Oops!

Joe Klein:

This is uninformed [but politically correct; see here  --ed.] speculation, BUT…I wouldn’t be surprised if the Israeli strike on Syria two weeks ago had nothing at all to do with nuclear material. [e.a.]

The Times (London):

Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raid

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.

The plot thickens.

Your faithful blogger is leaving on vacation. She’ll be unplugged and pretty much incommunicado. She tends to fly solo, so there will be no blogging buddies filling in for her.

Suck it up, folks—she’ll be back. Meanwhile, there’s always the hope that when she resumes full-time blogging in a few weeks’ time, she’ll be less grouchy and gloomy and more infotaining.

Never say never!

Niall Ferguson, in a fascinating review of Ian Kershaw’s Ten Decisions That Changed the World in 1940-1941, faults Kershaw somewhat for “hindsight bias” and for offering readers only “an apparently inexorable and often teleological narrative.”

It’s an interesting argument, a quibble between historians about whose method of scholarship works best. If you’re a history nerd, you’ll want to read the whole thing.

What struck me, though, was this passage, because it speaks so much to our own times [e.a.]:

Churchill did ultimately prevail over more pusillanimous Tories in the crisis of May 1940, when Halifax and Chamberlain were urging that no diplomatic stone be left unturned to end the war. But that he should have emerged strengthened from the debacle at Dunkirk did not appear likely at the time. What Kershaw fails to do is to spell out what people in Britain thought peace with Germany would have meant at that juncture. The reason Britain fought on was not just because Churchill decided to. It was because he was articulating a collective popular aversion to the alternative of French-style subjugation to the Third Reich. That is a reminder of something that the erstwhile practitioner of societal history appears to have forgotten. It was not just the decisions of dictators, emperors, presidents and prime ministers that determined the character of the Second World War. It was the decisions of hundreds of millions of people: decisions to acquiesce in conscription rather than defy the authorities; decisions to kill not just enemy soldiers but civilians, whether in death camps or from the air; decisions to keep fighting rather than to surrender or flee (and vice versa).

An interesting image: Hitler’s willing executioners versus Churchill’s willing conscripts, to whom he had effectively articulated a collective popular aversion to subjugation by the Third Reich.

A wartime leader has to persuade, cajole, beg, plead, and explain again and again and again. He or she must lead. In this as in so many things, Bush is a complete and utter failure. A disaster.

This commenter to Ann Althouse’s post about the Jena 6 *** gets at what I was trying to say earlier about MoveOn’s revolting tactics:

My own interest has remained subdued for other reasons. White men are by definition now oppressors, so having any other opinion than that white people are evil is condemned. Any comment contrary to this prescription is also, by definition, racist. So why bother saying anything at all?

Like 100% of Soviets voted for Brezhnev and 100% of Cubans vote for Castro, when I am asked, I say that I vote for jailing every white person involved in this event.

But generally I do what folks in the sixties did when over-the-top leftists and demonstrators and race-baiters made endless demands: I’ll stay quiet, and vote for Nixon. [e.a.]

The Democrats in general, and MoveOn specifically, seem not to realize that in order to deliver politically correct votes, you need to do a lot more than kneecap people into spouting politically correct attitudes in the public square. You can lead a horse to water, etc.
My point about Rudy Giuliani was that he knows a lot about the kind of public political correctness that elects a “fascist” to a second term in a huge victory in decidedly not-”fascist” New York City.

THE 1997 ELECTIONS: THE OVERVIEW; GIULIANI SWEEPS TO SECOND TERM AS MAYOR

Rudolph W. Giuliani last night [November 4, 1997] became the second Republican in 60 years to be elected to a second term as Mayor of New York City, defeating Ruth W. Messinger, a fixture of Manhattan’s [liberal] Upper West Side …

[A] survey of voters leaving polling sites showed that his support crossed party lines…

He won the support of 4 out of 10 Democrats and people who identified themselves as liberal, better than he did against Mr. Dinkins four years ago. He also won the support of about half the women who voted. And he won the support of one in five black voters, the survey found — about four times better than he did against Mr. Dinkins four years ago.

And in what was an unpleasant coda to this election for Ms. Messinger, Mr. Giuliani even won in one of the Assembly districts that make up what has been her political base for 25 years: the Upper West Side district now represented by Scott M. Stringer.

Several political analysts suggested that Mr. Giuliani’s victory over Ms. Messinger was a final verdict by voters on the status of liberalism in New York City, a school of thought with which she has been identified since she first ran for a local school board in 1974. [e.a.]

That 1997 obituary to liberalism in New York City was more than a bit premature. Certainly, political correctness rules here. But to say that liberalism is thriving here—or anywhere in America except the blogosphere and the commentariat—would be a gross overstatement. It is political apathy that thrives here, as elsewhere in America.

Giuliani isn’t Nixon, but it is dangerous for Democrats to underestimate his appeal to disaffected liberals, more of which MoveOn and its ilk are creating every day.

————-

***(a case I knew virtually nothing about before reading the informative comments to Althouse’s post, and about which I still do not consider myself informed enough about to comment, except that I shudder to hear about nooses hanging from trees in the South just as I shuddered when Bonnie Prince Harry dressed up in Nazi garb for a costume party)

The latest Pew poll indicates that the needle has not moved on Iraq.

Last week’s congressional testimony by General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, followed by President Bush’s address to the nation, has not changed bottom-line public attitudes toward the war in Iraq.

But

there has been a modest increase in positive views about the U.S. military effort, accompanied by largely positive public reactions to General Petraeus’ recommendations.

Most Americans (57%) who heard at least something about Petraeus’ report say they approve of his recommendations for troop withdrawals,

And this despite the fact that they despair his recommendations will not bring about victory:

[J]ust 16% say Petraeus’ statements have made them more optimistic about the war, while 67% say their views were unchanged by the general’s report.

I don’t know what this tells you. Here’s what it tells me—that Americans trust our military commander in Iraq to give his best professional recommendations, but that they have their own ideas about what is likely to happen in Iraq and what course of action we should pursue there.

In other words, the public is not quite so stupid and star-struck as MoveOn and the hysterical Dem base think it is, or so easily swayed by op-ed columns, either, as the leftosphere seemed to think it was when Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon published their piece last month. The hysterical attempts to shut down debate by smearing anyone who appears dangerous to will not pay dividends.

The Dems should learn to pay a little respect to the electorate, which is not comprised entirely of drooling idiots, Islamophobes, immigrant haters, Jesus freaks, and war-loving neocons. Among the people trying to figure out where they stand and whom they should support in 2008 are many who are genuinely aggrieved by the Bush administration’s hideous incompetence, smug arrogance, and paranoid politics; heartbroken about this war and America’s loss of stature; furious that al Qaeda has flourished under Bush’s watch as surely as our international alliances have been strained; sickened by the coarseness of public and political life, which daily threatens to turn old friends into new enemies; anxious about the rough waters ahead for their families as society is roiled by technological, social, and economic changes; and worried about unexpected geopolitical turbulence from every corner of the globe—from Russia to China to the Middle East to South America to Thailand.

The thing is: No matter how much the New Left Mob tries to intimidate some of us into toeing some fantasy “progressive” party line by calling us names, many of us are not conservatives and we are not Republicans. Some of us are in fact liberals and Democrats. And a vocal, restive subset of us are angry at our party’s dismal performance post-9/11 in articulating an effective American response to a new totalitarian political movement that challenges not only America but its Western allies—political Islam aka Islamic fascism aka Islamism.

MoveOn, instead of trying to forge a consensus among the Democrats—who still have no vision or blueprint or narrative to offer their constituents—is trying to beat its own side (which it takes entirely for granted) into submissive, deaf, dumb, and blind partisanship. Sorry to say, but I feel abused and molested and violated by this crew. I know I am not alone.

Now, in its stupidest move yet, MoveOn has just handed the Dems’ most formidable opponent a culture-war issue much, much more potent than abortion, gun control, and same-sex marriage rolled into one: namely, the seemingly unshakeable post-Vietnam “liberal” mind-set and narrative in which the American military is either hopelessly evil (see Murtha on Haditha; Scott Thomas, the “Baghdad Diarist,” in The New Republic; and Brian DePalma in Redacted) or now endlessly “stuck in Iraq” (the new MoveOn talking point).

Giuliani, for one, is positively gleeful at the prospect of making a huge issue of our sick Vietnam hangover:

He bought a newspaper ad in the [New York] Times to counter MoveOn’s ad describing Gen. David H. Petraeus as “General Betray Us.” He taunted Clinton to denounce the group and attacked Clinton for her questioning of Petraeus during his appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week.

When MoveOn then pounced on Giuliani, the former mayor said, in essence, bring it on. “Frankly, I wish MoveOn.org would do several more commercials attacking because if they do it could get me nominated,” he told CNN’s John King while in London.

Dear Democrats, please give me a reason to vote for one of you. I don’t agree with most of what Drew Westen says in this TNR essay, but I do agree with this part:

The way to win the center on national security is not to try to craft centrist positions on national security. Particularly in the post-9/11 era, Americans want leaders who will decisively pull the trigger. But “pulling the trigger” today doesn’t mean rattling our sabers …. The way to project strength on national security …  is to exude strength, particularly in the face of aggression, whether that aggression is from al Qaeda or from a bully in his bully pulpit.

Oh, and it would also help if you would also project the vision of a strong, self-confident, but humbled America.

Today’s NYT describes the result of “legislative quagmire” in the Senate and the “impasse” in the “war debate” in Congress—more, and more fervent, partisanship [e.a.]:

[L]awmakers and their allies are shifting to what has proved to be more solid ground when it comes to the war: political recriminations.

Every twist and turn of this week’s grinding Senate stalemate was accompanied by a new round of political advertisements and accusations. Republicans were portrayed as putting loyalty to President Bush before support for strained troops, while Democrats were characterized as being beholden to the ultra-left, as embodied by MoveOn.org. The partisan clamor will grow louder as the policy fight recedes.

Indeed, and that’s because empty barrels make the most noise, as reflected by today’s letters to the editor. Five out of six correspondents to the Times, in a section the paper calls “Is There Any Way to Support the Troops?,” lambast the Dems as “feckless,” “pusillanimous,” etc. and Reps for “blindly supporting” Bush and his “neocon cohorts” in the “continuing catastrophe” of Iraq. Blah blah blah.

The sixth letter, however, makes an important point that I believe Dems will need to take into account sooner or later [e.a.]:

When will the Democrats learn that the ordinary person on the street wants the Iraq mission to be a success, not the failure that they are hungry to heap on this administration?

While there is seemingly no end in sight to the blundered Iraq crisis, the one thing that is clear is the will of people to see this struggle through to a better day.

There is no doubt at all that we Americans have come to hate this war and that we are sick of it, and heartsick about it (those of us who have hearts, that is—and I have my doubts about the new breed of “progressives”). However, there is no evidence—none at all—which suggests that Americans want to turn tail in Iraq and call it a day.

It is a fundamental characteristic of American society at every level that we idolize winners and despise losers. Moreover, everything in our social culture—from college sports to high school cheerleading to the Oscars to the Pulitzer Prize to the Miss America pageant to the Fortune 500 to Little League to National Merit Scholarships to Eagle Scouts to the 4H-Club to the bestseller list to the box office to employee-of-the-month awards to the 100 Most Powerful People in Hollywood issue of Entertainment Weekly, to name just a few American institutions and endeavors—is a contest in which the screamingly obvious goal is to win.

Partisan Democrats who fail to grapple with this reality—that Americans want to win in Iraq, just like they want to win everywhere else in life, and not go down to a humiliating, ignominious, and disgraceful defeat—are, I believe, not only misreading the political landscape. They’re also misreading Americans.

In fact, these political partisans themselves want so badly to win against Bush that they’re trying to convince Americans that we’re going to lose in Iraq no matter what, and furthermore that it’s okay to lose in Iraq, that there’s no dishonor in losing, that there’s no cost to America if we lose, that the best way to support the troops is to get them home, that we shouldn’t care about refereeing someone else’s civil war, that washing our hands of the mess we made and leaving others to resolve it is fine and dandy.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think these clearly defeatist, wrong-headed, and juvenile—not to mention immoral—”arguments” are going to win the day.

Where is the famous “can-do American spirit” in these arguments?

Where is America stumbling badly and then redeeming itself in these arguments?

MoveOn is selling a narrative of American defeat in Iraq—with no possibility of redemption.

This will not only not win over centrist, moderate, swing-voting Americans. It will alienate them. I can’t prove it, of course, but I can read it in the culture, as could anyone who bothers to look at America with a sociological rather than a strictly partisan political eye: Americans are not anti-war. They are anti-losing.