This Rasmussen poll (HT: Power Line) bodes ill for the Democrats: 

If President Bush nominates a qualified conservative to serve on the Supreme Court, 58% of Likely Voters say that Senate Democrats should vote to confirm that nominee.

A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 24% believe that Harry Reid’s party should oppose such a nominee.

Republicans and unaffiliated voters strongly support confirmation. Democrats are evenly divided–43% say their Senators should vote to confirm while 38% take the opposite view.

The divide among Democrats is strictly along ideological lines–58% of liberal Democrats want their party to oppose confirmation of a qualified conservative. 56% of moderate and conservative Democrats take the opposite view.

So, even among Democrats, only 38% want to see their party block Bush nominees on ideological grounds.

Despite the fact that the left has done everything it can to demonize "conservative" (really, "originalist" or "strict constructionist") judges, including flat-out lying about what they said:

Now, Justice Scalia is not one to sugar coat (or sugar quote) things and he doesn’t mind saying and writing the controversial. So, when I saw the following quote attributed to him, on a site of a lawyer I generally trust but disagree with, and that quotation included a cite to a Supreme Court case, I figured it must be an accurate quote.

"Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached." –U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Herrera v. Collins, 506 US 390 (1993).

Oh my, there’s a blockbuster of a quote. My initial inclination was to wonder what side of the bed Nino woke up on that morning or what the context could possibly be. …

So, what did Scalia really mean? Helpfully, a citation to the appropriate Supreme Court case was provided. So, I figured I’d better read what Scalia wrote. Surely, he must have preceded the quote with some context that might make clear that his meaning isn’t that it is morally OK to execute the innocent. But he didn’t.

In fact, he never wrote that sentence. And there is no evidence he ever said it.

It’s made up.

It’s fake.

It’s bullshit.

But that’s OK in this day and age. What’s the problem with a little dishonesty and character assassination in the name of political partisanship? …

The case (see citation link above) is actually rather interesting. Ten years after his murder conviction, Herrera came up with new "evidence" (affidavits from friends) that it was his recently deceased brother who committed the crime for which he was convicted (a cop shooting; Herrera had pled guilty to shooting a second cop).

The Court ruled 6-3 (Blackmun, Stevens, and Souter dissenting) not to grant federal habeas relief. Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion, which reaffirmed Justice Holmes’ contention (Moore v. Dempsey, 1923) that the issue in habeas review "is not the petitioners’ innocence or guilt, but solely the question whether their constitutional rights have been preserved."

In the words of the recently-sainted Justice O’Connor, who wrote a concurring opinion joined by Kennedy:

Consequently, the issue before us is not whether a State can execute the innocent. It is, as the Court notes, whether a fairly convicted and therefore legally guilty person is constitutionally entitled to yet another judicial proceeding in which to adjudicate his guilt anew, 10 years after conviction, notwithstanding his failure to demonstrate that constitutional error infected his trial. …
…
… Indeed, as the Court persuasively demonstrates, ante, at 398-417, throughout our history, the federal courts have assumed that they should not and could not intervene to prevent an execution so long as the prisoner had been convicted after a constitutionally adequate trial. The prisoner’s sole remedy was a pardon or clemency.

O’Connor also reviewed the original evidence against Herrera (overwhelming) and the new "evidence" (laughably inconsistent and unconvincing) and concluded that his claim of innocence was, in any case, nonsense. I agree.

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Dean Esmay pointed out a fun fact about democracy (originally noted by R.J. Rummel). Esmay put it this way:

Among the more startling things that people don’t know about democracies–aside from the fact that they never make war on each other–is that democracies never experience famine.

Never, as in, never.

If you doubt it, Rudy Rummel will set you straight.

Esmay went on to argue that a representative government is essential for avoiding a host of national ills:

The only thing which has ever been shown to be a reliable protector of economic freedom, of civil rights in general, or a guarantor against war and famine, is democracy.

Which is why, again, if we are going to talk about ending poverty, ending famine, helping the poor nations of the world, then we need to stop, once and for all, our habit of coddling the tyrants and facists who rule them. Whether it’s in the UN or in our own direct diplomatic efforts: treating despots like they are the legitimate equals of democratically elected leaders is not only abhorrent, long-term it is a threat to our own national security.

We may sometimes have to hold our noses and be kind to dictators because we have no other choice–the example of Pakistan comes to mind–but that doesn’t mean we have to like it, and it doesn’t mean we should not try to avoid it whenever we can avoid it.

Meanwhile, R.J. Rummel recently posted about new evidence for a fun fact about freedom: it explains terrorism. Rummel noted that one of the myths about terrorism is that poverty causes it:

… Until recently, the evidence against this has been anecdotal, a matter of unsystematically looking at the background of terrorists. Now, a systematic empirical analysis has been conducted by Alberto Abadie at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government entitled, "Poverty, Political Freedom, and Roots of Terrorism.".

Rummel then quoted from the abstract (the link above is to a PDF of Abadie’s study). Here’s the key part:

In line with the results of some recent studies, this article shows that terrorist risk is not significantly higher for poorer countries, once the effects of other country-specific characteristics such as the level of political freedom are taken into account. Political freedom is shown to explain terrorism, but it does so in a non-monotonic way: countries in some intermediate range of political freedom are shown to be more prone to terrorism than countries with high levels of political freedom or countries with highly authoritarian regimes. This result suggests that, as experienced recently in Iraq and previously in Spain and Russia, transitions from an authoritarian regime to a democracy may be accompanied by temporary increases in terrorism.

Sounds like we now have empirical evidence to support the Bush Doctrine — as well as to explain why Iraq has been going through a "rough patch." Temporarily.

I’m adding both Dean’s World and Rummel’s Democratic Peace to my blog list. The latter in particular is quite a find. I’m familiar with some of Rummel’s writings, but wasn’t aware of his blog and the wealth of other material he has on the Web. I’ve already stumbled across a couple of fascinating essays at his related site, Freedomist Network, so I suppose I should at it, too.

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Sen. Barack Obama, in Florida to campaign for Sen. Ben Nelson, answered questions from the audience. One was particularly revealing:

"I see a Democratic Party afraid to say they’re Democrats, who voted for the war in Iraq and voted for tax cuts for the wealthy," said Glenn Anderson of Orlando. "Why should I remain a Democrat?"

It was a tough question. But Nelson and Obama tried to answer it.

"The Democrats at times have lost their way," conceded Obama. "We are trying to decide what our core values are."

The criterion for judging the party isn’t whether it’s to the left or right, "but are we true to our core values," he said. Nobody defined core values.

I’ve got news for you, Barack: if you’re holding meetings to try to decide what your "core values" are, then they aren’t core values. You might as well say you’re taking a poll to determine what you believe in.

But the truth is the Democrats aren’t trying to decide what their core values are. They know what their core values are — and they also know that if they run on those, they’re doomed to minority status for the forseeable future.

The Democrats are trying to decide what to say their core values are. They’re operating under the maxim, "Sincerity is essential. Once you learn how to fake that, you’ve got it made."

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Move America Forward, a non-profit organization dedicated to "supporting America’s efforts to defeat terrorism and supporting the brave men and women of our Armed Forces," has, among many other activities, "broadcast more than one dozen television and radio commercials throughout the nation advocating support for our troops and the fight against terrorism and speaking out against the United Nations."  

Their most recent TV commercial chides Sen. Durbin for slandering US troops at Guantanamo as torturers and insists that our troops are decent and honorable people who deserve our support. Well, Sen. Durbin doesn’t like this commercial. So what does a Senator do when someone is saying something he doesn’t like? He twists arms at the TV stations on which the ads are scheduled to air (quoted from email to Move America Forward supporters):

In another effort to shut down the voices of American military men and women who rely on Move America Forward to defend them, it looks like Durbin’s office has also called the television stations in the state and pressured them not to run the television commercial calling him to task.

Already, two television stations have buckled under his pressure: the ABC affiliate in Chicago (WLS TV 7) and the NBC affiliate in Chicago (WMAQ TV 5), are refusing to run the ad critical of Durbin. The CBS affiliate in Chicago has withstood Durbin’s pressure, and Move America Forward has already aired the ad during their news broadcasts.

The TV Ad Senator Durbin seems so frightened of can be seen here:

http://www.moveamericaforward.org/Video/MAFO-7449-HI.wmv

What else might a Senator do to silence his critics? Well, he could hint that he’ll sic the IRS on them:

… U.S. Senator Richard Durbin’s office intimated to an Illinois newspaper that the IRS should shut down Move America Forward, telling the newspaper:

    "Have you ever seen that H&R Block commercial where the guy leans in and says, ‘I see an audit’?"

One of the grounds used to threaten impeachment of President Richard Nixon was that he politicized the IRS and tried to use IRS audits of his political enemies to shut them down or silence them.  That is precisely what Senator Durbin’s office is doing now!  There is no place for that in American politics, and Senator Durbin must be held accountable.

Good luck holding him accountable. If you demand that he stop this outrageous conduct, he’ll probably bring up his children and grandchildren and start to cry. Then, Sens. McCain, Hagel, Graham, and Snowe will declare that Durbin has suffered enough and everyone should stop criticizing him.

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Check out the great posts in the second Carnival of Liberty (here or here).  A couple that I really liked:

• TriggerFinger’s Incumbent Protection Act post. I meant to blog about this and never did. Do you do political commentary on a blog or talk radio? If you’re in the state of Washington, you may have to register as a lobbyist and declare the value of your commentary as political contributions. When the market value of your comments reaches the applicable state campaign finance limit, then you have to shut up. Simply unbelievable.
• An Open Letter to President Bush at News, the Universe and Everything. Quincy makes a great suggestion:

In a time when Justices like John Paul Stevens think they can change the meaning of the Constitution with the writ of the court, abortion must be seen as a side issue. I urge you to rebuke those on both sides who attempt to make this about abortion. This debate should be about finding a justice who will defend the fundamental rights enumerated in the Constitution, such as the freedoms of speech, religion, and the press and the right to own property securely.

Of course, I haven’t had time to read them all. See if you can find some others that you really like.

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Thanks to Dean Esmay for pointing out this wonderful idea:

Werenotafraid.com exists to give people a voice online to tell the world that they are not afraid, intimidated or cowed by the cowardly act of terrorism. Terrorism will not be effective against the British people, and it won’t be effective anywhere else.

They asked people to send pictures illustrating that message. So far, they have nearly a thousand (presented about 20 per page). The images range from moving to funny and clever to stupid. Some are rude, some just charming. If you want to see a manageable number (51) of the better ones, go to the team favorites page.

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Go. Read. New Scrappleface. Now.

<gasp> Too. Funny. For words.

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Today is the 3rd anniversary of the IMAO blog, so go wish Frank J. well and maybe buy one of his new T-shirts.

Like this one:

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This is the worst idea to come out of Hollywood in a long time. From Roger L. Simon:

The man who brought us "JFK" – an unintentionally hilarious exercise in paranoia that implied Lyndon Johnson was behind the assassination of John Kennedy – is now making a film about the heroes of 9/11. Mickey Kaus – ever a master of understatement – worries that the studio (Paramount) might be "out of touch" on this. I’ll say. Somewhere around Alpha Centauri.

… Stone said of his film:

"It’s a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened and carries within a compassion that heals. It’s an exploration of heroism in our country – but it’s international at the same time in its humanity."

"International." I see. That couldn’t have anything to do with the box office, could it? Hollywood, for whom foreign ticket sales are greater than those at home, is ever mindful of how its movies play abroad. Even given his string of recent failures, who better to choose if you’re going to make a film about an American tragedy and don’t want to offend foreign sensibilities than delusional Oliver? Indeed, he can be relied upon to pander to them.

It sounds like a story Scrappleface would come up with. And it edges ahead of the previous contender for worst idea to come out of Hollywood (courtesy of Captain Ed):

The Telegraph reports that Steven Spielberg has started filming a new movie about the terrorist attack on the 1972 Olympics in Munich, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered eleven Israeli athletes. Spielberg has shrouded the project in secrecy. However, Hugh Davies reports that one of the consultants for the project has tipped off the Israelis that the film will concentrate on the Mossad’s actions in going after the terrorist planners in the attack’s aftermath rather than the attacks themselves:

The material is so delicate that the project, which is being filmed in Malta, is shrouded in secrecy.

For while movies like 1977’s Raid on Entebbe, starring Peter Finch and Horst Buchholz, portray Israel in a heroic stance, the new picture is about the misgivings of Golda Meir, the then Israeli prime minister, as agents from Mossad tracked down the perpetrators. …
…

…
Why would Spielberg decide to focus so heavily on Israel’s response instead of the terrorist attacks that initiated their actions? Exactly for the reasons given by Craig, only Spielberg doesn’t intend on passing judgment merely on Israel for going after the terrorists that targeted its civilians. If these reports are accurate, he intends on passing judgment on America for going after the terrorists that targeted our civilians on 9/11. Spielberg has long opposed the Iraq War and the Bush administration for its efforts to eliminate the threat of Islamofascist terror and tyranny.

So Spielberg’s point will be that it’s wrong to go after Islamofascists who attack us. And I suppose Stone will sneak into his film the suggestion that CheneyHalliburton was behind 9/11.

Screw ’em both. I’ll just stay home and watch Team America: World Police and Raid on Entebbe.

Vicious sarcasm of the week, by papertiger commenting on Roger’s Oliver Stone post:

I am still waiting for the biopic about the life and times of a pedophile con artist – who gained an army of syncophants by pretending to be the only authorised voice of God. And then proceeded to spread murder and depravity across the known world. Sort of a Middle Ages creates Nazism picture.

It’s bound to get plenty of foreign viewership.

Watch your back, papertiger, you could join Salman Rushdie on that list of people the mullahs want to reach out and touch.

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I was listening to Hugh Hewitt and Tom Oliphant on the former’s radio show Friday afternoon. They were discussing whether and why our actions in Iraq were the cause of the London bombings, other increases in terrorist activity, and/or greater al Qaeda recruitment of jihadists. Oliphant struck me as more reasonable and thoughtful than most leftists on this subject, but the two of them seemed to be talking at cross purposes, unable to effectively communicate with each other.

It finally occurred to me why. It’s the liberals’ view of human nature. It isn’t about sympathy for the terrorists’ cause or blaming America or even hatred of Bush (well, for some it is). It’s much, much more fundamental.

Liberals and leftists are determinists. Fundamentally, they’re not comfortable with the concept of moral agency — the idea that individuals are autonomous, that we control our own lives by choices that we make. To most liberals and leftists, human beings are rats in a Skinner box. Our actions are determined by the external stimuli to which we’re exposed.

Most liberals are consistent about this. They apply the same questions to terrorists that they apply to murderers, rapists, child molesters, and petty thieves: "What made them turn out that way? What caused them to do that? What can we change about their environment to elicit better behavior?"

They apply this standard to successful and decent people, too. If you’re rich and successful, something outside of you made you that way. Success or failure, decency or degeneracy, it’s not your fault or your responsibility. That’s why it’s only right to redistribute things from those who got lucky to those who were unfortunate enough to be exposed to the wrong stimuli.

To those of us in the real reality-based community, the liberals’ concerns about what’s behind the Islamofascists’ behavior sound like blaming the victim, mainly the US. So we look at them incredulously, angrily: "Are you really that ignorant? Haven’t you read Daniel Pearl’s book? Don’t you understand what Wahhabism and Salafism are all about? The problem isn’t us, it’s the world-view, beliefs, and goals of these crazed Islamofascists!"

"But we need to understand what makes them think and act that way," reply the liberals. "What can we do to provide them with a more appropriate world-view, beliefs, and goals?" Sigh.

This determinist view of human nature is so logically absurd that it’s hard for me to fathom why it wasn’t laughed out of existence when first proposed. If we aren’t autonomous, and all our "choices" are determined by forces external to ourselves, then what Mr. Determinist says is merely what those external forces cause him to say, and whether I believe him depends entirely on whether external forces cause me to believe him, and there’s really no point or value to us discussing the question at all. In fact, there’s no value to any intellectual activity. In fact, there’s no value to my saying there’s no value. In fact, there’s no fact.

I’ve always liked Nathaniel Branden’s take on determinism (paraphrased, but close): When a man tells me that either (a) he doesn’t think, or (b) it doesn’t matter whether he thinks or not, I’m inclined to take his word for it.

Nonetheless, determinism is a notion that countless people cling to (to a greater or lesser degree), and it’s remarkably difficult to disabuse someone of the idea through the use of reason. Why? I believe it’s because, fundamentally, most people’s view of human nature isn’t based on reason or learning. Instead, they extrapolate from how they feel about the human they know best: themselves. I suspect that many people don’t have a strong sense of self-control, and most people would prefer to believe they’re not entirely responsible for themselves.

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Yesterday, I posted samples from the sewers of Democratic Underground. But not everyone on the left is a moonbat, so today, let’s look at some voices of sanity from the left. As Joe Katzman said at Winds of Change, "The leftists at Harry’s Place rock." Start with david t’s A letter to a friend. Here’s a sample (emphasis added):

Perhaps you think that Islamism is the same thing as Islam. Perhaps you think that it is some form of national liberation struggle, or a reaction against imperialism or Bush’s failure to sign up to Kyoto.

It is not.

Radical Islamism – in its most important strain – is a political doctrine which was developed principally by two arab thinkers in the first part of the 20th century – Qutb and Banna – who were deeply immersed, not in the culture of the middle east, but in the theoretical perspective of the European romantic movement. It is not an alien, exotic or even really an "oriental" doctrine. It is directly inspired by the same intellectual currents which gave rise to romantic nationalism in the 19th century, and fascism in the mid 20th century.

You might think that its main aim is to oppose military action in the middle east.

It is not.

Its main aim, explicitly, is to restore the Caliphate, abolished by Ataturk when modern Turkey was established. It is not an anti-imperialist movement. It is an imperialist movement, yearning for an imagined golden age which it hopes to recreate.

Qutb saw the primary enemy, not as the foreign policy of Western states, but as Modernity: and in particular materialism, liberalism, and democracy. This is the primary reason that London has been bombed: not because it has "attacked muslims" but because they fear that materialism, liberalism and democracy are damaging to the values which Islamists hope to promore: piety and submission to the will of god.

But don’t stop there. Please. Go read the whole thing. Read. Every. Word.

Then, go to the Harry’s Place main page and just keep reading. There’s one worthwhile post after another, including excerpts from some wonderful columns. Christopher Hitchens contrasted the jihadists with the IRA bombers from the 70s:

 And, even as I detested the people who might have just as soon have blown me up as anyone else, I was aware there were ancient disputes involved, and that there was a potential political solution.

Nothing of the sort applies in this case. We know very well what the "grievances" of the jihadists are.

The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won’t abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art. The grievance of the existence of Hinduism. …

Gerard Baker made an important point, one that Brits should repeat often and with defiance (emphasis added):

There’s another way in fact of looking at the question that offers a rather more optimistic perspective. Is this the best they can do? Is this what we have reduced them to? The damage to al-Qaeda wrought by four years of war is clearly impressive. …

There’s an excerpt from Johann Hari, but follow the link and read the entire (updated) piece. This is but one of many good points and interesting observations:

As everybody mills outside the mosque, there are groups forming to go and give blood at the Royal London Hospital up the road. Many people make a point of smiling at me, an obvious non-Muslim in their midst. There is an awareness here – although not yet in the rest of the country – that the Bin Ladenists who planned these massacres despise democratic, non-violent Muslims who choose to live in the West as much as they despise the rest of us. Anybody who tells you these bombers are fighting for the rights of Muslims in Iraq, occupied Palestine or Chechnya should look at the places they chose to bomb. Aldgate? The poorest and most Muslim part of the country. Edgware Road? The centre of Muslim and Arab life in London and, arguably, Europe.

This is not a fight between Muslims and the rest of us. It is a civil war within Islam, between democratic Muslims and Wahhabi fundamentalists who want to enslave or kill them. Yassin Dijali, 31, says, “It could have been our children on those trains too. This is where we belong. These people are insane.”

Hari closes his column with a note of optimism and defiance:

On Friday morning, sitting outside a café on Whitechapel High Street, one of the lingering Jewish residents of the old East End, an 86 year-old called Henry Abelman, is drinking tea, as he does every day. He was here the last time fascists attacked London; he says with a laugh that he expects to be here the next time they toss some bombs at us too. “Not so long ago, we had bombs like this every day for six years coming from an army backed by twenty million people. That didn’t destroy us or divide us, so what do you think a few spoiled brats with home-made bombs are going to do?”

Like Henry, I’ll see you all on the tubes and on the buses Monday morning.

Over at Labour Friends of Iraq, Alan Johnson also wrote an "open letter to a comrade":

But to large parts of the left, yourself included, the terrorists of Al Qaeda were no more real than were the rats of Oran to the dreamy city-dwellers in Camus’s allegorical novel The Plague. You used to quote Michael Moore at me, a man whose appeal to you is beyond me. Moore said ‘There is no threat! Repeat after me, there is no threat!’. Well, there was, and there is. I recall you would also repeat other words Moore (words I thought demented). ‘The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not “insurgents” or “terrorists” or “The Enemy.” They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow — and they will win’. Do you still believe all that?

And you simply must go to normblog and read Nick Cohen’s review of Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman:

Although I like to present myself as an open and rational chap, I can remember very few times when I’ve admitted being in the wrong. Not wrong in detail, but wrong in principle. …

Actually, ‘very few’ is a self-serving exaggeration. The only time I realised I was charging up a blind alley was when I read Paul Berman’s Terror and Liberalism. I didn’t see a blinding light or hear a thunder clap or cry ‘Eureka!’ If I was going to cry anything it would have been ‘Oh bloody hell!’ He convinced me I’d wasted a great deal of time looking through the wrong end of the telescope. I was going to have to turn it round and see the world afresh. The labour would involve reconsidering everything I’d written since 11 September, arguing with people I took to be friends and finding myself on the same side as people I took to be enemies. All because of Berman.

The bastard.

Terror and Liberalism is an essay rather than a history and its arguments come from the almost forgotten tradition of the anti-totalitarian left. Its central point is that Islamism and Baathism are continuations of Nazism and communism, not only in their fine points – founders of the Muslim Brotherhood and Baath Party were admirers of Hitler and Franco – but in their fundamentals.

Cohen recounts what he considers the best part of the book, Berman’s telling of "the history of the French Socialist Party in the 1930s as a parable for our time."  It’s too long to quote here, but it is indeed a parable for our times — eye-opening, chilling, and a must read. Seriously. I’m going to have to buy the Berman book just to have this one chapter at hand.

So there you have it — lots of worthwhile stuff from Brit leftists who get it regarding Islamofascism. Just to prove that being economically illiterate doesn’t necessarily mean you’re divorced from reality in all respects. 🙂

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Confederate Yankee made some points about the London bombings that I’m inclined to agree with: the relatively low number of deaths, the undetonated bombs, and the apparent simplicity and lack of sophistication of the attacks suggest that this wasn’t an al Qaeda attack, but al Qaeda "wannabees," probably from some radical Islamist London mosque.

I’d quote some of it, but for some reason, every attempt to select any text on his site selects all text to the end of the page. Screw it. Go read the whole thing; there are lots of interesting updates.

UPDATE (7/8): Confederate Yankee continues to pursue this theory, adding new evidence (I can quote this time):

The more details come out about the four bombs that went of in London yesterday (and the two that didn’t), the more it sounds like we are dealing with terrorists with a minimum of training. 1/3 of the known bombs failed to detonate, of those 40%, or 3 of 5, failed to detonate in the Underground (subway) attacks. One may have even killed one or more terrorists in a premature detonation.
…

The crudeness of the timers seems more likely if this story reported by the New York Times is true, that the fourth device, the one that blew up the bus, apparently blew up prematurely while in route to its primary target.

If this story of a premature detonation turns out to be true—and we’re talking about a New York Times story instead of a blog entry, so there is room for doubt—then there is a strong possibility that the bomber and any accomplices traveling with him may have been among those killed in the blast.

Yesterday, when I first heard authorities say that the bus might have been a suicide bombing, I speculated to a friend that it might have been a premature detonation. It strikes me as implausible that the jihadists’ plan was to plant five bombs with timers, but use a "martyr" to detonate the sixth. It’s more likely that the deviation from the pattern was accidental.

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Pam Meister points out an excellent column by Michael Bowers about Karl Rove and the "anti-victory" left. Bowers begins with an amazing anecdote:

Col. Charles Beckwith, founder of the Delta Force, tells a story about White House planning in April 1980 for the mission to rescue our 53 hostages in Tehran. Beckwith had visited the White House Situation Room to brief President Carter.

In the meeting, according to one writer, "Charlie mentioned that his Delta shooters would ‘take out’ the hostage guards.

"Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher looked over at Charlie, eyebrows raised. ‘Take them out,’ Colonel?"

Beckwith replied: "Yes, Mister Deputy Secretary. We’re going to double-tap ’em. Shoot ’em each in the head — twice."

Christopher protested: "Couldn’t you just shoot them in the shoulder or something?"

No, that’s not some airhead coed who wants to "teach kindergarten and work for world peace," that’s Warren effin’ Christopher. Deputy Attorney General in the Johnson administration, Deputy Secretary of State in the Carter administration, Secretary of State in the Clinton administration. One of the Democrats’ most respected (by Democrats) foreign policy experts and adviser to Democratic presidents and presidential candidates for nearly 40 years. Head of the 1991 commission responsible for reform of the LA Police Department (!).

Unbelievable.

Bowers argues that Christopher is representative of liberals and that Rove was right about their reaction to 9/11:

Liberals are livid, mainly because, secretly, they know Rove has them nailed. Their party in the past 60 years has a rich history of appeasement, defeatism, naivete, fear and weakness.

Liberals simply have not got the will to kill our mortal enemies. They just want to shoot them in the shoulder.

…

… For 70 years, they refused to take communism seriously. Now, they refuse to take terrorism seriously. They simply cannot believe our enemies mean us harm.

Thank God, George W. Bush knows better.

At the White House in 1980, a shocked Warren Christopher asked: "You mean you’re really going to shoot to kill? You really are?"

Yes, we really are. And for some Americans, it’s time to grow a spine.

I have plenty of complaints about Republicans in general and the Bush administration in particular. But, as long as there is a worldwide movement of bloodthirsty zealots who mean to conquer or destroy us, I want serious people in charge. The Warren Christophers of the world can’t be taken seriously. And a party that is dominated by the likes of Warren Christopher simply cannot be entrusted with protecting the country.

(HT: Brainster)

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Regarding the London bombings, Tony Blair thought it was "particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa, the long-term problems of climate change and the environment.” Bill Quick thinks Blair is wrong and should know better (emphasis added):

This observation reeks of the myopia demonstrated by Michael Moore, and shared by others, when Moore wondered why Islamofascist terrorists had struck New York, since New York had not voted for GWB. Islamism does not give a damn for the liberal voting preferences of New York City, and more than it cares about liberal concerns over global warming, poverty in Africa, or the environment. …

When will the west get it through its collective head that Islamism desires nothing more and nothing less than to kill us? It does not share the liberal project. In fact, it despises the liberal project. It is at war with the liberal project. For them, the liberal project is meaningless. The only thing that matters is the faithful triumphing over the infidel, and everybody not of the faithful, whether white, black, brown, liberal, conservative, religious or atheist, is the infidel and fit only to be conquered or slaughtered. Almost everybody but those pursuing the liberal project seems to understand this.

We are, all of us, at war with these murderous savages. It is not our choice, but theirs. Thanks to George Bush and Tony Blair, we have mostly been fighting that war in the middle east. But the heart of our own nation has already been attacked, and now events in Britain demonstrate that good deeds and liberal shibboleths don’t innoculate against the Islamist cancer.

Those on the left who compare the Islamofascists to our Minutemen, who call them freedom fighters, who profess solidarity with their efforts to resist US imperialism and oppression, and who excuse their murderous acts as understandable responses to our aggression — they all fail to comprehend one critical fact: if they ever fell into the hands of these Islamofascists, no professions of solidarity or words of praise or understanding would prevent them from having their heads sawed off.

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It didn’t take long for the left to start blaming America for the London blasts. From Democratic Underground:

Just woke up to this news. I want to express that my thoughts and prayers are with my fellow humans in London.

I am so very sorry our criminal president has dragged you into this.

(If it does indeed turn out to be AQ-related)

Notice that al Qaeda gets the benefit of the doubt — innocent until proven guilty — but not Bush.

 is this the ‘terrorist attack’ that bush/blair will use to justify more war?

Hmm. Scare quotes. Suggestion of a conspiracy?

Please don’t jump to the conclusion that it was Al Qaida. BushCo has a great deal of interest in having something like this happen and they’ve done it before.

Ah, there it is. Well, that didn’t take long. Now it’s time for some serious Bush bashing:

But I can’t help but feel sick about the political capital the Commander in Thief is going to get out of this and free pass the GOP is going to get to pilfer this country into oblivion… I in no way mean this jokingly but that sick bastard George Bush is as happy as a lark today.

And, of course, a big helping of moral equivalence:

I have just heard the American president talk about spreading "the ideaologies of hope and compassion" This is the man who called his Iraq bombing "shock and awe". What is the moral difference between indescriminate bombing of a city from the air, and a series of co-ordinated suicide or other bombs in an city transport system? The first is called heroic and the second cowardly, but that is the opposite of the truth, This bombing is as morally indefensible as the bombing of Iraqi civilians, but not done in my name and yours.

And another:

Why is this attack any more sociopathic than the razing of Fallujah, or any other of the placees laid waste in Iraq recently?

And another:

Before we get too outraged over this act of terrorism we need to reflect on the fact that we are responsible for the death of around 100,000 Iraqis, that just last week in Afghanistan we deliberately attacked civilians killing 17 of them, an act so clearly intended to do the damage it did that even the Cabal-friendly Afghani government lodged a public complaint. We cannot swagger around the globe flexing our vast military might, crushing all we view as ‘the enemy’ and causing vast ‘collateral damage’ without consequence.

And another:

I reject any assertion that we have the moral high ground here. We might have held that position on 9/12/2001 but we have long since demonstrated that we are just as depraved as the jihadist suicide bombers, just as willing to kill civilians, just as willing to cause wanton destruction to advance our cause, and to do so all the while claiming that God is on our side.

I see no major differences.

Let’s combine moral equivalence and Bush-bashing:

Terrorism IS wrong but…. lets put the shoe on the other foot. Let’s say we are invaded by a far superior force, we have no modern military means to fight them what would our brave patriots do…..plant bombs. We have gone past right are wrong here we are in the, war as a way of life zone. A perpetual tit-for-tat. Our only hope is to eliminate the "leaders" of both sides by sending them to fight one another in glorious hand to hand combat. The picture of *ush in a fetal position on the ground crying for his mommy just flashed in my head…..never mind.

Include Blair, too, of course:

Yes, Blair, "barbaric," just like the daisy-cutter bombs you and yours dropped on innocent people in Iraq. As Richard Clark had predicted, your preemptive attack on Iraq–and your little buddy’s, the Chimp–has brought more terror on the world, not less. Wake the hell up. You brought this on all of us.

Have we forgotten anything? Of course — Israel:

Terrorism is caused by deprivation, social discrimination, and hopelesness. A helicopter gunship murdering the guests at your sister’s wedding will do it every time. We create terrorists by bombing and killing innocent civilians, and the US permits the Israelis to do the same. The problem is not only in Iraq, the problem that was caused by the artificial creation of the state of Israel (by us, I admit) has also to be solved.

I’d better quit. I think they’re posting this crap faster than I can copy and paste it.

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