That's not a surprise, perhaps, but the editorial endorsing George Bush is eloquent. It recognizes the dominance of America's place in the world and the concomitant responsibilities, and takes a dim view of John Edwards's protectionist background. But on the topic of Bin Laden, it offers a reading of the video not unlike what I offered below:

"The video-taped message by Osama bin Laden released on Friday included a nauseating attack on the President who, this fanatical mass murderer said, left '50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone, because he thought listening to a child discussing her goats was more important' - a contemptible reference to the fact that Mr Bush was in a Florida classroom when he heard the news of the World Trade Center atrocity. The fact that bin Laden's long-awaited "October surprise" was a captious video message rather than a fresh terrorist outrage is - we fervently hope - a sign that al-Qaeda's operational capacity has been seriously eroded by George W Bush's war on terror.

"But on one point, bin Laden could not have been more explicit. 'Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush,' he told the American people. The Islamic fundamentalists will continue their barbarous campaign, irrespective of who is in the White House. The question, then, is which of the two candidates is better qualified to be commander-in-chief as the war on terror proceeds."

It's conclusion: "Mr Kerry has done everything to encourage the charge that he is stranded in the world of September 10. 'We have to get back to the place we were,' he said this month, 'where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance.' That would no doubt be desirable. But nothing Mr Kerry has said suggests that he knows how to achieve this goal. The intellectual vacuum at the heart of his candidacy has profound implications for Britain's strategic interests and the lives of our troops: in both cases, this country would be better served by the re-election of Mr Bush."

The Daily Telegraph's headline shows one interpretation of Osama's latest video:

"Bush Takes a Six-Point Lead after New Bin Laden Tape"

It refers to the new Newsweek poll which gives Bush a 50-44 lead over Kerry.

"If the trend is confirmed by other polls, Mr Bush may have his greatest enemy to thank for helping him secure another four years in the White House after the appearance of the video sparked a sharp final round of argument over which candidate can best defeat terrorism."

Does anyone truly doubt that Osama's video is little more than a crude, evil attempt to aid John Kerry's efforts to defeat President Bush? After all, he's hardly the first international figure to join the anti-Bush chorus. Kofi Annan has called the Iraq war "illegitimate," his UN sidekick Mohamed ElBaradei leaked old news to major liberal media outlets, who were only too happy to cooperate in an attempted October Surprise. Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero rarely misses an opportunity to stick his finger in Bush's eye, to the extent that he can.

That's why it's perfectly understandable why OBL would emerge from his cave long enough to wash up and tape a series of threats for the American public. He's only borrowing, as has been pointed out, from Democratic intellectual guru Michael Moore's script. And if you're OBL, finding yourself in the same boat with the above crowd isn't such bad company. It gives you a sense of legitimacy, which every outlaw craves in some way. By going on the attack against Bush, he's made it clear that the left's criticism of the President is correct -- to appeasement-minded lefties and those whom they would appease.

It certainly didn't take John Kerry long to seize the opportunity to make OBL's tape sound as if it were cut for his (Kerry's) benefit. (Via Power Line, this is in keeping with the Democrat's mad efforts to win at any costs, as Joseph Perkins pointed out here. Nothing is beyond partisanship for such people; no step is ever over the line.)

Few others doubt that OBL's principal target was Bush. According to an AP story, again via Power Line, "Around the world, observers debated what impact the dramatically timed message would have on the U.S. election, just days away."

Radical Muslims certainly took it for granted that Osama's threats shouldn't be seen as politically neutral: "On Web sites devoted to extremist Muslim comment, contributors reacted with glee to the tape, saying it was proof bin Laden was alive and was a 'slap' at America.

"Montasser el-Zayat, a Cairo-based lawyer who defends Islamic radicals, said the video amounted to an 'unprecedented attack on Bush at a very critical time, before the U.S. elections.'"

Legitimate observers felt the same way, according to the same AP story:

"Diaa Rashwan, a Cairo-based expert on extremist Muslim militants, said bin Laden was trying to influence Americans 'to give Kerry their votes, not Bush [emphasis added].'"

"Many felt the tape would have the opposite result. 'Bush supporters are confident the video will be widely seen as an attempt to blackmail the nation into changing course, something that can only play to the advantage of the incumbent,' noted Britain's Daily Telegraph."

It should be noted that any backfire from the Bin Laden video is a sign not of his original intentions, but of his ignorance of America.

Via Beldar Blog, Wretchard at Belmont Club reads OBL's speech in a way that supports the terrorist's hope that Kerry wins. In an insightful bit of analysis her writes:

"It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.

"The American answer to Osama's proposal will be given on Election Day. One response is to agree that the United States of America will henceforth act like Sweden, which is on track to become majority Islamic sometime after the middle of this century. The electorate best knows which candidate will serve this end; which candidate most promises to be European-like in attitude and they can choose that path with both eyes open. The electorate can strike that bargain and Osama may keep his word. The other course is to reject Osama's terms utterly; to recognize the pleading in his outwardly belligerent manner and reply that his fugitive existence; the loss of his sanctuaries; the annihilation of his men are but the merest foretaste of what is yet to come: to say that to enemies such as he, the initials 'US' will always mean Unconditional Surrender.

"Osama has stated his terms. He awaits America's answer."

Beldar reads OBL's tape as "a very clear attempt to begin negotiations with a Kerry administration for a "cease-fire" in the Global War on Terror." Captain Ed, meanwhile, reads it as less a surrender than another attempt at braggadocio, whereby OBL is gambling that a Kerry win would demonstrate his strength by his ability to influence an American election.

"Far from signaling a surrender, I believe that OBL wants to influence the American elections as another demonstration of his power. He wants to depose George Bush, but he's smart enough to understand that a fire-breathing performance only helps Bush by scaring/insulting the voters. His moderate performance was designed to appeal to the reasonable leftists and centrists who tend to believe that America brought Islamist terror onto itself. His "offer" amounts to a lever with which to promote anti-Israel sentiment to undercut support for Bush, as well as give people the impression that the war is Bush's fault, despite the years of Al Qaeda attacks on American assets.

"Don't allow yourselves to be fooled into thinking that Osama has retreated in his desire to reconquer Andalusia and spread the ummah across the globe, reducing the infidels to dhimmitude. He just knows when to temper his rhetoric for the best possible political result."

This is the kind of debate we need over Osama's intentions, and it's one we're getting only on the blogosphere (though, to be sure, talk radio is likely to engage it come Monday). It's another reason New Media are so key to tackling the central issues before us.

My own gut feeling is that the Captain is partially correct by arguing that Osama hasn't given up on any of his grand dreams. As Daniel Pipes and others have argued, a central element of Islamism is the restoration of Muslim greatness at the expense of the West. But I'm not as convinced of his PR savvy as is the Captain and, like Wretchard, I'm struck by the lack of fire and brimstone in this latest salvo. If OBL possessed the judgment and reason of an American politico, he should have foreseen the rage at his actions and the full-throated backing of the disposal of the Taliban that followed 9/11. Besides, our European allies, with whom we share much more culturally and historically than we do with OBL, frequently misunderstand and misinterpret us.

I don't doubt OBL's savvy on many levels -- after all, 9/11 occurred -- but given American estimates that 95% of Al Qaida's ranks have been devastated, he knows that things aren't what they used to be. His element of surprise is gone, and by appearing on TV he has placed the terror machine he runs -- not weapons caches in Iraq -- back at the center of our debate.

Plus, Kerry's politicized reactions sound like they're coming from a man who thinks the OBL video is likely to help Bush. So does Walter Cronkite's attempt at dark humor. If OBL is to be given credit for subtlety and political savvy, those are significant reasons to wonder just how much he understands about the American electorate.

My mother forwarded this excellent article to me about the stakes of this election and what it will mean for Americans as a people.

Election determines fate of nation

Depending on the outcome, they will describe it as the moment America joined the ranks of ordinary nations; or they will describe it as the moment the prodigal sons and daughters of the greatest generation accepted their burden as caretakers of the City on the Hill.

Via Drudge:

If the U.S. moved the explosives, why keep it a secret when news reports surfaced that they had been moved?

I have an electrician here today and he's about to move in on the study, so I'll be in the dark for a while. But I'll be blogging again when he's gone, and Brent and Brady are keeping at it, so please check in.

Captain Ed has a superb critique of the much-vaunted video tape run by his local ABC affiliate. As he says, this tape is being used by the NYT to claim that its earlier charges of incompetence against American soldiers and, by extension, President Bush are on target.

Meanwhile, Bill Gertz is standing by his story that the weapons were removed earlier than later.

"U.S. intelligence agencies have obtained satellite photographs of truck convoys that were at several weapons sites in Iraq in the weeks before U.S. military operations were launched, defense officials said yesterday.

"The photographs indicate that Iraq was moving arms and equipment from its known weapons sites, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"According to one official, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, known as NGA, 'documented the movement of long convoys of trucks from various areas around Baghdad to the Syrian border.'"

The Russians are denying any involvement in this weapons transfer, and it seems that, for now, that part of the story is up in the air.

Hindrocket at Power Line has insider information on the quantity of explosives moved.

Via Power Line and The Corner, here are the remarks of Gen. Tommy Franks as he introduced President Bush in Westlake, Ohio:

GENERAL FRANKS: "Well, what a treat it is to be in northern Ohio. (Applause.) Indeed, it's an honor to be standing here today with you. You know, I'm not a politician, but I know what a Commander-in-Chief looks like, and there's only one on this ballot -- that's George Bush. (Applause.)

"You know, I would guess by the enthusiasm that I see represented here today that victory is headed our way in just about five days. (Applause.) If you think about character, if you think about courage, if you think about consistency, if you think about honesty, you think about George W. Bush. (Applause.) If you talk about a leader who knows something about the global war on terrorism, it would be George W. Bush, and he knows it's global. (Applause.)

"You're talking about a leader who knows that terrorism has been more than a nuisance for more than two decades. (Applause.) You're talking about a leader who does not want to roll back terrorism to the times of Beirut in 1983, Khobar Towers in the mid-1990s, East Africa in 1998, the USS Cole in the year 2000, and doesn't want to roll it back to 9/11/01. Terrorism is not a nuisance. (Applause.)

"George W. Bush is a leader who knew that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world and to the United States of America, and removed him from power. (Applause.) George W. Bush is a leader who knows that our troops, as of right now, have cleared 10,000 ammunition and weapons sites in Iraq. He knows that they have destroyed 240,000 tons of munitions in Iraq. He knows that they have under control -- (applause) -- he knows that they have under control another 162,000 tons of munitions in Iraq. We're talking about George W. Bush who knows, who understands that we do not yet have all the facts about 380 tons of munitions in Iraq. And he is a President who will look at you and say, we don't yet have the facts, but we will get the facts. George W. Bush. (Applause.)

"In George W. Bush, you're talking about a leader who does not step out every day of his life and make more wild accusations. You're talking about a leader who actually cares about our troops, about their families, and about our veterans. You're talking about a leader who actually respects all those who serve our country with dignity and with honor. You're talking about George W. Bush. (Applause.)

"The past three years have been hard years for America. The past three years have been a tough time for our country. I've looked into the eyes of our President, my Commander-in-Chief, and I have seen that character, that courage, that consistency that I just described. It's the courage that it takes to win a war, not tie one. And we have to win the war against terrorism in this country. (Applause.)

"Now, I'll tell you, I don't know Senator Kerry's plan for victory. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is, but I do know -- but I do know that his criticism of military conduct of our global war on terrorism denigrates, disrespects our troops. (Applause.) And, ladies and gentlemen, I also know that he cannot lead troops to victory in a war when he has made it perfectly clear that he does not support the cause. (Applause.)

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be a close election, and every vote counts. Those who wear the uniform of service of the United States of America deserve a Commander-in-Chief, and it's my honor to introduce one -- President George W. Bush. (Applause.)"

Current scheming by the reactionary left to bring down the Bush presidency is only the latest chapter in a very old story. The deleterious effects of our liberal elites have long been lamented by conservatives and old-fashioned liberals. From academe, the courts, and NGOs, to the mainstream media and Congress, a class of overseers seized the moral high ground in the aftermath of WWII and, later, the Civil Rights movement and rose to unprecedented influence. So powerful did this establishment become that, by labeling conservatives as uncaring, uncouth, and uncultured, it was able to ostracize through mere admonishment any person, publication, or group that dared to challenge its near-monopoly on public power and moral suasion.

But, as we know, that has changed, and the old order’s reaction is vitriolic and self-destructive. When Monday’s New York Times shouted that American troops and their Commander in Chief were too incompetent to bother with a huge cache of deadly explosives in post-war Iraq, the Kerry campaign was only the most visible beneficiary. For the Times spoke not only for its editors and reporters: It spoke (as we now know, literally) for IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” and (most likely) U.N. chief Kofi Annan. Less directly, the Times represented the feelings and aspirations of rootless elites the world-over, whose grip on power is slipping day by day.

That’s as it should be, of course. Not only have global elites operated the U.N. for their own benefit and gain, democracy and the world’s masses be damned, but their interests are today diametrically opposed to America’s. This dissonance is most obvious on security issues, which were fumbled by ElBaradei’s minions in Iraq and Annan’s across the globe. As the recent Congressional report of Charles Duelfer and the U.N.-backed investigation of Paul Volker demonstrate beyond a doubt, the United Nations can no longer be dismissed (as many conservatives once did) as merely incompetent and ineffectual. No, it’s much worse than that: It’s a corrupt haven for terrorists, and American taxpayer dollars were used to support the infrastructure that gave cover for Saddam to bribe officials and politicians so that sanctions would be lifted and his work on WMDs could resume unfettered.

Domestically, this scheme is aided and abetted by a class that is increasingly parasitic and despised. It feeds on a contempt for bourgeois life promulgated by a spoiled professoriate and intellectual elite that enjoys all the benefits of republican rule (most notably, affluence sufficient to support this modern leisure class) while sneering at the sacrifices of those who make possible life as we know it. We can rest assured that, of all demographic groups, these effeminate snobs would be the last to embrace careerist anti-intellectual nihilism and cultural relativism if the consequences of their actions were proportional to the damage they wreak to the institutions and ideals that support a free society.

And yet, mirabile dictu, we’re witnessing a repudiation of global elites that, with or without the reelection of George Bush, has mortally harmed their interests. If ideas have consequences, actions based upon those ideas can change history. The rise of New Media – talk radio, Internet magazines, bloggers, cable news – has taken our erstwhile overseers by surprise and made them vulnerable to a degree they never thought possible. Hermetic life is a poor choice for those who would be leaders, since leadership demands that current events be viewed against the backdrop of history and within the context of unchanging human nature. The intellectual and cultural left erred when they jettisoned rigorous epistemology for ready-made conclusions in trendy fields supported by victimology and area studies. That this move exchanged earlier radical beliefs in the malleability of human nature and the perfectibility of man for a contradictory vision of humanity as both environmental plague and sociological victim mattered little. Having lost all sense of our place in creation, or of their own roles as bearers and progenitors of knowledge, they couldn’t be bothered with philosophical contradictions that many of them probably didn’t even notice.

Absent any guiding principles, even principles as malformed and harmful as those proffered by Marxism, the left abandoned all pretense to fulfilling any obligations higher than its own self-preservation. Thus, many professors today despise teaching, demand complete autonomy from the institutions and society that support them, and delight in producing vacuous books and articles read by few and comprehended by none. Elite media such as the New York Times and CBS News lie with abandon and pursue partisan agendas with a gusto that would make nineteenth century newspaper barons blush. And too many liberal Democrats hurl false charges against their opponents and turn a blind eye to thuggery against Republicans or voter fraud as they embrace an “anything goes” attitude toward winning the election.

Colluding with global interests against those of their own nation comes naturally to such folk, for on many fronts they share more with the international elite than with their fellow citizens. Dominant among these common traits is a sense of entitlement born of decades of unchallenged rule. Yet today their reign is not simply challenged, but undermined, and with this development the means for enforcing their claims of moral and intellectual superiority has been destroyed. No longer in control of the flow of information, the left has lost its ability to bully and embarrass the rest of us into submission. Absent its veto of the topic of national conversation, and with its own ranks eviscerated through intellectual sloth, it resorts to dirty tricks and adolescent demagoguery in a vain attempt to forestall its collapse.

Does this mean that the right will assume control of these hollow institutions, or that the dangers their minions pose to American security have passed? Not at all. Dying institutions, like wounded animals, are dangerous and potentially destructive. Their ongoing actions, coupled with earlier selfish decisions, will continue to cost us dearly, and ill-advised reactions by the right would only add to our troubles. What’s certain, however, is that the New Media have done Americans a great service by exposing the rotten underbelly of the global elite – a group undone first and foremost by its own perfidy. Today, we Americans have a clearer grasp of the challenges ahead, because the left no longer sets the boundaries of public morality or civic discourse. It’s up to us to use this newfound freedom wisely.

I penned an op-ed on how best to rein in rising health care costs, while preserving our current system's excellent care, that's now posted on OpinionEditorials.com.

The Washington Times's Bill Gertz is reporting tonight, via Drudge's flashing headline, reporting that Russia aided Saddam's troops in removing much of his weaponry in advance of American advancement, including 380 tons of RDX and HMX.

"Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.

"John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, 'almost certainly' removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad."

It's nearing eleven pm in the East, so we'll have to see how this unfolds overnight, in the European press, and tomorrow here. But if this is accurate, I'd posit that it shows that the UN knew of this removal and worked with the Russians and Baathists to hide the removal.

Gertz reports: "The Russian arms-removal program was initiated after Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian intelligence chief, could not convince Saddam to give in to U.S. and Western demands, this official said."

The arms were taken to Syria: "Mr. Shaw said he believes that the withdrawal of Russian-made weapons and explosives from Iraq was part of plan by Saddam to set up a 'redoubt' in Syria that could be used as a base for launching pro-Saddam insurgency operations in Iraq.

"The Russian units were dispatched beginning in January 2003 and by March had destroyed hundreds of pages of documents on Russian arms supplies to Iraq while dispersing arms to Syria, the second official said.

"Besides their own weapons, the Russians were supplying Saddam with arms made in Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria and other Eastern European nations, he said.

"'Whatever was not buried was put on lorries and sent to the Syrian border,' the defense official said."

This has tremendous implications for the ongoing presidential race here, as it demonstrates, if accurate, that the mendacity of the Times and CBS is even greater than we'd first thought. And it exposes the role of Syria's Baathist regime, a charge that has been flying about since the Iraq fell to coalition forces last year. Gertz's piece concludes:

"Defense officials said the Russians can provide information on what happened to the Iraqi weapons and explosives that were transported out of the country. Officials believe the Russians also can explain what happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs."

The Smoking Gun reports that Barry Seltzer, 46, of Sarasota tried to run down Republican congresswoman Katherine Harris with his Cadillac:

"Seltzer . . . allegedly drove up on a sidewalk and headed directly for Harris before swerving 'at the last minute.' Harris told officers that 'she was afraid for her life and could not move as the vehicle approached her,' according to the report. For his part, Seltzer--who's a registered Democrat--told cops, 'I intimidated them with the car. They were standing in the street.' He added, 'I did not run them down, I scared them a little!'"

He was arrested. TSG has his photo and a copy of his arrest form.

I'd normally view this as an isolated incident and the stunt of a lone lunatic. But given the ongoing intimidation of Republicans and the outrageous rhetoric of the left, I'm not so sure. Unbalanced people are more likely to act if they're encouraged to do so by the "respectable types" they sometimes look to for leadership. I cringe to think what's going to happen next.

As William Kristol noted last night, the Kerry campaign has plunged headlong into the set-up of the President by the NYT, CBS News, and the IAEA. Call it a collusion of interests.

"[T]he Kerry campaign admits that the information that is the basis of Senator Kerry's statements and his campaign advertisement may not even be true. Pressed on Tuesday afternoon about the accuracy of the allegations on Fox's Big Story with John Gibson, Richard Holbrooke, a senior adviser to the Kerry campaign, said: 'You don't know the truth and I don't know the truth." He later underscored this point: "I don't know the truth.'

"That minor issue hasn't kept the Kerry campaign from creating a television ad based on what may well be untruthful claims."

And: "It also now turns out that CBS 60 Minutes was planning to echo the New York Times story two days before Election Day. So what we have is an attempt by the New York Times, CBS, and a U.N. agency to work together to promote a very likely false story to damage President Bush's reelection prospects. Perhaps no one should be surprised that the liberal media and the United Nations are willing to go to quite extraordinary lengths to promote Kerry's prospects against Bush, but their behavior is not the issue. The issue is Kerry's willingness to advance allegations that his own campaign acknowledges may not be true."

INDC Journal takes a close look at the story and includes many links. You'll find other excellent examinations of the story at The Truth Laid Bear and by Wretchard of Belmont Club.

OpinionJournal.com offers what I believe to be an important analysis of where President Bush has been in the past four years. I sometimes criticize President Bush for his embrace of big government — I generally find myself in the Barry Goldwater vein (“My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them”) — but I wholeheartedly support President Bush’s foreign policy of preemption. That’s why I believe it is critical he have another four years in the White House.

I am not entranced with this notion of neoconservative dominion in the White House. And I generally don’t describe myself as a neocon — just “con” works well enough for me. (In case you’re interested, the Christian Science Monitor offers an interesting identification quiz on this matter.) The authors of this column write, “But even if Mr. Bush wins, the neoconservative dream at its most fanciful is surely over. The neocons will remain; they are too clever and too prominent on Washington's rive droite to disappear.”

They’re probably right. And that’s OK. I’ll take the neocons if we can have Bush for another round against evil.

Don’t miss the column. Here’s one of the highlights (in my humble view):

I think the last sentence is bit myopic: Mr. Bush didn’t stir up fanaticism. Fanaticism came knocking on a sunny morning in September 2001. The hornet’s nest of radical Islam long had been awake — and isolationist (and appeasement-loving) American leaders failed to do what needed to be done.

One kind of fanaticism deserves another. And I’m fanatic about American sovereignty, security and freedom. And all this reminds me of the 12 Sept. 2001 editorial of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

"...Those responsible for these attacks would do well to heed the words of Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto after the attack on Pearl Harbor: 'I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.' And so they have."

Today in Lancaster, Pa., the heart of Amish country, President Bush responded to John Kerry's charges that American incompetence allowed dangerous explosives to be stolen from Al Qaqaa in Iraq. Here is a portion of his response:

"After repeatedly calling Iraq the ‘wrong war,’ and a ‘diversion,’ Senator Kerry this week seemed shocked to learn that Iraq was a dangerous place, full of dangerous weapons. The Senator used to know that, even though he seems to have forgotten it over the course of the campaign, but after all that’s why we’re there. Iraq was a dangerous place run by a dangerous tyrant who had a lot of weapons. We have seized or destroyed more than 400,000 tons of munitions, including explosives, and more than -- thousands of different sites, and we’re continuing to round up more weapons everyday.

“I want to remind the American people, if Senator Kerry had his way, we would still be taking our 'global test.' Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would control all those weapons and explosives and could have shared them with our terrorist enemies.

“Now the Senator is making wild charges about missing explosives when his top foreign policy adviser admits, quote, 'we do not know the facts.' Think about that. The Senator's denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts. Unfortunately, that's part of a pattern of saying almost anything to get elected -- like when Senator Kerry charged that our military failed to get Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, even though our top military commander, General Tommy Franks, said the Senator's understanding of events does not square with reality, and our intelligence reports placed bin Laden in any of several different countries at the time. Our military is now investigating a number of possible scenarios including that the explosives may have been moved before our troops even arrived at the site. This investigation is important and it's ongoing -- and a political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander in Chief.

"When it comes to your security, when it comes to the security of our families, my opponent takes a very different approach. He says that September the 11th did not change him much at all. And his policies make that clear. He says the War on Terror is primarily a law enforcement and intelligence-gathering operation. Well, September 11th changed me. I remember the day I was in the -- at Ground Zero, September the 14th, 2001. It's a day I will never forget; there were workers in hard hats there yelling at me at the top of their lungs, 'whatever it takes.' I remember a man grabbed me by the arm, he looked me square in the eye, and he said, 'Do not let me down.' Ever since that day, I wake up every morning trying to figure out how to better protect America. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes."

Glenn Reynolds has part two on the future of blogging at TCS and it's worth reading in its entirity (part one is here).

Clearly, the blogosphere plays a crucial role as fact-checkers for the MSM. But, as Glenn Reynolds says, we'll all need to do better as the profile of bloggers grows higher. After all, we're not simply finding new readers and making friends; we're making enemies.

Reynolds: "Which brings me to my last prediction. Actually, it's one I've made before: '[I]f Big Media let their position go without a fight to keep it by fair means or foul, they'll be the first example of a privileged group that did so. So beware.' I think we're already beginning to see signs of that backlash, in the wake of the humiliation visited on Big Media by RatherGate -- and the press establishment's general lack of enthusiasm for free speech for others (as evidenced by its support for campaign finance 'reform') suggests that it'll be happy to see alternative media muzzled. You want to keep this media revolution going? Be ready to fight for it."

This morning's Washington Times runs a story by Borzou Daragahi reporting that terrorists in Iraq are, in effect, gunning for a Kerry victory.

"Leaders and supporters of the anti-U.S. insurgency say their attacks in recent weeks have a clear objective: The greater the violence, the greater the chances that President Bush will be defeated on Tuesday and the Americans will go home.

"'If the U.S. Army suffered numerous humiliating losses, [Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John] Kerry would emerge as the superman of the American people,' said Mohammad Amin Bashar, a leader of the Muslim Scholars Association, a hard-line clerical group that vocally supports the resistance.

"Resistance leader Abu Jalal boasted that the mounting violence had already hurt Mr. Bush's chances.

"'American elections and Iraq are linked tightly together,' he told a Fallujah-based Iraqi reporter. 'We've got to work to change the election, and we've done so. With our strikes, we've dragged Bush into the mud.'

"Mowafaq Al-Tai, a London-educated architect and intellectual, said different types of resistance fighters have different views of the U.S. election.

"The most pro-Kerry, he said, are the former Saddam Hussein loyalists — Ba'ath Party members and others who think Washington might scale back its ambitions for Iraq if Mr. Kerry wins, allowing them to re-enter civic life."

The terrorists miscalculate, however, on the effects of their actions among military families. One Abul Jalal says: "'They say there are 1,100 dead soldiers. That means 1,100 families hold grudges against Bush and hate him. There are 6,000 families whose sons were injured who hate Bush and will not re-elect him.'"

As polls show, military families overwhelmingly back the President.

But the charge that Iraqi terrorists are employing such a strategy is further strengthened in a new column by Ralph Peters, which Hindrocket at Power Line highlights today.

"Soldiers don't beg. But an old friend of mine who's still in uniform came close the other day. He badly wanted me to write another column before Election Day stressing that our troops are winning in Iraq.

"He's an Army veteran of three wars. Now he's working to help Iraq become a democratic model for the Middle East. And he's worried.

"Not about terrorists or insurgents. He's afraid John Kerry will be elected president.

"'Kerry's rhetoric is giving the bad guys a thread to hang on,' he wrote. 'They're hoping we lose our nerve. They're more concerned with the U.S. elections than with the Iraqi ones.'"

Via Captain Ed, Reuters is reporting that Iran's nuclear-happy mullahs are rooting for a Kerry victory, as well. " Iranian officials like to portray U.S. presidential elections as a choice between bad and worse but there is little doubt they would prefer Democratic challenger John Kerry to win next week."

More to the point, they think Kerry will back away from efforts to democratize the Middle East, something his previous statements leave little doubt about:

"[T]he Massachusetts senator's emphasis on a multilateral foreign policy approach and hints he would negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program appeal to the country's bazaar-rooted instincts to bargain its way out of a crisis.

"'Logically speaking, everything points to Iran supporting Kerry,' said Tehran-based political analyst Mahmoud Alinejad.

"'If Bush is re-elected it will be on a platform of a radical strategy to democratize the Middle East, if necessary by force. At least what Kerry has hinted at provides the possibility for Iran to get out of this deadlock, to buy some more time.'

"Conservative strategist Amir Mohebian, who advises some of Iran's top policymakers, agreed.

"'We prefer Kerry because he favors diplomatic methods rather than pressure. Iran is better off if he wins,' he told Reuters."

His preference underscores the changes Bush has made to U.S. foreign policy -- changes that moved away from accommodating tyrannical, terrorist-sponsoring regimes (something that "realists" like Jonathan Clarke and Stephan Halper still favor, as does Kerry) to confronting them and advocating regime change. Reuters continues:

"Iran has tended in the past to favor the pragmatic, business-oriented style of Republicans over Democrats who were perceived as more pro-Israel and tougher on human rights."

Yet: "But Bush's presidency marked a watershed in Iranian thinking.

"'Going into the last election Iran strongly favored Bush,' said Siamak Namazi, managing director of Atieh Bahar Consulting.

"Not only was Bush a Republican but he was from an oil state, Texas, and his running mate Dick Cheney was linked to an oil company, Halliburton, with large business interests in Iran.

"'But that was before Sept. 11, the emergence of the neo-conservatives and the "axis of evil" speech. That stood the pro-Republican theory on its head,' [emphasis added] said Namazi."

Which is to say, historical events changed Bush's perception of the world and of that region. New times called for new approaches to old problems that had been underestimated in previous decades. The left, ever reactionary, now embraces the "realist" policy that gave us 9/11 -- liberty be damned.

Terrorists in Iraq and Iran's mullah's want to see Bush defeated. Doesn't that resonate here at home? I'll bet that it does.

Kerry Spot has more on the collusion between ElBaradei, CBS News, the Times, and (he thinks) the Kerry campaign.

"The New York Times, international bureaucrats like Mohamed ElBaradei and the Kerry campaign are coordinating October-surprise hit pieces on President Bush. This is screaming for a tougher response [than what's been offered thus far]. Something like an attack ad stating, 'Kerry is playing Monday Morning Quarterback with the 101st Airborne’s performance in Iraq. In 1971, John Kerry smeared our troops as rapists and butchers then... He’s smearing them as incompetent now. This Nov. 2, show John Kerry what you think of his attacks on our troops.'"

Amen to that. We've never gotten to the bottom of Rathergate -- was the Kerry campaign involved or not? This can't be allowed to stand.

Via James Taranto, the New York Sun has a more complete account of the involvement of IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei. Their Benny Avni reports:

"Bush administration officials suspect political motivation behind a letter focused on the disappearance of 377 tons of explosives sent yesterday from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the United Nations Security Council.

"The letter, signed by the head of the IAEA Mohamed ElBaradei, addressed the disappearance of the highly explosive material from a deserted military base in Iraq. The non-nuclear explosives had been monitored by the Vienna-based watchdog agency because they could be used to detonate nuclear bombs."

ElBaradei is running for a third term as head of the IAEA and, as has been widely reported, the Bush administration opposes his reappointment.

More, according to Avni: "The loss, according to the Iraqi official quoted in the letter, Mohammed Abbas, occurred 'after [April 9] 2003, throughout the theft and looting of the governmental installations, due to lack of security.'

"But one U.N. official who is well versed with monitoring procedures told the Sun that there is no way for the Iraqis to know whether the material was looted at that date or was hustled out of Iraq earlier, during the war. 'We are talking about 40 trucks worth of this stuff,' the official who asked not to be named told the Sun. 'It's a huge operation.'"

Finally, the IAEA official told the Sun: "What bothers me is why this is such a big issue, while when we reported that a whole building disappeared, no one cared,' the official told the Sun. He was referring to the IAEA's early October report that said that a building that was under U.N. monitoring and which contained highly sensitive materials and sophisticated equipment was subject to 'systematic dismantlement. [emphasis added]'"

As James Taranto says, "one suspects that this was a foreign effort to influence the outcome of America's presidential election, aided by our domestic partisan liberal media."

At least we know that not every foreign dignitary was involved with Kerry's machinations, both now and over the past couple of years.

Captain Ed has done a bit of calculating on just how much would be involved in stealing 380 tons of munitions, as the NYT and CBS colluded to show. In short: It's a lot of work if you assume that it was done by "looters." His conclusion:

"Bottom line this operation would take the resources of AN ENTIRE COMPANY (approx. 100 men) OVER TWO WEEKS, good Intel to know exactly where the 'right' explosives were hidden and a means of breaching huge steel doors and concrete of an ASP."

To boot (or loot), this would have been done under the noses of American spy planes. Which makes me ask: Which is the bigger load -- the 380 ton looting job, or the Times's article?

Jay Nordlinger writes on the Carter-Moore axis today at NRO (scroll about a third of the way down). He says that he pledged several weeks ago to cease writing about Carter, but he just can't help himself. I've made no such commitment, as you know.

Here's Nordlinger's latest: "[He] informed a group of Emory students that his two favorite movies are Casablanca — and Fahrenheit 9/11. Carter has become a genuine kook. But you're not supposed to say it. He's a statesman, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a house-builder, etc."

True enough, but some of us thought he was a kook decades back.

Roger Simon has some thoughts on his once-beloved New York Times:

"Okay, now we get personal. The demise of The New York Times has been an extraordinary shock to me and a kind of benchmark for my own political migration. Like most New York Jewish boys from liberal homes the paper was a replacement religion for me. Many decades ago, when I was twenty-three and published my first novel, finding a short positive review in the Book Review validated me as a writer, enabling me to go on with my risky career. . . . This kind of biased behavior is unconscionable. Although it is nowhere near as drastic, of course, it makes me think of the days of Walter Duranty, that Timesman who won a Pultizer while white-washing Stalin. How could such things happen, I always wondered. Now I know. They happen when people think they are doing the right thing for the right cause and in their zeal don't stop to consider the reality of what they are saying and writing. Yes, this is worse than Jayson Blair."

During the height of Rathergate, our own Wilfred McClay addressed this warped worldview here last month, and if you haven't read "The Triumph of Political Pornography in the Land of Oz," I urge you to do so now.

Update: Roger Simon has posted further thoughts.

Via Power Line, Cliff May blogs at The Corner that a government source tells him:

"The Iraqi explosives story is a fraud. These weapons were not there when US troops went to this site in 2003. The IAEA and its head, the anti-American Mohammed El Baradei, leaked a false letter on this issue to the media to embarrass the Bush administration. The US is trying to deny El Baradei a second term and we have been on his case for missing the Libyan nuclear weapons program and for weakness on the Iranian nuclear weapons program."

I mentioned ElBaradei's hostility to the US below, along with his assurance to the Security Council that continued sanctions would have kept Saddam in his place. He has an axe to grind, and he found willing allies at the NYT and CBS News.

So we have another MSM scandal on our hands, and this one even closer to the election. When I picked up yesterday's NYT well before sun-up, the headline screamed "Partisan" before I read the story. And a weak story it was, even before it was sunk by NBC's memory that, in fact, the weapons had "gone missing" (a Briticism that, like harassment, has infiltrated America over the past couple of years). (The transcript, via Jim Geraghty, is here.) While I've followed developments in Iraq fairly closely, I don't claim to be a pundit on the situation there; yet it was clear that this was old news resurrected this week to harm Bush. Yawn.

Today the Times, in a remarkable display of chutzpah, runs another front page story titled "Iraq Explosives Become Issue in Campaign." In the old days, this common practice of creating and then reporting on a story as it impacted across the land could be practiced with abandon. Today, the Times would admit to the error of its ways -- or, better yet, learned not to engage is misleading reporting -- were it not stuck in the past along with the rest of the liberal establishment. Or, as Captain Ed puts it, "If we are to follow the Times' logic, the weapons were not dangerous at all and would have never ended up in the hands of a madman while the IAEA allowed Saddam control of the explosives, but removing Saddam's control suddenly made them doomsday weapons and their availability a dire threat. If that makes sense to you, your name is Joe Lockhart or Pinch Sulzberger."

That is backed up by a curious report now on MSNBC's website, which notes that the International Atomic Energy Agency reported Monday that "the explosives had been looted from the sprawling Al-Qaqaa military base, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, since January 2003 [emphasis added] due to a 'lack of security' at the former Iraqi military facility. An NBC News crew that accompanied U.S. soldiers who seized the Al-Qaqaa base three weeks into the war [emphasis added] in Iraq reported that troops discovered significant stockpiles of bombs, but no sign of the missing HMX and RDX explosives." Since American forces didn't arrive at Al Qadda until April, 2003, the IAEA is charging Saddam with "lack of security" at his own base! As I'm sure others have asked, does this mean that we waited too long to invade?

But the MSNBC report is self-contradictory. For just below the paragraph quoted above, they say: "It remains unclear, however, how extensively the U.S. forces searched the site in the immediate aftermath of the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. . . . The State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that coalition forces searched 32 bunkers and 87 other buildings at Al Qaqaa [emphasis added] facility after the war, looking for weapons of mass destruction. He said the troops found none, but did see signs of looting."

They've just answered questions, and provided evidence, that they try to ignore within the story itself. Why? Because they're being credited with undermining the NYT story, of course, and it doesn't sit well. All the wrong people are praising them, after all. Can't have that. All of which raises a question: Would NBC have regained its memory absent New Media's ability to fact-check this story?

Wretchard at Belmont Club puts things into perspective: [T]he loss of 380 tons of RDX is similar to worrying about a toothache after being diagnosed with AIDS and Ebola. Some 600,000 tons of explosive are said to have been dispersed throughout Iraq prior to the conclusion of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Like most folks, I suspect, I learned of NBC's memory from Drudge, who by last night had his siren lights up and spinning. And this morning he's reporting that "60 Minutes," apparently not satisfied with botching their Rather-inspired attempt to throw the election via forged documents, planned on airing the explosives story on election eve in order to "knock the Bush administration into a crises [?] mode." And Dan Rather led off his nightly broadcast yesterday by noting that Ed Bradley of CBS News and the NYT were working together on the story, as others have noted. Corrupt collusion, anyone?

CNN is reporting the story now, although it isn't mentioned on Fox's web site (but this is). But they did report on the initial discoveries at Al Qaqaa back on April 4, 2003 (hat tip, JustOneMinute). Back then, Fox reported:

"The facility had been identified by the International Atomic Energy Agency as a suspected chemical, biological and nuclear weapons site. U.N. inspectors visited the plant at least a dozen times, including as recently as Feb. 18. The facility is part of a larger complex known as the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant al Qa Qaa."

That's the same IAEA, you'll note, that decided suddenly this week that looting of the "al Qa Qaa" complex was a new story. As JustOneMinute notes (quoting news sources): "While the White House sought to minimize the importance of the loss of the HMX and RDX - two commonly used military explosives that can also be used to bring down airplanes or to create a trigger for nuclear weapons - the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, took the unusual step on Monday of writing to the United Nations Security Council to report that the explosives were gone. He usually sends a report every six months, and his last was just a few weeks ago."

Of course, Mohamed ElBaradei is a protégé of Hans Blix. On January 23, 2003, he told the UN Security Council that "Inspections are time consuming but, if successful, can ensure disarmament through peaceful means." Of course, we now know that UNScam allowed Saddam to do just about anything he wished.

Lastly, let's not forget that Jill Abramson is the managing editor of the Times. As Truth Laid Bear writes: "Ensuring that a story like this is properly vetted falls squarely in the ME's realm of responsibility, so I think it's fair to ask Ms. Abramson what happened here, and why she's allowing her news pages to become an adjunct to the Kerry campaign’s attempts to smear Bush's record on Iraq."

This is the same Jill Abramson, after all, who co-authored Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas, which was little more than a recitation of liberal shibboleths about Justice Thomas.

More at Michelle Malkin , Say Anything, and Power Line.

Even site unseen, we've already sold a number of Democracy Project's "It's 9/11, Stupid" bumper stickers. Here in the offices of the Hudson Institute they've been a big hit and as promised, I've scanned a copy in the hopes that each of our readers will buy one and proudly display it on their vehicle or elsewhere. We're selling them for a dollar each and you can place an order via the Paypal button on our site.

Even as Drudge reports that Elizabeth Edwards quipped that there won't be any riots if the Democrats win, the flyer below is making the rounds in Dayton, Ohio. Coupled with the sacking of GOP headquarters around the country, a novel calling for Bush's assassination, Charlie Brooker's (now "explained") wish for another John Wilkes Booth, the pie attack on Ann Coulter, and other outrages, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised by any form of campaign vulgarity.

But this idiocy, and the failure of leading Dems and the MSM to unequivocally condemn it, has defined campaign idiocy downwards so that violence against Republicans has become acceptable in some circles. And Elizabeth Edwards can't be excused as merely flippant, not after her outrageous remarks about Mary Cheney. This is all of a piece, and the leaders of the Democratic establishment are morally culpable for the violence they've encouraged or winked at.

Via Real Clear Politics and, for commentary, Deacon at Power Line, the madness of the left's hatred for George W. Bush knows no ends. Charlie Brooker of the Guardian wishes for Bush's death, writing: "The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"

As Deacon says, "Yet, the rationalization reveals the true source of Bush-loathing -- hatred of the religious and core philosophical underpinnings of western civilization (represented in the leftist parable by the ancient Greeks)."

Exactly. I commented on this just below earlier today, well before I'd read Brooker's odious piece. It simply further confirms my argument.

More at INDC Journal, via Wizbang!

Bill Kristol's lead editorials for the Weekly Standard are becoming standard Saturday fare, published as they are ahead of the print magazine's appearance. This week's, titled aptly "The 9/11 Election," warns of the dangers of thinking that, despite history, we can simply turn the clock back to September 10, 2001.

"The surface peace of the 1990s had been bought at a great price. On 9/11 a failure of American leadership was revealed, a failure to look ahead and act forcefully to forestall threats--to do what Bush has called 'the hard work of fighting terror and spreading freedom.'

"This is what President Bush thinks. John Kerry really doesn't agree. That's why it is so fitting that Bill Clinton will reemerge to campaign for Kerry this week. The choice will then be clearly posed: On the one hand, we can attempt to return to the 1990s. This is not, of course, an unattractive prospect, but it is surely an unachievable one. To pretend we can go back to the 1990s raises false hopes that will prove dangerous to the country. On the other hand, we can face our challenges, and carry out our duties--as President Bush has tried, with considerable success, to lead us to do."

The left long ago abandoned any vision of America and her place in the world that was grounded in history -- in the way things are rather than as they ought to be. This adolescent view of reality, which insisted that the world could be changed through attitude, sanctimony, and song, didn't merely choose to ignore inconvenient lessons from the past. Rather, historians, literary critics, philosophers, and theologians proclaimed the Western tradition of epistemology false and misleading.

Great men changed nothing, the Marxists told us; history marched to a deterministic, materialistic end that no man or nation could influence. For a time, biography became suspect among "real" historians, only one of many intellectual errors they committed, herd-like, that handed over their field to amateurs like David McCullough, Michael Beschloss, Daniel Boorstin, Rick Brookhiser, and Ron Chernow, whose works (including many biographies) are both accurate and readable.

Literary critics became pawns of the laughing Frenchmen -- Derrida, Foucault, Lacan -- who produced thousands of pages of nihilistic tripe purporting to prove the incommunicability of reality. If in their cases this was true, it was but a poor reflection of the sophistry against which Plato wrote 2400 years ago. Theologians, too, discounted the divine in favor of the temporal, all under the guise of enlightened and advanced studies. An essay by Avery Cardinal Dulles captured this well: Recalling a church banner proclaiming "God is Other People," he wished he could insert a comma so that it read, "God is Other, People!"

Art and philosophy, too, continued their close association, to the detriment of both. The insistence on seeing "truth" (always written with scare quotes) not as revealed or discovered, but as Gnostic and tribal, brought us art without representation, philosophy that hated knowledge. In these endeavors, too, the left found a means to side-step rigor and erudition for feelings and trends. New-found paganism disguised as mainline Christianity lacked the mettle not only of traditional faith, but even of historical paganism. We can ask not only what a St. Augustine would make of (and, intellectually, do to) Bishop Spong, but what a Marcus Aurelius would think of Carl Sagan, much less Al Gore.

The problem, which Kristol’s essay points toward but does not enunciate, is that the left came to believe all of this; or perhaps, better put, ceased to believe anything else. This gives a John Kerry or a Bill Clinton the means to appeal to a 9/10 world as if wishing could make it so. When reality has seemed so malleable for so long, with nothing more so than human nature, why, then, it’s like nothing to make it all go away without tough choices and sacrifice. They need only strike a nuanced and sensitive pose, talk to all the right people, and pretend it’s 9/10 for as long as they can get away with it.

Reaction continues to build in the aftermath of a blatantly anti-Semitic editorial by Duke University senior Philip Kurian that ran in the student newspaper, the Chronicle, on October 18. Happily, my thoughts on it appear near the top in a Google search for "Kurian Jews," and many others have posted thoughtful comments on Duke's role in providing a platform for both this past weekend's Palestine Solidarity Movement's conference and Kurian's op-ed.

The Jewish Week quotes Phyllis Chesler (who also has a piece in FrontPage today on the PSM conference):

"'It’s not surprising that a Duke student feels entitled to engage in hate speech against Jews,' she said. 'I’m wondering if he’d object to the overrepresentation of Jews who’ve won Nobel Prizes, and if he would personally refuse any of the vaccines or medicines invented by Jewish genius and hard work.'"

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote an open letter to the Duke Chronicle wherein he takes Kurian to task for assuming that rights enjoyed by one ethnic group degrade those of others:

"Kurian adds one more absurd accusation that demonstrates his bias: the charge that Jews in America are seeking to belittle and undermine the civil rights movement. Aside from the historic leadership role that American Jews played in the movement for civil rights, we, unlike Kurian do not see these issues as a zero-sum game where working on behalf of our own community means working against someone else. We believe that standing up for Jews and against anti-Semitism and standing up for other minorities is not only not contradictory but is, in fact, the essential ingredient for building a just society."

Back in Durham, Duke president Richard Brodhead penned a letter to the Chronicle that's a model of political newspeak. He "grateful to the many individuals and groups who helped turn last week's Palestinian Solidarity Movement conference into a peaceful and constructive event." Nothing like the constructive criticism that seeks only the destruction of Israel and the deaths of innocent civilians. Brodhead at least addresses Kurian's essay, but he merely winks at Kurian and his supporters. Here's the heart of his message:

"In the weeks before the conference, I received many reasoned expressions of concern, but also some attacks on Duke's decision that were astonishing in their virulence. Among the things I found troubling in these messages was the tendency to think of the conference's supporters in this way: You, Duke student, can be thought of as belonging to a group that contains terrorists and terrorist supporters. Therefore, you are indistinguishable from terrorists and deserve as little opportunity to exercise your rights as they do.

"One can understand the passion that underlies such a thought, but that does not prevent it from being highly dangerous. This is the disindividuating, dehumanizing logic of prejudice. It says, I already know you because I know your type -- more truthfully, your stereotype.

"I was deeply troubled by a column in The Chronicle on Monday because it seemed to display the same habits of thought. The column was headed "THE JEWS," as if Jews were susceptible to group definition, and though its author probably did not mean to, it revived stereotypical images that have played a long-running role in the history of anti-Semitism [emphasis added].

"At this season, it's important to remember that all prejudice is one and must be resisted as one. The habits of mind that allow people to stereotype Jews are the same ones that allow them to denigrate blacks, gays, and other objects of prejudice. These have no place at a great university. Part of the education Duke affords should be an education in the danger of prejudice and in the full humanity of others. We all need this education, and we are all capable of learning."

Brodhead is trying to have it both ways: He wants to be politically correct (hence the conference was allowed and he's so very happy it all turned out well), yet he has little choice to take Kurian to task for his naked racism. Yet in doing that, Brodhead draws a moral equivalency between those who opposed the PSM conference and Kurian; between calling terrorists what they are, and lying about the Jewish people. This is the letter not of a leader, but of a moral coward.

A bit of research turns up some interesting facts about Phil Kurian, the Duke senior who authored the attack piece. He's amassed quite an academic record at Duke, where he's a Benjamin N. Duke Scholar, a winner of the Melcher Award for Excellence in Journalism, and a winner of a prestigious Truman Scholarship. And he's accomplished this while majoring in public policy and physics.

Kurian, therefore, doesn't seem to have suffered because, in his opinion, Jews are "privileged." Not that I doubt that he worked hard to assemble such an impressive academic record. But his success belies his racist charge that Jews should just shut up and go away whenever they're attacked.

It's a shame that such a bright young man, who no doubt has a promising future, feels such contempt for others. He's benefiting from everything a fine university like Duke can offer. But no matter how far he's gone from his Charleston home, he can't seem to shake the chips from his shoulder. I don't know when he decided to adopt the ideology of victimhood, although I suspect his Duke education has something to do with it. I do know that it will bring him nothing but trouble. He's proved that hard work and intelligence can take a person very far; let's hope that as he grows older he'll acquire the wisdom, insight, and empathy that will allow him to eschew racism and scapegoating.

Update: I should have mentioned that today's WSJ Taste Page ($), under Tony and Tacky, looks at the Duke controversy:

"FREE SCREECH: Upset by protests against a recent Palestinian Solidarity Movement event at Duke University, senior Philip Kurian blames the 'powerful Jewish establishment. Some excerpts from his Oct. 18 op-ed in Duke's student paper, the Chronicle: 'It is well known that Jews constitute the most privileged 'minority' group in this country. Among the top 10 universities, Jews enjoy shocking overrepresentation....After World War II, overt anti-Semitism [in the U.S.] gradually subsided, in part because of American response to Hitler's murderous regime, but largely due to Jewish association with whiteness and the privileges white skin affords. In short, Jews can renounce their difference by taking off the yarmulke. (The full editorial can be found at www.chronicle.duke.edu.)

"Surveying the wreckage this week, Duke President Richard Brodhead took the easy way out: blame everybody. 'Though its author probably did not mean to,' he wrote, Mr. Kurian's article 'revived stereotypical images that have played a long-running role in the history of anti-Semitism.' Mr. Brodhead had even sterner words for those, he said, whose opposition to the Palestinian Solidarity event telegraphed the message that supporters of the event 'are indistinguishable from terrorists and deserve as little opportunity to exercise [their] rights' as terrorists do. That sort of stereotyping, the president admonished, is 'the disindividuating, dehumanizing logic of prejudice.'"

Democracy Project has printed up smallish bumper stickers saying just that -- It's 9/11, Stupid. For a donation of $1.00 via our Paypal account we'll send you one. I'll scan one in later in the day so you can see how they look. They've been a big hit around the offices of Hudson Institute and if you enjoy this blog you just might like them, too.

Worldnetdaily is reporting that former president Bill Clinton is gathering support among the capitals of Europe and Africa to replace current-United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan. For as much as I disliked Clinton's policies as President, I do believe him a better choice than Annan who has been an enabler of corruption and dictatorship. It's a fun "what if" article, which will never come to pass if President Bush wins a second term.

UPDATE: Washington whisperers suggest that Clinton, who after his heart operation quite conspicuously said he would not campaign with Kerry because of his need to recuperate, are now reporting that Clinton hit the campaign trail with Kerry in Florida in an apparent quid pro quo: I help you win, you support me as the next U.N. Secretary General.

You've probably read that John Kerry declared in 1994 that the ultimate sacrifice of American troops is justifiable only if they're fighting under the United Nations -- rather than American -- flag.

From the front page of Tuesday's Wash Post: "Kerry's belief in working with allies runs so deep that he has maintained that the loss of American life can be better justified if it occurs in the course of a mission with international support. In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, he said, 'If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no.'"

Perhaps if the UN, that nest of dictators and thieves, had existed in the eighteenth century, our forefathers could have avoided all that nasty revolutionary stuff. No George Washington, no James Madison, no Alexander Hamilton or Thomas Jefferson -- at least not in their roles that gave them historical immortality. No Washington, DC, no National Mall, no White House. No Liberty Bell, no Independence Hall, no Betsy Ross (I'm only 25 miles from Philly, after all). No Star Spangled Banner, no Valley Forge, no King's Mountain or Germantown or Yorktown; no Paul Revere or Patrick Henry. Just millions of peace-loving, rational, secular, earth-hugging proto-Ghandis singing Kumba-ya as they sway around the campfire.

That seems to be the latest observation by our most embarrassing former president, Jimmy Carter. The other day he took the opportunity of a fawning interview with Chris Matthews, who's show only lives up to its moniker when he's dealing with Michelle Malkin, to say that our own Revolution was unnecessary:

"MATTHEWS: Let me ask you the question about—this is going to cause some trouble with people—but as an historian now and studying the Revolutionary War as it was fought out in the South in those last years of the War, insurgency against a powerful British force, do you see any parallels between the fighting that we did on our side and the fighting that is going on in Iraq today?

"CARTER: Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we‘ve fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.

"Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive to the colonial‘s really legitimate complaints and requests the war could have been avoided completely, and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way.

"I think in many ways the British were very misled in going to war against America and in trying to enforce their will on people who were quite different from them at the time."

This is a remarkable statement for any American to make, but coming from the lips of a former president, it’s astounding. Skip for the moment the sheer ignorance on display regarding Revolutionary casualties as compared with those of other wars; that’s the easy part. Ditto the fact that India only gained independence after WWII. The real story here is twofold.

First, Carter’s principal regret lies not in the deaths of our brave Revolutionary soldiers over two centuries ago. Rather, like other pseudo-intellectual liberals, his real lament is the type of country the Revolution created. Far from a miracle in Philadelphia, for this band of siblings, America’s danger to the world today – a danger best expressed in the presidency of George W. Bush – results from our rugged individualism, frontier adventurism, hostility to hierarchy, embrace of religion, lack of landed gentry, and innovative, entrepreneurial instincts.

Remove our War of Independence, the Declaration, the Constitution, our tripartite federal government, and every other vestige of our Founding, and you’re left with a people who are less free, less adventuresome, less, well, less revolutionary. Less distinctive. Colorless, bland, suppressed. Risk averse. More like the Europeans. More like university professors, professional handwringers, and (at least in their public punditry if not their private or professional lives) Hollywood stars. More, in a word, like Jimmy Carter.

Call this country the anti-America, or Jimmy’s America, or John’s America. Call it what you will, but one thing’s for certain: It wouldn’t be the United States as it is today, and Jimmy, for all his historical ignorance, knows that.

The corollary to this imagined historical development, my second point, is that absent the historical development of America as she is today and has been throughout her history, where would freedom reign? Who would have stood up to the twentieth-century’s worst dictators, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao? With Florida, perhaps, and the Southwest, almost certainly, Spanish-speaking nations, no colossus would span the continent. Absent that, what could have prevented a Hitler or Stalin from taking over Europe and establishing spheres of influence here?

Not that we would have had to wait for modern tyrants to weigh in. Would France have kept their distance during the nineteenth century? They were in Mexico, so why not Colorado? Why would the Czars have stopped at Alaska? The list could go on.

So we’re left with a vision of America that’s every liberal’s dream-come-true: a small, weak country inhabited by meek people who lack the will or the means to influence anyone, anywhere. A people who “play fair” with the rest of the world, meaning that they’re kicked and punched like everyone else. A culture that punishes risk, stifles innovation, and rewards monochrome personalities. Cradle-to-grave welfare; nationalized industries; state-run hospitals. No Wal-Mart, no General Motors, no Pentagon.

But worry not; Jimmy’s world didn’t come to pass. We’re better and more blessed than that.

Captain Ed, Sean Gleeson, Betsy's Page, and Hindrocket at Power Line also have posts on this matter.

Everyone with campus experience knows that student newspapers are often boisterous and edgy. In most cases that's fine, since their freewheeling style reflects the exuberance of their youthful writers and readers. To boot, few campuses couldn't benefit from having an alternative voice to the old warriors of '68 who often run things with a strong hand. Nothing wrong with acting your age so long as you remain a member of civilized society.

But the Duke Chronicle went out of bounds yesterday (hat tip, James Taranto) when it printed an op-ed by one Philip Kurian, "The Jews," claiming that, among other things, "Jews constitute the most privileged 'minority' group in this country. Among the top 10 universities, Jews enjoy shocking overrepresentation: Only the California Institute of Technology has an undergraduate Jewish population below 10 percent, and four schools have particularly stark Jewish advantages—Harvard (30 percent), Yale (23 percent), UPenn (31 percent) and Columbia (25 percent). Keep in mind that, at best estimate, no more than 3 percent of all Americans are Jewish."

Is Kurian implying that Jewish representation at any given school should be restricted to 3 percent? Probably not, for reading further into his hysterical rant leaves one with the impression that 3 percent would be far too high for his tastes.

Kurian is upset because of protests against Duke's decision to host the Palestine Solidarity Movement this past weekend. (Lee Kaplan wrote about it for FrontPage.) Follow the link to the PSM's web site and you'll find that the following workshops were scheduled:

Campus Divestment: Research, Approach, and Strategy
Fayyad Sbaihat, Al Awda Wisconsin

Segregation, Apartheid and Zionism Are Crimes against Humanity!
Bob Brown, Anti-Zionist and indigenous solidarity Activist

Anarchist Caucus
Facilitated by Abe Greenhouse, Anti-Racist Action

Kurian condemns Jewish activists for their efforts to prevent PSM from convening at Duke. He frames it, falsely, as a free-speech issue, opining that he'd be happy for the the KKK to meet on campus "as long as it could be couched within the framework of serious discussion."

Perhaps we can read a bit into Kurian's choice of organizations here. His claim to be so open-minded that he'd let the KKK onto campus might offer a better analogy to the PSM than he intended. For in the next sentence he writes: " But what Jewish suffering—along with exorbitant Jewish privilege in the United States—amounts to is a stilted, one-dimensional conversation where Jews feel the overwhelming sense of entitlement not to be criticized or offended. If the Duke administration had buckled under the influential weight of the Jewish establishment by not allowing the PSM conference, we would be suffering from the Orwellian notion of consciousness, where the only ideas that matter are the ones espoused by the powerful."

What of the protests that would inevitably -- and justly -- accompany the announcement that Duke had agreed to host a KKK conference? We'd see anti-intellectual, ahistorical panel discussions on African-American inferiority, affirmative action for whites, black violence as a way of life, nostalgic looks back at inner cities inhabited by white ethnics, and the like. Would Kurian label those who might protest such an event "privileged?" What if the Klaners burned a couple of crosses in front of Duke's gothic-inspired chapel? What if they handed out axe handles, a la Lester Maddox? What if they defended lynching as a reasoned response to threats made against white women?

In fact, several of the participants of the PSM conference, including Charles Carlson, have refused to condemn suicide bombing in Israel. According to WorldNetDaily, Carson has advocated the killing of Israelis:

"Carlson specifically encourages the use of children as weapons, declaring, 'How dare anyone, even Yasser Arafat, condemn youth for choosing to sacrifice their life for something in which they believe...I pray for these sad children and do not join those who condemn them.'

"Carlson also calls for the mass murder of Israeli youth, asserting, 'Each wedding, Passover celebration or Bar Mitzvah [in Israel] is a potential military target...'"

Is this Kurian's idea of free speech? Probably only if it applies to Jews. Kurian next attempts to pit Jews against blacks, but his efforts are crude:

"When former President Bill Clinton nominated his first two judges to the Supreme Court, both were Jews. Remarkable in the slightest? No, of course not. But the American public still can’t get over Clarence Thomas’s cultural heritage, after being appointed by Bush 41. To be Jewish is to have the right to move seamlessly between the majority and minority, without constraint. Thus, Jewish-American appropriation of the 'oppressed' moniker is disingenuous, belying the reality of America’s social hierarchy."

It's a bit unlikely that Justice Thomas would welcome such an ally. And it's unacceptable that Duke chose to join Berkeley, Michigan, and Ohio State in hosting a hate-fest aimed at intimidating Jews and weakening the state of Israel. It's not a free speech issue -- PSM doesn't require a college campus to voice its views any more than the rest of us do -- it's a matter of providing a platform for overt racism and apologias for murderers. Duke has chosen the comfortable, self-congratulatory, and cowardly way. They, and their alumni, should be ashamed.

I didn't want to pass over a remarkable article by Roger Cohen in Saturday's NYT entitled "Democracy as Brand: Wooing Hearts, European or Muslim?" It was remarkable for two reasons: its quality, and the fact that it appeared in the Times.

Here are the opening paragraphs, which set the stage succinctly: "It is a time of war, and an implacable enemy seeks to sully America's image, destroy its way of life and undermine its allies. Sound familiar? But the time in question here is not the present and the enemy is not Al Qaeda. This is the cold war, fought against the Soviet Union and played out against the backdrop of shattered post-war European societies vulnerable to the utopian chimera of Communism.

"In such a critical struggle all means are good. Propaganda is central, victory begins in the mind and the heart is ever vulnerable to seduction. This push to win over European sentiments - call it public diplomacy if you will - was the central theme of a series of movies called 'Selling Democracy: Films of the Marshall Plan 1948-53,' shown this week as part of the New York Film Festival.

"[The movies] also appear at a time when the need to devise means to improve America's tarnished international image, particularly in the Islamic world, appears pressing. [emphasis added]

"By turns blunt and beguiling, menacing and mawkish, the films beg an overriding question: Why, with this experience behind it, has the United States failed so conspicuously since Sept. 11 to bolster its image in another region it seeks to transform, the Middle East?" [emphasis added]

A great deal of ink (real and virtual) has been spilled explaining why America is loathed by so much of the world. (See Victor Hanson's review of a new collection edited by Paul Hollander, Understanding Anti-Americanism: It’s Origins and Impact at Home and Abroad.) But insufficient attention has been paid to what might be done to alleviate the problem, short of following the elite left down the primrose path to self-immolation.

Cohen offers helpful insight by looking back to early Cold War efforts to sway Europeans to our side in that titanic struggle. The goal then was to keep them in the Western fold and foil communist attempts to profer utopian visions to the inhabitants of war-wrecked lands. No doubt some of their efforts might appear crude or corny now, after over half a century of advertising bombardment with Madison Avenue's own version of utopia. But the idea behind the effort is as important now as it was decades back. Only the audience has changed.

With Aljazeera and other Arab news outlets filled with, at best, worst-case scenarios and, at worst, crude anti-American and anti-Semitic images and stories, we're already late to the game of spreading a different vision of America. While there's little doubt that many Arabs despise us, it's also true that those who voice such opinions get the lion's share of media coverage, both here and abroad. Politicians (not to mention manufacturers) understand instinctively that letting one's opponents define you is a fatal error; now it's time to move that lesson onto the national stage.

Cohen's NYT piece points to a crucial error we've made thus far: While post-war films were aimed at citizens of Europe and delivered with a message that we wanted to help them help themselves, current efforts aim not at Muslims in their own lands, but here in America.

"These were videos whose main characters were in America, not the region concerned, and whose main message was the extolling of American values and society. Our system is great, they seemed to say; you Muslims can live like us, too. But surely there is a contemporary Hans Fisher [who appeared in post-WWII films] out there - call him Ali Said - a young Arab trying to make his way amid the conflicting pressures of Iraq or Saudi Arabia, a hero who could be a far subtler vehicle for America's quest to instill openness and freedom in the Islamic world."

And: "Throughout these movies, a simple message prevails: jobs bring money that opens possibilities enjoyable only in a free world - and best enjoyed in a uniting Europe. American economic aid is also political persuasion; it is timely because the threat from Moscow is real.

"That threat is felt most vividly in 'Without Fear' (1951), a riveting Technicolor animation that imbues the Communist peril with all the baleful menace of a monster in a children's story. In a totalitarian society, the narrator notes, 'we could still walk in the sun, but we could not talk in it, because in a police state words are dangerous.'

"Where is the movie that treats the totalitarian jihadists of today, nihilists bent on the destruction of America, with a similar irrefutable directness? Yet Al Qaeda is more an ideology than a cohesive movement, a child of the Internet age bouncing its murderous ideas around the globe. The need for a nimble intellectual response and strong propaganda to counter it is great."

I'd heard this story and seen this photo before, but I was moved again when I saw the video on this site about President Bush. He's a man in whom we can place trust and respect. Is John Kerry this genuine?

David Brooks' column in today's New York Times diagnoses exactly what's wrong with the Democratic Party:

"But there is a deeper assumption, which has marred Democratic politics for years. Some Democrats have been unable to face the reality that people have been voting for Republicans because they agree with them. So these Democrats have invented the comforting theory that they've been losing because they are too virtuous for the country."

They can't believe -- even after Ronald Reagan and the Gingrich Revolution of 1994 -- that Americans support the values and plans of the Republican Party. But Americans know, especially after the failed presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, that it's the Democratic Party's weak-kneed response to just about everything from terrorism to social security reform that is not virtuous at all. Strength, determination, and discipline win the day, not empty promises and scare tactics like John Kerry used earlier this week in Florida saying that President Bush has a January surprise to cut their Social Security benefits by 45%. We live in serious times, whether Americans are serious enough to fight for their survival will be determined on Nov. 2.

Speculation has been raised that Iraq sent arms and other war materiel to Syria just before the American-led coalition attacked. Now the World Tribune reports that Charles Duelfer told a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting earlier this month that he couldn't rule out the possibility that WMD and missles were among the transferred goods, although he couldn't say that there were included, either.

"'A lot of materials left Iraq and went to Syria,' Duelfer said. 'There was certainly a lot of traffic across the border points. We've got a lot of data to support that, including people discussing it. But whether in fact in any of these trucks there was WMD-related materials, I cannot say.'"

It also states that Syria was the principal route through which illegal arms from Europe and other Muslim countries reached Iraq during the period of sanctions. No surprise in this, but Duelfer's testimony adds some weight to earlier speculations or allegations. Now let's see how much attention this receives from MSM.

Hindrocket at Power Line links to and comments on a particularly nauseating set of comments by Jimmy Carter in the Scotsman. It's not surprising that Brother Jimmy would choose a foreign newspaper as a base to attack America -- Bill Clinton has done the same, after all -- but his illogical, ahistorical remarks deserve wide play here so that Americans can evaluate this man as he truly is rather than as MSM portray him.

Here's the first paragraph: "Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, picks his words with care. 'This election,' he begins in his distinctive southern drawl, 'is one of the most important that our country has had to date. We have an opportunity to let America, as the only superpower, become the champion of peace and not war; to become the champion of freedom and democracy; to alleviate suffering and bring basic human rights. That is what I think is the potential for our nation. I see that as a vision for America and I think it can be realised if the election comes out right.'"

Let's parse this a bit. What Carter really means, of course, is that by waging war to overthrow the Taliban and Saddam, thereby freeing 50 million people from Islamo-fascism and brutal dictatorship, we are not the "champion of peace and not war." Nor, by extension, have we alleviated "suffering and [brought] basic human rights." Ask the Afghans who voted just over a week ago if they're better off now than they were four years ago. And for all the turmoil in Iraq, does Carter still admire Saddam? After all, his record of embracing thugs is unsurpassed but for Jacques Chirac's.

He then says: "'If it [the election] comes out wrong, I think we will see a continuation of what we have now,' he says. 'America believes military power should be exerted whenever it becomes interesting for our economic or political gains. [emphasis added] I think it’s going to result in a sustained stalemate and deterioration in the Middle East peace process, and I think our country will continue to abbreviate, to some degree, our civil liberties at home.'

"'I think we will continue to try and exert our power around the world, when we could just as well bring a peaceful resolution to differences."

So the man portrayed by a fawning media, at home and abroad, as the embodiment of Christ-like love, is in fact a hardened cynic who believes the war on Islamism is little more than a grab at oil and office? This Michael Moore-like rendition of events betrays, again, the intellectual vacuity of the left. Cliché-ridden assertions must substitute for rigorous argument whenever an entire class (in this case, liberal elites) becomes unhinged and uneducable. As for any "peace process, as Hindrocket says: "The man is delusional. The "peace process" blew up a long time ago, and it wasn't President Bush who started bombing buses and restaurants.

As for the "peaceful resolutions," one supposes he means the Iran Hostage-like situations that threaten world peace. I remember vividly his ill-conceived rescue attempt, the only positive outcome of which was the resignation of Cyrus Vance, whose State Department defined bureaucratic sclerosis. What peaceful resolution was offered by the Taliban? As for Saddam, his bribery of the U.N., including the corrupt Kofi Annan's own son, is well-documented. As the Duelfer Report proved, Saddam fully intended to get his WMD plans back on track after sanctions were lifted.

Carter continues: "'We have had a very disturbing change in our country in the last three or four years: from a 200-year history of war as a last resort to "pre-emptive war". We have to attack other people in order to prevent danger to ourselves and, of course, now aerial bombing and long-range missiles attack both military and civilian populations with impunity.'"

As Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis argues in Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, Bush's foreign policy innovations signaled not a radical departure from past practice, but a reassertion during a time of war of a forward-looking strategy that borrows heavily on the Monroe Doctrine. And as for the tired charge that America is leveling cities, even Fallujah is spared such attacks. U.S. soldiers have died because of our concern for collateral civilian damage; this is no Dresden.

Finally, Carter is afraid that we're blending church and state: "'Fundamentalism in any form is very disturbing because we tend to align ourselves with God,' he says. 'Once we do that, we believe that we are somehow blessed in a special way above all other human beings, and the next step is that anybody who does not agree with us is not only wrong but against God.'"

How richly ironic that a man whose photo might appear in the dictionary next to the word "sanctimonious" warns of conflating one's position with God's. Part of Carter's usefulness to secular liberal elites is his Southern Baptist pedigree and overt religiosity which, coupled with his South Georgia drawl, inoculates him against charges of being merely another agnostic intellectual. When Congressman George Miller of California attacks serious Christians, he sounds mean-spirited and overly secular; when Jimmy does it, he's portrayed as a voice of Christian reason.

So he attacks his fellow Southern Protestant believer and former governor as a "disturbing" man who thinks his opponents are "against God." While I know I can get a bit excited when I write about Jimmy -- after all, he's a home-state rube who's gotten under my skin for a generation -- I can't avoid concluding that, particularly regarding the question of religion in the public square, he's something of a useful idiot. But that's for another blog.

Former President Bush's National Security Advisor Brent Scrowcroft once again does no favors for the son of the man who gave him a name in a recent interview with the Financial Times saying "Sharon just has him [t