That's the title of an essay by esteemed Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield.

As is always the case with Mansfield's writings, this one repays reading in its entirety.

Publius Pundit points toward the blog Devil's Excrement at Salon, which blogs on matters Venezuelan. There you'll find a photo of a crowd that appears to be cheering for Tarek William Saab, the Governor of Anzoategui. But there's a problem, as the DE points out: the photo is faked, with many faces duplicated throughout what is in fact a montage.

Hugo and the boys are going to have to do better than this if they're to enter the top tier of history's dictators. Where's old Leni when you need her?

Of course, America's finest institutions of higher learning aren't above similar tricks. Remember this attempt, Badger fans?

Steve Bainbridge has decried Wal-Mart and posted what he calls "the conservative case against Wal-Mart." His post is a reply to one by Hugh Hewitt, who loves the place.

Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost takes Hugh's side in the argument, as do many (but not all) of those posting comments to his site. And as of this posting, there are no fewer than 13 trackbacks to Steve Bainbridge's original post.

To make matters more fun, Bainbridge will be on Hugh Hewitt's radio show at 5:20pm PST. You can listen to that show here.

Note to left-wing bloggers: this is called debate.

Via LGF, the Denver Post reports a possible buyout for Ward Churchill.

I don't think we'll see any offers in that region, nor, I'm sure, does David Lane. According to the Post, a buyout would allow CU to close the chapter on Churchill, and save the school further embarrassment, much more quickly than any effort to fire him:

When boys act up too much in class, pulling girls' hair and shooting spitballs, some parents (with the blessing of teachers) rush to an M.D. for some little pills to smooth out the child's rough edges. This has proven a popular means of behavioral modification, as it's easier to have the little tykes pop Ritalin and similar drugs given for ADHD than to bother with them in and out of class. That's not to say that some kids don't need the help that these drugs provide, but such scholars as Christina Hoff Sommers have pointed to the abuse of such drugs, which can be over-prescribed for boys when they act like, well, boys. Male behavior has taken such a bad rap over the past few decades -- remember the uproar from the chattering classes when Dan Quayle attacked the fictional Murphy Brown for claiming that fathers are optional at best -- that normalcy can be diagnosed as disease. It's a mad, mad world indeed.

Just as boys present behavior patterns that are distinctly different from what one sees in girls, so do strong leaders of either sex possess personality and behavioral traits uncommon in the general population. We're not all alike, Jean Jacques Rousseau and his merry band of followers notwithstanding, and our chains aren't always provided courtesy of society. That is, human nature is not infinitely malleable, or perhaps even very malleable at all. We can read texts as old as the Iliad or Odyssey, or the Hebrew Scriptures, and immediately recognize ourselves in the people described, no matter how great the cultural, linguistic, or material differences. The rage of Achilles, homesickness of Odysseus, or trials and triumphs of the ancient Israelites are not as foreign life forms to us, but reflect much of what we know about ourselves. They can teach us because they were like us.

I thought of all this when I read this article about Larry Summers in this morning's NYT. Plagued by his blunt, bull-in-a-china-shop demeanor, and now by his lack of self-censorship among fellow academics, Summers appears to be undergoing a self-improvement effort that would make Dale Carnegie blush.

Assuming that he doesn't undergo therapy to retrieve repressed memories, the problems Summers is dealing with stem mainly from his belief, which reports show to be a trademark of his style in the classroom, faculty lounge, and in Washington, that intellectuals should be able to defend their assertions with factual information delivered in a logical and effective manner so as to persuade listeners and readers of the plausibility of their beliefs. That's a fancy way of saying that people with advanced degrees and teaching responsibilities should be able to argue well. And part of arguing well includes listening to and then responding to critics, even provocative ones who dare to step on your toes.

But Summers is being pressed from all directions to reign in his effusive enthusiasm for debate, to curb his often combative style. In other words, to play by the rules laid down by too many Harvard presidents over the past many decades, men who knew their place and were happy with it. That place was as the faculty's lap dog, and the presidential visage preferred by faculty who, one might think, are themselves expert debaters armed with reams of information and reason, was a smiling, congenial one, happy to agree, eager to please.

Yet Larry didn't play by those rules. Assuming as he did that high powered types who made their living defending themselves would give as good as they got, he challenged them, sometimes one-on-one. Their response? They folded like a cheap suitcase before crying foul, demanding apologies, and sometimes leaving town. Such is the much-vaunted, and remarkably over-rated, ability of Harvard dons to engage in reasoned debate over the intellectual problems to which they have devoted their lives.

How to change? How to free oneself from inner convictions and intellectual prowess? Why, you can be a David Gergen if you try, try, try:

There's a remedy for a crisis in leadership if ever their was one. Shed your monochromatic skin for the ever-changing epidermis of a professional chameleon. Got a problem with a particular group of profs? Not if you agree with them, no matter what they say! Feeling the heat from offended prima donnas? Feel their pain, too, and engage in a little public flagellation. There's no problem that can't be solved by a lack of principal and the ability to speak from two faces at once.

Let's call this the new medicine. It takes the edge off leaders who, in the bad old unmedicated days, challenged stupidity and led by example. It solves the character problem by compromising the virtues upon which character rests. And it changes the behavior of smart men and women who won't play by the rules by reminding them that they have much to lose -- namely, their jobs and the false collegiality of the oppressed -- if they continue to, as my sister used to say of me when I became unmanageable, act ugly.

Will Summers go down this path to blissful irrelevance? It's too early to know, but if past is prologue, and it usually is, he'll be dragged down it a short distance before digging in his heals. A couple of developments make me slightly optimistic about his future health. First, Harvard's board has voiced its strong support for Summers in spite of the bad press. I suspect they understand that the degree of attention this episode has received from the mainstream media has served mainly to increase the sympathy for Summers among the reading public. By highlighting how easily some academics are sent over the edge, Harvard's internal fight strengthens the board's hand in its efforts to reform the school to make it a more responsible shaper of culture.

Second, the recent poll taken by the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, revealed strong support for Summers among FAS professors, even though a plurality (52%) said they disapproved of his leadership. Is it too much to believe that a strong minority of professors agrees with Summers's principal critiques of higher education? After all, his remarks on women in science weren't his first challenge to reigning orthodoxies that stifle debate, stigmatize dissenters, and discourage the truly talented from pursuing academic careers. From radical feminism and hyper-sensitive racialism to anti-Semitism and hostility toward ROTC and the U.S. military, one privileged ideology after another has felt the heat of Summers's intellect.

Summers is both the quintessential academic and a forward-thinking visionary capable of transcending the parochialism of the academic tribe. Socially blunt and quick to step into controversies, he fits a model of professorial behavior that can still be found, at least in the best departments. Harvard, like many other universities great and average, suffers from an intellectual sclerosis inevitable in institutions resistant to reform. Ideology is not intellect, and stale orthodoxies cannot substitute for curiosity and free-wheeling debate. If Summers can resists swallowing the pill offered him by the likes of David Gergen or his "friends" among the faculty, he can rebound and lead. Let's not medicate our boldest leaders into subservience.

"Why Not Here?" is the question David Brooks says people living under repressive regimes are asking themselves nowadays.

To the ancillary question, why is this happening now?, Brooks writes:

Like pushing for democracy in the Arab Middle East when realists and left-wingers regard Arabs as congenitally incapable of self-rule, too. What we're seeing is a strong leader with a vision to mold the post-Cold War world as a freer, more democratic place. Aspirations for freedom that were suppressed for so long they atrophied are now getting a workout, mentally in many places and through actions in others, namely Iraq and Afghanistan.

Claus Christian Malzahn, quoted above, singles out what is perhaps the most important cultural and intellectual difference between Americans and many Europeans: we're forward-looking and innovative, while they tend to "always want to have the world from yesterday." That also divides President Bush and his supporters from his critics on the left and right. The former believe they possess the vision for a more perfect world, but don't understand that policies advocated by FDR and LBJ, much less cultural changes brought to a head in anti-Vietnam War protests, need to be rethought and, in most instances, scuttled. The latter are fearful of upsetting the status quo, less because they think it ideal than that they fear change qua change, seeing as they do a drive for human perfection behind all grand visions of a better world.

But America is founded on nothing if not a grand vision, and a daring one to boot. Advocating for change in corrupt and brutal regimes needn't lead to millenarian visions of earthly utopia. Rule by the likes of a Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, or even a Leonid Kuchma is neither inevitable nor desirable. No stability is gained from supporting such men, nor are any ancient virtues or lessons ignored when their ouster becomes the goal U.S. policy. Surely virtue dictates support of oppressed peoples, and prudence requires that we move toward the more stable world that freedom can bring. We've unleashed a global questioning of the status quo; it is our duty, and our interest, to keep this question, why not here, on the lips of millions the world over.

One of Latin America's two dictators today admitted what even casual observers already knew: he's a socialist.

Andrea in Florida emailed this CNN story in which Chavez says:

Since self-admitted socialists aren't so easy to come by these days, look for Chavez's use of the term to make more allies for him among the loony left on campus. He proclaims Che and Castro as heroes, denounces the dirty Yanqui president, and now uses the "s" word to describe himself.

Chavez may not be Che, but he's chic.

The Elephants have returned from their conference, and they report a conversation one of them had recently with a colleague. It illustrates perfectly what happens when "the mantle of free speech is selectively applied."

Ward Churchill, it seems, has forged artwork and sold the copies as his own. Michelle Malkin has a long story, with links, to this latest chapter in the Churchill story. Look at the pictures on Michelle's site or at the link below, and you'll see that there's little room for doubt on this one.

I've asked this question before: does Churchill ever tell the truth? What a fraud.

Michelle's source is Denver's CBS4, which says:

When a reporter from the station tried to ask Churchill about the controversy, the prof tried to slug the reporter -- about the only response one could expect from a man of Churchill's character:

Update: I strongly recommend going here and watching the video of Churchill's assault. Note that you must use Internet Explorer. Churchill tries to beg off the charge by saying that he created an original artwork of his own from the original by the late Thomas Mails, and that he notified the artist and the public at the time, which was 1981. Channel 4 spoke with Mails's son, who says he can't imagine that his late father would ever have approved such a move, and that the family still owns the copyright to the original. The reporter says the family is speaking with attorneys.

Never mind Condoleezza Rice's impeccable credentials as a scholar, stateswoman and presidential adviser. Or even as a foreign policy expert. The Washington Post’s description of the Secretary of State during her recent visit to the Wiesbaden, Germany, Army Airfield? “Dominatrix!”

I’m disappointed that the venerable Washington Post couldn’t — or, maybe, just wouldn’t — find something more substantial to write than about Rice’s “commanding clothes.” If they dug around a little, they might find a story in the slew of racist and disparaging editorial cartoons the journalism industry hawked at the American public a few months ago. But I digress....

I love Condi Rice. She’s a quintessential example of the American success story — a brilliant woman who rose from humble beginnings to positions — lots of them — of power, prestige and influence. She is brilliant, witty, charming. But I think what I love most about her is her blind confidence in the face who say she can’t do the job for which she was hired.

At least the Post got that part right.

But is it Rice’s sexuality and clothing that makes her tough? Is it not possible that she’s powerful because she’s shrewd, sharp and sophisticated?

To peace in the Middle East, that is. Let's hope so, and Charles Krauthammer, who can be relied on for sober assessments of the region's prospects for peace, thinks we've entered an era worthy of a bit of optimism:

John Podhoretz has an entertaining, and sadly accurate, column on New York Democratic mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner's propensity to oppose all things, good or bad, that Mayor Bloomberg favors.

Here's a taste:

I've wondered about the opposition to Wal-Mart, too, and what it tells us about elites who claim to speak for "the people." Surely those opposed to Wal-Mart in the Bronx, of all places, are the same as those who fought to keep Vermont pristine and Wal-Mart free:

Paradise, indeed.

Last week I commented on the uproar that followed the appointment of Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi to, as the New York Sun put it then, "lecture a group of New York City public school teachers on how to teach Mideast politics to schoolchildren."

Today, the Sun runs an editorial reporting that Khalidi's appointment has been scuttled following objections to his virulent, and continuing, anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli remarks. That's excellent news, as the last thing NYC should shell out cash for is to provide a platform for the likes of Khalidi to spew forth his venomous opinions to a group that would then carry his propaganda to young students. If tolerance of others is still a virtue, preaching hate to school children should be an obvious violation of the norm in public education.

Here's how the Sun describes the situation, which is still somewhat fluid:

The public and authorities show concern, rightly, for the influence of Saudi-funded schools that produce the likes of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a former Washington-area student who was arrested for taking part a plot to kill President Bush. We should be equally concerned about the effects of Rashid Khalidi and others in Columbia's highly politicized Middle East Institute, where anti-Semitism is given a scholarly gloss. Here's hoping that Khalidi is kept out of the public schools -- forever.

. . . is what Debra Saunders says Lawrence Summers did wrong at Harvard:

It's a short column, so give it a read. You'll always know where Saunders stands on any issue.

In an earlier post I briefly mentioned and linked to Wilfred McClay's lecture, "George W. Bush's Evangelical Conservatism: Or, How the Republicans Became Red," which was delivered yesterday at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Here are a few paragraphs of the lecture, which merits close study. These samples by no means convey the subtlety and intellectual fecundity of the lecture, but I hope they'll spark sufficient interest to cause readers to read (or listen to) the talk in its entirety.

Here is just a bit of what he said:

And:

Later:

McClay addressed the question of the influence of President Bush's evangelical faith on his policies, and just how this plays with the public's usual notion of conservatism:

He concludes:

I spent much of yesterday in Washington, where I heard a superb lecture on modern conservatism, and its evangelical elements, by Democracy Project board member and blogger Wilfred McClay. The lecture was held at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the text and audio of it are available here. I didn't post in the afternoon as a result, but I'm home again, so posting should return to normal this afternoon.

Arthur Chrenkoff hasn't been away, as is clear by the length and quality of his second update on events in Lebanon. Part One is here. The best quote to come out of Lebanon, of course, is from a most unlikely source: Walid Jumblatt as quoted in yesterday's WP by David Ignatius:

The rest of Ignatius's piece is also worth reading, as it demonstrates the degree to which the Lebanese are fed up with the Syrian occupation of their country. On that matter, don't miss Daniel Pipes's recent column, Lebanon's Liberation Approaches.

Not the virtuous Churchill, of course, but the perhaps-Indian-maybe-white-man Churchill of CU infamy. Candace de Russy looks at what lessons we should draw from his rise to power in academe.

Side note: I mentioned in August how cool my new PowerBook was. Now for another Mac tangent.

The Foreword makes mention of the new version of Transmit, the beloved FTP client for Macintosh OS X users. Cool.

Charles at LGF reports that some Iranians have been "rummaging (with Lynx)" through their archives this morning. He has the data, including names and addresses in Teheran, and he's blocked their URLs in case someone in power is looking for information to use against Iranian bloggers, who are being persecuted by the mullahs.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, an American student imprisoned for 20 months in Saudi Arabia and returned to the U.S., where he faces charges of plotting to kill President Bush, is a graduate of a Saudi-funded high school in Virginia that has a long history of teaching a radical and intolerant form of Islam. You won't find that in today's NYT story, but LGF links to the Jawa Report, which has the goods on Ahmed Omar Abu Ali and his school.

Jawa Report does note that today's Philadelphia Inquirer (registration) has a story that describes the school's character, as indicated in the story's title: "Ex-Valedictorian at 'Terror High' Named in Plot to Kill Bush." Here are the first few paragraphs of the Inquirer's story:

And:

To be frank, I can't help but find President Bush's fence-mending trip to Europe distasteful. It hints of begging for forgiveness for the Iraq War, which Americans obviously aren't sorry about because we reelected George W. Bush, and were clearly right about after the wildly successful elections in Iraq on January 30.

Such "fence-mending" is an insult to those of us who embrace the President's remarkable second inaugural address which clearly definined the role of American foriegn policy as the removal of tyranny in the world. Therefore, when Europe and Russia wish to negotiate and trust an Iranian regime who can give a blogger a 14-year sentence for insulting the government by calling a spade a spade, those are at best fairweather friends and at worst enemies of our efforts to spread freedom and democracy to the globe.

The coverage of Larry Summers at Harvard continues to grow, as the faculty met to chew over its options (and the beleaguered president) and bask in the media spotlight. The media smells blood in the water, although Summers has the backing of Harvard's board. As with all political struggles, and this is nothing if not political, the underlying issue is raw power. And the question that remains to be answered is, can anyone, even a brilliant and direct man like Summers, force a professoriate accustomed to doing as it pleases rebuild a culture of service to the nation and the world? Summers's opponents will be satisfied if he's weakened sufficiently so that he no longer poses a threat to their comfortable, solipsistic lifestyles. Whether they'll succeed remains to be seen.

Here is some recent reaction to and commentary on his talk.

Yesterday's New York Sun ran two pieces on Harvard, an editorial and a news article. (There's another article today, but they've restricted it to subscribers.) Yesterday's editorial compares Summers's plight with that of the late Nathan Pusey, who led Harvard during some of the violent opposition to the Vietnam War (violence is OK if you're chic, you see).

Like Pusey, Summers has opposed some entrenched radical interests, including professors such as Everett Mendelsohn, much-quoted in the press of late and author of a 1982 tract calling for reduction in aid to Israel and warm relations with the PLO. Summers also took on Cornel West, perhaps the university's most famous prima donnas, and asked if he could be bothered to do some rigorous scholarship in between his rap recordings and work for the Al Sharpton campaign. Additionally, he opposed divestment of Harvard's endowment from companies that do business with Israel and stated that those who advocated such moves were "anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent."

So Summers had plenty of enemies before his recent remarks on women in science. That subject is treated in Anne Applebaum's column today, which notes that most women (and men) aren't in line for tenure at Harvard, and that the argument over women in the work force stretches far beyond Harvard Yard:

Another woman, Amy Doolittle, looked at the science behind sex differences in yesterday's Washington Times, while Arnold Kling argued that the whole imbroglio is important and deserves the attention it's getting. He says that Summers's talk in January was "as near a perfect example of judicious, thoughtful speculation as any imperfect human being might produce."

Kling uses his daughter's experience in college to illustrate the anti-intellectualism of some academics:

Kling uses two quotes from Summers's talk to illustrate better just what he said, and what he meant by it. Here's the first:

The second:

Kling discusses two other potential factors that contribute to the problems Summers addressed: male-dominance behavior and self-regarding attribution bias. But he returns to the anti-intellectualism of Summers's critics as the principal problem.

Today's Harvard Crimson carries a report on yesterday's faculty meeting. The essence of their story is that Summers promised to restore the faculty's powers that, they say, he has drained since becoming president. And after all, that's what much of this is about, as the Sun editorial above notes. Faculty at Harvard, as at all universities, are unaccustomed to being held to account for their actions. An administrator like Summers, in questioning their perquisites, defiles holy ground upon which only the anointed may tread.

At least he's leaving himself some wriggle room with that last comment. The Crimson story makes it clear that the atmosphere at yesterday's meeting was less volatile than at last week's, and that there no move was made for a vote of no confidence. If they're correct, and it's a well done story you should read if you're following this drama, Summers will weather this storm.

The tone of this morning's NYT coverage is somewhat different; it begins:

The Crimson also discusses the scuttling of this plan, which was doubtless a setback for Summers and his allies. But the student reporter seems to have less of an axe to grind than do the Times's duo of Sara Rimer and Patrick D. Healy. The Times notes, for example, that the poll conducted by Crimson staff, which I noted here, revealed that faculty disapprove of Summers's leadership 52% to 40%. Yet it fails to note that the same poll showed that 55% percent do not believe he should resign, while 32% believe he should.

Jonathan Finer's article in this morning's Washington Post reports that "about half of the speakers defended the president, several professors said," something not mentioned by the Times.

Today's Boston Globe carries much of the same material, but it alone among the papers I've checked quotes this statement in support of Summers:

Surely Prof. Melton has it right. Advancing knowledge, not screaming foul and shouting down unorthodox offenders, should be the business of a great university. With academic freedom comes intellectual responsibility, and those Harvard professors who find Larry Summers so threatening that they'll stop at nothing to weaken him reveal themselves as intellectual cowards who'd rather banish their opponents than debate them. Children of privilege needn't be spoiled brats, but some of them in Cambridge haven't bothered to grow up.

Via LGF, a Committee to Protect Bloggers has been formed to draw attention to the plight of bloggers jailed or harassed by repressive regimes. Iranian bloggers, in particular, are suffering at the hands of the mullahs, who know that freedom of speech is lethal to their continued rule.

For months many of us have said that Syria deserves a place in the notorious Axis of Evil. You will recall that President Bush announced the Axis post-September 11 Attack when he listed North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as charter members. Why stop there, some wondered, since Syria is every bit as oppressive as Iraq and has long been a state sponsor of terrorism. Syria has deep ties to Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terror groups, has controlled Lebanon like a malicious puppet master, and continues to occupy the Bekka Valley where it runs terrorist training camps. Any one of these activities ought to have been enough to earn them a place on the bad guy list; the combination makes it a lock.

Significantly, Syria has played a key role both in the lead-up activity to the Iraq War and the terrorism we’ve seen in the aftermath. That Syria's machinations are under-reported makes them no less influential. Syria has been a reflection of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Iraq for decades. Under the leadership of Hafez al-Assad, Syria molded itself into a fascist, dictatorial state. One of Assad’s heroes was Adolf Hitler. His counterpart was Saddam Hussein. Both were secular-minded, hedonistic Sunni Arabs. They dreamed of unbounded power and the wealth it would bring. They ruled their fiefdoms through intimidation, terror, and profligate corruption, each using ruthless internal intelligence agencies (similar to the Gestapo and KGB) to force hapless citizens to their will. Each surrounded himself with toadies and sycophants, frequently purged those close to him as ruthlessly as known enemies, and dreamed of being the leader of a regional Arab resurgence.

Saddam intended to turn power over to one of his now happily deceased sons, Uday or Qusay. The elder Assad, Hafez, lived long enough to turn power over to his son, Bashar, an optometrist, and precocious dictator-in-training. The younger Assad, despite initial myopically self-deceptive hopes that he would be a reformer, has followed well in the footsteps of his father. He has increased power by wide-spread use of the thugs in his intelligence agency, and he is ratcheting up Syria's support for terrorist organizations. Several of the most heinous are openly headquartered in Damascus. Most disturbingly, there are credible reports that Syria has become a welcoming home to Iraqi Baathist most-wanted criminals who fled just before Saddam’s statue fell in the square. It is reliably reported that as many as 54 top Iraqi leaders are running the insurgency in Iraq from Damascus. This is the reason many analysts say that while the body of the insurgency is in Iraq, the head hides in Syria.

It is well known that huge sums of stolen money – mostly US dollars - were smuggled across the border into Syria around the time of Iraq’s collapse. Even before the war began billions of dollars were electronically transferred into Syrian-controlled banks for safe keeping by Saddam’s regime. Given the generous funding for the insurgents it is clear that some of those Iraqi criminals from the old regime had the pin number of the account. US Marines and soldiers searching terrorist bodies during and after the Battle of Fallujah report that every one had in his possession $200-$300 in crisp US $100 bills. Their paymaster in Syria had sent in funds to pay them off. A lot of this money came from the Oil for Food kickbacks that are already documented to be in the billions of dollars. Plenty of money was on hand to satisfy Saddam’s insatiable appetite for direct and indirect power. These were the funds that were allocated to pay for homicide bombers in Israel, fund al Qaeda training facilities inside Iraq like Ansar al-Islam camps, and many other terror-related activities. To this day the former Deputy Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic testifies that an Iraqi intelligence agent passed a large sum of money to 911 hijacker Mohammad Atta, but that story has been inexplicably left untouched by our CIA.

More menacingly, Syria in the many months of fruitless negotiation and intentional obstruction in the UN Security Council by France, Russia, and China, surely was a convenient repository for weapons that Saddam needed to hide. There was ample time, and there are many corroborating stories, that long convoys of loaded vehicles moved into Syria and returned empty. Iraq has a tradition of hiding things. A squadron of modern, fully functional MiG-29 aircraft was found by the inspection teams buried in the desert. Photos of these huge fighter aircraft being dug out of the sand were sensational but most people seemed to overlook the obvious: if aircraft were hidden in the sands is it likely that other weapons systems were hidden also? If not buried then relocated.

Liberated Iraqi intelligence sources – in cooperation with other international agencies - have quietly identified two sites within Syria and a third in the Bekka Valley that they report have been used to store WMD coming out of pre-war Iraq. It would have been cheap insurance for Saddam to move his valuable supplies despite the reassurances he received from France and Russia that the US was a paper tiger and would not attack. The planned simultaneous terrorist attack on the Jordanian Ministry of Defense and the American Embassy in Amman was designed around classic al Qaeda truck bombs (ammonium nitrate kicked off by a plastic explosive detonator) with a kicker: the attacking vehicles were going to include poison gas shells placed on top of the explosives. Jordanian investigators who discovered the plot and arrested the terrorists confirm the poison gas. They also confirm that the origin of the plotters was Syria. If Syria did not have its own stocks of poison gas then it is not reasonable to connect dots to an Iraqi source?

Syria has not remained neutral in the war in Iraq. Highest levels of Assad’s ruling coterie are fully complicit with the terrorist training camps located near the Iraq border inside Syria. These camps – also funded by the escaped Iraqi Baathists with Saddam’s ill-gotten gains – are functioning in a manner similar to that al Qaeda used in Afghanistan and pre-war Iraq. Terrorists are brought in from all over the region and trained in Islamist, jihadist ideology. They learn basic military skills and are then committed to the fight. They are dying in droves in Iraq thanks to the skill of US and Coalition troops and the rapidly emerging Iraqi security forces. Still they have inflicted many casualties on hundreds of innocent Iraqis and have wounded and killed many Americans. We need to take a hard look and ask how long Syria is going to be allowed to continue this illegal interference and provide sanctuary for the terrorists.

Syrian fingerprints are all over the assassination of the anti-Syrian former Lebanese president. Now announcements are released that Syria has formed an alliance with Iran. Desperate times breed desperate measures and both the Bansar Assad regime and the Mullahs in Teheran fear the next move by America and our allies. Under the radar, both Iran and Syria have extensive technological and weapons ties with Kim Jong Il’s regime in North Korea. Missile and warhead technology, uranium products, and chemical warfare expertise and products have been transferred between and among this nefarious trio. All three rogue regimes oppress their people and are egregious violators of human rights as well as being state sponsors of terrorism.

These rogue states have watched America over the past year, wondering what the outcome of our election would be. Now that they know they are scrambling to scratch together a defense against the attacks – economic, psychological, and military – that they know will be forthcoming. By this evil alliance the die has been cast. The decadent, dictatorial Syrian regime has sealed its fate and will drag its fellow dictators in Iran and North Korea down with it. Freedom is marching unstoppable across the world, sweeping tin-pot tyrants out of the path.

Today is the the 273rd anniversary of the birth of George Washington. The Big Trunk at PL has a thoughtful post about Washington and his significance for the strengthening of religious pluralism in early America. He links to a letter to Washington from the congregation of Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, America's oldest synagogue. This is not Washington's famous letter to the congregation in Newport, but the congregation's letter to him. A portion of that letter reads:

We have immediate family in the Newport area, and we've visited Touro Synagogue. We were searched by an armed guard before entering in order to prevent anti-Semitic radicals, from here and abroad, from destroying one of America's plots of holy ground where religious pluralism, rightly understood to mean freedom of religion and not freedom from religion, received crucial support. An equally important task is to prevent activist judges from eroding that pluralism through judicial fiat. Pluralism is the enemy of the ideologue, left or right, and only through remembering and honoring our Founders, including Washington, will we ensure that our future is truly free.

The Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, polled every professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences over the past four days. A polling expert at Columbia University, contacted by Crimson staff, called the poll results "imperfect but not invalid." The results show that most professors polled don't want to see Summers removed over his recent speculation that innate differences between men and women may account for a relative paucity of women in scientific and mathematical fields of academe. At the same time, it shows that 56 percent believe he's "diminished" Harvard's image. Of 683 professors presented with the questions, 280 responded. Here are the results:

If these results are accurate, they bode well for Summers and for Harvard. Even those who find the president's style abrasive, or who disagree with his tendency to transgress the faculty's coveted autonomy don't wish to see him ousted. That's good for those of us who believe that free speech and freedom of thought must be central to academic life. Absent the ability to inquire freely into areas declared by some as off-limits, the clichéd "chilling effect" seen by some leftists as the consequence of every disagreement could become a reality. If Harvard's president isn't safe from those whose politically orthodoxy has all the intellectual subtlety of Stalin's, then no university president, professor, or student can hope to survive a confrontation with the forces of conformity.

That's the message from Kofi Annan in an op-ed in this morning's WSJ. I'm glad the Journal gave Annan the space to defend his organization, because the inability of Annan and his staff to come up with more than they do puts in even starker relief just how morally bankrupt the organization he oversees really is.

In his gloss on the U.N.'s accomplishments and shortcomings, he nods to the Volker report but never mentions Benin Seven by name, nor his son, Kojo. He does condemn rape by U.N. workers in the Congo, something he should do but hardly a great risk. And he exaggerates the U.N.'s effectiveness in Iraq and skirts his own vehement opposition to the war that freed 25 million people from tyranny.

Please. Annan himself called the war "illegal," and his cuddling of Saddam and role in the Oil-for-Food Scandal are clear. Even if he didn't benefit financially from the corruption that reached to his own family -- and we just don't yet know the answer to that question -- no organization that represented the interests of the people of Iraq would have opposed all efforts to rid the country of Saddam and his crime family so vehemently for so long. He also overstates the U.N.'s role in post-war Iraq, conveniently forgetting to mention that the organization pulled up stakes and ran for the hills after its headquarters was bombed. Some commitment, Kofi.

He then vastly overstates the U.N.'s role in pulling off last month's elections. He even claims that a sign of his organization's usefulness is that it has the trust of the Sunnis, who both boycotted the elections and were prevented by violence from voting. Another way of stating such a claim might be: "We are supported by those elements in Iraq who joined us in opposing the toppling of Saddam's criminal regime. We know each other; we think alike. Trust me."

His op-ed made me wish for the return of the Diplomad, that wonderful blog run by foreign service officers that signed off February 5. That's because Annan does his best to steal credit for the tsunami relief efforts that, in fact, were led by the American military and the Australians. You'll find just a sample of the work the Diplomad did in exposing the ineptness and preening of U.N. bureaucrats at this post. For weeks following the wave, the Diplomad reported -- from the ground in the area affected -- that U.N. elites flew in, delivered self-congratulatory speeches, and departed without raising a hand to aid anyone in distress.

I urge you to read the whole thing, as you'll see for yourself just how incapable the top man is in defending his own organization. Nice try, Kofi, but no more oil for you.

Dahlia Lithwick in her review of Mark Tushnet's A Court Divided for the Washington Post asks "Why can't a Supreme Court with seven Republican appointees reverse the Warren court revolution once and for all? Why are affirmative action and abortion still the law of the land?"

You can read Lithwick's review for both her and Tushnet's answer to this question, which are par for the course. What they both leave out is the very real transformation of the Republican party from a mostly establishmentarian institution to an ideological one. Here's an example: both Nixon and Bush are from the same party but have very different perspectives on foreign policy, with Nixon propping up dictators to ensure global stability and Bush supporting democracy over stability. And secondarily, and perhaps more importantly, is the simple fact that Supreme Court justices have been educated in the most elite (and therefore liberal) of institutions: Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Chicago, among others, where affirmative action and abortion were first introduced and seen as gospel. Perhaps the solution to this problem, and the court's judicial activism in general, is to appoint lazy lawyers from mediocre law schools more interested in golfing than writing 100 page legal opinions read only by their peers.

Scott Johnson, who blogs at Power Line, has a piece at the Weekly Standard on attempts by radical insurgents -- that would be right-of-center and libertarians -- to infiltrate the stronghold that is Dartmouth College's governing board. Johnson begins his essay by noting that, in the case of Larry Summers at Harvard, an apt comparison may be drawn with the Paul Newman's character in Cool Hand Luke: