WaPoop

Jim VandeHei, "Blogs Attack From Left as Democrats Reach for Center"

Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience.

Hey, Jim, I got an early glimpse of that intraparty rift, too. It was called the year 1951. What's up next for you, "Spring Training Crowds Suggest Some Fans Don't Like the Yankees"?

These activists -- spearheaded by battle-ready bloggers and making their influence felt through relentless e-mail campaigns -- have denounced what they regard as a flaccid Democratic response to the Supreme Court fight, President Bush's upcoming State of the Union address and the Iraq war. In every case, they have portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts.

Imagine that.

First, liberal Web logs went after Democrats for selecting Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to deliver the response to Bush's speech next Tuesday. Kaine's political sins: He was too willing to drape his candidacy in references to religion and too unwilling to speak out aggressively against Bush on the Iraq war. Kaine has been lauded by party officials for finding a victory formula in Bush country by running on faith, values and fiscal discipline.

Because remember, Democrats, the Republicans have already shown the intraparty rift which will complicate efforts to retain control of the White House with that Harriet Meiers business. Or Schiavo. Sheesh, I thought VandeHei would never shut up about it, whichever one it was.

Really, now: why is this a story? Is there a prize out there somewhere for the One Millionth Rehash of the Lefties Obstruct Democratic Electoral Success story? 'Cause I'm not sure why anyone got lathered up over Tim Kaine, or who it was, for that matter, but I assume they were voicing their own opinions. As for Alito, I'd like to hear from someone who doesn't regard the Democratic response as flaccid, which by the way is pronounced "flak' sid", not "flassid". Sorry, pet peeve.

That leaves us with Iraq, where, if I understand correctly, moving to the right will not actually connect with some untouched central core of the poll-responding populace.

"The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."

Man, that is what I love about the Democratic party. It's the real party of opportunity, the only one where a Kerry advisor can still lecture the country on what it takes to win elections.

The blogs-vs.-establishment fight represents the latest version of a familiar Democratic dispute. It boils down to how much national candidates should compromise on what are considered core Democratic values -- such as abortion rights, gun control and opposition to conservative judges -- to win national elections.

Either I need a shower or VandeHei just plopped an unrefrigerated week-old mackerel in the middle of page six. I've got no problem with calling "abortion rights" a core Democratic value, excepting that the battle is more properly over reproductive rights, which itself grows out of the actual core value of privacy, or placing personal liberty over state intrusion. But gun control? Is gun control properly a core Democratic value? And "opposition to conservative judges" just convinces me that VandeHei was typing so fast he'd forgotten how the sentence began.

[Blah blah, Web emerges as powerful political force, blah blah Howard Dean.]

The closest historic parallel would be the talk-radio phenomenon of the early 1980s, when conservatives -- like liberals now -- felt powerless and certain they did not have a way to voice their views because the mainstream media and many of their own leaders considered them out of touch. Through talk radio, often aired in rural parts of the country on the AM dial, conservatives pushed the party to the right on social issues and tax cuts

Or, The Sketch Book of Rip Van VandeHei. If you want to rewrite history it's generally best to choose a period the majority of your readers have no knowledge of. Ronald Reagan was president in the 80s, Jim; he's the guy they renamed one of your airports for. The Press was already behaving like a good lapdog, and the Moral Majority was all the rage. "Conservatives" didn't feel powerless; they played powerless on the radio, on teevee, and in the papers, something they'd been doing at least since Nixon's "Silent Majority" speech. And it's difficult to understand how one is out of touch on abortion rights, the war in Iraq, and, for that matter, gun control when one holds essentially the same positions as the majority of Americans. But I guess that's why I don't write analysis for the Post.

Mailbag

1) Name one battle we lost in the Vietnam war?

You mean after the major influx of US combat troops? Tan Canh.

It's something of a trick question, of course, one that ignores the reality of the conflict and treats war as a very deadly form of football decided by a scorekeeper. Vietnam was not the Eastern front of WWII. There weren't many pitched battles; the Viet Minh had no interest in conquering territory or slugging it out with a superior foe with absolute air superiority. War rarely if ever begins with a level playing field and equal objectives. Too bad we refuse to learn that lesson.

US forces fought extremely well in Vietnam. They were poorly commanded, and their mission was a huge mistake. If you intend to blame The Media for the US defeat then you first need to defend how three Administrations, and a succession of military commanders, mishandled the war for the sake of positive press.

2) Why did it take until 1975 for North Vietnam to conquer South Vietnam when the U.S. had pulled its troops in 1973?

One million ARVN troops, with modern equipment. They fell rather quickly, actually. The North invaded in March '75; Vietnam was officially unified on July 2.

3) Why are pictures of John Kerry and Jane Fonda hanging in Vietnamese war museums?

If you intend to come to this blog and slag off men who served honorably in Vietnam, you send us your verifiable service record first. For starters.


4) Why do records of the former USSR talk about paying agitators within the US peace movement?

Why did the FBI? Why do the Israelis spy on us? Let me clue you to something: anybody who took part in a large anti-war demonstration knew who those people were. There wasn't a massive Communist attack after the war ended. Your fellow citizens protested the war because they were against it, not because they were the dupes of some J. Edgar Hoover fantasy that didn't involve women's garments.

5) Why did the US media refer to battles such as the Tet Offensive as defeats when they were overwhelming US military victories?

Citation? Funny, I was fifteen years old, and I knew the outcome of Tet at the time.

But the "overwhelming victory" thing is another body-count canard. Tet clearly demonstrated that the continual drumbeat of light at the end of the tunnel was just the latest in a series of official lies about imminent victory dating to 1962, when Paul Harkins said it would be over in six months to a year. The Tet Offensive ended the so-called Viet Cong as an effective fighting force, but the ARVN was still plenty capable. It's the difference between "tactics" and "strategy", an effective understanding of which is required for discussion.

Happy Birthday

William Claude Dukenfield
January 29, 1880--December 25, 1946

My favorite Fields story is said to be apocryphal, but that doesn't stop us at BLTR. As Fields lay dying, fading in and out of consciousness, he opened his eyes and croaked to his gathered friends, "The little newsies...sole support of their mothers...working in all sorts of weather...I'd like to do something for them."

"That's very nice, Bill," replied one, and Fields closed his eyes and sank back into his pillow. All was quiet for a moment, til he opened his eyes again and said, "On second thought, fuck 'em."

What, That Old War Again?

Consider this the quick dump of a pilot before Sweeps Month starts Wednesday. I was struck with the idea that once I'd reached the fifth paragraph or 30 minute mark writing a reply on someone else's blog it may be time to post it on my own. And so it was as Daily Pepper covers the Joel Stein tsimmis.

In case you missed it, a quick rundown: Stein writes an opinion column in the LA Times in which he says he doesn't support the troops, because he's against the war; while he's got no problem with the war's supporters supporting the troops, for opponents it's "one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken..." Mount St. Malkins immediately erupts, assuming we can distinguish between activity and quiescence in that quarter. In a freak occurance, Al Franken and Atrios also take offense.

I happened to have read the thing the day it was published. It was strained, lazy, and to top it off, unfunny. As Pepper says, the VH-1 regular should stick to covering the Dancing With the Stars Master P controversy. Or I take her word for it, anyway, since I'm not quite sure what it is.

Still, Stein has a point. He mostly missed it himself, and he compounded the whiff by displaying his ignorance on a couple of levels. And I can't quite understand why Malkins would take offense rather than trumpet the thing, since Stein seems to be saying exactly what she/they imagine to be the case, but I leave that to her/them. Maybe there was some concern that newer readers thought she/they possess actual reading comprehension.

But as for Stein: "I support the troops but I don't support the war" is a fertile ground for some digging, but he just broadcasts a couple handfuls of seed in a strong breeze. In the first couple hundred words he's equated supporting the troops with bumperstickers and magnetic yellow ribbons, before equating opposition to the war with pacifism. Those are the sort of blasé mistakes that get you invited back to VH-1 for another round of ridiculing the crap commerical culture of your youth, and they might slide as a feature piece somewhere, assuming someone could have applied some genuine humor to the thing. But they shouldn't qualify as an Op-Ed piece in a major metropolitan daily, though god knows it hardly sinks below what else actually does these days.

There's no excuse for Stein not understanding he was shortchanging everyone he wrote about; this is the sorry state of editorial opinion writing in the heyday of Truthiness. Would that the Malkins take a lesson. But what's more interesting, I think, is the casual repetition of history as Dimly Remembered High School Filmstrip:

It's as if the one lesson they [the "pacifists"] took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

or:

I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea.

The spitting thing is just pure laziness; that sorry wad of phlegm has been as thoroughly debunked as is theoretically possible. And just the tiniest amount of interest in what the actual troops think about Iraq--here's a hint, Joel: it's roughly as diverse as the general population back home--might have served to open his eyes and maybe even shut his mouth. But so help me, I'm never going to get over the sheer laziness of so many of Stein's contemporaries when it comes to Vietnam. From the "Why are we still talking about that after thirty years?" in blog comments to the idea that an evil cabal of smelly hippies and the Librul Media kept us from winning, the astonishing lack of concern with one's own history, the easy dismissal of the war as something as relevant today as bell-bottoms and rotary phones, the sheer self-indulgence of, not just willful ignorance, but gleefully willful ignorance is just jaw-dropping. What Stein seems to "know" about Vietnam is largely a product of how the war's defenders marketed our defeat a decade after the fact. Which hardly explains his ignorance, since he obviously knows the war was controversial. How is it you come to trust what you're told?

The reason many people opposing the war now see fit to acknowledge their support for the troops is precisely the sort of historical rewrite Stein can't distinguish from the truth. It's precisely because of that spitting story. It's precisely because so many people are so lazy about facts and so easily hoodwinked by urban legends and bullshit on the LA Times editorial pages. You know, there are several people still alive today who lived through Vietnam, Joel. Maybe you could ask them. I think you'd probably find there's a lot more pissed off about the treatment they and their buddies received from the government during and after their service than you'll find pissed off because they didn't get to march through Manhattan. The only guys I know who ever hewed to that line were gung-ho officers and careerist noncoms. Of course their arguments found your ear somehow, while the guys who handled the Agent Orange never got the chance.

And just one more question, Joel. If you think only the war's supporters should display their support for the troops, how is it you now blame the anti-war faction for the lack of parades back then?

This might bring us to the case of one Dough E. Pantload and his vast knowledge of what some other guy told him about Sacco and Vanzetti. But then we already know why Jonah trusts what he's been told.

God Help Us, The Indiana Legislature Used To Meet Only Every Other Year

Okay, the big legislative news in what is supposed to be Indiana's biennial short session, is Governor Mitch "Honorary CEO of Munchkinland" Daniels' headlong rush to gain the statutory right to sell off any piece of state property a private concern covets, under the guise of approving the really, really great deal he got by peddling our childrens' and grandchildrens' birthrights to the highest bidder for ten years worth of roadbuilding. (A Spanish-Australian consortium won the Double Secret bidding for a 75-year lease on the Indiana Toll Road for $3.8 billion, subject to legislative approval. But somehow that deal can't be struck without a bill handing the Guv the right to sell off anything related to transportation, including Indiana's two harbors and its airports, all without further legislative review.)

More about that next week, but I thought you might enjoy a taste of what Indiana's citizen legislators get up to when they're on a tight schedule:

DIGEST OF HB1172 (Updated January 26, 2006 1:51 pm - DI 14)

Information on pain and anesthetic for a fetus. Provides that informed consent to an abortion includes the requirement that a physician inform a pregnant woman that: (1) a fetus may feel pain; (2) an anesthetic or other painkilling medication may be provided during an abortion to a fetus with a probable gestational age of at least 20 weeks; and (3) insurance may or may not cover the service. Provides further that notice must be given in writing at least 18 hours before an abortion concerning the availability of adoptions, physical risks to the woman in having an abortion, and that human life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm.

Yes, indeed, metaphysical certitude about When Life Begins from the gang that can't decide what time it is.

DIGEST OF HB 1247 (Updated January 26, 2006 1:46 pm - DI 14)

Wrongful death or injury of a child. Specifies that the law concerning the wrongful death or injury of a child applies to a fetus that has attained viability. Provides that a wrongful death action may not be maintained against a person for: (1) conduct relating to an abortion if the physician in good faith medical judgment believed that the consent of the woman was express or implied; or (2) a lawful medical treatment. Provides that a wrongful death action may not be maintained against a woman for behavior or conduct with respect to her fetus.

I haven't read the relevant statutes, but I'm pretty sure this means a woman who's five months pregnant can walk unbidden up my driveway with the intention of converting me to Jesus, trip over a tree branch her Savior caused to fall thirty seconds earlier, and sue me for the wrongful death of her "child" if she miscarries. And I suppose she could also do so to an amusement park operator after she willingly boards a roller coaster. But she couldn't be sued for downing a fifth of Jim Beam every night.

And yes, it also occurs to me (again, absent any actual knowledge) that she'd also be able to sue the water company if there's anything coming out the tap that might cause birth defects, or any of the pollution manufacturers in this state or whichever way the winds blows. That's not only cold comfort, I expect it's also a loophole that'll close faster'n a legislator's wallet when the per diem's been used up.

I will be erecting "No Access to Pregnant Women" signs on the edge of my property if the second one becomes law, but I'm mostly interested in the first. Despite our legislators' abiding concerns for the rights of Blastocyst-Americans, there's a curious refusal to make the law consistent. They're horrified that a fetus feels pain, for example, but where's the bill requiring anesthesia in infant surgeries, including circumcision (might get some religious objections to that one)? Or for that matter the sorely needed requirement that parents seek medical attention for minors regardless of the parents' religious beliefs (in Indiana, faith healing is an acceptable substitute for, say, going to a hospital when your child's temperature is 108º)? How about the one classifying all miscarriages as homicides? We can go on like this for hours. Hoosiers--trust me on this one--are intellectually overmatched by the concept of the Four Way Stop. T-bone a pregnant woman who runs a stop sign, find yourself up on vehicular manslaughter charges when she miscarries. Time to invest in a videotape system for the dashboard.

This is part and parcel of our having allowed, for thirty years, the anti-rights crowd to simply babble about their superior moral beliefs, rather than demanding answers to the tough questions. I was astonished last Sunday to come across a spokeswoman for National Right to Life rejecting the idea that the Court overturning Roe meant an end to safe and legal abortion. "It would return the issue to the states, where it belongs," she said. This, now that they're faced with the possibility of losing the issue as a national cash cow, is the new talking point. "Yes, my morally-superior belief is that abortion is murder, but I've always felt that's a matter to be decided along jurisdictional boundaries largely established in 18th century England." Y'know, it's one thing to be the party that opposes deficit spending until it's within your power to balance the budget, and you're more than welcome to equate criticism of military action with treason except when Bill Clinton is commander-in-chief, but when your moral values go on the auction block the minute it looks like you'll have to answer for them, that's something else again.

Happy Birthday

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
January 27, 1832--January 14, 1898

Wish I'd Said That, Part MMDCCXLVI

The Editors on Howellapalooza:

When one is an Elder Statesman of the American media, and when one can’t be bothered to look into the particular details of some issue, it is never a bad idea to fall back on Ecclesiastes, and remind the readers - in a tone as wise and weary as you can muster - that the seasons change and the winds blow now this way, now that, turn turn turn, but there is nothing new under the Sun. As there was a time of saying Clinton was a coke-dealing Commie and a serial rapist, now comes the time of saying that George W. Bush shouldn’t run secret torture prisons. Men of Principle lament both of these equally, for they are just two sides of the same lamentable coin. Vanity of vanity, all of it. Can’t we just play nice?

Happy Birthday Coincidence

Stéphane Grappelli Jan 26, 1908--Dec. 1, 1997

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that when he and Django were reuinted in New York after the War, they opened for Duke Ellington. Sheesh, and I thought Elvis Costello/Rockpile/Mink Deville was an untoppable bill.

Taking One Six For The Team

I've been checking in on Wonkette for the past week wondering when our friend Alex Pareene was going to turn up for his new gig, which meant that yesterday I ran into guest blogger Glenn Reynolds, and this:

Over at my own blog, I do podcasts, along with my wife, who’s a blogger, too. We’ve got an interview with Norah Vincent, author of Self Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back. I thought it was pretty interesting.

Undaunted by dial-up, I listened to the whole thing. And it was pretty interesting. Especially Glenn's contributions, which I'll highlight right off the bat, in case you lack my masochistic streak Classic Male Stamina:


• "I seem to remember a science fiction story where everybody had to spend some time in the opposite gender."


• "That's Scott Adams' point in one of his Dilbert books."


• "It kind of reminds me of the scene in the old teevee shows from the 60s where some well-intentioned but ignorant white guy would sit a black guy down and ask him, "What's it like to be black?"


• "But of course we had Black Like Me," which is sort of a predecessor to your book..."


The link to the podcast is in the Wonkette post, and while I don't really wish it on anybody else, the more demented among you might want to listen to it long enough to hear Mrs. Insty, "Dr. Helen", as she's styled, speak. I've noted before than on occasion my wife will come home and speak to me as to a room full of fifteen-year-olds; Dr. Helen has the same overlapping professional demeanor.

(I like to think I'm a fair man, so I'm not gonna mention the ever-lengthening chain of right-wing pundits who use "Doctor" like it's their given name, despite having a Ph.D. in Whatever. Dr. Laura, Dr. Mike Adams, Dr. Judith Reisman, Dr. Duane Gish, all bandy the thing about regardless of subject. Dr. Helen is the only psychologist in the bunch, and I think she may simply believe she's practicing all the time.)

The really interesting part of the show was the unrelenting tension between the two women, as Dr. Helen kept driving the "poor mistreated men" theme beyond the point where Norah was probably comfortable about it. Of course, Norah's trying to sell a book, and the libertarian feminism hater is her prime, if not her only, audience. But this conflicted with the sales pitch that the book is her insights based on her little charade, free of any preconceived notions. She had to do a couple of backbends to agree with everything Dr. Helen put to her, but it all turned out the way Ozzy and Harriet would have liked it, assuming you ignore what their real homelife was like.

Still, the contradictions are obvious. I stand by my offer of a bowl-off to convince me that Norah spent eight months on the lanes, and let's just say I retain a healthy skepticism about the whole enterprise otherwise. But the other mask--that this is a meditation based on experience and not a rehash of libertarian anti-feminist talking points targeted at those easily impressed by anything they agree with--slips repeatedly.

NORAH, on her dates with women: I could feel them deferring to me, you know, wanting me to take control...they wanted to lean on me and have the sort of traditional male virtues of stoicism and control.

DR. HELEN: So women want somebody who looks like a guy but acts like a woman?

NORAH: See, that's what I went in thinking, but I think that's not the case...there are a lot of women, it surprised me to find out how many, many do appreciate these male virtues and want a manly man.

Come now. How long have we been hearing that? "But women really want a manly man" is a response to Feminism as old as Feminism. This is the first time our lesbian libertarian contrarian ran into the concept?

Oh, maybe not. Later:

There was an upside to being a [stay-at-home] woman--and that's still basically true. I know a lot of women who depend on their husbands to make the money, their husbands bear all the pressure of having to get up at 5 in the morning and do half the baby work, but also go to the office in the morning and write a legal brief, and I feel as thought it's gotta be legitimate to say, hey, you know, being the guy who is the safety net for the entire family, who has to go out there and perform no questions asked, and you can't show weakness, you can't show need, that's really hard, and it should be okay to complain about that, to say, hey, listen to me for once.

So she knows a lot of women who depend on the "traditional" male, but she was surprised to find out they existed when "Ned" proved insufficiently butch. Did I miss something?

Or there's this:

DR. HELEN: Why do you think women have such a hard time seeing men just as human?

NORAH: Well, I think there's a lot of baggage left over from feminism. I think that we've all had our Feminism 101 course, Women's Studies 101, and so we have these notions about the Patriarchy.

Then:

It's not an anti-feminist book. It assumes everything from Betty Friedan to Naomi Wolf has been absorbed into the culture.

So it's about how we've assimilated the lessons of Feminism 101, which now sit like used motor oil on the pure spring water of the culture?

Even granting that everything reported in the book happened exactly as she says it did, this still smells like scam. Millions of people have actually lived the life she put on, and if there's some insight here that comes from chromosomal differences rather than political slant I'm still waiting to hear it. My college years coincide with the rise of feminism. Women's Studies were an established major program, Our Bodies, Ourselves and The Female Eunuch were on every bookshelf. I don't recall any personal relationships with women being anything other than personal. Dating and relationships weren't political acts.

I wouldn't dispute that Vincent appreciates that the lessons of everyone from Betty Friedan to Naomi Wolf are important, and far be it from me to deny her the opportunity to discuss how successfully their effect on the culture. I doubt she'd have found much agreement from Dr. Helen if it hadn't been such a gosh-all festival of perfect accord, and that amounts to pandering on her part, if not theirs too. Maybe now she needs to take a look at some of "those old teevee shows from the 60s" to remind herself of the Traditional Male Attitudes that are now so oppressed. The real shows, I mean, not the ones bouncing around in that fantasyland inside Glenn's head. Or better yet, a leisurely stroll through those comments on Dr. Helen's site.

Good Thing Western Civilization Has Already Collapsed

[Headline:] Model Kate Moss Plans Tell-All Memoir

Title contest, anyone? Is This Blows taken?

He May Be A Mutt, But He's R. Mutt

Just keep him away from the Rembrandts on ironing day.

Attacker of Duchamp's Urinal Sentenced

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD Associated Press Writer

January 24,2006 | PARIS -- A court has convicted a 77-year-old French man for attacking artist Marcel Duchamp's famed porcelain urinal with a hammer, rejecting the defendant's contention that he had increased the value of the art work by making it an "original."

The court gave Pierre Pinoncelli a three-month suspended prison sentence Tuesday and ordered him to pay a $245,490 fine.

Pinoncelli also was ordered to pay $17,616 to repair "Fountain," a work worth millions of dollars that was chipped in the Jan. 4 hammer attack at the Pompidou Center. The work was part of an exhibit of the early 20th century's avant-garde Dada movement.

The Pompidou Center had sought more than $523,930 for the damage.

The January urinal attack was not the first for Pinoncelli. He urinated on the piece during a 1993 exhibition in Nimes in southern France.

Howl

• Jack Shafer in Slate on Ombudsmangate:

The mass mau-mauing of Howell may seem like something that could only happen on the Web, but conventional instigators have been known to boost displeasure for media outlets into the stratosphere. Back in 1986, a local radio broadcaster organized a protest against the Washington Post because she thought the debut issue of its relaunched Sunday magazine treated African Americans unfairly. She directed her irate listeners to trek to the Post 's offices once a week to dump stacks of the magazine on its doorstep in protest.

In 1992, politicians and activists convinced about 200 people to picket the Reader, a Chicago alternative weekly, following its publication of what they thought was a racist cartoon of an alderman. In 1990, ACT UP vilified New York Times reporter Gina Kolata by plastering Manhattan with stickers denouncing her as "the worst AIDS reporter in America" and continuing their protest through the U.S. mail by sending her 200 angry Christmas cards. During the great Detroit newspaper strike of the mid-'90s, which was marked by violence and property damage, union organizers attached signs urging shoppers not to buy the struck papers to 30 mice and loosed them in a department store. See also any one of the letter-writing campaigns sponsored over the decades by Accuracy in Media or the perennial Christian protests against the godless TV networks.

Thanks for managing, after you finished with the coloreds and the queers and the unions, to squeeze the Right in there, Jack. They've been at it for only thirty-five years, and one direct result is the very sort of faux-balance that Howell employed in the first place. It shouldn't require any sort of reaction to make reporters tell the truth, but until they stop hiding behind this "both sides attack us" bullshit and actually address the problem, by, say, calling a lie a lie instead of an alternative opinion, then I'm glad people get out of hand about it. Same with Matthews, same with Russert. You guys in the mass media don't seem to want to face up to just how much you have to answer for over the past fifteen years or more. I don't personally think personal attacks are a great idea, but as it is piles of angry, obscenity-laden emails is the least that Wapo, et. al., should expect to endure when they continue to refuse to do their jobs.

Take Newsweek's Richard Wolffe on Countdown Monday night. Keith tosses him a bit about Rove's speech, asking who the Democrats are that Rove implies don't want us to wiretap al-Qaeda:

"Of course those Democrats don't exist...but whether it's truthful or not is another question."

• Juan Cole: "Top Ten Mistakes of the Bush Administration in Reacting to Al-Qaeda"

On September 11, 2001, the question was whether we had underestimated al-Qaeda. It appeared to be a Muslim version of the radical seventies groups like the Baader Meinhoff gang or the Japanese Red Army. It was small, only a few hundred really committed members who had sworn fealty to Bin Laden and would actually kill themselves in suicide attacks. There were a few thousand close sympathizers, who had passed through the Afghanistan training camps or otherwise been inducted into the world view. But could a small terrorist group commit mayhem on that scale? Might there be something more to it? Was this the beginning of a new political force in the Middle East that could hope to roll in and take over, the way the Taliban had taken over Afghanistan in the 1990s? People asked such questions.

Over four years later, there is no doubt. Al-Qaeda is a small terrorist network that has spawned a few copy-cats and wannabes. Its breakthrough was to recruit some high-powered engineers in Hamburg, which it immediately used up. Most al-Qaeda recruits are marginal people, people like Zacarias Moussawi and Richard Reid, who would be mere cranks if they hadn't been manipulated into trying something dangerous. Muhammad al-Amir (a.k.a Atta) and Ziad Jarrah were highly competent scientists, who could figure the kinetic energy of a jet plane loaded with fuel. There don't seem to be significant numbers of such people in the organization. They are left mostly with cranks, petty thieves, drug smugglers, bored bank tellers, shopkeepers, and so forth, persons who could pull off a bombing of trains in Madrid or London, but who could not for the life of them do a really big operation.

• Study: Army Stretched to Breaking Point

By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer

January 24,2006 | WASHINGTON -- Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green line" that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.

Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.

As evidence, Krepinevich points to the Army's 2005 recruiting slump -- missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 -- and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives.

"You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue," he said in an interview. He added that the Army is still a highly effective fighting force and is implementing a plan that will expand the number of combat brigades available for rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 136-page report represents a more sobering picture of the Army's condition than military officials offer in public. While not released publicly, a copy of the report was provided in response to an Associated Press inquiry.

Illustrating his level of concern about strain on the Army, Krepinevich titled one of his report's chapters, "The Thin Green Line."

He wrote that the Army is "in a race against time" to adjust to the demands of war "or risk `breaking' the force in the form of a catastrophic decline" in recruitment and re-enlistment.

• Take the two items above. They are 1) the central question of the supposed WoT, and 2) the central question about our continued presence in Iraq, and the most serious, from a purely national security perspective, condemnation of what we've done there to this point. So how many times have you seen or heard either discussed in the news? Neither is a new point. Yet when Jack Murtha told the nation that we were about to break the Army, what was the timbre of the reporting? "Calls for immediate withdrawl." "Bush stays the course." Sometimes the only reason I don't send obscene emails to mass-market media types is that there's no obscenity strong enough.