LEARNING FROM DEFEAT

This summary of lessons learned at The American Thinker is the best piece I've seen so far on the topic.

Voters didn’t like events in Iraq two years ago and they put President Bush on probation. They gave him a dangerously narrow reelection victory against an inept candidate with a long history of anti-American activism, a figure who should have been buried under a landslide that would make 1972 look like a squeaker. Two years later nothing had changed except that the voters were out of patience.

* * *

When we finally got around to an invasion we had to put a humanitarian gloss on an essential demonstration of our power. Instead of Operation Arab Smackdown we got Operation Iraqi Freedom. This was the true blunder that turned Iraq from a political asset into a liability. This blunder belongs to George W. Bush and George W. Bush alone, even though Don Rumsfeld has now paid for it with his job.

* * *

When President Bush cast the war in Iraq as a war for the benefit of Iraqis with vital collateral benefits for the U.S., sensible people recognized his argument for the nonsense it was and tuned him out. By choosing to cast it that way, President Bush guaranteed that the war would have shallow support at best. He also guaranteed that it would drag on long after that shallow support dried up entirely.

* * *

Playing the good guys also cost us the advantage of our overwhelming power. We deliberately refrained from destroying the Iraqi army during our invasion even though we certainly had the tools to do so. Many thousands of men escaped to fight another day and another way. It wasn’t a lack of manpower that kept us from crushing Moqtada al Sadr’s militia and caused us to back away from Fallujah and other Sunni hot spots. From the beginning we were much less lethal than we should have been because we have been trying to fight without causing too many bad feelings that might get in the way of the effort to engineer a political settlement.

* * *

Never play follow the leader over a cliff again.

NEAL BOORTZ DESCRIBES HIS VOTING EXPERIENCE

At my polling station (the local fire station) there was nowhere to park. Inside there were only 3 people voting, including me, and about 8 poll workers parked in all the parking spaces. I was handed a paper ballot and was asked "Paper ballot?" as if I was supposed to understand that I had a choice. I did not bother asking what the choice was. (Turns out there were also 2 touch-screen machines, gently used.) No wonder there are so many more early ballots and absentee ballots being cast.

I had a bit of a problem voting yesterday. I showed up when the polls opened. When I finally got to the check-in table the computer would not allow me to cast a vote. I later discovered that somehow my voter registration had been changed from my residence address to my work address. Something had changed since the 2004 election ... but I can't figure out what it was. At any rate, I went back after the show, cast a provisional ballot, and changed my registration. Problem solved .... unless someone sees fit to change my registration without my knowledge or consent again.

More amazing was my experience at the polling place. It was a lesson in basic government incompetence. Let me try to set the scene.

After you filled out the voter information sheet you were directed to one of two tables. One table was labeled "A - L" The other table "M - Z". There were two touch-screen computers at each table. Poll workers would use these computers to check in the voters and give them their access cards for the voting machines.

Though there were two computer touch-screens at the A table, only one was being used. Both screens at the M table were in use. To make matters worse, the two ladies running the screens on the M table were working very efficiently, while the woman at the A table looked like she had never seen a computer before in her life. In no time the line at the A table was snaking out of the door and down the hallway, while the line at the M table was .... well, there was no line. The two ladies there had nothing to do.

I just couldn't watch this idiocy without saying something, so I got out of line and went inside to find the poll manager. I said "Look, you have two women sitting at this table doing nothing. You have an empty computer screen at the A table. Why not let one of these ladies work that screen to see if you can shorten that line?" She just looked at me with a blank stare. Finally she said "Well, you would have to wait to vote anyway! See that line for the voting machines?" At this point one of the two ladies working the M table said "We can check those people in here!" Again ... blank stare from the poll manager. "Can you let some of the people in that line come over here to be checked in?" I asked? Blank stare. But finally the light bulb went on and she announced that people with the A - L names could go to the M - Z table to check in.

As the line was shifting I heard a woman say "This is what it's going to be like with government health care."

Exactly right.

THE REAL MAVERICK

If you're not familiar with Dr. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) he is such a small government proponent that he's hated by his own party. In fact, Congress continues to challenge his citizen-legislator ideal by brining him up on ethics charges because he refuses to give up delivering babies back in his home state. They surely fear that constituents might get the idea that it's possible to have a legit job too.

Here's what he said about last night's loss:

“Many factors contributed to these election results. The American people obviously are concerned about the conduct of the war in Iraq. Members of both parties have an obligation to work together to offer creative and constructive solutions that will help our troops accomplish their mission.

“The overriding theme of this election, however, is that voters are more interested in changing the culture in Washington than changing course in Washington, D.C. This election was not a rejection of conservative principles per se, but a rejection of corrupt, complacent and incompetent government.

“A recent CNN poll found that 54 percent of Americans believe government is doing too much while only 37 percent want government to do more. The results of this election reflect that attitude. Among the Republicans who lost their re-election bids a surprising number were political moderates who advocated a more activist government. Several Republican members of the appropriations committees, which have been on a spending binge, also were not re-elected. On the other hand, the two Republican senators who pulled off the most impressive victories were unapologetic conservatives, Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John Ensign (R-NV). It is also notable that the Democrats who won or who ran competitive races sounded more like Ronald Reagan than Lyndon Johnson.

“This election does not show that voters have abandoned their belief in limited government; it shows that the Republican Party has abandoned them. In fact, these results represent the total failure of big government Republicanism.

BAD MOOD RISING

Jim Talent summed it up in his concession speech when he said his defeat "was not for lack of effort. There was just a very, very strong headwind this year." To wit:

In Pennsylvania, about half of those who said in exit polls that they voted for Casey characterized their votes being primarily against Santorum rather than a vote for Casey. Casey also got a boost from one-third of voters who said they were angry with Bush. One-fourth of them said they were mad at GOP leaders in Congress.

Ohio voters expressed similar views. About six in 10 Brown voters said their vote was intended to register opposition to Bush. Two-thirds of Brown voters said they disapproved of the way Congress was handling its job.

All candidates had to do was oppose Bush, that's it, and that was enough. What a weird campaign season.

Things looked a lot better when I went to bed than when I woke up. Allen was up 29,000 votes in VA with 96% in, and Talent was up 61,000 votes in MO with 41% in. Those seemed like comfortable margins at the time, but it all depended on which precincts were still out.

And now the lawyers.

I was listening to The Michael Reagan Show on Monday and a caller asked Reagan a good question that Reagan did not answer well. The caller said We Americans are impatient and self-centered and have short attention spans. Just tell us what's in the Iraq War for us? What are we, America, getting out of it? Just tell us how we benefit. I agree that that has been much needed and sorely missing. The closest we have gotten is "We are taking it to the enemy there so they don't bring it to us here," and that's true, and good, but Joe Missouri doesn't see how that benefits him personally.

Which brings us back to the larger question of whether we as a nation have the will to wage war, and the returns seem to indicate that we do not, which will bring a whole new host of problems that may end up restoking our will after all. Fire safety is abstract, but putting out burning cities will require our immediate attention.

MEDIA REACTION. . . in 1994

"Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It's clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It's the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week....Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry two-year-old."
-- ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings in his daily ABC Radio commentary, November 14.

Who will be the first media person to say angry voters were having a temper tantrum in 2006?

"They are not voting Republican tonight, Mary. They are voting against a lot of unhappiness in their own lives....I think that it's very easy for the Republicans to make the same mistake that the Democrats made in thinking that somehow we've been given this great mandate....They have got to be practical. They have got to compromise. They have got to meet the real needs of people. This is not an anti-government vote tonight."
-- U.S. News & World Report Senior Writer Steven Roberts on CNBC's Equal Time, election night.

Who in the media has suggested that Democrats will have to compromise?

THIS DAY IN 1994 - REPUBLICANS TAKE OVER CONGRESS

So here are some early thought on the 2006 election results-

It will be very hard for any President to run an offensive war in the future. There is really no political upside but a tremendous downside. The enemy knows that the media will run with the casualty news and that well-placed guerrilla actions will be treated like major defeats. If terrorists can drag the fighting out long enough for the media to lament to extra effort and casualties, eventually the American people will tire of the conflict and punish the leader.

But was it really a verdict on offensive action or was it a verdict on nation-building. We won the war, but got mired in the re-building. Is the lesson to seek, destroy and then withdraw? Or is the lesson to head back to our pre-WWII isolation? What kind of isolation can we maintain in a globalized economy? Is the end result that we won’t be fighting too many wars until we’re far enough behind that the losses are greater.

The good news is that the Republican Presidential candidate can run against the nutty Nancy Pelosi, that hasn’t gotten nearly the scrutiny she deserves. If Hastert leaves he’s no real loss. This election has shown that Republicans need ideas to win and Democrats just need to be another option, so when Republicans run out of ideas, Democrats fill the gap. The biggest Democrat initiative in this campaign was to remind voters that we should only fight easy wars and they got a free pass for having voted for the one at hand. So Republicans can win again with ideas, but after failing to enact the Contract with America, Republicans won’t have an easy time convincing voters to trust them. They’ll need all new faces which would have happened if they had passed term limits. A number of the seats lost are natural Republican enclaves that will move back with a national Republican tide. Tom Delay and Mark Foley are two obvious ones and others will be available with the right candidate at the top of the ticket.

Divided government isn’t a bad thing. It’s what led to the stock market gains of the 1990s. Gridlock means that investors know exactly what playing field their on. The key is Bush deciding that he will finally veto some bills. The Republican Senate has sent too much nonsense his way in the last 6 years and you should expect it to continue during the next 2 years. If Bush can’t get the veto stamp out with this environment then he’ll disappoint the base more than he has already.

I’m not nearly as upset as I was in 1992. That night I couldn’t sleep. It’s hard to be too upset when there are very few heroes in Congressional Leadership. This may be Newt Gingrich’s rebirth moment. He can articulate how they lost their way and how they can regain it.

ON LIBERAL LEADERSHIP

Thomas Sowell laments that Democrats succeed where Republicans fail because Democrats don't pretend to stand for anything, or is it they pretend to stand for things they don't really stand for. But if the Republicans had really stood up for the things they said they stood for, both this time around and going back to the takeover in 1994, we might not be having this conversation today.

As Socrates persuaded Glaucon (sort of), we philosophers should rule, because we philosophers are the wisest of all men, and being so wise, we surely know better than the dullards what is best for the dullards, but we can't let the dullards know we think that, because no one considers himself a dullard, and besides, dullards, being dullards, can't appreciate our genius, so cloak the message in compassion-speak, as if we really care about the little guys whom we tacitly hold in such contempt.

Given the greater political shrewdness of the Democrats and the overwhelming bias of the media in their favor, it is remarkable that Republicans have had any political success at all. That the Republicans are still a viable party is one measure of how far the Democrats’ policies and values differ from those of most Americans.

Nowhere is that difference greater than when it comes to defending the American people against crime at home and against military and terrorist threats from abroad. Liberal Democrats — which is to say, most Democratic politicians and all of their leaders — are ready to try almost any “alternatives to incarceration” of criminals and almost any alternative to maintaining military strength as a deterrent to enemy nations.

More is involved than an unwillingness to face unpleasant facts of life. There is a coherent ideology behind these positions. That ideology goes back more than two centuries — and has failed in country after country over those centuries. But it is an ideology that sounds good and flatters the vanity of those who consider themselves part of a wise and compassionate elite.

Getting people to vote for moderates, in order to put extremists in power, may be the newest and biggest voter fraud.

THIS DAY IN 1944

FDR reelected to a 4th term.

BACKGROUND

Though the real precedent breaker was FDR’s successful third term in 1940, the 1944 election continued FDR’s rule as near emperor. The press was a willing accomplice keeping from the public the state of his health which surely would have cost him the nomination or at least the election.

SIGNIFICANCE

As a nation of laws and not of men, the FDR years forced the 22nd Amendment limiting the terms of Presidents. A shame Congress didn’t go ahead and limit their terms as well.

CURRENT

Today we have lifetime appointed judges to be our emperors so things haven’t changed all that much.

Side Note:

Funny, in the History Channels description of this event they took the liberty to tell us that “Roosevelt's progressive legislation improved America's economic climate, and in 1936 he easily won reelection.” Oh, Really? Did they ask Milton Friedman?

Worse is that they claim that FDR beat Wendell Wilkie in 1944 when his opponent was actually Tom Dewey. So the second error explains the first, I suppose.

TODAY IN 1860

Abraham Lincoln is elected 16th president of the United States

AND IN 1861

Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederacy

BACKGROUND

They were both born in Kentucky less than 100 miles apart and within 12 months of one another. Davis was one of the most successful political figures in the south having in his youth married the daughter of a future President (Zachary Taylor) and serving as Secretary of War (under Franklin Peirce). Before that, the West Point educated Davis had shown his prowess in war having rose to Colonel in the Mexican-American war. He was serving in the U.S. Senate representing Mississippi when the Civil War began. Although he opposed succession in principle, he followed the sentiment of his people.

Lincoln’s political career was never so bright. Other than serving one term in the House of Representative, Lincoln’s experience lied solely in the Illinois legislature. He was even beaten just two years earlier by Stephen Douglas in a bid for an Illinois Senate seat. He was unusually tall for a 19th Century man and he was not too dreamy either. Danny Sheridan would have considered this coaching matchup lopsided although he would have had to recognize the north’s superior offense.

SIGNIFICANCE

Davis had maybe the best General in the war (Lee) to fight a brilliant defensive campaign while Lincoln was always holding tryouts. Davis and Lee hoped to prolong the war long enough to make the north grow weary and bargain for peace. Lincoln showed perseverance never yielding despite defeat after defeat on the battlefield. With a group of worthy adversaries both political and military, Lincoln with his self-taught education and national political inexperience bested them all. How did the American people know? Was greatness always in Lincoln or did he simply rise to the occasion? When they say that the American experiment must have been guided by the hand of providence, it certainly helps explain Lincoln.

TODAY

The Union was saved from fracturing into who knows how many little bits had the South won. The U.S. could have resembled a map of Eastern Europe. On the downside, it was the beginning of Federal authority of localities that would cement itself during the New Deal. With 20% of GDP going to the federal government those are the wages all of us pay for the national conflict 130 years later.

Had the South ended slavery and the North reduced the harmful tarrifs before the 1860 election, things might very well look different.

OCTOBER 2006 MOVIE REVIEWS

X-MEN 3: The Last Stand (2006) – It’s strange to take a psychological character study, make two competent financially successful films and then ignore what worked by making an impersonal action film, complete with foolish jokes right out of a Swartzenegger vehicle. You figure that Bryan Singer’s departure was a great deal of the problem. I don’t think he would have been happy with the script that was shot. I never read the comics books, but the first two movies were solid. A shame they ended like this.

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING (2006) I read the book in the 1990s and it was pretty funny, but maybe not a natural movie since the witty writing style was a biggest plus. Director, Jason Reitman makes up for it by punching up the dialogue. Another good decision was downplaying the central kidnapping plot element that was far less interesting than just the day to day happenings and charm of the lead character played note-on by Aaron Eckhart. Like many movies it gets going stronger than it finishes, but it’s witty, well-paced and only 90 minutes. The trailer suggested a movie that was close to an instant classic, but the film is simply above average being a rare smart comedy.

THE DEPARTED (2006) – Marty and the mob is always worth a look and this film stays entertaining a lot longer than Casino. The mole cop and the crooked cop is a great idea and it makes me want to see the Hong Kong original. Supporting performances by Marky Mark and Alex Bladwin offer some fun moments too. It’s just hard to think of Nicholson as a mobster for as fun as he is to watch. Still, I was on the road forgiving the movie anything until it ended the same way as PENN AND TELLER GET KILLED. It seemed more Hong Kong than Martyville.

FRIENDS WITH MONEY (2006) – Movie Stars are supposed to play themselves, but they are also supposed to be dynamic and interesting. Jennifer Aniston is a mystery. I have seen enough of her films to safely say that she has no sense of fun. She’s the girl on a date that you want to like, but her conversation is so dull that you understand why she doesn’t have a boyfriend. To cast her alongside Francis McDormand, Catherine Kenner and Joan Cusack must be some sort evil joke to prove that she isn’t an actress. The movie itself is forgettable. I saw it a few weeks ago and the best I can remember, it was about four women with varying problems.

RUMOR HAS IT (2005) – Sticking with Aniston again because Trish feels that she got the shaft in the Jolie thing. I have to ask what happened to Rob Reiner. Didn’t he use to make good movies? I’d have to head to back to A FEW GOOD MEN to remind myself. RUMOR was a clever idea for a movie. The Graduate theme had a lot of places to go and this movie went to the wrong ones. Costner playing within his bounds of regular guy does fine. Shirley MacClaine gets away with being a little too much. Richard Jenkins as Aniston’s father is solid in a quirky performance. He’s one of those guys you’ve seen a dozen times and finally put a name with him. It’s unsatisfying, but short which is at least something.

+BURDEN OF DREAMS (1982) – The story of making the film Fitzcarraldo is racked with problems. A political situation gets them kicked out of their shooting location early on. You get the idea that they are somewhat lucky to escape with their lives. A second location is found and a good portion of the film is shot and then he loses his principle actors and has to re-think the whole enterprise. Slowly the film focuses on the natives that act as extras and bearers of the equipment and props. They are very lucky to get the work which pays a great deal more than they’re use to. Still, Herzog has that romantic noble savage psychology in him. He regrets that his contact and contact by the west in general will ruin their culture. But do they even want to keep their culture? Work is sporadic and rival tribes are killing each other so gathering and cultivating food isn’t easy. Herzog integrates some of their culture into the movie by showing the process of making this nasty hooch that’s fermented by their own saliva. Klaus Kinski of all people is too grossed out to drink it on camera. The title comes from a quote by Herzog in the middle of the film. “If I abandon this project I would be a man without dreams, and I never want to live like that.” In some ways BURDEN is similar to LOST IN LAMANCH, the Terry Gilliam failed attempt to make Don Quixote. But BURDEN is superior because it’s not just about the difficulty of making a film but the difficulty of life and how overcoming obstacles is a human victory separate from the ends themselves.

DANIEL (1992) – Based on the book by E. L. Doctorow that pretty much re-writes the Rosenbergs case with a more innocent seeming family instead so as to imply that their execution was nothing but McCarthyism. Timothy Hutton plays the grown son in the 60s that goes from wanderer growing into war protestor right where his parents would have liked.

INHERIT THE WIND (1960) This was near the beginning of Stanley Kramer’s classic “the world’s on trial” period that began with the Defiant Ones and ended with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. INHERIT is an actor’s showcase and was a must-see Broadway play in the 1950s. Kramer casts Spencer Tracy and Frederick March in the leads who are nothing but veiled representations of Clarence Darrow (Tracy) and William Jennings Bryan (March). Darrow takes the side of Enlightenment and Bryan the side of Puritanism. You could tell with the sound down that the emotional March is the heavy while the quiet and reasoned Tracy is our hero. Tracy frames the Darwin battle as a free expression question which probably seemed like a very liberal sustainable idea. Today you could make the same movie with some college administrator PC advocate thumping his code of conduct book versus some student who held an Affirmative Action bake sale.

DON’T LOOK NOW (1973) – I had just recently heard of this classic chiller based on a book by Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca) and we decided to watch it on Halloween. Donald Sutherland is a restorer of classic architecture and he and his wife (Julie Christie) travel to work on a church in Venice shortly after the death of their daughter. Soon the wife meets a psychic that warns them to leave the city. The husband doesn’t believe in such nonsense so what explains all the weird stuff he sees? The movie is noted for a racy sex scene between the leads and the Venice setting couldn’t be better for this material.

WEDDING CRASHERS (2006) – My favorite Frat Pack movies are the ones with Vince Vaughn, the only real unapologetic actor in the series. Next I like the Wilson brothers, Luke before the more popular Owen. Two out of three ain’t bad here although the insufferable Will Ferrell shows up for a cameo at the end. There isn’t much about this movie that strikes as real. To crash weddings is one thing, but to give speeches and pose during the cake cutting is a Bugs Bunny short. So if you can deal with that and characters shouting the truth to each other one room from the people they are duping then you will get some laughs. You also get Christopher Walken as the father, Jane Seymour as a Mrs. Robinson spoof, and Rachel McAdams as the fetching object of desire. I can’t say that it was good and yet I laughed quite a few times at all the nonsense.

(+ denotes exceptional film)

TODAY IN 1975

UAW “WINS” ANOTHER CONTRACT DISPUTE


BACKGROUND

The United Auto Workers union proved to be the most effective union in America winning concession after concession from the Detroit auto makers. The big 3 made the biggest stylish cars so although they didn’t love these concessions, they had so much market share that they gave in. Toyota and Datsun made fuel efficient cars, but they didn’t have Lexus or Infiniti or anything hip to complete with in those days.

RESULTS

U.S. automakers are still bound to contracts that make them pay full wages to employees they lay off. So althought they have some car plants now in non-union states, it's still impossible for them to compete against Asian cars without tariff help. They have to skimp somewhere so it’s usually quality standards. Cars either look cheap, drive cheap or break down sooner than the rivals. At least their trucks and SUVs were making money, but that took a hit when gas prices rose in the last few years. The only asset they have left is patriotism – buy American.

THIS DAY IN 1956

SOVIETS CRUSH THE HUNGARIAN UPRISING


BACKGROUND

A few weeks earlier on October 23, 1956 Hungarians more or less took over Budapest from their Soviet oppressors. They ended one party rule and began a withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet’s finally got their tanks and superior military strength to put the whole thing away on November 4.

SIGNIFICANCE

While the West had shown resolve in protecting West Berlin, the combination of that example and Radio Free Europe broadcasts gave Hungarians the false hope that the West would step in and help them defeat the Russians. Had the Hungarians prevailed it would have been the first real defeat for Soviet backed communism. Our inaction no doubt gave the Soviets confidence that we could be pushed around. A Cuban Missile Crisis, a war in Vietnam and the nonsense in Nicaragua may have been avoided had the Eisenhower Administration stood up for the Hungarians.

The Bolsheviks learned a key lesson. The Americans would not try and roll back communism they would only try to defensively stop its expansion meaning that there would be no gains in our fight just fewer losses. Once the Soviets could rest that the Eastern block was safe they could easily fund communist uprisings all around the world. That’s a recipe for how you get involved in Vietnam. Also, those geniuses who said that Reagan didn’t defeat the Soviets but that their system disintegrated on its own have never answered why it didn’t disintegrate against all of the other American Presidents that refused to take them on.

There’s another lesson here too. Bush’s offensive invasion of Iraq is said to have created more terrorists. There’s no way that can be measured, but it’s certain that fighting a defensive war against communism created more communists not less. It wasn’t until Reagan insisted on SDI, invaded Grenada and took the fight to the enemy that we had fewer of them.

MEN'S TESTOSTERONE LEVELS ARE DROPPING

Finally, something to explain the Democratic gains.

TODAY IN 1964

Johnson beat Goldwater

SIGNIFICANCE

After the assassination of John Kennedy, the nation was loath to elect its 3rd president in 11 months. Johnson seemed like a centrist for the most part and he hailed from a section of the country that helped his chances. Goldwater’s straightforward conservatism that looks very libertarian by today’s standards was beaten so badly that the conventional wisdom said we'd never have a conservative President.

AND THEN. . .

Johnson’s half measure fight in Vietnam only made matters worse and his domestic policy of spending his way out of poverty led the country on a road to massive vote-buying deficits. Johnson’s embrace of Civil Rights legislation versus Goldwater’s libertarian approach forever shifted the black vote in this country to the Democrats which led to things like busing that shifted the white suburban vote to Republicans. The polarization of Vietnam split the Democrats in the 1960s and the echo continues to this day.

TODAY

Republicans can win nationally by calling themselves conservatives and Democrats cannot win by calling themselves liberals. Since the 1964 election, America has only given Democrats a chance to govern when domestic concerns were greater than foreign ones. When foreign situations do come up, Democrats always get credit for handshake deals between warring nations, but our enemies are still emboldened to go after us. The hostages in Iran and the myriad of terrorist attacks on the 1990s are a result of electing a party that's split down the middle on whether the U.S. should ever fight an offensive war. All of this seems to go back to our choice in 1964.

REASSESSMENT OF IRAQ

Ralph Peters has been consistently incisive and insightful regarding the Middle East and our role in it since before 9/11 and especially after. My own views on Iraq have pretty much tracked his. I agreed with going into Afghanistan and Iraq, but also recognize that war is about winning decisively. We have had repeated opportunities to demonstrate the will to do that and have demurred each time. By now we have already made Osama's point -- that our will can be eroded through patient persistence and a steady drip of American casualties. It is also clear inside and outside the US that our military decisions are heavily impacted by our national politics, and that our national politics are affected by military consequences.

The bottom line currently is that Iraq doesn't want us there, Americans don't want us there, and none of us have any clear idea what we are trying to accomplish there, so in a sense we have already overstayed our welcome.

Yet that does not mean we have failed. We needed to exert some influence in the region, for reasons that history will explain, and the fact that the American populace has not rallied behind an ambiguous war does not mean it would not rise in support of an unambiguous one.

Yet, for all our errors, we did give the Iraqis a unique chance to build a rule-of-law democracy. They preferred to indulge in old hatreds, confessional violence, ethnic bigotry and a culture of corruption. It appears that the cynics were right: Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it. And people get the government they deserve.

For us, Iraq's impending failure is an embarrassment. For the Iraqis — and other Arabs — it's a disaster the dimensions of which they do not yet comprehend. They're gleeful at the prospect of America's humiliation. But it's their tragedy, not ours.

Iraq was the Arab world's last chance to board the train to modernity, to give the region a future, not just a bitter past. The violence staining Baghdad's streets with gore isn't only a symptom of the Iraqi government's incompetence, but of the comprehensive inability of the Arab world to progress in any sphere of organized
human endeavor. We are witnessing the collapse of a civilization. All those who rooted for Iraq to fail are going to be chastened by what follows.

Iraq still deserves one last chance — as long as we don't confuse deadly stubbornness and perseverance. If, at this late hour, Iraqis in decisive numbers prove willing to fight for their own freedom and a constitutional government, we should be willing to remain for a generation. If they continue to revel in fratricidal slaughter, we must leave.

And contrary to the prophets of doom, the United States wouldn't be weakened by our withdrawal, should it come to that. Iraq was never our Vietnam. It's al-Qaeda's Vietnam. They're the ones who can't leave and who can't win. Islamist terrorists have chosen Iraq as their battleground and, even after our departure, it will continue to consume them. We'll still be the greatest power on earth, indispensable to other regional states — such as the Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia — that are terrified of Iran's growing might. If the Arab world and Iran embark on an orgy of bloodshed, the harsh truth is that we may be the beneficiaries.

My disillusionment with our Iraq endeavor began last summer, when I was invited to a high-level discussion with administration officials. I went into the meeting with one firm goal, to convince my hosts that they'd better have Plan B in case Iraq continued to disintegrate. I left the session convinced that the administration still didn't have Plan A, only a blur of meandering policies and blind hopes.

Then, last month, as Iraq's prime minister seconded al-Sadr's demand that our troops free a death-squad mastermind they had captured, I knew a fateful page had turned. A week later, al-Maliki forbade additional U.S. military raids in Sadr City, the radical mullah's Baghdad stronghold. On Tuesday, al-Maliki insisted that our troops remove roadblocks set up to help find a kidnapped U.S. soldier. Iraq's prime minister has made his choice. We're not it. It's time to face reality. Only Iraqis can save Iraq now — and they appear intent on destroying it.

Iraq could have turned out differently. It didn't. And we must be honest about it. We owe that much to our troops. They don't face the mere forfeiture of a few congressional seats but the loss of their lives. Our military is now being employed for political purposes. It's unworthy of our nation.

THIS DAY IN 1959

Charles Van Doren admits cheating on the quiz show "21"

SIGNIFICANCE

Though trickery had been a component of entertainment forever, no one guessed that 21 was trivia equivalent of pro wrestling. In Van Doren the public had a perfect cold war hero and a great model for knowledge and learning. Or so they thought.

RESULTS

Van Doren lost his teaching job at Columbia and spent his life in the background of academia working at places like Enclycopedia Britannica. The Game show left prime time for a generation. The real downside was that disheartened idealistic "21" watching pre-teens began growing their hair long, bathing less, protesting, carrying on generally, and smoking those funny smokes.

Seriously, "reality" television today has borrowed the same strategy by grooming and producing so many "spontaneous" moments to keep the public watching. You ever sit through an episode of the wretched BACHELOR? The public knows they're being duped deep down, but wants to continue the illusion of realism for whatever escapist quality it offers.

JOHN KERRY, TWO TIME LOSER

Here comes John Kerry again with a big "L" on his forehead.

Karen Tumulty of TIME sums it up:

In other words, Kerry has managed on the eve of what could be a watershed election to remind pretty much everyone what it was they didn't like about the Democrats, and especially what they didn't like about him. It might have made more sense just to say he was sorry — for once to get ahead of a mistake, instead of trying to compensate for it the next time.

I believe Kerry was just trying to take a cheap shot at Bush and bungled the joke -- never forget how dumb Bush is (aside: and how dumb you must have been to lose to him) -- and the joke, as he meant it, wasn't funny either -- but by not apologizing and by keeping himself in the news, he has allowed the Republicans to do what they have been trying and failing to do for weeks. (R) wants to frame the choice as "Which party do you most trust to keep America safe?" (D) wants to keep "Iraq is a quagmire" the only point worth mentioning. Until now, (D) had succeeded at nationalizing the state and district elections on the latter point. What they most feared was another national election on the former point, because they already lost that one, and Kerry was the face of it. This is close to a worst case scenario for a party that was coasting to victory in a policy-free anti-Bush hatefest. Now every Republican candidate has a sword rather than a shield in this final week of campaigning.

THIS DAY IN 1765

Britian’s Parliament introduces Stamp Act into the colonies


SIGNIFICANCE

The law was enacted to force the colonials to pay duties on all legal documents. The Act was hard to enforce because of colonial opposition, but the idea of it made a great many colonials re-think their relationship with the mother country.

RESULTS

Although the Act barely lasted a year, England would later devise other more effective means of collecting taxes that would enrage the colonials to the point of revolution. The United States took the lesson and today raises many taxes indirectly through corporations and regulations. How can the average person even calculate the hidden tax they pay on lumber or sugar or steel?

THIS DAY IN 1517

Martin Luther posts his 95 THESES

SIGNIFICANCE

While intending to simply root out abuses in the Catholic Church, Luther set in motion the protestant reformation.

BACKGROUND

Luther was a Catholic priest and was appalled that people were being sold forgiveness for their sins. Since it was a pretty lucrative side business among local clerics, Luther was excommunicated and Charles V of Germany proclaimed that anyone could kill Luther without it penalty on their bodily or holy soul. With protection from other nobles, Luther instead wrote a German translation of the bible. Other ground swells in Europe arose and religious politics were changed for ever.

RESULTS

The ability to reform excesses and missteps are the key ingredients to continued success in anything. The Roman Catholic Church, much like Ford and GM today, took for granted the people and the market for their product. Their own hubris led to the decline of importance in political and public life.

The reformation was integrated into the thinking of philosophers like John Locke and later Thomas Jefferson who would pen that all men were created equal with certain inalienable rights. The church and the state that wielded so much political power over the populace with the fear of God were supplanted by a creator that people could have a personal relationship with.

That alone was an important component to the founding of the United States of America.

JUST ONE MORE FOR THE GIPPER...

1938 Orson Welles presents War of the Worlds

SIGNIFICANCE

Like many artists before him, Welles took a medium and pushed it beyond its usual confines and inadvertently showed the world how influential electronic media could be. Welles’ reputation from this incident led to a Hollywood contract where he would push that medium beyond the normal limits as well.

RESULTS

Welles major asset was a youthful exuberance that felt no boundaries. Unfortunately he felt no boundaries with people either and this indiscretion allowed him to be written off numerous times. If he could have downplayed the “genius” reputation and been humble among the power brokers he might have had solid Hollywood career being among the directors considered for the top scripts. Instead, he eeked out a living playing character roles and financing his own independent films while interesting only show a glimpse of the talent he may have left.

THE LESSON

It’s usually the ability of average people who can harness the talent of others that leads to success. Genius too often has a tendency to blow itself up.

THIS DAY IN 1929

THE STOCK MARKET CRASH


SIGNIFICANCE

Although the stock market eventually rebounded as it always has, investors fueled by margin buying were wiped out immediately. While it’s controversial whether this led to the Great Depression or was a symptom of it, the effects of the Depression were certainly worse for those who lost everything on this day.

RESULTS

A correction of this magnitude began the dialogue as to how much government oversight was needed in the market and economy as a whole. The very next election would begin a reform of 19th Century capitalism that today sees the government spending equal to 20% of GDP, but actual control of a much larger segment of the economy through regulations and tax laws.

The crash was the beginning of the end of federalism. The government demanded that states cede authority to the federal government and invented the idea of bribing states with federal money to play ball. In creating a Supreme Court that would go along with his overreaching goodness, he refocused the court to take up every ill of society and that eventually resulted in the creation of laws with little popular support.

DR’s intent to rebuild the country through corporate taxation and regulation only stymied the free market’s ability to create jobs, so although the economy started to recover in the mid 1930s, a severe recession hit in 1937 and 1938. The subsidies to cut farm production are still with us today. Not only is the American grocery bill artificially high, but the consumers are using their own tax dollars to make it so.

LAME WORLD SERIES

Baseball is getting a little watered down when two teams that limp into the playoffs wind up in the big series. Neither would have even made the playoffs under the old format. There seems to be a lot of backslapping about how we have a different winner each year and that revenue sharing is working, but these games are so forgettable. The wild card lets any team that gets hot at the right time into the series and that cheapens the 162 game schedule. The Tigers finished poorly, got hot for two series, and then played like an also ran. LaRussa, who had failed to win the World Series with the four 100 win teams he managed, was able to coast to victory against a team that shouldn't have been there.

I thought the Tigers showed a lot of spirit beating the Yankees and what not, but were the Cardinals the best team in 2006?

WHY THE CALENDAR?

I needed something new. How do you blog about the generic congressional poll or this constant victimization parade, first Congressional pages and then Mark Foley and priests? The politics of science is getting outrageous too. Not federally funding something is the same as outlawing it and the latest sky is falling global warming predictions are so absurd taken in context with history and other sky is falling scenarios.

Settled history is an entertaining place to start and it's a great way to show how purpose and intent rarely achieve the desired results. It also shows how seemingly inconsequential things can reverberate for years to come. In contemporary politics we argue the merits of something by supposing the results in advance and never really take up the question again once the results are in. History is a great way to show how people's actions resulted in real outcomes and changes in society for the good and the bad.

It's bothered me that too little has been said about Europe's response to Hitler in the 1930s and how even a small amount of action could have prevented a catastrophic war and saved millions of lives. What’s the point of the Hollywood holocaust film parades if we’re not to take the lesson to end totalitarianism when we can? Regardless of the amount of WMD that Saddam held at the time of invasion, he wanted to harness more of the stuff and he was abusing his people in a way that had already justified our actions in Haiti, Bosnia and even Somalia. The actions history wanted us to take in Germany.

There’s a very basic question in this election that isn’t being asked. Do the terrorists want Democrats or Republicans to win? Anyone who can truly say that the terrorists are worried about the tremendous wrath of Democrats should vote for Democrats. I can’t think of any other patriotic reason to do so. I can think of a lot of reasons that will make people feel more compassionate and thoughtful, but not patriotic.

The outcome of the election will either be bad or worse and since it will be fruitless to argue the merits of the policy that will come as a result of those elections, I think it might be more fun to look back and history and see where they went wrong or right. THIS DAY IN HISTORY will hopefully provide a decent format.

DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY

The midterm election campaigns have been strange. The Democrats say nothing, just Iraq is quagmire and Bush is inept and time for a change. Here in Pennsylvania, Santorum is going mental because he can't get Casey to answer a question and the voters don't seem to care. He has never dented Casey's double digit lead. And the Republicans say nothing, have never tried to explain themselves or rally support. They are not trying to appeal to voters, just trying to retain power. It leaves one dispirited. Peggy Noonan agrees.

The Republican establishment, the Republican elite, is quietly supporting those candidates and ideas they think should be encouraged. They are thinking about whom they will back in '08. But they're not thinking of this, most of them, with the old excitement. Because they sense, in their tough little guts, that the heroic age of the American presidency is, for now, over. No president is going to come along and save us, and Congress isn't going to save us. Events will cause a reckoning, and then we'll save ourselves. And in this we will refind our greatness.

The base probably thinks pretty much the same. They go through the motions, as patriots are sometimes called to do. As for the election, it reminds me not of 1994 but 1992. That year, at a bipartisan gathering, I was pressed for a prediction. I said it was a contest between depression (if Republicans win) and anxiety (if Democrats win). I said Americans will take anxiety over depression any day, because it's the more awake state.

Al Gore was later told of this, and used it on the campaign trail. Only he changed "anxiety" to "hope." Politicians kill me.

It seems more and more likely that the Republican machine is about to take a beating, in part for abandoning the base, alternately defined as not doing the major things they said they were going to do, on which basis people voted for them.

Democrats doing surprisingly well in traditionally GOP territory; no reverse instances of Republicans doing well in traditionally Democratic territory: If you multiply each of these stories by the number of similar narrative lines describing other Senate and House races, the impression you could get is that the floor is indeed falling out from under the Republican Party.

Deservedly so. And the fact that the alternative is worse is no longer sufficiently motivating to bring some formerly reliable voters to the polls.

THIS DAY IN 1919

The Volstead Act is passed


WHAT DID IT DO?

The Volstead Act allowed the treasury department to set up a special unit to enforce the 18th Amendment (Prohibition of Alcohol) that was ratified earlier in the year.

WHY DID AMERICA OUTLAW LIQUOR?

In keeping with America’s Puritanism, temperance societies became such an important political force that Congress simply gave in to their wishes.

WHAT WAS THE OUTCOME?

After Americans had finished drinking all of the store liquor they could stockpile, they began making home recipes. Others were drinking cough syrup or rubbing alcohol or even aftershave lotion to get the fix. Eventually the entrepreneur criminal element saw an opportunity for a big revenue stream and an organized crime syndicate was born. The biggest result was that once law-abiding citizens were driven into criminal activity and public health improved not.

THE CULTURE OF PROHIBITION

Speakeasies became so common that politicians frequented them without worry. The cops could easily be paid off to keep the places running. McSorley’s Old Ale House in the East Village was so politically connected that they operated through the 1920s as if prohibition didn’t even exist. Prohibition was such a failure that in 1933 it became the only constitutional Amendment to be fully repealed.
In the film Key Largo (1947), Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) schemes with rival crime bosses to work together to try and get prohibition re-instated. W.C. Fields was so worried that prohibition would return that he built a cellar in his basement that he stocked with enough alcohol to last more than a lifetime.

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

Apparently nothing. The leaders of today still react to public outcry citing the children to prohibit more and more personal activity. Public opinion isn’t even a motivator anymore witnessed by the outlawing of things like online gambling.

WIN OR LOSE IN IRAQ, AMERICA STAYS GREAT

A British journalist lends some perspective and points out that no nation this great can fall from greatness so swiftly.

The real question about American power is whether the realities that underpin it are shifting. There, I’m afraid, the news for Americaphobes is grim.

The US economy continues to grow at a pace that far outstrips its rivals in the industrialised world. Though China is growing at three times the pace of the US, America’s economy is so large — $12 trillion annually — that , even in the unlikely event that China will continue to grow at its current rate, it will take 30 to 40 years to catch up with America.

Despite the heated rhetoric, the US is not going bankrupt — its fiscal deficit is falling and its accumulated debt is easily manageable. Compared with most other advanced economies, its demographics look indecently healthy. This month the US population passed 300 million; it will be 400 million in less than 50 years, and still relatively youthful.

If you want to understand the real enduring strength of America as a nation, look at the Dow Jones industrial average. Not the record 12,000 level reached this month — that may last no longer than a day or a week. Look instead at the 30 companies that make up the Dow index. Only two of the original 30 companies in the index in 1930 — General Electric and General Motors — are still there today. Most of today’s Dow components — the Microsofts and Intels — weren’t even around 50 years ago. If you look at the relevant stock market indices for Germany, France or even Britain, you will find them dominated by companies that have been around for generations. America by contrast, has mastered the art of creative destruction. This vast competitive openness, combined with entrepreneurial spirit, keeps the country constantly innovating and regenerating.

Long after Iraq has established itself as some kind of punctuation mark in American history, America’s genius for renewing itself will surely have the last word.

THIS DAY IN 1994

U.S. prison population exceeds one million

SIGNIFICANCE

Only 30 years earlier, the conservative idea of punishment was chastised by the establishment as old-fashioned. Leaders felt that softer punishments with the promise of rehabilitation were the prescription for what ailed America. Instead violent crimes rates soared in large urban areas and city dwellers fled for the safer suburban alternatives. This caused the tax base to drop and U.S. cities fell into greater despair.

Clinton’s 100,000 Cops initiative was just the kind of New Democrat idea that appealed to the populace, even though at its heart it was a typical federal funded jobs program.

RESULTS

Both parties are now tougher on crime than they were in the 1960s and violent crime has dropped quite a bit. The downside is that no one is left to oppose the excess of non-violent drug offenders in jail that easily cost the tax payer more money in incarceration than they're worth.

THIS DAY IN 1955

The movie "Rebel Without a Cause" opens


SIGNIFICANCE

James Dean’s character was the classic example of a struggling male in need of a strong father figure. The combination of Dean’s death a few weeks earlier and his unusually sensitive portrayal made for instant cult status overriding the larger message of the film. The result is a work regarded as a classic for cinematic and/or cultural and historical reasons.

RESULTS

Method acting was the rage in 1950s Hollywood, but whereas Marlon Brando’s version found sensitivity within the masculine, James Dean was able to gain fame as a weakling. His early death created an actor’s cult that has legitimized Dean’s persona as a viable alternative to the masculine male lead. Without Dean’s legacy it’s hard to imagine guys like Johnny Depp, Leonardo diCapprio, Tobey McGuire, and Ethan Hawke as anything other than sidekicks and little brothers.

THIS DAY IN 1983

The United States invaded Grenada


PURPOSE

President Ronald Reagan sent Marines to Grenada to protect 1,000 U.S. citizens after Marxist Bernard Coard assassinated their merely leftist dictator and took control of the government.

RESULTS

It was the first offensive action against communism after the “Evil Empire” speech. Before Grenada, Communism was in an expansive mode and Reagan’s stand here coupled with the Contras in Nicaragua ended the spread of Marxism in the New World.

Think how things would have been had Eisenhower tried the same thing with Cuba.

THIS DAY IN 1945.

The United Nations is born


PURPOSE

The United Nations was designed to replace the ineffective League of Nations, an organization the isolationist United States refused to join. FDR and Churchill hoped that a world body could prevent the conflicts that so many individual nations could not.

Two important objectives described in the Charter were respecting the principles of equal rights and self-determination of all peoples and international cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems around the world.

RESULTS

World conflicts that were once the blame of a small group of nations were spread to a much larger group. Now everyone could be guilty of doing nothing. And the legitimacy that the U.N. gained through vocal utopians meant that any dictator could inoculate their actions by bribing one or two influential nations that would hence veto any response.

By giving equal voice to all nations, despot regimes have ganged up to support the idea of national sovereignty of dictatorships as an ideal more important than individual rights. Not too different from the way the U.S. Supreme Court has re-written the constitution to justify whatever current position it may hold.

THIS DAY IN 42 B.C.

Brutus commits suicide


Why?

Marcus Brutus was a leading conspirator in the assassination of his friend Julius Caesar. Although Brutus loved Caesar dearly he felt that the cult of personality was leading to dictatorship and the loss of the Roman Republic. His suicide was a direct result of plan.

Was Brutus right or wrong?

Although it’s difficult to know what would have happened without the assassination, the death of Julius Caesar led to the Roman Civil Wars, which resulted in the death of the conspirators and then ascension of Augustus (Octavian) to Emperor. In short, the Republic was lost anyway.

Importance to History

The combination of Julius Caesar’s success on the battlefield and his populist urges threatened to weaken the central tenants of this Republican government. Since our founders saw the old Roman Republic as a primary influence on our constitution, it’s interesting to see the similar power struggles play out today.

Is Republican government tenable?

So far history would suggest it isn’t. Any government that begins by focusing on freedom and individual liberty eventually brings enough prosperity that citizens blame that freedom for the inequity that will arise from differing abilities and ambitions. In some crazy paradox, many who find great success can be the biggest critics of the system that allowed it.

What if Brutus had won?

With American’s current example, you’d have to conclude that the success of Brutus only would have delayed the inevitable. But it’s possible that the continuation of the Roman Republic may have saved Rome’s eventual fall and even influenced the governments of Europe. If nothing else, it makes you appreciate what a bold move our founders made reaching back 1800 years for inspiration.

Do Americans understand Republican government?

Our educational system has done a very poor job of explaining why America came into existence and why our current track is following the welfare state patterns of the European continent, a place we were trying to escape.

PAYBACK

Not sure what to make of this headline at Fox News' home page.

Priest Who Fondled Foley Probed by Diocese

COWBOY RHETORIC PAINTED BUSH INTO CORNER, WEAKENED NEGOTIATING POSITION

Pat Buchanan writes this week about something I have thought many times: that the "axis of evil" speech was bold, rallying, and patently stupid. First, because the three companies mentioned are not an "axis" by any rational interpretation; second, because it was needlessly aggressive; third, because it singled out three regimes and ignored others that were, should have been, or could yet make it onto the list; fourth, because it took a public position that was neither actionable nor sustainable; and fifth, because each bilateral situation is different, requiring its own goals, strategy, and process.

It violated at least four cardinal rules of negotiation: 1) Never issue an ultimatum prematurely, 2) never make a promise that you do not have the authority to make good on, 3) understand your adversary's motivations and how he is likely to respond to your proposals; and 4) always hold back options to use later in the negotation.

Between Sept. 11, 2001, and his State of the Union Address in 2002, George W. Bush had America in the palm of his hand. But in that speech, Bush blew it.

Singling out Iran, Iraq and North Korea as state sponsors of terror seeking weapons of mass destruction, Bush yoked them together in an “axis of evil” and issued this ultimatum: “I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”

Neoconservatives celebrated this bellicosity as neo-Churchillian. Yet all it accomplished was to fracture the U.S. and foreign coalitions that had united behind Bush.

As some of us wrote at the time, to call Iran and Iraq, mortal enemies in the eight-year war of the ’80s that took a million lives, an “axis” was absurd. Bush’s speech was a blunder of the first magnitude. First, he had no authority to attack any of those nations, as Congress had not authorized war. Second, he had neither the plans nor forces in place to do so. Yet he had put all three on notice this was what he had in
mind.

When the United States invaded Iraq, North Korea and Iran got the message. Both accelerated their nuclear programs. By issuing public ultimatums, Bush left these regimes no way out. Kim Jong-Il has openly defied the Bush Doctrine. Arguably the world’s worst regime has acquired the world’s worst weapon. Bush’s response? He went to the United Nations to plead for sanctions.

LET THEM DECIDE

The ever reliable Jonah Goldberg presents "stay the course" and "cut and run" as a false dichotomy. Faced with increasing desire at home to escape the mess of Iraq, and also with the likely and potential consequences of doing so, letting the Iraqis decide our fate there seems a reasonable third alternative.

According to the conventional script, if I'm not saying "bug out" of Iraq, I'm supposed to say "stay the course." But there's a third option, and, funnily enough, I found it in an old column of mine. I think we should ask the Iraqis to vote on whether U.S. troops should stay.

Polling suggests that they want us to go. But polling absent consequences is a form of protest. With accountability, minds may change and appreciation for the U.S. presence might grow.

If Iraqis voted "stay," we'd have a mandate to do what's necessary to win, and our ideals would be reaffirmed. If they voted "go," our values would also be reaffirmed, and we could leave with honor. And pretty much everyone would have to accept democracy as the only legitimate expression of national will.

PETERS: MAKE WAR NOT LOVE

Ralph Peters has been a voice of reason since well before the first missiles starting flying into Iraq. His voice has become increasingly lonely but no less right. Our nation’s unwillingness to wage war with an eye to victory is moral cowardice of the highest order. War is about beating your enemy into submission. If you're not prepared to do that, stay on the porch.

Here Peters comments on the Army’s new manual for waging war against Muslim counterinsurgents. GOP volunteers should be stuffing this into envelopes in tight districts.

October 18, 2006 -- HAVE we lost the will to win wars? Not just in Iraq, but anywhere? Do we really believe that being nice is more important than victory?

It's hard enough to bear the timidity of our civilian leaders - anxious to start wars but without the guts to finish them - but now military leaders have fallen prey to political correctness. Unwilling to accept that war is, by its nature, a savage act and that defeat is immoral, influential officers are arguing for a kinder, gentler approach to our enemies. They're going to lead us into failure, sacrificing our soldiers and Marines for nothing: Political correctness kills.

We're back to struggling to win hearts and minds that can't be won. Why did the officers in question avoid the decisive question of religion? Because the answers would have been ugly. Islamist terrorists who regard death as a promotion are not going to reject their faith any more than an ethnic warrior can - or would wish to - change his blood identity.

Al Qaeda and other terror organizations have stated explicitly and repeatedly that they're waging a global jihad to re-establish the caliphate. Yet the new manual ignores religious belief as a motivation.

The politically correct atmosphere in Washington deems any discussion of religion as a strategic factor indelicate: Let our troops die, just don't hurt anyone's feelings.

The text is a mush of pop-zen mantras such as "Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction," "The best weapons do not shoot," or "The more force used, the less effective it is."

That's just nutty. Should we have done nothing in the wake of 9/11? Would everything have been OK if we'd just been nicer? What non-lethal "best weapons" might have snagged Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, where the problem was too little military force, not too much violence?

Should we have sent fewer troops to Iraq, where inadequate numbers crippled everything we attempted? Will polite chats with tribal chiefs stop the sectarian violence drenching Iraq in blood?

You can trust two kinds of officers: Those who read a great deal and those who don't read at all. But beware the officer who reads just a little and falls in love with one book. A little education really is a dangerous thing.

The new manual is thick - length is supposed to substitute for insight. It should be 75 percent shorter and 100 percent more honest. If issued to our troops in its present form, it will lead to expensive failures. Various generals have already tried its prescriptions in Iraq - with discouraging results, to put it mildly.

We've reached a fateful point when senior officers seek to evade war's brute reality. Our leaders, in and out of uniform, must regain their moral courage. Soccer balls are no substitute for bullets when you face fanatics willing to kill every child on the playing field.

In war, you don't get points for good manners. It's about winning. Victory forgives.

The new counterinsurgency doctrine recommends forbearance, patience, understanding, non-violent solutions and even outright passivity. Where is the spirit of FDR and George C. Marshall, who recognized that the one unbearable possibility was for the free world to lose?

We discount the value of ferocity - as a practical tool and as a deterrent. But war's immutable law - proven yet again in Iraq - is that those unwilling to pay the butcher's bill up front will pay it with compound interest in the end.

The new counterinsurgency doctrine is dishonest and cowardly.

We don't face half-hearted Marxists tired of living in the jungle, but religious zealots who behead prisoners to please their god and who torture captives by probing their skulls with electric drills. We're confronted by hatreds born of blood and belief and madmen whose appetite for blood is insatiable.

And we're afraid to fight.

MEDIA WORKING HARD TO CREATE HAPPY ELECTION NIGHT NEWS

Well, here we are a few weeks out from election day, and the MSM is working hard to create a Democratic victory. They portray Bush and Rove's assessment that both the House and Senate will remain Republican as "self-delusion" amid "widespread panic in the Republican establishment." If you've ever seen widespread panic, you probably know that that description of "the Republican establishment" (wouldn't that be the optimistic, unshaken Bush, Rove, Cheney, Mehlman and the like?) is a bit of hyperbole.

The recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 53 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of terrorism, the lowest number he has ever received on what has been a signature strength.

Fine, but it does not follow that 53 percent of Americans favor the Democrats handling terrorism, and if it did mean that, it may mean something and may mean nothing in the state and local races in play.

But in every campaign appearance, Bush continues to attack Democrats for being purportedly soft on national security.

I am very sure that Bush has not attacked Democrats for being *purportedly soft* on national security. I have heard several of his recent speeches, and he has attacked Democrats for being *soft* on national security.

The frustration for the White House is that, until two weeks ago, the Bush-Rove plan seemed to be having an impact. The White House used the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as an opportunity to redefine the Nov. 7 elections around the terrorism issue. A modest uptick in Bush's approval ratings followed, and GOP lawmakers began to feel better about their prospects. But recent events combined to change the campaign conversation. These include the leak of a classified intelligence document suggesting that the Iraq war was complicating the fight against terrorism, a Bob Woodward book alleging administration deceptions about the war, and -- perhaps most critically -- the Foley scandal, which raised questions about whether the GOP tolerated the abuse of minors to protect one of its own.

That the Iraq war is separate from the war on terror is a Democratic rhetorical strategy parroted here by a purportedly fine reporter.

Bob Woodward to the rescue! Remember, Republicans can't be trusted... Nixon... Nixon... Foley...

As for the Foley scandal, admittedly I haven't paid much attention to it, but until now I had not heard anyone describe his conduct as child abuse, which I thought had a pretty specific and commonly understood meaning, nor had I heard the purported abuses described in the plural.

Aside: I don't know what impact it may have on the polling or the outcome in PA, but Santorum absolutely undressed Casey in their televised debate the other night. Santorum clearly articulated his position on every issue and pointed out the differences between his and his opponent's. Casey responded to pointed questions about his record and his voting intentions with deflection, duck and dodge, redirection, how dare you, finger pointing and yelling. As Peggy Noonan wrote last week, the Democrats may well achieve substantial gains in both houses in November, but they have done nothing to earn it.

PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS SO I TOO CAN BE OFFENDED

Later, Piniella said the A's needed Thomas to get "en fuego" - hot in Spanish - because he was currently "frio" - or cold. After Brennaman praised Piniella for being bilingual, Lyons spoke up.

Lyons said that Piniella was "hablaing Espanol" - butchering the conjugation for the word "to speak" - and added, "I still can't find my wallet."

"I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit too close to him now," Lyons continued.

Fox executives told Lyons after the game he had been fired.

Piniella, approached before Saturday's Game 4, declined to comment on the situation except to say: "No, he's not here today."

NO EASY ANSWER ON N KOREA says Krauthammer

This is how you keep Kim Jong Il from proliferating. Make him understand that his survival would be hostage to the actions of whatever terror group he sold his weapons to. Any terrorist detonation would be assumed to have his address on it. The United States would then return postage. Automaticity of this kind concentrates the mind.

This policy has a hitch, however. It only works in a world where there is but a single rogue nuclear state. Once that club expands to two, the policy evaporates because a nuclear terror attack would no longer have a single automatic return address.

Which is another reason why keeping Iran from going nuclear is so important. With North Korea there is no going back. But Iran is not there yet. One rogue country is tolerable because it can be held accountable. Two rogue countries guarantees undeterrable and therefore inevitable nuclear terrorism.

GRACE

I like Peggy Noonan. She has grace.

The left in America--Democrats, liberals, Bush haters, skeptics of many sorts--seems to be poised for a significant electoral victory. Do they understand that if it comes it will be not because of Columbia, Streisand, O'Donnell, et al., but in spite of them?

What is most missing from the left in America is an element of grace--of civic grace, democratic grace, the kind that assumes disagreements are part of the fabric, but we can make the fabric hold together. The Democratic Party hasn't had enough of this kind of thing since Bobby Kennedy died. What also seems missing is the courage to ask a question. Conservatives these days are asking themselves very many questions, but I wonder if the left could tolerate asking itself even a few. Such as: Why are we producing so many adherents who defy the old liberal virtues of free and open inquiry, free and open speech? Why are we producing so many bullies? And dim dullard ones, at that.

SPYCHIPS

My friends in the competitive intelligence industry tell me the Patriot Act is just one flickering star in a galaxy of real and pending privacy invasions. Those embedded chips we are all walking around with may have been planted by The GAP as well as the grays. Levi-Strauss may be monitoring my movements (though they be few) even now through a Radio Frequency Identification device (RFID) sewn into my jeans. Take a gander -- and watch your back.

When people walk by me in airports talking into the air (with Bluetooth device on their far ear) or sit right next to me having animated or personal conversations on their cells, I wonder whether privacy is already passe. Which is why I am taking pains to create personal spaces in my home where a man can be alone with his thoughts. I am hoping that, so far, no one is listening to those.

CONTEXT: Following is the email that pointed me to the RFID site. I have met the fellow from *** who is mentioned. He is former military intelligence, now corporate counterintelligence officer.

Look up RFID tags – Liz McIntyre. http://www.spychips.com/ . These can be inserted anatomically and hospitals are very interested in them and so are schools interested in having them on children’s identification tags to be worn at all times. They are in passports, key fobs (sp?), cars, driver’s licenses (which will become national next year I think – not sure). Manufacturing, etc. I had an interesting discussion with the guy from *** who I knew was friends with his P&G competitor who is mentioned in the Spychips book. He indicated that P&G is doing some really sneaky over the ethical line things with their RFID. The only thing holding back RFID is that all RFID tags are not made equal (but they will be). Therefore, not all can be read by a universal reader. Passive tags are the most dangerous. They will be using these for tracking in the future. Put that in conjunction with the Patriot Act (which I am not a huge fan of believe it or not) and we have given the gov’t tracking ability along with the ability to throw us in jail, not let anyone know why we were arrested, where you are being held, and no right to an attorney or a trial. Sound far fetched? Not really. Sounds paranoid – not really in light of world events.

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SAVES WORLD THRU BETTER DIPLOMACY

This over-the-top campaign video via Drudge is pretty funny.

This is a smart strategy, to create video that you could never air on TV and then promulgate it over the web, JibJab style. Drudge's influence should not be underestimated.

AMISH DEFY NEWS CYCLE

The Amish forgave the gunman's family, buried their dead, and the story quickly and quietly faded from prominence, even locally.

There may be no escaping the world, but there can be a crafting of the kind of life you prefer. I see it over my back fence every day, during those rare moments when I am not at the computer, watching TV or feeding my face.

I am not suggesting that we all retreat from the world, remove our buttons and reject modern medicine, but rather that the Amish demonstrate something important — that it is possible, despite a globalising world culture, to create the life you want by accepting some aspects of modernity and rejecting others, to adhere to a set of unorthodox beliefs while remaining “of this world”.

We have come to expect a grim ritual whenever another American gunman strikes: the keening families, the life stories of the victims, the recriminations of the gun-controllers and the queasy self-justifications of the gun lobby. The Amish, by contrast, have taken their grief away to mourn in dignified privacy. They responded not with outrage and denunciation, but a stoical silence and, astonishingly, immediate, unquestioning forgiveness.

Theirs is an innocence calculatedly embraced. Machines are not seen as intrinsically evil, but as barriers between God and Man. Televisions offer images of violence and sex they do not want their children to see. When a horse is the fastest means of transport, you linger longer and get to know your neighbours better. The Amish
did not learn of this week’s events through the screaming media, but by word of
mouth.

The Amish belief system aims to preserve a peaceful, self-regulating agrarian society, but though their lives are simple, the philosophy that underpins them is sophisticated. Adolescent Amish boys are encouraged to visit the city — a custom known as “rumspringe” in Old German, literally “jumping around” — to sow their wild oats and understand the “English”, as outsiders are still known. Nine out of ten come back.

So far from dwindling away, an eccentric sect in a forgotten backwater, Amish life is booming. There are now some 200,000 in the US, a figure that has doubled in the past 20 years, with new communities springing up in other parts of the country. Much of this is the result of large families, but it is all due to the appeal of a unworldly life that keeps the bedlam of the modern world at bay.

This week’s school shooting showed America at its best and worst. The Amish first came to Pennsylvania in the 1730s, drawn by William Penn’s promise of protection from religious persecution, and prospered thanks to the American tradition of toleration. The right to be Amish is part of the American Constitution, but so is the right to bear arms.

Roberts stage-managed his murderous exit, demanding sympathy and attention, self-pitying and self-indulgent, raging at God’s unfairness. But after that comes the humility of the Amish, demanding nothing but privacy, retreating into their quiet community to mourn with their ancient God. The contrast between Roberts’s deity and that of the Amish somehow compounds the horror.

The few days I spent in the Amish guest house were like entering an older world. My hosts were gentle, shy, humourless and devout. They worked impossibly hard in their hardscrabble fields, and they prayed harder. I found myself deeply admiring the way my hosts had made an accommodation with modernity, while protecting the essence of their culture.

Amish beliefs may seem anachronistic, a peculiar defiance of what we think of as reality, but in their simple, ancient courtesy and private grief they have preserved something we “English” have almost forgotten.

KRAUTHAMMER ON IRAQ AND THE NIE

Following politics is a lot easier on the stomach than following the Steelers these days. Here is Charles K. on killing them there rather than waiting for them here.

How important is Iraq in this calculus? The vaunted National Intelligence Estimate -- unspun -- offers a completely commonplace weighing of the relationship between terrorism and Iraq. On the one hand, the American presence does inspire some to join the worldwide jihad. On the other hand, success in the Iraq project would blunt the most fundamental enlistment tool for terrorism -- the political oppression in Arab lands that is deflected by cynical dictators and radical imams into murderous hatred of the West. Which is why the Bush democracy project embodies the greatest hope for a reduction of terrorism and why the NIE itself concludes that were the jihadists to fail in Iraq, their numbers would diminish.

It is an issue of time frame. The bombing of the Japanese home islands may have increased short-term recruiting for the kamikazes. But success in the Pacific War put a definitive end to the whole affair.

Moreover, does anyone imagine that had the jihadists in Iraq remained home they would now be tending petunias rather than plotting terror attacks? In an audiotape released on Sept. 28, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq said that 4,000 of its recruits have been killed there since the American invasion. Like Omar Farouq and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, they went to Iraq to die in Iraq.

It is clear that one of the reasons we have gone an astonishing five years without a second attack on the American homeland is that the most dedicated and virulent jihadists have gone to Iraq to fight us, as was said during World War I, "over there.''

Does the war in Iraq make us more or less safe today? And what about tomorrow? The fact is that no definitive answer is possible. Except for the following truism: During all wars we are by definition less safe -- and the surest way back to safety is victory.

YANKEES LOSE. . . AHHHHHH YANKEES LOSE

No regrets in seeing the Tigers win tonight. You could tell that it actually means something to them. We’re so use to seeing clubhouse displays, but the spraying of fans with champagne was so touching and magical. These guys were happy and appreciated it in a way the overpaid all-stars on these Yankees never could. The Yankees that celebrated with the fans in 1996 are long gone. No more Wade Boggs on the back of the horse. These Yankees expect to win without all that much effort. And if it doesn’t go as planned then they are more than comfortable with losing. It must have been so lonely on the road without their Ferraris and BMWs. Now they can get back to their home theatre room, put on some tunes and then strategize with their agents about renegotiating their contracts.

Did pitching let them down? The pitching was poor, but other than Damon’s 3-run homer in game 2, they scored but one run in the last three games. The old Yankees Jeter and Posada hit .500. These are guys that play to win. The over inflated all stars stood up there like it was owed to them and scratched their chins when their half assed attempts didn’t work.

Jason Giambi doesn’t understand the first thing about winning. He understands shady trainers and secret supplements and signing big contracts, but he’s unfocused in big game situations. He muffed a simple caught stealing throw to second base yesterday. How long has this guy been in the league? He still hasn’t learned to field his position? He had only 4 more assists than errors this season. If you can’t take steroids to fix a weakness then he’s not interested. Giambi teams are 2-5 in October series. He hit around .240 in two series his teams happened to win.

Alex Rodriguez makes one question the notion of what it is to be a great player. His numbers and his age suggest elite. But if the goal in Baseball is to win championships then someone else is going to have to carry him on their back. This is not Ted Williams or Dave Winfield that stank in their first try. This is a guy who went 3-30 with 0 RBI over the last two years. The combined pressures of postseason, playing in New York, playing 3B, and the big contract have left him hopeless in clutch situations. Put him in Seattle or Texas and let him hit his 50 homers and lead him to the couch by October 3. He’s a good dog. He just needs a good home.

A great deal was made out of the Yankees lineup that had 9 former All Stars and 10 if you count Bernie who played in game 4. Melky Cabrera is the only guy who wasn’t. And what happened? That lineup made 3 Tiger pitchers look like Carl Hubbell. The key to money in baseball is being able to afford your Jeters, Bernies, O;Neills, and Posadas when other teams like Oakland and Minnesota cannot and buy a few reliable quality arms that can keep your team in the game. How many home run hitters do you need when Jaret Wright is your 4th starter? Steinbrenner could have had a better team at 2/3 the cost. It’s hard to think the Yankees would have been worse keeping Pettite, O Hernandez and Contreras especially when the Yanks won without Sheffield and Matsui a good portion of the season,

Down 8 runs tonight, Jeter fouled off pitch after pitch trying to get on base. Posada hit a homer with two outs in the 9th. Most of the rest of the team played like it was May 11. A Rod, Giambi and Sheffield cost $55 million this year. That’s more than some entire teams. Money buys all stars while heart, desire, will, or whatever you name it wins championships. And it doesn't hurt to have Jim Leyland either.

The word verification today for this post was actually a real word, "fatal." It's the first time I've had a real word. I guess it sums up the Yankees play.

UPDATE: Reports that Torre may be fired are infuriating. He's one of the few guys on this team that know how to win. He wasn't swinging the bat up there. He wasn't signing these overpaid chokers. He made the team work with Cabrera, Phillips and a tomato can bullpen.

MIRACLE OF THE MEADOWLANDS

This has nothing to do with anything, except that everyone should know the real story behind Joe Pisarcik's famous game-turning fumble at the end of that Eagles-Giants game, because at some point it will come up and you will be glad you read it here.

SCHOOL SHOOTING STORY HAS NO LEGS

The shooting at the Amish schoolhouse took place a few miles from here in a sparsely populated part of the county. A neighbor at the kids' bus stop yesterday said his friend got turned back by police on Mine Road and pulled over and saw the whole thing do down. The police arrived quickly and prevented a disaster from becoming even worse.

In just about any other community, a deadly school shooting would have brought demands from civic leaders for tighter gun laws and better security, and the victims' loved ones would have lashed out at the gunman's family or threatened to sue. But that's not the Amish way.

No it's not. The Amish are organized around community, family, faith, simplicity and hard work. The day after the tradedy, my Amish neighbors were out harvesting the corn crop by horsepower. The corn must come in regardless of circumstances, and harvesting tens of acres by hand requires a lot of hands. Watching this operation made me feel soft and harried and somewhat isolated. Who in my life is helping me harvest my crop? Have I made community, family, faith, simplicity or hard work a priority in my life? In their situation, would I fret, or would I get up and go harvest the corn?

The first order of business was a community prayer service at a large church here in Leola. Nancy met a friend there and called me from the parking lot to report a media circus. During the silent periods during the service you could hear cameras clicking. Media correspondents grabbed people on their way out for on-location interviews.

The Amish responded by requesting privacy and going about their business in a dignified manner. The media does not know quite what to make of something happening in a dignified manner. They are used to covering (and fueling, even creating) Cindy Sheehan types. What do you do with survivors who comfort the perpetrator's family and refuse to have their picture taken?

In the aftermath of Monday's violence, the Amish have reached out to the family of the gunman, Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, who committed suicide during the attack in a one-room schoolhouse.

Dwight Lefever, a Roberts family spokesman, said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. Among Roberts' survivors are his wife and three children.

"I hope they stay around here and they'll have a lot of friends and a lot of support," said Daniel Esh, a 57-year-old Amish artist and woodworker whose three grandnephews were inside the school during the attack.

Roberts' relatives may even receive money from a fund established to help victims and their families, said Kevin King, executive director of Mennonite Disaster services, an agency managing the donations.

The MSM doesn't have anything to hype here and won't understand the non-reaction to this story locally. The Amish understand that life is not fair, that sometimes it is hard, that there is evil in the world, that they were cursed after Adam's fall to work the land, that there is an afterlife, that the victims are better off than their survivors, and that the only response consistent with their faith is to forgive and to keep on keeping on. There is much to admire in that, but not much to report.

THE JETER FACTOR

I haven’t been to a baseball game since I saw the Yankees get beat by the Marlins in Game 4 of the 2003 World Series. My falling away from ball has been chronicled many times on these pages. Last night I saw a glimmer of what baseball should be about in the dedication of Derek Jeter. In an age of cheating and profuse player movement, there stood Jeter showing the 24 other guys on his team how to be a Yankee.

The sportswriters complain that Jeter’s numbers aren’t all that great and his range is average, but what are raw numbers anyway in this day of mass cheating? How do you compare the dirty with the clean? The only comparison between players anymore is their respect for the game and their willingness to do anything to win it. Jeter went 5-5 and turned a key double play last night, but also impressive were the interviews before the game. The media was trying to make a thing about ARod’s lack of production in the playoffs last season. Jeter asked why they were focusing on one player when it takes 25 to win. When Jeter hit the centerfield homer last night in the 8th inning, Alex Rodriguez was the first out of the dugout. The Hall of Famer in everyone’s eyes has to look to Jeter to see what it is to be a winner. And Jeter shows what it means on the field and off.

TWO MEN ENTER

Instant Classic play just now in the LAD-NYM game. Dodgers have men on 2nd and 1st. Batter hits ball off right field wall. Former Pirates third base coach Rich Donnelly sends both runners around third and both are tagged out.

Question: If the first runner had barreled through the catcher, akin to a fullback clearing the linebacker out of the hole, and the second runner had crossed uncontested, would the run stand?

MEDIA INSPIRED VIOLENCE

A milk-truck driver carrying three guns and a childhood grudge stormed a one-room Amish schoolhouse Monday, sent the boys and adults outside, barricaded the doors with two-by-fours, and then opened fire on a dozen girls, killing three people before committing suicide.

At least seven other victims were critically wounded, authorities said.

On 60 Minutes Sunday Ed Bradley interviewed the maker of "Bum Fights" a series of reality DVDs where bums fight each other for booze and small change. Bradley then interviewed a few people in jail for attacking bums. Bradley kept trying to get the maker of these films admit that he was the inspiration for the attacks, especially after one con blamed him.

Then on Monday another school shooting. And who do you think inspires school shootings other than the big media that makes everyone one of them into a national story when they only have local significance.

CBS: But "Bum Fights" is doing it for a profit. We only show school shootings to push for stricter gun regulation.

ME: So CBS isn't in the business of making a profit?

CBS: Profit is just a by-product of our caring attitude that we've learned tro live with.