Amnesty Tries To Recruit Real Gulag Victim, Fails

A devestating portrait of an Amnesty International gone wild with partisanship is painted in today's Washington Post by Pavel Litvinov, who was exiled to Siberia under the Soviet regime. Amnesty attempted to recruit his endorsement of 'Cuba=Gitmo', but Litvinov, no Bush administration apologist, was having none of it.

Earlier today, I took Howard Zinn to task for his ludicrously strained attempt at defining American exceptionalism, and attempted to put forth a more reasonable statement. Litvinov says it better than I:

The most effective way to criticize U.S. behavior is to frankly acknowledge that this country should be held to a higher standard based on its own Constitution, laws and traditions. We cannot fulfill our responsibilities as the world's only superpower without being perceived as a moral authority.

Notice how this former prisoner of conscience rejects the Zinn argument that America has no special claim to morality, and indeed, asserts the contrary quite plainly. The heart of Litvinov's argument is here:

There is ample reason for Amnesty to be critical of certain U.S. actions. But by using hyperbole and muddling the difference between repressive regimes and the imperfections of democracy, Amnesty's spokesmen put its authority at risk. U.S. human rights violations seem almost trifling in comparison with those committed by Cuba, South Korea, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.

Outstanding...

Quick Shots: Debunking Bowers

I posted previously on the Chris Bowers hypothesis regarding liberal blogs, and their seeming higher reader/viewership. Now Betsy Newmark and Patrick Ruffini weigh in with their own excellent contributions...I agree with both; the liberals may have the biggest traffic sites, but we've got a more vibrant community, and a more influential one, to boot...

AJ Strata has been on a roll today. He highlights some tough talk from Bush that is music to my ears, and puts the call out for a second Chillin' Carnival...

Captain Ed has more on the Durbin 'sorry you're so stupid' apology, and his statement that he has 'no regrets' over his remarks...

In a post that has much relevance to my recent musings on Iraq, the Minuteman points to evidence that things are not so bad as they appear...

Iraq: A Status Report as I See It

As Eleanor Clift of Newsweek sounds the alarm bells in her best Walter Cronkite fashion, we come to a critical point in time in the Iraq War, and the larger War on Terror. A tipping point can be reached from which there can be no turning back, and we are flirting with it in Iraq. This point has little to do with military conditions on the ground, and everything to do with public opinion.

For once, comparisons with Vietnam are apt, for as surely as a day came when public opinion forced Nixon's hand, the Bush Administration will find itself in a similar quandary if they don't get on top of the public relations game. With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear that we should not have disbanded the Iraqi army, but instead offered incentives to bring it under control. We should have imposed martial law, and not lifted it until it was prudent to do so. By not doing so, we have created a situation where we are bleeding troops and money.

What's to be done? Have we, then, lost? The answers are plenty, and of course not. If we left today, just packed it up and moved out completely, we have still accomplished the majority of our mission in Iraq. We have deposed the Butcher of Baghdad, ended his payments to Palestinian suicide bombers, paved the way for Iraqi democracy, and seen a brief flowering of further democratic hopes in places like Lebanon, so long under the boot of Syria, and Egypt. These are not small things, and indeed, arguably constitute victory.

Still, there is a growing unease with what seems to be a lack of progress. By some measures, the reality matches the appearance. Far too many Americans, and Iraqis, are dying violent deaths at the hands of terrorists. The costs of the continued operations are astronomical, and basic security is not being provided consistently. In other ways, though, we suffer from both the lack of will and the lack of opportunity to provide good news as a counterpoint.

Efforts like Arthur Chrenkoff's Good News From Iraq series should be undertaken by the administration. Regular briefings by top administration officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, and all other branches should be provided to spotlight the progress being made. President Bush himself should take a public tour, much like he does for issues such as Social Security, and hit the road in support of the initiative. I'm not talking about lying, or misleading; questions will arise from both friend and foe about the continued high casualties and large numbers of insurgents, and those questions should be answered as forthrightly as possible; at least the other view will get a hearing, though.

Why go to the trouble? It's no coincidence that the polls have headed downward since the Iraqi elections, because there has not been a 'TV-friendly' opportunity to spotlight the positive since that occasion, and as a result, the images we see are of mayhem and frightened civilians. We have to make our own opportunities with a savvy media strategy similar to the one that we mount for presidential campaigns, for the stakes are as high as they can be.

For similar reasons, the trial of Saddam must be undertaken with increased swiftness, and it must, of course, be televised worldwide. One way to put tempests in a teapot like Gitmo behind us is to throw as wide a spotlight as possible on the atrocities committed by the despotic deposed regime.

Of course, this will all be for naught if the situation on the ground doesn't improve drastically. We must spare no effort or expense in patrolling borders, examining tactics, providing financial incentives for new recruits, and pressuring Syria to do its part to stop the flow of terrorists across the border. We must also make every effort to let our troops know they have our eternal gratitude, and we have to increase our efforts at building bridges with communities in Iraq.

There are those who say that by invading Iraq, we have lost the wider battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab world. I don't see how that follows; the Islamic fanatics would have hated America no less if we had never invaded, and the secular and more moderate religious Arabs know that the enemy is not America, but the terrorists.

There is very little people like you and I can do about the military operations in Iraq; our military is led by fine men and women, and we can be assured they are doing their utmost to deliver a secure environment. We can make all the difference, though, in the area of public opinion. Here are the websites for the U. S. Senate, the House of Representatives, and the White House. It's easier than ever to contact your elected officials with web forms and e-mail. Please, I urge you, take the time to contact them and let them know you're behind our efforts in Iraq 100%. And while you're at it, check out America Supports You, an effort by the Defense Department to provide support in numerous ways to our men and women in harm's way. Just imagine how good it would make you feel, if you were stationed in Iraq, to hear from good Americans how important the job you're doing is. Let's not lose through public opinion what we've shed so much blood and treasure to win on the ground.

RINOs Have a Giving Nature

In addition to the honor so recently bestowed on one Howard Zinn, I direct your attention to the First RINO Kool-Aid Award, given to Rep. John Conyers in recognition of his portrayal of a real congressman. Congrats again!...

Weekly Jackass Number Twenty-Seven: Howard Zinn

This week, Senator Dick was such - ahem, excuse me - Senator Dick Durbin was such an obvious choice that I really had to pass him by; what could I say that hasn't already been said, and said well, about this cretinous excuse of a public servant? Besides, he is already the Judge Elihu Smails Buffoon of the Week, and has issued a classic Leftist non-apology claiming his intentions were misunderstood by the uneducated idiots like ourselves who just can't understand historical analogies.

Historical analogies remain the topic de jour, though, as we instead honor a perennial also-ran, always a bridesmaid, never a bride - until today - Howard Zinn. Zinn is made from the same mold as former Jackass Noam Chomsky, a type we have come to know all too well - the 'I really love America, much more than you, so much more that in fact I will spend the rest of my life opposing its policies and slandering its memory, that's how much I love it' progressive.

Zinn is best known for his People's History of the United States, a 'revisionist' history of America that focuses, naturally, on all our numerous crimes against humanity. Indeed, 'revisionism' is no more than a code word for propaganda; when one hears a work described in such a way, you can be sure that it was written not as a history, but as a polemic. The authors of the majestic Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened, And Why Do They Say It?, Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, point out that all historians are revisionists, and see no need to call themselves such; it is the nature of scholarly work to expand upon, and sometimes contradict, those who preceded you.

No, the revisionist is not interested in history, but in winning converts, and Zinn is no exception. His most recent written atrocity thrust upon an unsuspecting world is a case in point. The Power and the Glory: The Myths of American Exceptionalism, from the Boston Review, should be required reading for all who are interested in how much the academic Left continues to be dominated by the Marxist worldview.

Indeed, in his very first sentence, Zinn provides a case study in the tactics of the propagandist:

The notion of American exceptionalism - that the United States alone has the right, whether by divine sanction or moral obligation, to bring civilization, or democracy, or liberty to the rest of the world, by violence if necessary - is not new.

Notice that Zinn has provided a definition of American exceptionalism that makes failure to disprove it impossible. That's not the definition of American exceptionalism, though, and of course Zinn knows it. A more proper definition that conforms to what is usually meant would be: the notion that America, uniquely among the major nations of the world, was founded upon principles of freedom and equality as enshrined forever in the majestic phrasing of Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:..." As such, America as a political entity carries the burden of judging its actions by a strict moral standard, and sometimes fails to meet the exacting standard (as the current brouhaha over treatment of prisoners in the War on Terror would indicate). Far more often, though, America serves as a beacon to the poor, disenfranchised, and dispossessed of the world.

You won't hear about that America from Zinn, however; let's continue:

The idea of [America as] a city on a hill is heartwarming. It suggests what George Bush has spoken of: that the United States is a beacon of liberty and democracy. People can look to us and learn from and emulate us.

In reality, we have never been just a city on a hill.

Note that Zinn has now totally denied that the conventional view of America even exists; strange how all these immigrants ended up here, then, no?

Zinn then presents a picture of America as a horde of rampaging Huns, before moving on to the next strawman: the religious zealot.

Divine ordination is a very dangerous idea, especially when combined with military power (the United States has 10,000 nuclear weapons, with military bases in a hundred different countries and warships on every sea). With God's approval, you need no human standard of morality. Anyone today who claims the support of God might be embarrassed to recall that the Nazi storm troopers had inscribed on their belts, "Gott mit uns" ("God with us").

Beatifully done: a totally irrelevant reference to our nuclear stockpile and a Nazi comparison in the same paragraph! Chomsky must be consumed with jealousy.

The existence of the Soviet Union, even with its acquisition of nuclear weapons, did not block this expansion [i.e., the alleged imperialism of the U.S.]. In fact, the exaggerated threat of "world communism" gave the United States a powerful justification for expanding all over the globe, and soon it had military bases in a hundred countries.

Again, a 10.0 for sheer chutzpah; you would think from Zinn's description that it was the U.S., not the Soviets, bent on global domination, and that we were responsible for the Iron Curtain that oppressed millions.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, terrorism replaced communism as the justification for expansion. Terrorism was real, but its threat was magnified to the point of hysteria, permitting excessive military action abroad and the curtailment of civil liberties at home.

Yes, it's all about imperialism, never mind that pesky 9/11 that Zinn doesn't even deign to mention. Wait, I spoke too soon; here's Zinn on 9/11:

The terrible attacks of September 11 gave a new impetus to the idea that the United States was uniquely responsible for the security of the world, defending us all against terrorism as it once did against communism. President George W. Bush carried the idea of American exceptionalism to its limits by putting forth in his national-security strategy the principles of unilateral war.

Unilateral war? What were the 9/11 attacks? A peace gesture? No, Howard, this is sophistry of the worst sort; war was brought to us, we didn't impose it on others.

We might note that the Bush doctrine also violates the principles laid out at Nuremberg, when Nazi leaders were convicted and hanged for aggressive war, preventive war, far from self-defense.

There it is, stark and bold: the clearest parallel between Bush and Hitler I have ever seen, and drawn in such a way that it cannot be mistaken. The undeniable assertion is that Bush should be hanged as a war criminal.

Zinn goes even further, though, and clearly implies that the same fate should await every American president:

Bush's national-security strategy and its bold statement that the United States is uniquely responsible for peace and democracy in the world has been shocking to many Americans.

But it is not really a dramatic departure from the historical practice of the United States...

Now, there are those who say words do not matter; I am not one of them. They matter more than almost anything; and Zinn has clearly slandered the memory of every American who has ever fought for his or her nation; to deny it is to assert that Zinn is merely clattering away at the keyboard, oblivious to the larger message he is conveying.

There is no need to continue, it cannot be more plain; I challenge any sober thinker to present an interpretation of Zinn's statement that differs from the one I have offered here. Howard Zinn is clearly in a class far beyond that of Dick Durbin; only the Great Noam could be this contemptous of his own nation. A Jackass, not just for this week, but for all seasons: that's Howard Zinn.

UPDATE 12:42 p.m. central: After posting this, I noticed, via a link from the great Tim Blair, that Zinn's latest has been noticed elsewhere...and thanks to the aforementioned Mr. Blair for the link, as well as the generous Betsy Newmark...

UPDATE 2 06/19/05 10:07 a.m. central: A great big thank you to Arthur Chrenkoff for the link, also...

UPDATE 3 06/19/05 11:07 p.m. central: Many thanks to Jon Henke for the link, as well...

Buckley Sounds the Alarm On Iraq

Two posts have been swimming around my head for a while, and I hope to get to both of them sooner rather than later: one is a longish post on Iraq, a 'where we stand' type analysis, and the other is a post on the remarkable continued relevance of William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale. As a forerunner, I present to you this op-ed by Buckley that, as usual, is sound of reasoning, and very cognizant of the big picture (by the way, many of my post ideas come from links posted at the very excellent RealClearPolitics, and I often take it for granted, so kudos again for such a wonderful collection of conversation starters day in and day out).

Buckley identifies a two-phase Iraq campaign, the military enterprise (a complete and total success), then a two-part occupation phase, one focusing on allowing Iraqis to begin the process of speaking for themselves through elections and sovereign governing bodies. This part, if not as complete a success as the military phase, was (is) a success nonetheless.

The second part, obviously, is providing an environment of security and civil order, and this has been, undoubtedly, a failure to date. I recommend the whole piece to you, and leave you with a taste:

A respect for the power of the United States is engendered by our success in engagements in which we take part. A point is reached when tenacity conveys not steadfastness of purpose but misapplication of pride. It can't reasonably be disputed that if in the year ahead the situation in Iraq continues about as it has done in the past year, we will have suffered more than another 500 soldiers killed. Where there had been skepticism about our venture, there will then be contempt.

Today's Must-Read: John Kass Puts Gitmo in Perspective

Answering his critics who were upset that he made fun of Time's Gitmo horror tales cover story, with its revelations that Christina Aguilera is used as a 'torture' tool, John Kass joins the growing number of people who are coming forward to counter the media's torture narrative in the best possible way, by turning the Left's tactic of equating Gitmo with Gulag into a side by side comparison that reveals the intellectual bankruptcy of such a concept. Kass has more right to make this comparison than most of us; his own father was tortured as a POW in World War II, enduring daily beatings and being forced to dig his own grave. He survived, thankfully.

Hillary Wins First Straw Poll of the Season

Reader G. K. sends along this article on a straw poll conducted in Richland County, South Carolina, described as 'sparsely attended'. Ryan James was on the story earlier today. The winner was a surprise (?), with Hillary leading South Carolina native son John Edwards 44-34, thus shrugging off the latest attempt by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to derail Senator Clinton's nascent campaign.

I'm gonna share a personal memory with you after this quote:

[Bob Kunst, of Hillarynow.com] came here [Columbia, S.C.] from the Bonneroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tenn., attended by some 90,000 people. There, he promoted Clinton with flyers, buttons and bumper stickers.

Alright, here's the story: Last July, I attended the first day of the semi-regular Willie Nelson's Picnic at Two River Canyon Ampitheater just outside of Austin, largely drawn by a rare Austin appearance by the now Jerry Garcia-less Grateful Dead, or as they're known now, just the Dead (yes, there are conservative Deadheads - I'm living proof!).

Well, it was great - tie-dye everywhere, groovy vibe, unseasonably cool weather, a three-hour plus set from the Dead, Merle Haggard, Willie, and many, many cervezas (that's beer for you gringos). At some point in the day, Dennis Kucinich came out on stage to say a few words (a very few), causing something quite less than a stir.

We stayed to the bloody end, well after one a.m., as Toby Keith and Willie played a medley to end the festivities, and I was completely wiped out from booze and way too much heat and time on my feet. As I straggled to the car, I saw a lone figure to my side, tie askew, looking quite out of place and out of sorts. He was holding a campaign poster. It was Dennis Kucinich. No one knew, no one cared, and no one stopped to talk to him. True story...and a complete snapshot of one pathetic campaign.

Congress Should Vote On Losing Social Security Plan

When I began this blog, one of my favorite topics was the need for Social Security reform that encompassed private savings accounts. I think it's an idea whose time has come because (1) less people are going to be supporting more people who are living longer, and that obviously means the status quo won't do, and (2), I'm a firm believer in the concept of 'the ownership society'.

I haven't blogged on the issue much lately, because frankly the news has been so depressing. This Washington Post article suggests Republican congressman are seeking an exit strategy and waving the white flag. I have no reason to doubt the verity of that, nor do I think there remains any chance of getting through meaningful reform in this Congress.

Nevertheless, bring it to the floor. Why? Bring it to the floor so we can see who will stand up and be counted. Make no mistake, this is a failure that belongs to the Republican leadership. Let us take names, and elevate the issue to the frontburner, and let's run on a platform of finishing the job in 2006. There is no domestic issue of greater importance.

Another Good Reason To Support CAFTA...

...Chomsky's against it. Or is he? It's hard to tell from this truly incoherent monstrosity of a - a what? A blog post? An article? An op-ed? Or just the tired, sad musings of a rich old anti-capitalist? Sample some of the turgid prose here, and stack it up against anything written by Christopher Hitchens, up to and including his grocery lists:

On CAFTA, there is plenty of resistance throughout the region. Costa Rica is the only country that has something like a functioning democracy. The others are pretty much as described by the leading scholar of "democracy promotion," particularly in Latin America, the neo-Reaganite director of the Carnegie Endowment program on law and democracy. As he points out in the standard scholarly work on the period, the US was willing to tolerate only "top-down forms of democracy" that left power in the hands of the traditional elites linked to American power in highly undemocratic societies. He's not a critic, but a strong supporter of the policies, and is writing also from an insider's standpoint, having been in Reagan's State Department working on "democracy enhancement." But he's honest enough to describe the facts. It's much like the famous "New Europe" of 2003, the real hope for democracy: namely, countries that rejected the will of the large majority of the population and followed orders from Crawford Texas.

Huh? Did any of that make sense to anyone alive besides Chomsky? Yet the progressive acolytes no doubt nod sagely and whisper, 'The Great One has spoken'. Chomsky, does this neo-Reaganite you speak of have a name? If so, why not use it? Particularly mind-numbing is the last phrase, with its tired reference to a "New Europe" that takes orders from Crawford...please. Pure, unadulterated crap...

UPDATE 5:07 p.m.: While putting this post together, I found a particularly loathsome Chomsky piece. I wanted to work it in, but it so perfectly encapsulates the mindset of Chomsky and his followers that it deserves a good fisk, a task I hope to undertake this weekend, so come back and see me, won't you?...

History Lessons Galore

Michelle Malkin has been on a roll today; she has a roundup of bloggers helpfully offering Dick Durbin some lessons on Nazi and Soviet oppression. Meanwhile, Ankle Biting Pundits has awarded Senator Dick - er, Durbin - the Judge Elihu Smails Award for Buffoon of the Week. Might a similarly named and themed award be in Durbin's future? Could be...

I'll Believe It When I See It...

...Michelle Malkin has the scoop on a Salt Lake Tribune report that quotes poor little MoDo as saying she's about to hang it up.

...New York Times political columnist Maureen Dowd, on leave since early May to finish her second book, sounds a little burned out.

"It [writing the column] is so stressful that I don't miss it at all," she said Wednesday by telephone from Washington. "For me, the hard thing is the psychological pressure of being original. I find that almost impossible.

"You have to hope your readers like your company enough to go along for the ride. There's just so much opinion out there. It's a Tower of Babble now, and who's to say my babble is better than anyone else's? I don't know how much longer I can do it."

Baloney...her ego won't let her leave the scene of the action. I put the odds at her quitting in the next ten years at 100-1. Any takers?...

Quick Shots: RINOs Love Women

Especially when the women are serving our country with distinction. Get the details from our beloved Commissar...

A Small Victory bemoans a culture that's obsessed with the mating habits of Tom Cruise and Star magazine. I couldn't agree more...

Roger L. Simon notes that it was Robert Parton, on of the two investigators to resign from the Volcker Commission, who unearthed the newly revealed Kofi-Cotecna memos...the plot thickens...

Conason On Klein's Smear Job

I normally don't have much use for Joe Conason, the author of Big Lies, one of those Alterman-type tomes that takes on 'the rightwing propaganda machine', and whose leftist work on Salon I'm quite familiar with. His recent review of Ed Klein's hatchet job on Hillary, though, has the ring of truth. It should be pointed out that most of us are only familiar with it through the allegation aired on Drudge, the one that I'm not going to dignify by repeating (though if you're curious, you can read about it in Klein's review).

Klein has read the book, though, and he assures us it is full of gossip, inneundo, and slanders big and small, not just on Hillary, but on those who surrounded her during the White House years, as well. To Conason's credit, he acknowledges that even the righthand side of the blogosphere has pulled back in revulsion at the spectacle. This book is going to flop, big, and well it should; we are eager to take Hillary on in the ring of politics, but our opposition should focus on policies and not personalities; character assassination is not the path to victory in 2008.

Today's Must-Read: Ignorance of History Behind Gitmo Hysteria

That's the message of this opinion piece by David Gelernter in the LA Times. In a passage that will seem quite familiar to regular readers of this blog, he says the following:

Ignorance of history destroys our judgment. Consider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), who just compared the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Stalin's gulag and to the death camps of Hitler and Pol Pot - an astonishing, obscene piece of ignorance. Between 15 million and 30 million people died from 1918 through 1956 in the prisons and labor camps of the Soviet gulag. Historian Robert Conquest gives some facts. A prisoner at the Kholodnaya Gora prison had to stuff his ears with bread before sleeping on account of the shrieks of women being interrogated. At the Kolyma in Siberia, inmates labored through 12-hour days in cheap canvas shoes, on almost no food, in temperatures that could go to minus-58. At one camp, 1,300 of 3,000 inmates died in one year.

"Gulag" must not go the way of "Nazi" and become virtually meaningless. Europeans love calling Israelis "Nazis" - a transparent attempt to slough off their guilt like rattlesnakes shedding skin. ("See, the Jews are as bad as we were!") I'd like to ban the word "Nazi" except when applied to...Nazis. Lawbreakers would be ordered to learn what Nazi actually means.

Yet another example of the continuing necessity of the Bipartisan Anti-Inflammatory Pledge of 2005.

Miscellanea: Kicking Up A Storm

Looks like the Dick Durbin brouhaha has brought on a good ol'-fashioned blogswarm. Michelle Malkin has the roundup...

In other Durbin news, the good Captain Ed is hearing an old, familiar, and most unwelcome melody making its return...

The Raging RINOs have ourselves a logo...

The list of candidate profiles I need to get out just keeps growing. The latest, care of Alexander McClure, is George Pataki...

James Lilek's ScreedBlog has a righteous take down of Time's Gitmo Torture Cover Storyl...

Michael J. Totten spotlights this essay by Harvard History Professor Niall Ferguson that makes the case that we just don't have enough troops in Iraq to get the job done right...

The Radical Centrist notes the best strategy for taking on Howard Dean, and has this advice for the paranoid:

I don't think that Howard or any Democrats are secretly trying to keep the Republicans in power and the Deaniacs in the distant minority. There are people who are trying to do that, of course, they're called Republicans.

Someday I'll learn not to give the Kos the benefit of the doubt. Earlier I put the best interpretation I could on his torture remarks, but his latest is pretty specific in its wording:

What is beyond belief is that the type of torture more at home under tyrants and dictators is being seen in camps flying the United States flag.

Romney To Back Ban On Same-Sex Marriages

Speaking of Mitt Romney (and we were, earlier)...

In a move that I'm sure has nothing at all to do with shoring up support for a 2008 presidential run among religious conservatives, he has come out in favor of a ban on gay marriages through an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution. Oh, wait, seems others see higher aspirations as well:

Gay marriage supporters said on Thursday that they hoped opposition to same-sex marriage has decreased now that about 6,000 same-sex weddings have taken place over the last year. They accused Mr. Romney of trying to appeal to conservatives outside Massachusetts in preparation for a possible run for president.

"We believe he's projecting himself to a national Republican audience," said Marty Rouse, campaign director for MassEquality, a group that supports gay marriages.

Regardless of your stance on the issue, it's a smart move, politically; it defuses the Massachusetts gay marriage issue in one fell swoop - 'See, I'm against it. I think marriage is properly between a man and a woman.' This is what is called a win-win, particularly since Romney is not likely to get a large percentage of the gay vote, if historical trends are any indicator...

Holy Guacamole, It's Hot!

I don't know about where you guys are at, but this summer is already a scorcher in Austin - near 100 every day in every direction...jeez, it's hot!

While I cool down, here's something to tide you over, care of Viking Pundit. The Wall Street Journal delivers a drubbing to the Dean-led Democrats, concluding that, with the exception of Joe Lieberman (and, of course, you know how well-liked he is by the progressives), there is no center. More rightwing propaganda? Consider:

• With the notable exception of Joe Lieberman, there are virtually no Scoop Jackson defense hawks remaining in a party that has made Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo its main policy touchstones for the war on terror.
• The party that voted en masse for income and capital gains tax cuts under JFK now has but one message on taxes: Raise them.
• On trade, the Democrats who delivered 102 House votes for Nafta and Bill Clinton in 1994 will, at last count, provide all of five House votes for the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
• The Clinton Democrats helped enact the most momentous social policy legislation of the past generation: welfare reform. Now Democrats conspire every day to gut work-for-welfare requirements and prevent the renewal of welfare reform by Congress.
• Above all, there's the know-nothing-ism on Social Security. The Democrats in unison proclaim that Mr. Bush is advancing a risky right-wing scheme to destroy Social Security by creating private investment accounts for workers.

As they say in the big leagues, read it all...

A Helping Hand

Do your part to help Viking Pundit recover his lofty Ecosystem ranking by linking and clicking here - and hurry, please, before he's forced to resort to desperate measures again. On second thought, if that's desperate measures - Yowsa!...

The Left Begins to Self-Destruct (Again)

By the very hour, the 'progressive' attack on Gitmo is reaching further heights of absurdity...we now have 'Kos' himself comparing 'torture' under U.S. troops to torture under Saddam in defense of Dick Durbin (and pissing plenty of people off in the bargain).

Now, I know that Markos perhaps is guilty of poor wording here; he may have meant to imply that if torture is bad when practiced by Saddam, it is just as bad when practiced by us - sorry, it's still a non-starter. As uncomfortable as it makes us, we must learn, apparently, the difference between stress techniques and 'torture'. If you look under the fold of Rusty's piece (and it's quite graphic; you've been warned), you will see torture as practiced by Saddam Hussein. Dick Durbin and the Kos can mouth off all they want; this sort of thing is not going on at Gitmo, and everyone knows it.

There are those who would say even stress techniques are out; fine, let them make that argument. The assault on Gitmo, however, is losing all perspective and is quite out of control. This is the perfect example of why the Democratic Party, if it ever wants to win another national election, must jettison the 'Progressive' wing - quite simply, responsible debate is impossible with the lot of them.