's query. "How do you respond," to Sullivan, that is?

This idiot by the name of Andrew Sullivan is of the opinion that it is wrong for Hillary to work her heart out to get the delegates of Florida and Michigan seated at the convention. In his myopic opinion Hillary is a Clinton and everyone knows about the Clintons. They Are Legend.

Shameless

The Clintons know no respect for rules or propriety or restraint in the pursuit of power.

Let’s start with the obvious. Sullivan is a lunatic. He groups Bill and Hillary together into this nice neat little bundle that he can blaspheme with impunity. I wonder if he has actually even heard that women are known to have a mind of their own and are separate creatures from men. According to Sullivan, Hillary is just an extension of Bill. Are Cavemen making a comeback that I haven’t heard about yet?

In my not so humble opinion Hillary has nailed this Florida and Michigan thing BIG TIME.

Now, I know that Senator Obama chose to remove his name from the ballot in Michigan, and that was his right. But his choice does not negate the votes of all those who turned out to cast their ballots, and we should not let our process rob them and all of you of your voices. To do so would undermine the very purpose of the nominating process. To ensure that as many Democrats as possible can cast their votes. To ensure that the party selects a nominee who truly represents the will of the voters and to ensure that the Democrats take back the White House to rebuild America.

Now, I’ve heard some say that counting Florida and Michigan would be changing the rules.

I say that not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country - that whenever we can understand the clear intent of the voters, their votes should be counted. I remember very well back in 2000, there were those who argued that people’s votes should be discounted over technicalities. For the people of Florida who voted in this primary, the notion of discounting their votes sounds way too much of the same.

Damn right sister. Because the heart of the Democratic Party has always been voter enfranchisement.

But facts like this matter little to Obama Cultists like Sullivan.

She agreed that Michigan and Florida should be punished for moving up their primaries. Obama took his name off the ballot in deference to their agreement and the rules of the party. That he should now be punished for playing by the rules and she should be rewarded for skirting them is unconscionable.

Earth to Andrew Sullivan. Not that it matters because you are clearly too stupid to understand something so simple as a fact or two. But for your followers and all the rest of the Cult-Aide addicts, here is a little refresher course in reality.

You'll have to check the rest of No Quarter's post for the rest, "Is Andrew Sullivan a Sociopathetic Hack?"

I have a lot of respect of Sullivan's writing.

His cover story on Obama at the Atlantic in December is the best piece on the Illinois Senator I've read. But to demonize Hillary the way he does shows a profound naiveté on the nature of politics and power.

No one should expect Hillary Clinton to bow out without a fight (or an argument): This is what's she's lived for fall all these years.

Machiavelli would be proud! Not only that, frankly, I think Hill's the better general election candidate. Obama's got a big case to make that not only should Michigan and Florida voters remain disenfranchised, but that he's the better candidate in the fall as well.

And just think, I thought I was plum out of commentary on the Democrats!

See also, "Long Campaign Gives Some Democrats Primary Fatigue;" and Memeorandum as well.

Mexican Immigrants Prove Slow to Assimilate

Before comprehensive immigration reform died last summer, I wrote on migration issues almost as much as Iraq.

I frequently cite Samuel Huntington's important article, "The Hispanic Challenge," which argues that massive Hispanic immigration threatens American political culture, identity, and national values.

It's a controversial argument, no doubt, especially among partisans of the open-borders lobby. This group, interestingly, includes the editors at the Wall Street Journal, who advocate "free markets, free peoples, no barriers." Jason Riley, for example, in a piece last week, argued in favor of substantial Hispanic assimilation to society's norms and language:

The media offers up a steady diet of data about current immigration from Mexico, and much of it consists of "averages" regarding English-language skills, income, home-ownership rates, education and so forth. But while digesting these figures, it's important to keep in mind that Latino immigration is ongoing. These averages are snapshots of a moving stream and therefore of little use in measuring assimilation. To properly gauge assimilation, we need to find out how immigrants in the U.S. are faring over time. Only longitudinal studies that track individuals can provide that information.

Just looking at averages can give you a very distorted view of who's learning English or dropping out of school or climbing out of poverty....

The reality, however, is that the longitudinal studies show real socio-economic progress by Latinos. Progress is slower in some areas, such as the education level of adult immigrants, and faster in others, such as income and homeownership rates. But there is no doubt that both assimilation and upward mobility are occurring over time.
With respect to linguistic assimilation, which is one of the more important measures because it amounts to a job skill that can increase earnings, the historical pattern is as follows: The first generation learns enough English to get by but prefers the mother tongue. The children of immigrants born here grow up in homes where they understand the mother tongue to some extent and may speak it, but they prefer English. When those children become adults, they establish homes where English is the dominant language.

There's every indication that Latinos are following this pattern. According to 2005 Census data, just one-third of Latino immigrants in the country for less than a decade speak English well. But that proportion climbs to 75% for those here 30 years or more. There may be more bilingualism today among their children, but there's no evidence that Spanish is the dominant language in the second generation. The 2000 Census found that 91% of the children of immigrants, and 97% of the grandchildren, spoke English well.

Actually, it might be more complicated than this. As U.S. News relates in its article, "Mexican Immigrants Prove Slow to Fit In":

In the heart of California's iconic Orange County—home to Disneyland and the bourgeois teens of MTV's Laguna Beach—is troubled Santa Ana. The county seat of 353,000, where nearly 6out of every 10 adults over age 25 lack a high school diploma, suffers from crippling poverty and an explosion in crime. In 2004, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government placed Santa Ana at the very top of its Urban Hardship Index—officially dubbing it worse off than Miami, Detroit, Cleveland, and Newark, N.J. With 76 percent of its population Hispanic, mostly Mexican immigrants, Santa Ana is the poster child for the troubles of the country's immigration policies and of Mexican immigrants in particular.

Now, a new study lays bare what sociologists and others have long argued: Mexican immigrants are assimilating to life in the United States less successfully than other immigrants. Sponsored by the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, "Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States" by Jacob Vigdor, a professor of public policy studies and economics at Duke University, introduces a novel assimilation index that uses census and other survey data to measure how similar select immigrant groups are to native-born Americans. Using such factors as intermarriage, English ability, military service, homeownership, citizenship, and earnings, Vigdor assembled a 100-point assimilation index. The closer to 100, the more assimilated an immigrant group. Overall, the report shows immigrants are weaving into the American fabric at a remarkable clip, despite arriving poorer and knowing less English than immigrants of a century ago. And they are gaining speed, with new arrivals assimilating faster than those who came more than 20 years ago. With a score of 53, Canadians are the most assimilated, followed closely by Filipinos, Cubans, and Vietnamese. The main outlier: Mexicans, with a score of 13—followed by Salvadorans.

Why Mexicans are faring so poorly in the United States is complicated, experts say. But the root of the problem is no surprise: Many Mexicans are here illegally, depriving them of rungs on the economic ladder and the opportunity to gain citizenship. "There are certain jobs or certain services you just can't get [as an illegal immigrant]," Vigdor says. "There are plenty of indications here that for those Mexican immigrants who are interested in making a more permanent attachment to the United States, their legal status puts very severe barriers in that path."

Since the 1990s, Mexicans' immigrant story has differed from that of their peers. When comparing Mexicans and Asians, "Asians show up with a lot more money, oftentimes," notes Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California. "They have a higher education to begin with, and many of them are entrepreneurs." Past decades saw influxes of refugees from countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines. Today's Asian immigrants are some of the best and brightest, which puts them on a faster track to assimilation via economic success.

The Asian experience recalls a general rule of today's immigrants. The farther you have to migrate, the wealthier you probably were in your country of origin. "Poor people can't afford a plane trip across the ocean, but poor people can walk across the border," Myers says. "Poor Africans and poor Chinese can't do it." Because of their proximity to the United States, poor Mexicans can make the trip. Indeed, their poverty impels them to risk the border crossing. But when they arrive, they arrive significantly disadvantaged, and they often qualify for jobs that offer little opportunity for social advancement. Other factors may also contribute but are more difficult to quantify: The leading contender is that the sheer number of Latinos in the United States has created a subculture that slows assimilation.

Indeed, in a unique multigenerational study spanning four decades, Generations of Exclusion, sociologists Edward Telles and Vilma Ortiz found that many immigrants and their children had made slow progress assimilating for cultural and economic reasons. A large community means a large dating pool: Only 17 percent of third-generation Mexicans studied had married non-Hispanics. The authors found adult Mexican-Americans in the third and fourth generations lived in more segregated neighborhoods than they did as youths, largely because of the many new immigrant arrivals. Educational levels, meanwhile, lagged behind the national average. However, English ability was nearly universal, even among first-generation immigrants, which should ease the concerns of some lawmakers who want to make English the natural language. Significantly, though, 36 percent of fourth-generation Mexican-Americans studied could still speak Spanish.

Perhaps most telling: Of the approximately 1,500 surveyed in two distinct immigrant communities—Los Angeles and San Antonio—most identified as "Mexican" or "Mexican-American" even into the fourth generation. It's that kind of cultural signifier that has so many white Americans concerned that this is a group not interested in becoming American.

I love the introduction to this piece, because Santa Ana's right next door to my home town, and the city's population is 76 percent Hispanic with 53 percent foreign born - the city's literally a classic microcosm of the phenomenal sub-national trends in demographic diversity giving way to ethnic homegeneous-hegemonic dominance.

But just talking about this stuff routinely gets folks branded as racist.

Lou Dobbs is not my favorite. He's a political opportunist and grandstander on immigration, and his "war on the middle class" segments are unhinged on issues of economic mobility and trade. But some of his reports on immigration are indeniably accurate in detailing the problems of local commuities around the country in tackling out of control immigration.

And because of reports like these, the nihilist left-wing of the open borders operation is up in arms about the media's "fanning" of anti-immigration racial tensions:

This criticism's not compelling, considering the radical left's open-borders movement, with its recent May Day protesters in Los Angeles, for example, hoisting Che Guevara banners and Mexican flags in a sea of green and red.

(See also, Heather MacDonald, "The Immigrant Gang Plague").

What happened to the American flag? Must not be too popular for the La Raza set.

Here's a hometown rebuttal:

This idea of America being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Americans, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language, and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become a part of our society, learn the language!

See also, Business Week, "Hispanic Nation: Hispanics are an immigrant group like no other. Their huge numbers are challenging old assumptions about assimilation. Is America ready?"

Photo Credit: U.S. News

Polly Wants to Go Home: Lost Parrot tells Veterinarian His Address

You've got to love this story, about a lost parrot in Japan who knew his address:

When Yosuke the parrot flew out of his cage and got lost, he did exactly what he had been taught - recite his name and address to a stranger willing to help.

Police rescued the African grey parrot two weeks ago from a neighbor's roof in the city of Nagareyama, near Tokyo. After spending a night at the station, he was transferred to a nearby veterinary hospital while police searched for clues, local policeman Shinjiro Uemura said.

He kept mum with the cops, but began chatting after a few days with the vet.

"I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura," the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

"We checked the address, and what do you know, a Nakamura family really lived there. So we told them we've found Yosuke," Uemura said.

The Nakamura family told police they had been teaching the bird its name and address for about two years.

But Yosuke apparently wasn't keen on opening up to police officials.

"I tried to be friendly and talked to him, but he completely ignored me," Uemura said.

Maybe a couple of saltines would have loosened Yosuke's lips, ahh, beak a little!

Linda Douglass, Top-Tier Journalist, Joins Obama Campaign

Linda Douglass, a contributing editor for National Journal, and a former Capital Hill correspondent for ABC News, has joined the Barack Obama presidential campaign as a senior campaign spokesperson.

Marc Ambinder spoke with Douglass to confirm her appointment, and she explained her move to partisan politics like this:

"I see this as a moment of transformational change in the country and I have spent my lifetime sitting on the sidelines watching people attempt to make change. I just decided that I can't sit on the sidelines anymore."

Sure, and a possible gig as press secretary in an Obama administration might have been an attractive prospect as well.

I'm just amazed at all of this talk of "transformation." I've always admired Douglass, especially back when she was with ABC News, years ago, when Peter Jennings anchored, if I recall. She seemed to be a powerful embodiment of journalistic integrity and professionalism.

Now I'm wondering if she's not only crassly opportunistic, but bamboozled by this Obama-messiah cult of personality that's enveloped the campaign.

I shouldn't begrudge her too much, actually. I'll have a bit more respect for the Illinois Senator if additional personalities like Douglass join his campaign.

Today's Democrats: Peace at Any Price

Senator Joseph Lieberman's essay today reveals the true nature of today's Democratic Party. Abandoning the legacy of Presidents Harry Truman and John Kennedy, the party today, torn by its antiwar base, demands peace at any price, endangering America's relations in the world:

How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?

Beginning in the 1940s, the Democratic Party was forced to confront two of the most dangerous enemies our nation has ever faced: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In response, Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong and successful.

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.

This was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, who pledged that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

And this was the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy, who promised in his inaugural address that the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of freedom."

This worldview began to come apart in the late 1960s, around the war in Vietnam. In its place, a very different view of the world took root in the Democratic Party. Rather than seeing the Cold War as an ideological contest between the free nations of the West and the repressive regimes of the communist world, this rival political philosophy saw America as the aggressor – a morally bankrupt, imperialist power whose militarism and "inordinate fear of communism" represented the real threat to world peace.

It argued that the Soviets and their allies were our enemies not because they were inspired by a totalitarian ideology fundamentally hostile to our way of life, or because they nursed ambitions of global conquest. Rather, the Soviets were our enemy because we had provoked them, because we threatened them, and because we failed to sit down and accord them the respect they deserved. In other words, the Cold War was mostly America's fault.

Of course that leftward lurch by the Democrats did not go unchallenged. Democratic Cold Warriors like Scoop Jackson fought against the tide. But despite their principled efforts, the Democratic Party through the 1970s and 1980s became prisoner to a foreign policy philosophy that was, in most respects, the antithesis of what Democrats had stood for under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy.

Then, beginning in the 1980s, a new effort began on the part of some of us in the Democratic Party to reverse these developments, and reclaim our party's lost tradition of principle and strength in the world. Our band of so-called New Democrats was successful sooner than we imagined possible when, in 1992, Bill Clinton and Al Gore were elected. In the Balkans, for example, as President Clinton and his advisers slowly but surely came to recognize that American intervention, and only American intervention, could stop Slobodan Milosevic and his campaign of ethnic slaughter, Democratic attitudes about the use of military force in pursuit of our values and our security began to change.

This happy development continued into the 2000 campaign, when the Democratic candidate – Vice President Gore – championed a freedom-focused foreign policy, confident of America's moral responsibilities in the world, and unafraid to use our military power. He pledged to increase the defense budget by $50 billion more than his Republican opponent – and, to the dismay of the Democratic left, made sure that the party's platform endorsed a national missile defense.

By contrast, in 2000, Gov. George W. Bush promised a "humble foreign policy" and criticized our peacekeeping operations in the Balkans.

Today, less than a decade later, the parties have completely switched positions. The reversal began, like so much else in our time, on September 11, 2001. The attack on America by Islamist terrorists shook President Bush from the foreign policy course he was on. He saw September 11 for what it was: a direct ideological and military attack on us and our way of life. If the Democratic Party had stayed where it was in 2000, America could have confronted the terrorists with unity and strength in the years after 9/11.

Lieberman, next to John McCain, is the most important spokesman on American foreign policy in the U.S. Senate. This is why he's attacked mercilessly by the very groups he identifies in his essay, the hardline surrenderist left.

In fact, my foreign policy nemesis says it's Lieberman who's become extreme:

...the things he's saying today were conventional wisdom among center-left elites five years ago and as recently as three years ago Peter Beinart could be found getting a respectful hearing for the idea that MoveOn members should be analogized to Communist Fifth Columnists and purged from progressive politics. It's just that most people who used to hold those views have abandoned them, often sotto voce, leaving Lieberman as an unexpected outlier.

So, basically, advocacy of a robust foreign policy, once championed by the heroic Democratic presidents of the post-war era, now places proponents as extreme outliers on the ideological continuum.

Things are just getting going in this election, too.

I'll have more ... but see also Jules Crittenden.