Abu Wabu

The Incredibles by Stephen F. Hayes
The only debate about Joseph Wilson's credibility is the one taking place at the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey is rightly exasperated by Wolf Blitzer's "Late Edition" interview with Gary Bauer in which Blitzer characterizes Valerie Plame as having been unwillingly dragged into the fiasco she herself authored with the active support and participation of her husband Joe Wilson.

"Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood." ~ Lionel Trilling

"Deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had secretly accepted a last-minute plan to go into exile to avert the 2003 Iraq war, but Arab leaders shot the proposal down, Al Arabiya television reported today." - The Australian

Captain's Quarters has more on the gross failures of today's Arab leaders both religious and political:
It looks like the Arab League didn't want national leaders removed even if they agreed to leave, regardless of the crimes they committed on their own people. They must have felt that (a) the Bush Administration was bluffing, and/or (b) Saddam could beat the Coalition in the field. Maybe they can explain to the Iraqis who have died in the war that followed exactly why they called Bush's "bluff" with Iraqi blood. It certainly seems, with al-Arabiya's latest reporting, that the Arab League represents the dictatorships at the expense of the Arabs -- not that that should come as any surprise.

Now that Patrick Fitzgerald has handed down his indictments against Scooter Libby, several things remain clear:

-Scooter Libby has not been charged with outing a covert CIA operative, which issue was the point of the investigation;

-Valerie Plame and a small group of her antiwar CIA co-workers conspired to discredit the President and thereby delegitimize the removal of Saddam Hussein from power;

-Joe Wilson provided anonymous and false allegations to Nicholas Kristof and Walter Pincus and others that Dick Cheney had sent him to Niger, in order to cover up the fact that he went to Niger on behalf of the aforementioned small group of CIA employees, led by his wife Valerie Plame, bent on discrediting the White House and President Bush on the invasion of Iraq;

-There was no great conspiracy by the White House to punish Joe Wilson by exposing his wife as a covert agent. First, Valerie Plame was not a covert agent, and had not been one for at least six years prior. Second, any ‘punishment’ flowing to Joe Wilson derived from his exposure as a liar after the White House set out to discover why Wilson was falsely claiming to have been assigned to Niger by Dick Cheney;

-Wilson’s claims through Kristof and Pincus that Iraq had made no attempts to buy Nigerian yellowcake were shown by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to be lies. In fact, Wilson’s report to SSCI proved that Iraq had attempted exactly that. Wilson also leaked the then-classified matter of the Niger report to SSCI to the Washington Post;

-Had she been an undercover CIA operative, neither the agency nor Valerie Plame would ever have allowed her husband’s public campaign of lies and embellishments against the White House, conducted as it was on the airwaves and in the major newspapers and magazines.

There's more, of course, but that should be enough to show these two for the vainglorious assholes they are.

HOW EUROPEAN GREED BETRAYED THE WEST

The release of the Volker Report on the United Nations Oil-For-Food scandal details the international greedfest that exposed and betrayed North American security in exchange for Saddam Hussein’s viciously-stolen riches. As if the world needed Paul Volker to tell it that the U.N. is a cesspool of corruption and anti-western scheming; it has gotten so insanely ridiculous that the madman in control of Iran has openly sanctioned the destruction of Israel through a Palestinian uprising, and then repeated this baldfaced provocation the very next day. Worse, Kofi Annan expresses dismay that anyone could really mean such a thing, again confirming that he is simply in the way, which he has been from the start of this conflict on September 11, 2001.

Forget the corporate players; they can and will be dealt with. The subject here is the actions of the nation states involved in this affair, especially France, Russia, Germany and China. This is not news at this blog.

What is always newsworthy is the left’s dishonest insistence that the so-called “international community’s” refusal to approve American actions somehow gives it some nebulous moral suasion over America. Ridiculous, but never mind that. What is patently absurd is that these same obstructionists and betrayers of North Americans’ trust are held forth by the idiot left, led once more into the breech by John Kerry, as our willing partners if only Americans will wise up and bend over for a good old Enemy-Collaborator White House in 2008.

Read The Belmont Club:

The fundamental argument against international military action is the supposition that effective alternatives exist to contain rogue states and tyrants. But what if it does not? The Volcker Report essentially describes the history of the decade-long diplomatic battle to proscribe the movements of Saddam Hussein following the Gulf War. It is an account of the unmitigated defeat of the "international community" at the hands of Saddam; not only a defeat but a rout and a surrender. And although the surrender had already taken place, the world was told categorically by the capitulators themselves that they were fighting and winning the good fight against the forces of lawlessness. The problem with September 11 was not that it happened, but that it happened where it could not be ignored; this fact was the virtual third aircraft that crashed into Manhattan that day, striking somewhere in the vicinity of Turtle Bay.

UPDATED Nov.20 2005
In a tirade that seemingly begs Israel to warm up its fighter jets, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for a new Palestinian-stocked Islamofascist intifada whose mission is wiping the nation of Israel from Earth.

Calling Israel a "stigma [on] the face of the Islamic world", Ahmadinejad did not say whether he was speaking for all Islamic states, or just those run by murderous weasels, if in fact there turns out to be an actual difference.

The Israelis already have the measure of this bellicose fool and have prepared a response to any case in which this leader of the country whose favorite charities are Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda in Iraq, calls for explicit terror attacks against them. They may have no further need for justification than Ahmadinejad's own words, so that ball is now rolling.

I would like for Ahmadinejad to expand on his thoughts in the near future, perhaps while standing outside in a public square in Tehran at a podium marked by huge white banners declaring "Death To Israel" in bright red script.

Now that would be a blast. And I don't just want an arrest or an efficient missile strike that leaves the guy's socks and shoes smoldering on the street; I want a prodigious detonation of power that shows the world what happens to miserable, hateful Islamofascist monsters and their minions as a simple matter of course, as constant as gravity.

If anyone should find a way to replace Ahmadinejad with a gigantic smoking crater the size of a city block in downtown Tehran, that might get the message across that Israel means to not only prevail but to flourish. Ahmadinejad is Adolph Hitler about to go nuclear; the world cannot stand for such madness. He must be taken down.

MoveOn.org: We Support The Troops, Especially KIA For Fundraising

The soulless ghouls at MoveOn have again shown the depth of their depravity by using the left's celebratory tally of two thousand war dead to raise funds.

To help the families of the fallen? Their wives, their husbands, their children? Not on your life. No, the money will go to their continued attacks on Republicans, the Bush White House, the war in Iraq and the very troops whose fallen comrades they use as fodder for their virulent anti-war propaganda:

Dear MoveOn member,
Yesterday we reached the sad milestone of 2,000 killed in Iraq. But for the most part, the national media are ignoring this tragic milestone. The men and women who died deserve better.

Together, we can help make sure the media report on this moment. At more than one thousand vigils tonight, tens of thousands of us will gather to draw focus to this sad day. We’ve also added to our campaign a respectful and emotional TV ad that honors those killed in Iraq and asks, “How many more?”

RSVP right now for a vigil tonight in your community by clicking on the link below.
http://political.moveon.org/event/iraqvigils/?id=6202-4844034-rUP9iW2irjZgjusoH3qhrA&t=6

Another way you can help, especially if you can't attend a vigil, is by making a contribution to put our new TV ad on the air. The new ad puts the story of those killed in Iraq on TV in a very dignified and solemn tone. But to put it on the air we need to raise $150,000. Can you contribute, to help mark this sad moment on the air waves?

https://political.moveon.org/donate/howmanymore.html?id=6202-4844034-rUP9iW2irjZgjusoH3qhrA&t=7

To describe these vermin as cruel, evil and dangerous is not hyperbolic; it is in fact a gross understatment.

GOP Bloggers: For Moveon.org, 2,000 KIA Is a Fundraising Event
Conservative Outpost: 2000

Calling Galloway's Bluff
The Senate uncovers a smoking gun.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2005, at 12:59 PM PT

So reads the headline at Slate.com. Christopher Hitchens has been challenging Fat Bastard to a series of debates, with predictable results: George Galloway is bombastic and also apparently greedy and stupid and vain, whilst Hitchens sticks with that old reliable intellectual honesty.

Belmont Club is keeping track of the Galloway matter as well.

Scroll for update.

Independant Online: British MP George Galloway lied in his testimony to the Congressional committee investigating the Oil For Food scandal, according to Senate Subcommittee for Investigations Chairman Senator Norm Coleman.

"...Senator Norm Coleman and his colleagues on the Senate Subcommittee for Investigations claim to have evidence showing that Mr Galloway's political organisation and his wife received vouchers worth almost $600,000 (£338,000) from the then Iraqi government.

"'We have what we call the smoking gun,' said Mr Coleman, who will send the report to the US Department of Justice and the British authorities. The MP could face charges of perjury, making false statements and obstructing a Congressional investigation. Each charge carries a possible jail term of five years and a fine of $250,000."

I can smell the chickenshit now...

UPDATE via Power Line:

Here's more, from a subcommittee press release:

Since the May hearing, the Subcommittee has obtained further evidence establishing that the Hussein regime granted oil allocations to Galloway and his political organization, the “Mariam Appeal.” The Subcommittee report reveals that British MP George Galloway made false or misleading statements before the Subcommittee on May 17, 2005. Specifically, evidence gathered by the Subcommittee reveals:

* Galloway personally solicited and was granted eight oil allocations totaling 23 million barrels from the Hussein government from 1999 through 2003;

* Galloway’s wife, Dr. Amineh Abu-Zayyad, received approximately $150,000 in connection with one allocation of oil;

* Galloway’s political campaign, the Mariam Appeal, received at least $446,000 in connection with several allocations granted under the Oil-for-Food Program;

* Illegal “surcharge” payments in excess of $1.6 million were paid to the Hussein regime in connection with the oil allocations granted to Galloway and the Mariam Appeal; and

* Galloway knowingly made false or misleading statements under oath before the Subcommittee at its hearing on May 17, 2005.

The findings revealed in the Subcommittee’s report have been substantiated by personal interviews with high-level members of the Hussein regime, oil traders with personal knowledge of Galloway’s involvement, and extensive bank records that provide a conclusive paper trail and corroborate Galloway’s personal knowledge and involvement in the Oil-for-Food scandal.

No word from the Muslim community on this little-reported but very real barbarity:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An angry mob of insurgents attacked a convoy of American contractors last month when they got lost in a town north of Baghdad, killing four and wounding two, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

The Sept. 20 attack in the mostly Sunni Arab town of Duluiyah, about 45 miles north of Baghdad, was reported for the first time on Saturday by the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph and confirmed by the military on Sunday.

The convoy, which included U.S. military guards riding in Humvees, made a wrong turn into Duluiyah and insurgents opened fire with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for Task Force Liberty in north-central Iraq, told The Associated Press. ...

The Telegraph reported the contractors killed and wounded were employees of the Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, the biggest U.S. military contractor in Iraq. But Goldenberg could not confirm that.

The Telegraph reported that two of the contractors not killed in the initial attack were dragged alive from their vehicle, which had been badly shot up. They were forced to kneel in the road before being killed.

“Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight,” the paper reported. “Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man’s body to stoke the flames.”

The crowd then “dragged their corpses through the street, chanting anti-U.S. slogans,” the report said.

Everyone who has criticized US soldiers for burning two enemy corpses in Afghanistan for health reasons can just shut up. Plain and simple, shut the hell up.

Bomb hidden under toddler
The wife of a wanted Palestinian fugitive tried to hide a hand grenade under her baby; Five fugitives were arrested in a house where 10 Kg of explosives were found.

As Al Franken would say, oy, oy, oy.

Leftist antiwar idiots are falling all over each other to decry the story of US soldiers cleaning up after the Taliban by burning the bodies of two of their not-covered-by-Geneva terrorist assholes. To add to the idiots' feigned anger, along come the Psy-Ops guys, whose job it is to capitalize on the enemy's psychological sore spots (remember, kiddies, this is war), in this case by taunting nearby terrorist assholes in language they understand. Since, according to their apologists, what the terrorists do does not represent the Religion Of Peace, burning the bodies of terrorist assholes should not be a problem for practitioners of same. That Psy-Ops took advantage of the situation to freak the enemy is simply solid warcraft in my opinion.

Now I know all this will inflame (sorry) the tender sensibilities of all those friends of Islamofascism out there, but as Martha Stewart would say, that's a Good Thing (Martha would also tell the Taliban to pick up their garbage after they get their world-hating asses blown away). Besides, as usual, the left is weak-knee deep in their own hypocrisy: it's a crime to burn the bodies of terrorists left on the battlefield by their cowardly fellow terrorists but, as we all know by now, American contractors can go screw themselves.

Blogs For Bush has an overview of the usual anti-American slant being applied to this tale, and points to Jason Coleman, who offers a non-idiotarian view of the story along with some very interesting facts about the embedded journalists Stephen DuPont and John Martinkus, who filmed and commented about this story.

More:
Malkin
Euphoric Reality
Bareknuckle Politics
and just for fun, MPAC

Captain's Quarters has this account of An Insider's Look At The DIA
Via Strata-Sphere: Able Danger, China and DIA
QT Monster is your clearinghouse for Able Danger news.

Via Power Line: DeLay Blasts Ronnie Chickenlips Earle

Via Michelle Malkin: Will this real rascist get the same treatment from the MSM and the left as Bill Bennett? Not on your life. Hypocrites all.

This may seem old if only today's Drudgelines will do, but I had to go back and take a look at Clifford May's treatise on the antiwar media's intellectually scandalous take on Iraq and the War on Islamofascism. An excerpt:

The elite media fastidiously avoid such harsh words as "terrorist" – even to describe those who, last week, rounded up five Iraqi teachers from outside their school, dragged them into a classroom, lined them up against a wall and shot them to death...

Is it possible that these veteran journalists don't know that Saddam Hussein murdered – according to Human Rights Watch – 300,000 Iraqis? Among those butchered were both men and “comparatively liberated” women. Children, too, by the way.

Kenneth M. Pollack, who served on the National Security Council under President Clinton, has noted that Saddam would “gouge out the eyes of children to force confessions from their parents and grandparents …drag in a man's wife, daughter, or other female relative and repeatedly rape her in front of him. ...behead a young mother in the street in front of her house and children because her husband was suspected of opposing the regime."

Do commentators such as Ms. Dowd believe that such acts did not “curb” women's rights? Would the Post argue that gouging, raping and beheading don't qualify as “lawlessness”? Alternatively, would they contend that barbarism in pursuit of stability is justifiable? If so, why not propose the U.S. military adopt such tactics? And why cavil about Abu Ghraib?

For decades, too many correspondents covering the Middle East failed to report Saddam's worst atrocities – sometimes because they knew little beyond what the dictator's flacks told them, sometimes to protect their local staffs, sometimes to avoid getting kicked out of the country or tossed into jail themselves.

But what can be the excuse for so many media heavyweights continuing the cover-up now -- overlooking documented history, soft-peddling the murder of innocents by Saddam loyalists and al-Qaeda invaders, and shifting blame from terrorists to those fighting them?

This isn't neutrality. It's moral vacuity.

They are their professed heroes' worst enemies, and our enemies' best friends. They refer to the murderers of Beslan children and Iraqi schoolteachers as "gunmen", protecting them from that they fear most: the truth of Islamofascism.

Tom DeLay posed today for Ronnie Earle and his Texas Dem pals:

Beating The Old Grey Mare
The Grey Lady, the Paper Of Record, the laughingstock of intellectual rigor in the real world, the New York Times, reports a drop in profits of fifty-two percent.

I have but one question: Besides the idiot left and the cloistered egos at the Times, who the hell didn't see this coming?

Kurt Weldon Stands Up For Able Danger
Michelle Malkin has a roundup of the latest news on Able Danger, including Kurt Weldon's threat to resign from Congress if it doesn't meet his measure in seriously pursuing the matter. Weldon is insisting upon answers from some pretty big dogs in the CIA and DIA and I would not yet bet on his success, but I'm pulling for him.

Meanwhile, the Blogosphere's Reaction™ ("the BR": You saw it here first) to the stonewalling and obstruction by the powers lined up against Weldon and Able Danger could become a case study of the new media's influence on old school political tactics.

Byron York
On the left's Libby/Rove prosecution fever.

Mark Steyn
On Plame-Wilson et al. No stones unturned.

Iraqis turned out in droves to vote on their new constitution. Read Andrew Cochrane's account here.

Bill Roggio on Election Day Eve in Iraq.

Michelle Malkin On The Vote.

UPDATE: Austin Bay presents an illuminating comparison of various election reports from Iraq.

I especially appreciated Roger L. Simon's concise admonishment:

Because the mainstream media has done its best to hypnotize the public into believing the “failure” of the American democracy project in Iraq, it is worth comparing some dates:

Operation Iraqi Freedom - began March 19, 2003

Election to ratify constitution for a democratic Iraq - October 14, 2005

That’s two years and seven months.

US Declaration of Independence - July 4, 1776

Completion of US Constitution - September 17, 1787 (took effect 1789)

That’s eleven years and two months. (I could have begun with the Boston Tea Party which would have added another three years.)

Anybody want to take a bet about how history will regard Operation Iraqi Freedom? No wonder the New York Times is singing a (relatively) different tune this morning.

Everyone knows by now that the MSM and its angry idiot sychophants have accused the Bush White House of "staging" the videoconference with soldiers in Iraq. The factually-challenged AP, for example, in the interests of proliferating this latest attack on Bush and the troops, lists the same article by one of its stringers under three different headlines. The first title, "Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Staged", was apparently toned down some four hours later with the less accusatory "Bush Talk With Soldiers Well-Rehearsed", and finally came to rest with this: "Bush Thanks Soldiers in Rehearsed Talk". In every case, the intent is for the reader to infer that the same old conniving and eeeevil lies continue to flow from the White House, this time with the aid of complicit U.S. troops and a single Iraqi: '"Thank you very much for everything," he gushed. "I like you."'

As usual, the accusations are not supported by any evidence. Pentagon official Allison Barber wanted two water bottles moved to clean up the picture, and to make sure that all involved were straight on who would handle the specific questions the President might ask. BFD. Nothing more complicated or contrived than preparing for a USO show, with the obvious and exhilarating caveat that these folks were going to be speaking with their Commander-In-Chief (a concept alien to the mealy-mouthed left). But in the minds of the MSM and the tinfoil brigade, it's all part of the eeevil campaign to Sell The War.

At least one of the participants is pushing back against this all-too-typical trash. SGT. Ron Long, an Army combat medic who took part in the video confab, has posted a response to the Bush-bashing, and he has a word for the idiots lining up to join that parade: "Worthless!". Amen to that.

An excerpt:

First of all, we were told that we would be speaking with the President of the United States, our Commander-in-Chief, President Bush, so I believe that it would have been totally irresponsible for us NOT to prepare some ideas, facts or comments that we wanted to share with the President.

We were given an idea as to what topics he may discuss with us, but it's the President of the United States; He will choose which way his conversation with us may go.
We practiced passing the microphone around to one another, so we wouldn't choke someone on live TV. We had an idea as to who we thought should answer what types of questions, unless President Bush called on one of us specifically.

President Bush told us, during his closing, that the American people were behind us. I know that we are fighting here, not only to preserve our own freedoms, but to establish those same freedoms for the people of Iraq. It makes my stomach ache to think that we are helping to preserve free speech in the US, while the media uses that freedom to try to RIP DOWN the President and our morale, as US Soldiers. They seem to be enjoying the fact that they are tearing the country apart. Worthless!

Speaking of staged...

HT: Michelle Malkin

Read the Belmont Club's "Dead Man Laughing", the story of Hakim Taniwal and his fellow Afghanis' resolve to further Afghanistan's future.

Via Oxblog.

The capture by Coalition forces of a summer 2005 letter from al Qaeda's second-in-command al Zawahiri to al Qaeda in Iraq butcher Zarqawi exposes a number of faultines in the Islamofascists' matrix, including, significantly, Zawahiri's wide-eyed cautioning of Zarqawi's unbridled bloodlust as bad PR. The message expresses concern that Zarqawi's serial and manifold atrocities, which the old man opines do not serve AQ's propaganda aims in the Muslim world, might be just a little over the top - even for Zawahiri, which means even for Osama bin Laden, who unleashed Zarqawi and all the other dogs of Islamist war.

Zawahiri bemoans the fact that most of his brethren now occupy space somewhere in a Prison For Allah's Dummies and, with a nod to Air America, baldly asks for money that he clearly does not deserve.

Zawahiri then reminds Zarqawi of Al Qaeda's battle plan for establishing a new caliphate, which relies on the US cutting and running from Iraq. It has since gone public all over the Entire World and served as grist for George W. Bush's latest and perhaps greatest speech.

How telling of the fruits of the antiwar left's efforts over the years that Zawahiri believes the Vietnam template applies to his fantasies of victory. Sorry, Z- that was John Kerry and Jane Fonda.

This is now.

Islamic "Training Camps for Young Muslim-American Men" have been established in Canada and the United States. The "Jamaat ul-Fuqra" organization, linked to the Beltway Sniper, the killers of Daniel Pearl and shoebomber Richard Reid, has a network of closed communities called Jamaats "scattered throughout the United States and Canada, notably in Colorado, New York, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia".

They seem to have withstood seemingly marginal scrutiny since 9/11, but Gates Of Vienna's Baron Bodissey went to take a look at their Red House, Virginia compound. What he found won't provide any comfort.

Thanks to Belmont Club!

President Bush On The War
Click on the video link.

UPDATE
NRO Contributing Editor James S. Robbins' Knowing Thine Enemy reviews the President's speech and its main purpose: to define the ideas behind the war against Islamofascism.

We second-guess the radical program at our peril; it would not be the first time that evil hid in plain sight. Hannah Arendt wrote that the Nazis were as frank as they were mendacious; they stated their objectives clearly years before taking power, and anyone who was surprised by the Holocaust had not been paying attention. Likewise Khmer Rouge military leader Khieu Samphan's 1959 doctoral thesis identified the urban bourgeoisie as a parasite class that had to be removed to the countryside. When Pol Pot took power 16 years later, the thesis formed the blueprint for the killing fields. There is no reason to believe that the radical Islamists once in power anywhere would not seek to erect their utopia as expeditiously and comprehensively as possible.

The war of ideas is conducted properly on offense, and the president sought to take on the Islamists on their own turf. He quoted the Koran, that "Whoever kills a person [unjustly]... it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind" (5:32). He cited the declaration if an Imam in the UAE that whoever perpetrated the London bombings "is not a Muslim, nor a religious person." And there are many other arguments, decrees, fatwas, and Koranic interpretations that cast doubt on the legitimacy of their struggle. The enemy has consistently used U.S. media reports and our own statements to charge hypocrisy when our actions do not live up to our ideals. It is incumbent on us to engage the radicals in the same way, to harness the energies of their opponents in the region, to show how they read holy documents out of context to justify their outrages, how they take cover behind convoluted phrases to try to defend the indefensible. It is also worth emphasizing, as the president did, that the terrorists are essentially cowards, hiding behind masks, killing the innocent and the unarmed, and when captured pleading for their rights, the very rights they seek to deny every free citizen in the world.

Read it all.

The Belmont Club has an in-depth report on a spy story that features a U.S. Marine passing classified information from the FBI to a group of Filipinos plotting a coup against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (not that there's anything wrong with that!).

Further information (much of it conflicting) is available at the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and this 2001 Jewish World Review article by Michelle Malkin, who is also following the story.

Captain's Quarters provides a sober second look at ABC News' predictable attempt to tie the Bush/Cheney White House into this story, and in that context Radio Blogger wonders: Do we have another Dan Rather on our hands?

It's likely that this story has ties back to the fundraising scandals in the Clinton White House, which may reflect badly on Hillary! come 2008. We already know that John Kerry's campaign took money from players in the Clinton China-gate scandal; Democrats seem unable to campaign without piles of dirty money flowing into their warchests. Will Hillary! get tarred with the same brush?

The Supreme Court Of The United States has long fascinated me. I first read about the Supremes in Bob Woodward's 1979 bestseller The Brethren, which dealt mostly with the Warren Burger court of the day and the personalities involved, but also was a very good primer for how things get done there. William Rehnquist was a fresh appointee then and was already being touted as a long term influence, so it was interesting to witness his career, albeit mostly peripherally.

I was fascinated by the Roberts hearings and am now following the debate over the Harriett Miers nomination with great interest, especially regarding the politics playing in the background. In his confirmation hearings, Roberts wielded a monumental intellect that made Senators Biden, Kennedy, Schumer and Feinstein look like bewildered teenagers, a spectacle that was wholly anticipated by anyone aware of Roberts' reputation and record. Bush's nomination of Miers has surprised and alarmed at least conservative Republicans, who despite Miers' extensive service to the President are skeptical of her qualifications; we'll see what the left makes of her commitment to evangelical (anti-abortion) Christianity.

Conservative Republicans are going to find themselves in a bit of a bind: they rightly insisted during the Roberts hearing that the President's SCOTUS nominee should be confirmed per tradition; that's what the filibuster fight and the Gang Of Fourteen was all about. They can't now expect the rules to change because they don't think the nominee is far enough to the right.

Bush makes the call, simple as that. Then it goes to hearings where everyone chimes in, including conservative Republicans, just like the Roberts hearings. Then Miers will either be confirmed or rejected, which process in itself will be rife with drama.

It's a great game, right up there with baseball.

And we all know that God Loves The New York Yankees.

Piglet, the flag of England, the Red Cross, one symbol after another is being surrendered in Britain to its bitchy, antagonistic and ever more threatening Muslim population.
Mark Steyn rips British Islam-apologists a new one as they stoop to ever-increasing servility toward their future masters:

When every act that a culture makes communicates weakness and loss of self-belief, eventually you'll be taken at your word. In the long term, these trivial concessions are more significant victories than blowing up infidels on the Tube or in Bali beach restaurants. An act of murder demands at least the pretence of moral seriousness, even from the dopiest appeasers. But small acts of cultural vandalism corrode the fabric of freedom all but unseen.

England's disastrous attempts at trying to assimilate a Muslim population that wants not assimilation but surrender will kill that proud country, that Hitler himself could not defeat. But it's more than England whose fate is in the balance: in the wake of 7/7 and the second wave of Bali bombings, it's time for the west to open its eyes and see the Islamofascist threat for what it is: an end game.

Where oh where is today's Winston Churchill?

The bombings in Bali have apparently got the Balinese thinking two things: first, they want to punish the bastards responsible for the attacks, and second, they wonder why they are being targeted. Sound familiar? It does if you live in America, where leftwingers have had one field day after another blaming terror victims, George W. Bush and his foreign policy (certainly not Clinton's).

Ed Morrissey points out the problems that arise as the leftist blame game runs smack into the reality of Bali:

* A policy of support for Israel? Well, Bali remains part of Indonesia, which can hardly be accused of being an Israeli ally. Like all Muslim nations, it opposes Israel's occupation of the West Bank and does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

* Supporting Middle East tyrants in order to steal the oil from the devout Muslims of the Arabian peninsula? Indonesia has plenty of its own oil.

* Occupation of holy lands? The Balinese do not have troops on Saudi soil, or anywhere else other than Bali.

* Occupation of Iraq? Not hardly.

We wait with baited breath to hear the left's rationalizations for the Bali attacks. I'm putting my money on it being a White House plot hatched in the mind of the eeevil George W. Bush, but The Captain points out that there could be another, simpler explanation, one the left has consistently refused to acknowledge because it would wreck their world view:

Perhaps the fact that Bali, part of mostly Muslim Indonesia, has a majority Hindu population could have something to do with Jemaah Islamiyah's obsession with bombing the Balinese. It provides the only consistent thread for AQ's attacks around the world: an all-out holy war against all non-believers, simply on the basis of their non-belief.

This should dispense with all of the blather about how our foreign policy of global engagement creates terrorism. Let's quit blaming the victims and start really fighting the war that the terrorists have declared on us.