Grannies dance, but they don’t fall down…no matter how wobbly they may be.

(If you don’t get that allusion, you don’t know your history of International Socialism, comrade.)

Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette offers insightful commentary on a recent court appearance of aging revolutionaries. Apparently, some anti-war Grannies managed to get themselves arrested, and thereby gain an inordinate amount of press coverage from the likes of the NY Times.

This is the paragraph that caught Greyhawk’s attention, and prompted my reference above to a bit of international communist nostalgia:

The trial was extraordinary, if only because it gave 18 impassioned women — some of whom dated their political activism to the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg — a chance to testify at length about their antiwar sentiments and their commitment to free speech and dissent, in a courtroom that attracted reporters from France and Germany.

Greyhawk’s take:

Google Ethel and Julius if you need to, fellow travelers - I'm not giving that part of the history lesson today. But small wonder the supporters of the team that helped hand the A-bomb to the Russians are against America today. Many, if not all of the "grannies" are simply remnants of a bygone era, revitalized by new threats against a nation they can't bring themselves to support. If any of them actually have children who also have children it's less a validation of their wisdom and more a reminder that four or more decades of supporting a failed ideology does not of itself grant credibility to the cause.

The Grannies and their supporters take the judge’s decision in this case – to dismiss charges rather than seek punishment for their acts of (apparent) civil disobedience – as a victory for the right of free speech. I think they’re mistaken, and so does Greyhawk. He celebrates their victory, and notes the other, more significant demonstration of freedom, and its cost: the acts of those men and women who made their way past the obstructionist octogenarians, and enlisted for military service:

I celebrate their "victory"... as I celebrate the right to non-violent free speech anywhere in the few countries that allow it today. But I cheer loudly for those recruits who used that space they left available to enter the recruiting office and join to actually defend free speech too. In a way I truly pity those who wasted a life lived in freedom leading cheers for those who would end both life and freedom were they ever to be successful in their cause.

Funny how contemporary practitioners of civil disobedience can so enthusiastically celebrate being relieved of suffering any consequence of their acts? That was certainly not Gandhi’s example, nor Martin Luther King’s. They embraced the judicial consequences of their disobedience.

I suppose that’s reflective of the times, the Me Generation impulse towards taking the easy route on anything. Darn End of History protesters. Can’t even do a little stint in Birmingham Jail, for cripes sake. Had to go hire a flashy First Amendment lawyer to get them all off with a compassionate dismissal.

I’ll leave the last word to Greyhawk, as he does so well:

Expect more from these intrepid grannies, they aren't likely to be content to go back to making brownies. These age of Aquarian septuagenarians have achieved a first - the first generation to protest their parents and their kids.

Back in the "good old days" they popularized a slogan: "never trust anybody over 30". They were wrong then, and they're wrong today.

United 93 opened today, and I would urge all of us to see it, maybe more than once, and strongly urge our fellow citizens to see it, too. Trailers and other links available here.

Debbie Schlussel nominates United 93 for Movie of the Year, and declares that the film, due for release Friday, April 28^th, should be “required movie viewing for all Americans who love freedom.” I would add, “as well as for all of those who would sell cheap what some hold dear.”

Schlussel makes the same point, and highly commends United 93 for the following people who don’t seem to get it:

Assorted ACLU-style lawyers and activists

Federal "law enforcement" bureaucrats

FAA brass

Most Hollywood directors and writers

She concludes her peace, obviously to those of us who “get it:”

While the United 93 passengers had barely a warning--perhaps less than an hour, we have had plenty of warning in America. It was not just the 9/11 attacks and the foiled shoe-bomber attempt in 2001, and other escapades since. Before that, we had the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, the blowing up of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, the 1996 Khobar Towers attacks, "Black Hawk Down" in Somalia, and so on. Before that, Hezbollah--a group which works with Al-Qaeda training its insurgents and which took part in the Khobar Towers attack--hijacked TWA Flight 847, torturing to death Navy diver Robert Stethem, and murdered 300 U.S. military and civilian personnel in Lebanon.

Yes, we have had the warnings. Plenty of them. And unlike in Hollywood, in real life, Jack Bauer does not usually save the day.

The question is: Will we take heed of them like the passengers on United 93 and go down fighting? Or will we "see no evil" and silently, willingly submit to the will of the Islamists who repeatedly tell us of their mission . . . until the West is dead?

Schlussel is worried about the signs of how this question is being answered, even as this movie opens. Couldn’t have come soon enough – the telling of this story --  one might conclude. Others disagree.

Many of my fellow conservative bloggers maintain that only liberals think that it’s too soon to start showing movies about 9/11. That’s perhaps debatable, although the sampling done by the Wall Street Journal Online seems to underscore conservative belief.

Sure, I know the job of a reviewer and critic is to very specifically address the artistic content of artistic works, and surely delving into structural elements of plot and dramatic exposition is well within the Drama Critic’s Area of Operations.

Still, based on the Journal’s selection, which I have no reason to doubt is representative, note those reactions critical of the movie. “Why it was made in the first place?” they whine. “Why was this movie made?” “We need something more from our film artists than another thrill ride.” They ask, “What, exactly, this re-creation illuminates?”

Or the most representative of this line of reasoning, from Manohla Dargis of the The New York Times:

"United 93" inspires pity and terror, no doubt. But catharsis? I'm still waiting for that.

Which kind of crystallized for me what I think of objections to the film.

Manohla, the rest of us aren’t waiting for a catharsis anymore. We experienced ours when we watched the planes hit the towers, the collapse of these massive structures, the instant transformation of nearly 3,000 people into dust and vapor and ash.

Perhaps that is the genius of this film, perhaps will be the genius of any accurate and honest film that will ever be made about the events of 9/11. Like some ancient Greek tragedy and the finest of Shakespeare’s work, there is something so universal, so elementally, brutally, human in the events of that day. The clear distinction, so starkly evident, between good and evil, that to tell the story is to make that instant connection to something timeless and essential.

The fact that the American people have been lulled into a predisposition for going back to sleep, to think this was after all some fantasy of revenge dreamed up by George Bush and the Neocons, that we can somehow talk and schmooze our way out of the Nuclear nightmares we face in Iran and North Korea, is reason enough to tell this story.

We needed to scream this story from rooftops on September 12, 2001, and every day thereafter. We need to honor our dead and fallen, each anniversary and day set aside for remembrances of heroes and sacrifice. We need to tell these stories to our Children’s children, and their children, for generations yet unborn.

It saddens me that such a world exists, and that the evil, so unimaginable to those who seek peace at any cost, exists. But I know it does. Those who died on United 93, at the Twin Towers, at the Pentagon, in Afghanistan and Iraq, know it too in a more final sense.

Some will never need to be reminded of that fact. For others, there will be films like United 93.

Please read, too, David Beamer’s piece in the Journal. Mr. Beamer is the father of Todd Beamer, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93. He urges us to see United 93, and offers the following admonition, and prayer:

Be reminded of our very real enemy. Be inspired by a true story of heroic actions taken by ordinary people with victorious consequences. Be thankful for each precious day of life with a loved one and make the most of it. Resolve to take the right action in the situations of life, whatever they may be. Resolve to give thanks and support to those men, women, leaders and commanders who to this day (1,687 days since Sept. 11, 2001) continue the counterattacks on our enemy and in so doing keep us safe and our freedoms intact.

May the taste of freedom for people of the Middle East hasten victory. The enemy we face does not have the word "surrender" in their dictionary. We must not have the word "retreat" in ours. We surely want our troops home as soon as possible. That said, they cannot come home in retreat. They must come home victoriously. Pray for them.

Other commentary on United 93 well worth your while:

Michelle Malkin:   THE HIJACKING OF UNITED 93...AGAIN?

John / OPFOR:   HERE'S YOUR CHANCE AMERICA

BLACKFIVE:   NEVER YIELD  —  We should never forget the heroism of September 11th.

IMAO:   Loose Screws  —  Though it doesn't come out until Friday …

Mark Noonan / Blogs for Bush:   United 93  —  David Beamer, father of United 93 passenger Todd Beamer …

Sister Toldjah:   David Beamer, father of Todd Beamer, on the Flight 93 movie

In a communiqué, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) notes conditions at Guantanamo have “improved considerably,” and finds it “extremely regrettable” that hysterical media attention to Guantanamo has distracted from (really) “troubled sites in places like Chechnya and Burma.”

Wow. Regrettable, do you find it? Any remorse in being part of the full court press and media campaigns that helped whip up the hysteria?

(Chirp, chirp.)

Now if Jakob Kellenberger could only chat up the leaders of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, we could do something more than just regret the insane focus on minor US infractions while really nasty people go on about business as usual.

I read stories like this, and wonder. Could it be that FOH* and FODP** are laying the groundwork to doing 180’s on various aspects of the Global War on Terror, come the day when they won’t have to do the knee-jerk “that SOB Bush is in the White House” routine, and sensible NGOs can go back to being, well, full of sense?

* Friends of Hillary

** Friends of the Democratic Party

Instapundit points to this short blurb on The Corner at NRO:

Follow this link (hat tip Tim Blair) to read how Robert Fisk digs a deeper and deeper hole for himself over whether or not Zarquawi exists, is a threat, should be covered by the media, and much else.

I know Robert Fisk as the namesake of the blogging practice of critiquing columns or opinion pieces, by presenting those pieces interspersed with running commentary. Fisk earned that dubious honor by the great prevalence of his critics’ use of the technique. Apparently Fisk’s writing reveals a preference for gross inaccuracy and flights of illogic.

You couldn’t find any better example of these tendencies than his interview in this Australian Broadcasting Corporation television appearance.

Critics might be tempted to fisk Fisk, but Fisk so thoroughly fisks Fisk, no further fisking is required.

Read the whole thing, it’s very humorous.

Here’s my logical reduction of his interview:

1. The recent tapes purported to be from Zarqawi appear to really be from Zarqawi.
2. Contrary to Fisk’s assertion that Zarqawi is a “creature created, in a sense, by American propaganda,” Zarqawi clearly exists.
3. Contrary to what Fisk has also maintained, Zarqawi is alive.
4. We “bestialize” Zarqawi and Bin Laden. These individuals don’t matter anymore, their creation, Al Qaeda, does.
5. Fisk questions whether Zarqawi “is seriously an enemy of the ‘West’,” or just some lunatic. He likens our distortion of Zarqawi and his role to the way in which the West “bestialized” (demonized) Khomeini, Gaddafi, Nasser.
6. Fisk maintains that, if Zarqawi was in fact the individual who appeared in the Nick Berg snuff video, he’s “obviously the monstrous figure we make him out to be.”
7. Fisk suggests that we create creatures (like Zarqawi) as evil caricatures, as figures for us to hate.
8. Contrary to what Fisk has just said, according to Fisk, Bin Laden is a real “problem for all of us.”
9. Contrary to what Fisk has just said, Bin Laden and Zarqawi quite intentionally act and fashion themselves as kindred, malignant creatures. Only we help them do that, claims Fisk, by acknowledging their acts, and recognizing their evil character.
10. Fisk maintains that, “absolutely,” we must not ignore the existence of these monsters.
11. Contrary to prior statements, Fisk acknowledges that “There's no doubt about it. They are bad guys.” But they’re popular in the Muslim world.

Man, my head hurts. Anyway, that’s the Cliff’s Notes version of Robert Fisk.

A short reflection on why busting pork in terms of earmarks -- member items, pork barrel spending, supplemental appropriations, etc. – is only one battle in a bigger war. (The occasion of this reflection is the Senate Proposal to reorganize the FEMA Portion of Homeland Security.)

When you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Better yet, when you’re a hammer aching to look like you’re really important, anything looks like it needs you pounding away at it.

Best of all, when you’re head’s made of iron, pounding away at nails is probably all you’re good for. Except, it’s long past “hammer time.”

Okay, enough with the hammer metaphor, but that was fun.

It’s humorous, after all, to think of most of our Senators as a kind of select group of Tim Allens, playing at TV handymen and women on some kind of Governmental Tool Time program. It’s also sad and pathetic that this is indeed what our elected officials amount, to at a time of grave threats and fiscal dangers. And their solutions? More bureaucracy, bigger bureaucracy, new bureaucracy.

Anything to make it look like “They Are Doing Something About It.”

My Dad retired as a Civil Service employee after many years as an Actuary for two Insurance companies. He spent his last 15 years or so as the senior non-appointed employee for a State Insurance regulatory organization.

Dad used to self-effacingly call government service “the last refuge of the mediocre.” Witnessing the many years that he toiled to keep the insurance companies operating in New York honest, and the many occasions that he confronted dishonesty and corruption in various government or public employee union settings, I know that his observation was less true than some might think. Even corrupt government employees rarely exhibit mediocrity in their criminal pursuits. Surely those who attempt to do the right thing, even less so.

I have spent the better part of my Civilian career consulting within government agencies, and have seen both sides of the issue, and all kinds of civil servants. They are no more, and no less, than any other type of employee.

Like military men and women, Civil Servants do not make the decisions that create their missions, direct, or otherwise regulate their efforts. Politicians do that.

It may be a truism, that there is no area or endeavor that Government involvement cannot make more confused, ineffective, or inefficient. Many of us grow infuriated with Government bloat and ineffectiveness. But.

My Dad used to be a Conservative, many years ago now. I won’t discuss that further, it’s painful and distressing, but nevertheless, he once was as Conservative as I, and I remember the things he often said. He is perhaps my Mentor most of all, in this.

One thing he also said, reflects on the rapacious tendency of Government to want to consume every issue and “crises,” at least those events so characterized that they will inevitably rise to a certain threshold level of awareness. In responding to these crises, the Politician finds a ready made soapbox, a venue for issue- (and thus self-) promotion, and media attention. (Which is, after all, the ready grease of political opportunity.)

Dad firmly believed that, if private industry or business or other appropriate institutions or organizations would fail to police or regulate themselves, no doubt government eventually would, but less effectively. He often expressed it something like this: there is no better way to guarantee unwanted (and otherwise unnecessary) government intervention, than failing to deal with a problem at the appropriate level.

He invoked this observation, axiom-like, whenever current events provided ample demonstration of the truth of his observation. This happened often, as it happens. The Stock Market. Environmental Protection. Baseball.

I don’t know that I have previously noted how commonly this occurs within Government. Citizens in local communities first, but then small and mid-size “g” Government at local and state levels fail in their responsibilities. Who steps in? Uncle Sam, of course.

Visit for a moment today’s press report:

"The first obligation of government is to protect our people," said Sen. Susan Collins (news, bio, voting record), R-Maine, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation. "In Katrina, we failed at all levels of government to meet that fundamental obligation."

She added: "We must learn from the lessons of Katrina so that next time disaster strikes, whether it's a storm that was imminent and predicted for a long time, or a terror attack that takes us by surprise, government responds far more effectively."

Presumably, since today’s report of Senate fulminations makes no mention of any change that affects preparedness for terror attacks, we might conclude that Sen. Collins thinks that half of her verbal construct is being dealt with sufficiently by the Bush Administration and its myriad Executive Branch apparatchiks. (Better guess, that’s coming somewhere down the Campaign Trail.)

So how does the Senate ensure that Government best meets this “first obligation?”

Why, rename and reshuffle Agencies, of course:

WASHINGTON - Hurricane Katrina turned FEMA into a "symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy" so far beyond repair that it should be scrapped, senators said Thursday. They called for creation of a new disaster relief agency as the next storm season looms on the horizon.

This will make everything better!

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., said FEMA needs to be stripped out of the larger department and restored to an independent Cabinet-level agency. "That's how it was done in the past and it worked as we hoped," said Lautenberg, a member of the Senate panel.

This is an odd rewriting of history, even for a crass partisan opportunist. By all accounts, the FEMA response to Katrina was arguably better, faster, more resourced, than any emergency response in FEMA’s history. Even before that rather non-sensical, Democratic Party-prompted subordination of FEMA within the cumbersome Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

A DHS spokesman responded to the Senate announcement with a tart rejoinder:

"It's time to stop playing around with the organizational charts and to start focusing on government, at all levels, that are preparing for this storm season," Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said.

Oddly enough, that was just as true on September 12, 2001, before politics created DHS as a way of letting Politicians then (mostly Democrats, but joined obviously by Republicans) of using Bureaucratic turf building to show how much Good They Could Do.

Have at the After Action Reports. Identify areas for improvement. Increase funding, reset priorities, all well and good.

But how many different ways do we need to rearrange the deckchairs before we get at what the real problems are?

Back in the Active Duty Army, I remember the ways in which each new Commander needed to “Reorganize” unit operations at our Intelligence site, each reorganization forming the basis for the End of Tour Legion of Merit. Usually the Big Man in charge found the easy way to accomplish this, alternating between Centralization and Decentralization, with each new Commander finding the Last Commander’s Design as the Source for all our Problems. Hence, the imperative to reorganize.

Do they teach this technique at one of the War Colleges? Did GE teach this technique at Croton-on-Hudson? I don’t think anyone puts this in writing. My guess is this is learned through Informal Mentoring, by those who observe, like my Dad, that there’s a predictable pattern to the Ways of the Organization, which are after all, all Political at their core.

And so the Senate ruminates, fulminates, gesticulates, regurgitates.

We can only hope that someone, at some point, decides to make better use of obligation to do the People’s Work.

(Great alliteration via the Wall Street Journal Online)

Check out http://www.floppingaces.net/?p=1551 for the best compilation of updates and links on the firing of CIA Analyst, former Clinton Official, and Democratic Party Activist Mary McCarthy.

(Via Tom Maguire at Just One Minute)

Universal Pictures is releasing UNITED 93 on Friday, April 28^th. I don’t have time to comment much – I am trying to wade through the backlog of work while I was away vacationing and attending the First Annual MILBLOGGER Conference on April 22^nd.

The only comment I absolutely need to make is that it is way past time to start reminding Americans of 9/11. Too many have forgotten, what not enough realized would be the gravest threat for this or any generation. We did not ask for this fight, but the fight was pressed upon us on 9/11 with as much force as that which brought down the Two Towers, and turned 3,000 souls to dust and vapor.

From the Press Release:

UNITED 93 director Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, The Bourne Supremacy) creates a gripping, provocative drama that tells the story of the passengers, crew and the flight controllers who watched in dawning horror as United Airlines Flight 93 became the fourth hijacked plane on the day of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil: September 11, 2001.

Trailers:

QuickTime Formats

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_trlr_2_128k.mov

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_trlr_2_300k.mov 

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_trlr_2_700k.mov 

Windows Media Formats

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_trlr_2_128k_wmv.asx

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_trlr_2_300k_wmv.asx

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_trlr_2_700k_wmv.asx  

Featurettes:

QuickTime Formats

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_featurette_128k.mov

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_featurette_300k.mov

http://www.united93movie.com/media/united_93_featurette_700k.mov

Windows Media Formats

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_featurette_128k_wmv.asx

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_featurette_300k_wmv.asx

http://www.universalpictures.com/asx/united_93/united_93_featurette_700k_wmv.asx

Images: 

http://media-file.net/united/united1/Set1/  

http://media-file.net/united/united2/Set2/

Jake Klim, from an outfit called Normandy Films, passes along a request for footage or other assistance in locating personal videos from troops in Iraq.

Per his email:

I am an Associate Producer who just finished working on a documentary series for the (Discovery) Military Channel called BATTLEFIELD DIARIES. Three of the 10 hours have highlighted various aspects of the Iraq War – a Kiowa crash rescue in September 2004, the USMC drive towards Baghdad in April 2003 and the 724^th Transportation Company Ambush of April 2004.

My boss and I are currently developing an exciting new television project for another major cable network that will utilize images personally shot by the troops and some text from various MilBlogs.  So I am looking for personal videos and stills of our servicemen & women in Iraq, shot by those same servicemen & women.  I'm especially looking for soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines talking INTO the camera...video diaries, having fun, being creative, interviewing one another, explaining what life is like in Iraq, down time, training, explaining what happened to them that day, music videos, etc.  Nothing is out of bounds!  The good, the bad, or the ugly.  Action, gore/bodies, down time, fun time, helping Iraqi communities, interacting with Iraqi civilians/children/police/military...anything that has little a story to it or is visually interesting.  If you know of anyone that kept a video diary while deployed; or did some "interviews" with his comrades in arms, please ask them to contact me.  Any format is probably workable.  (CD, DVD, cassette, etc.)  All originals will be returned at my expense.  If you have some ideas about how I should go about trying to get some footage together, I'm open to suggestions?  Are there a couple of websites I should post my footage request on?  Also, can you help me by passing the word around to other units?  I need to act quickly as I must show the network some sample footage in 8 weeks.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.

He can also be reached at Jklim007@yahoo.com.

Chester’s exceptional piece on Iran: simply the best analysis I have ever read. On Iran, or anything else geopolitical.

Go read it as soon as you can. It is as much must read as anything you will read on Iran.

Glenn Reynolds describes it as round-up, that’s not really true, unless you view it as a round-up of the best long term analysis on Iran. Chester quotes widely but with precision, and even concludes his analysis with a reflection on Moby Dick.

You still here? What did I say? Go read it!

Sidney Blumenthal opines in Salon that Bush is completely caught up in his own lies and deceit:

Bush is entangled in his own past. His explanations compound his troubles and point to the original falsehoods. Through his first term, Bush was able to escape by blaming the Democrats, casting aspersions on the motives of his critics and changing the subject. But his methods have become self-defeating. When he utters the word "truth" now most of the public is mistrustful. His accumulated history overshadows what he might say.

The collapse of trust was cemented into his presidency from the start. A compulsion for secrecy undergirds the Bush White House. Power, as Bush and Cheney see it, thrives by excluding diverse points of view. Bush's presidency operates on the notion that the fewer the questions, the better the decision. The State Department has been treated like a foreign country; the closest associates of the elder President Bush, Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, have been excluded; the career professional staff have been bullied and quashed; the Republican-dominated Congress has abdicated oversight; and influential elements of the press have been complicit.

Inside the administration, the breakdown of the national security process has produced a vacuum filled by dogmatic fixations that become more rigid as reality increasingly fails to cooperate. But the conceit that executive fiat can substitute for fact has not sustained the illusion of omnipotence.

The precipitating event of the investigation of the Bush White House -- Wilson's disclosure about his Niger mission -- was an effort by a lifelong Foreign Service officer to set the record straight and force a debate on the reasons for going to war. Wilson stood for the public discussion that had been suppressed. The Bush White House's "concerted action" against him therefore involved an attempt to poison the wellsprings of democracy.

Aside from the usual suspects, I seriously doubt anyone takes talk of ethics from a Clinton insider, confident, and operative as particularly compelling. (I am disappointed in reacquainting myself with my erstwhile debating partner Liberal Avenger. I had hoped that his long silence was based on a change in interests. I suspect it is because he lost any ability to talk civilly with an avowed supporter of the evil Bush Administration.

Anyone but a rapid Partisan knows Sidney Blumenthal for who he is, and however else he may be characterized, he has no shame or remorse about elevating partisan gain over public trust, integrity, honesty, or any recognizable code of ethics. He’s a Democrat, first and foremost!

Only a hack like Blumenthal could so baldly characterize the Washington party game of Policy Warfare as such High Drama. To Blumenthal, if we can believe him, the highly public but anonymous turf wars that pit the Pentagon against the State Department and the CIA against, well, everybody else, are the stuff of free and informed debate. Only an insider Player of Blumenthal’s gall could suggest that efforts to tame errant Departments and Rogue Bureaucracies represent stifling of debate, and thus “thrives by excluding diverse points of view.” Blumenthal knows the script from which he waxes so melodramatic: that of the Stupid Boy King who the King’s Regent Must Keep in Ignorance, lest a little knowledge become a dangerous thing:

Bush's presidency operates on the notion that the fewer the questions, the better the decision.

This from the enabler of a constantly dissembling and prevaricating Bill Clinton?

But alas, the evil is so much more: “career professional staff have been bullied and quashed” over at Foggy Bottom. Ah yes, these career Diplomats and analysts who value talk talk talk so highly over war war war. We have seen the many warm embraces between the former Madame Secretary and her North Korean admirers.

But even that’s not all. Blumenthal warms to his topic in highlighting what he sees as the real source of all the many hysterical press reports in the Plame Flame Game:

The precipitating event of the investigation of the Bush White House -- Wilson's disclosure about his Niger mission -- was an effort by a lifelong Foreign Service officer to set the record straight and force a debate on the reasons for going to war. Wilson stood for the public discussion that had been suppressed.

Only, as has been well demonstrated, Joe Wilson was the liar. No evidence has been presented that refutes the long established fact that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. No matter how often Democrats and their media friends continue to misrepresent or distort (okay, lie) about what actually was said, both by the Preesident and by Joe Wilson, the facts remain, however overlooked.

Apparently, Saddam did not succeed in Niger, specifically, nor, apparently, elsewhere. But it is substantiated by many documents seized in the fall of Saddam’s government, and agreed by all knowledgeable experts, that Saddam sought a capability and the means to restart a nuclear program, banking on the ultimate success of his Russian and French friends in lifting the sanctions, that prevented him for trading for components more easily. Everyone who really remembers the politics of sanctions, and No Fly, and the constant problem and threat posed by Saddam throughout the 90’s and into 2000, 2001, 2002, knows how grave a threat he was perceived to be. Even Democrats.

And yet, and yet. The President is beleaguered and his popularity and approval ratings plummet. His enemies and political opponents smell blood, and see advantage and opportunity. Gone are the constraints that, until now, how held back their wrath. Now, it seems they can attack and score and pay little or no price politically.

They still have no plan, save to Really Real Security^TM. But they sure know who and what the enemy is, and they aren’t wearing turbans in Tehran.