Posted 11:55 AM by Floyd

I do mock anti-war folk intemperately, but to some extent I respect that they have their own beliefs and opinions. But one such as Josh Marshall is worthy only of contempt and disdain. Marshall is not anti-war, or pro-war, or for that matter pro- or anti- anything except anti-Republican and pro-Democrat. For Marshall it is always the hgh summer of 1998, and any news must be interpreted and spun in the same manner as, say, whether it is true that Monica Lewinisky possesses a semen-stained dress.

Consider this posting from last Thursday:

As many news outlets are reporting, there was a new photo of Saddam published today which caused quite a stir in Baghdad.

It was published by Al-Mutamar, a new daily published by Ahmed Chalabi, and it features a disheveled downcast Saddam sitting before -- who else? -- Ahmed Chalabi.

Chalabi, with hands clasped, is sitting a couple feet from Saddam and seems to be posing some question, as Saddam looks on sheepishly.

This picture was taken shortly after Saddam's capture when the US military brought in four members of the Interim Governing Council to speak with Saddam: Chalabi and three others.

(The best reproductions of the picture I've seen are in the Dallas Morning News.)

Here are a few questions ...

Who took the picture?

Presumably an Army photographer, unless Chalabi was allowed to bring in a camera man from his new paper, which would be, to put it mildly, a bit irregular. Were pictures taken only of Chalabi and Saddam? And regardless of these two questions, why were pictures taken (presumably) by US military photographers given on a exclusive basis to Chalabi?

I bet there's a story there.

LATE UPDATE: I'm told that press reports say that Adnan Pachachi and the other two IGC members were in the photos, but were cropped out to leave only Chalabi. That of course leaves the questions above even more in need of answer.

You can, as I did, read the post again. And again. Once, or twice, or ten times, it will not matter; you will still be left wondering what the hell Marshall is complaining about. It's illegitimate for ... military photographers to record newsworthy events? For ... news editors to crop photographs to focus on the most newsworthy subjects? (I demand that all photographs of George Bush be expanded to include the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development!)

Consider what has happened: A dictator and mass murderer is deposed and, after eight months on the run, captured. He is brought in the presence of the man who represents, however imperfectly, legitimate governance of the country that he raped and ruined. The two are photographed. What would an observer reflect on when viewing this picture? The banality of evil? How even the most mighty can be brought low? Marshall sees the tableau and thinks to himself, scandal; that is what is hard-wired into his mental circuitry.

Also note the obliqueness and indirectness of Marshall's criticism. The first sign that someone has lost contact with reality is that he mutters to himself. Marshall's post is one long mutter.

Posted 9:36 AM by Floyd

The AllahPundit adds captions to photos of Howard "Dean-O", John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Saddam Hussein. For instance, John Kerry meets a little girl:

LG: My daddy says we did good because we caught the bad man and now he can't hurt anyone evermore ever again!

JK: Ah, Janie. Such sweetness. Such ... simplisme. Tell me, did your daddy serve in Vietnam?

LG: No.

JK: Did he?

LG: No.

JK: Then he wouldn't know anything about war, would he? Tell me Janie, as a young person, would you be more likely to vote for me if I used the work "fuck" more often?

Posted 5:24 PM by Floyd

Andrew Sullivan publishes a letter from a reader who cites the experience of her grandfather to explain that hobos are not bums:

Before settling down, to become a railroad worker and early union organizer, he spent a couple of years (from age 15) "hobo-ing" around the western United States. He was very adamant that this was an honorable pastime. A hobo, he said, is not a bum. He goes from place to place and looks for honest work to earn his food and a place to sleep - he is NOT looking for a hand-out.

During the Depression my grandfather travelled Appalachia doing itinerant work (he supported his family as his father died young). Often he would find a place to sleep by going to jail. He didn't need to get arrested; he would seek out the local police station and ask if he could sleep in a cell, and they were happy to oblige him. Grandpa never referred to himself as a "hobo" though.

Posted 8:14 PM by Floyd

Colby Cosh wrote an article for the National Post about Saddam's capture, and noted:

The anti-warriors have had the luxury of subjecting the Bush administration to 100 different critiques, 50 of which directly contradict the other 50.

This technique is on display in today's San Jose Mercury News; the author even got the proportions right:

U.S. had a hand in rise of Saddam

Saddam Hussein is a very bad guy

"Saddam Hussein is a very bad guy"?! Homestar Runner has a better vocabulary -- "The Cheat is one fine-looking young man" -- and he can't even talk.

Sorry. Where was I?

and should pay for his crimes, but with the propaganda storm being unleashed by Washington and the mainstream press over his capture, let's not forget some basic facts.

Our own government supported him and helped him rise to power. Our government's years of economic sanctions and bombing campaigns have also brought death and destruction to Iraq. This war was based on a deception of the American people and the world, and those waging this war also stand to benefit from it politically and economically.

The blatant hypocrisy of all this remains unreported in the mainstream press and unnoticed by many Americans.

Doug Pearl
San Jose

So, the US is at fault because it supported Saddam Hussein ... and also because it didn't support Saddam Hussein! There was probably some time in the 60's or 70's when the US was neutral with respect to Saddam; you would think Pearl could have worked that in there.

Posted 8:04 PM by Floyd

While driving home I saw a car -- an SUV, natch -- with the bumper sticker "Another Family For Peace." This has a nasty odor of evading rational discussion by invoking the sweet faces of angelic little ones. The now defunct Juan Gato used to deride policy proposals that tugged at parent's heartstrings as "It's For The Children(tm)"; I suppose that "Another Family For Peace" belongs to a related category, "It's By The Children."

Its theoretical demerits aside, "Another Family For Peace" is hardly an impressive slogan. "So, you're a santimonius twit, you married another sanctimonius twit, and you're busy producing sanctimonius twit offspring. What were the odds?"

Posted 11:34 AM by Floyd

Criminals often scam credulous elderly ladies. But sometimes the tables are turned:

Palo Alto police arrested a naked transient man Saturday after he allegedly assaulted an elderly woman in her bedroom. The incident occurred at about 1:30 a.m. in the Evergreen Park area of the city, said Palo Alto police Agent Jim Coffman.

The victim, whose name was not released, attempted to fight off her attacker and asked him if he wanted something to eat, Coffman said.

The attacker allowed the victim to go to the kitchen, Coffman said. She then ran out of her home and alerted a neighbor, who called police.

Posted 4:57 PM by Floyd

Saddam's capture has left the hard-core left in shock and disarray:

• Dan Gillmor marked his return to the US by posting about the "great news" of the capture of Saddam. Gillmor was not jingoistic or bloodthirsty. Here is his post in its entirety:
  
  

  
  I've arrived home to the great news that one of the 20th Century's most murderous thugs, Saddam Hussein, has been captured.
  
  Put him on trial for war crimes, and then put him away in a hole for the rest of his miserable life.
  

  
  
  The idea that Saddam's capture was good news, and that Saddam might be answerable to his crimes, threw Gillmor's commenters into a tizzy.
  
  

  
  If you are talking the recent Gulf war, what war crimes precisely? And do the US generals who deployed cluster bombs around civilian populations (Geneva Convention doesn't just apply to winning side) also get prosecuted?
  
  ...
  
  Have a nice father and son bedtime chat as you try to explain the logic behind invading a sovereign nation that has committed no offenses against your country.
  
  It's like invading Canada and describing it as a victory in the war against Australian aborigines.
  
  Whoo-hoo! Parade the Canadian Prime Minister around! Raise the bloody flag and cheer!
  
  ...
  
  I, too, was surprised by Dan's post. But I am going to put it down to his returning to the US after five weeks abroad. The propaganda machine must be fierce down there, and it must have just hit him hard.
  

  
  
  Not that everyone was so eloquent. When Jeff Jarvis discussed a statement by Howard Dean, one commenter took his marbles and went home:
  
  

  
  I am sorry but I cant read this right wing nonsens any more
  
  adios and good luck
  
  paul berlin
  

  
  
  Some can't even bear to face the news. Andrew Sullivan notes:
  
  

  
  Indymedia - one of the major anti-war sites - simply (as of 10.30 pm [Sunday] night) doesn't
  mention the capture of Saddam at all. Its more pressing headlines?
  "Majority of the population of Uruguay votes against privatisation."
  "Activists Gather in DC to Oppose CAFTA." Eloquence itself.
  

  
  
  Atrios' mob was made of sterner stuff:
  
  

  
  Moronic brownshirt fucks: God's gift to the nap-impaired.
  
  ...
  
  (Get it everyone? The "fascism" argument against the American right wing is becoming very reasonable: Bush most certainly is a military dictator. Of Iraq.)
  

  
  

The War on Terrorism is destroying the anti-war left. The anti-war crowd is loathed and mocked.

These wounds are entirely self-inflicted.

What makes the anti-war left ridiculous? Not its opposition to war per se. Opposition to war cannot explain the vicious reaction to Saddam's capture. The left is silly -- and vile -- for two reasons:

• They issue apocalyptic warnings which fail to come true. Remember the "brutal Afghan winter"? The "brutal Iraqi summer"? The "concentration camp" at Guantanamo (where jihadists are allowed to pray five times a day, and gain weight)? The predictions that a US-Iraq war would cause hundreds of thousands of casualties?
  
  
• The left protests war by elevating America's opponents to the status of heroes. See my preceding post for an example: A fellow wrote a letter to the San Jose Mercury News claiming that "Now that Saddam Hussein has been found and is alive and well, we need to apologize to him for killing his sons, knocking down his statue and making him live in a hole in the ground." No, jackass, we do not need to apologize to a person who murdered three hundred thousand of his fellow citizens.
  

The left consists of many people with varying styles and goals -- which all lead to absolutism. The left is not happy that a murderous dictator will face justice at the hands of the people that he oppressed. The left declares that Bush is worse than Saddam, that the United States cannot win any war anywhere, that America is responsible for all current and past evil in the world.

I repeat: All motivations for being a leftist lead to absolute opposition to America and the War on Terror. The utopians must promote an alternate vision of reality where lack of American power leads to paradise. Those who would use leftist politics to rule us -- or at least their university's liberal arts department -- have fantasies of a world with themselves in charge, and feel that they must discredit those actually in power. And the people who show up at demonstrations because they have nothing more worthwhile to do with their lives must fill the void in their souls by shrieking as loudly as possible.

A hint of the left's future can be seen in another comment in that Dan Gillmor post. It is an interminable "conversation" between a father and his son in which every silly strawman of an anti-war argument is propped up and worshipped as dogma. It is of course a monologue disguised as dialogue, and it is as close to actual debate as the left can stand.

(Footnote: Not all opposition to war is motivated by leftist abolutism. There is also puerile self-centeredness:

dear president of the united states,

nice job finding saddam. to be honest i never thought you could do it.

not like it was you who couldnt find him.

and i know it wasnt actually you who opened up the fake door tagged him and said "youre it!"

but you know what i mean.

good job.

i feel safer now.

so thanks.

and im really stoked that it wont take an hour and a half to get on an airplane anymore.

and that they wont make people get out of line and take off their shoes anymore.

and the stock market will go back up, and stay up.

...

Blah blah blah. Whatever. When AIDS is cured, remind me to complain about how my health hasn't gotten any better.)

Posted 10:31 AM by Floyd

A dispatch from the mentally ill, in today's San Jose Mercury News:

Now that Saddam Hussein has been found and is alive and well, we need to apologize to him for killing his sons, knocking down his statue and making him live in a hole in the ground. And he needs to be restored to his rightful place as head of Iraq.

After all, it turns out he was telling the truth. There are no weapons of mass destruction. Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld are the ones who lied and who need to step down.

If Saddam needs to be punished for being a tyrant, just put him in charge of Iraq. After the mess the Americans have made of things, that would be punishment enough.

Robert Wright
San Jose

Update: I wondered whether this was the same Robert Wright mentioned in an earlier posting -- in which Wright told Joanne Jacobs about his local school having discarded a Chronicles of Narnia book because it was politically incorrect. I decided that Robert Wright was a common name, and San Jose is a big city. But then I read Joanne Jacob's post on Saddam's capture, and there was the full text of Wright's letter in the comments. Several other commenters assumed Wright was trolling. Such is the esteem in which the anti-war left is held.

Posted 4:19 PM by Floyd

Those who think that the United States is ruled by a fascist junta, and who look to Europe to keep alight the dwindling flame of liberty, would do well to examine this item in Reason's Hit and Run blog:

Maybe some Francophile (phone, even?) can 'splain it to me, but when a French presidential commission backs a ban on yarmulkes, crucifixes, head scarves, and other "obvious" symbols of religious belief from public buildings I gotta think the nation has gone insane.

The comments are even more edifying than the article. Jean-Bart, a Francophile fixture in Hit and Run's comments, patronizingly explains how the French had to destroy the village of liberty to save it:

Of course the problem is that people who wear these headscarves, called "foulards," are incredibly disruptive, and even violent. According to the French government's tracking of this, nearly ~2,500 incidents last year alone were attributed to people bullying women over not wearing them. French girls - Muslim or not - have been raped solely because they do not wear them. And this was in schools; I can't imagine what it's like to be a Muslim woman in France and have to deal with this issue outside of school.

This is much more than an issue of national identity or religious freedom; in fact, the entire subtext of this issue centers around certain elements of the Muslim community attempting to create state within a state (much as the Protestants attempted to do during the Wars of Religion). Included in that state would of course all the nightmares that come with theocracies.

Banning the foulard is one means of combatting this issue.

I do not know the exact number of Muslim immigrants in France but it is in the neighborhood of six million, one-tenth the country. Thus fewer than one in one thousand Muslim women have been the victim of foulard-inspired bullying -- and the number of perpetrators is presumably much smaller than the number of victims. But Jean-Bart believes that you can look at the foulard-wearers and tell that them folk are up to no good.

If Jean-Bart were just a French Nazi this wouldn't mean much; you can find all sorts of nuts on the web. What's scary is that he appears to think of himself as a liberal, and despises Le Pen and his right wing followers. If you think minorities are troublesome, and attempt to suppress their cultural self-expression, that's fringe Ku Kluxery in America -- but conventional wisdom in France.

Posted 11:02 AM by Floyd

It's the 21st century. We're happy with the market economy. We don't let our address determine where we shop, or which doctors we use, or where we get our cars serviced. We know that the government cannot provide goods and services efficiently. We are allegedly free people.

Can we stop having money extracted from us at gunpoint for education? Can we have separation of education and state? Can we stop being the fucking serfs of our public school system?

Here's what prompted that outburst:

Robert Wright, a San Jose middle school teacher, writes:

Obadiah and I are reading a discarded copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's a nice hardbound copy I rescued from the dumpster at school.

Inside, it is stamped with this message:

This book has been replaced for one or more of the following reasons:

Material is inaccurate
Does not meet district standards
Stereotypes gender or culture

(From Joanne Jacobs.)

Posted 10:47 AM by Floyd

A particularly noxious sort of opinion piece is one in which the author uses some momentous event to push for a completely unrelated pet idea. Here is today's San Jose Mercury News editorial:

An opportunity: Bush administration can use new momentum to gain broader international support
Mercury News Editorial

A window opened when American troops pulled Saddam Hussein out of his hidey-hole Saturday. The Bush administration eliminated the nightmare scenario of Saddam's return to power and, in the process, created the potential for the international cooperation that has been lacking in Iraq.

...

But with Saddam behind bars, the world knows today that the Baathists won't be returning to power. That could give Germany, France and Russia a reason to believe that significant progress is being made and that they should seize the opportunity to play a role.

The article is a continuing insult to one's intelligence. Germany, France, and Russia are not "the world." Those countries exerted considerable effort to keep Saddam in power. It is not credible to imagine that Baathists would return to power before or after Saddam's capture.

I imagine that there are two reasons why this drivel gets written and published. First, the author believes that his ideas are so important that any important event is a validation of them. "It's like angels are sounding their trumpets for my genius!" Second, the author works 9 to 5 for a monopoly newspaper and gets paid as long as he can generate a sufficient number of words.

This sort of nonsense is why I like to read opinion pieces in the blogosphere. There's no reason to pick up a tired old newspaper when you can get fresh views from smart and motivated bloggers. It would be like living in a state with 10 million Hispanics and getting your Mexican food at Taco Bell.

Posted 10:19 AM by Floyd

Canadien stay up laet try be like Amerifashist TYPE RACEIST ANGLE-SAXAN BRACKET CLICK

Posted 1:20 PM by Floyd

How does Jim Treacher celebrate Saddam's capture? With a Puce-a-thon!

WHynot comb his hare cut beerd aply Greashin Fromular make Sadam atractiv for world adianse? CREUL FASHISTS