Michelle Malkin is on the story of the AP trusted source that isn’t what he or they say he is.

I've been following up with CENTCOM on the Associated Press/sketchy sources brouhaha. Just heard this morning from Michael B. Dean, Lieutenant, U.S. Navy MNC-I Joint Operations Center, Public Affairs Officer:
From CPATT PAO:
BG Abdul-Kareem, the Ministry of Interior Spokesman, went on the record today stating that Capt. Jamil Hussein is not a police officer. He explained the coordinations among MOI, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense in attempting to track down these bodies and their joint conclusion was that this was unsubstantiated rumor.
He went on to name several other false sources that have been used recently and appealed to the media to document their news before reporting. He went into some detail about the impact of the press carrying propaganda for the enemies of Iraq and thanked "the friends" who have brought this to their attention.
AP did attend the press conference.

And, what’s more:

For example, we have some of the respected news outlets that deal with news fast and have a relation with many TV channels and the media in general, who distributed a story quoting a person called Jamil Hussein. Afterward, we searched our sources in our staff for anyone by this name-- maybe he wore an MOI uniform and gave a different name to the reporter for money. And the second name used is Lt. Maythem.

What will the AP have to say for itself now? We await, with baited breath, especially when AP’s International Editor (who seems to have little difficulty swallowing Syrian fodder) has so put AP out on the limb sawn off by calling the exposers of the AP’s source “frankly ludicrous.” Maybe he’ll next be employed by Al Jazeera?

But, that’s not enough. The AP, and other major media, must – if they’re to retain any credibility, or recover any – immediately fund and cooperate with a major, independent, published examination of their reporting practices in Iraq (throw in the Palestinian areas, as well), with focus on the vetting of stringers and sources.

There's much more at Malkin's post.

Heh! Even the New York Times takes note. So should every other major media organization, and get behind a full-scale, credible, public self-examination. That should be quite a scoop!

AP REPLIES at FloppingAces with a “we believe ourselves” response. Curt dissects:

Basically a "you believe what you want and we will believe what we want" kind of statement don't you think? They are unwilling to prove to Centcom that this source of theirs is a real police officer. I mean all you have to do is produce the damn guy. Have him rebut his supposed "bosses".
But no.....we get this joke of a response.
Typical

SEE Want to get to the truth about AP's Iraq reporting?

MSM Hung By Own Stringers

Another UPDATE:
Tblumer at BizzyBlog.com phoned the office of the AP’s International Editor (Mr. “frankly ludicrous”), and contrasts this admission with the AP’s wire story crying wolf about possible censorship by equating the Iraq government’s request that facts be checked with the practices of Saddam.

AP now admits that the part of the original story about four mosques burning is down to one that is “badly damaged by explosives and shows signs of scorching from fire.” I am not aware of any formal correctons sent out to AP subscribers to correct this stunning error.

· No name identification of the remaining five alleged victims has been done. A person from AP who called me back in response to my phone request to speak with John Daniszewski, and my message left for him (my message was left with a person, not on his VoiceMail), confirmed this fact this afternoon. I informed this person that I was having a hard time believing that in roughly six days, some local Iraqi news outlet hadn’t published the names of the victims yet (that is, if there are really five other victims). I was told they’re “doing all they can.”

· AP utterly failed to explain how their “story” can possibly be true in light of the following assertion by Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for Iraq’s Interior Ministry: “Khalaf said the ministry had dispatched a team to the Hurriyah neighborhood and to the morgue but found no witnesses or evidence of burned bodies.”

And I’m sorry, AP’s last paragraph so over the top I wonder why they shouldn’t just be booted out the country for being immature, childish jerks:
Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, the government imposed censorship on local media and severely restricted foreign media coverage, monitoring transmissions and sending secret police to follow journalists. Those who violated the rules were expelled and in some cases jailed.

Y’know, Eason Jordan at CNN admitted it (a couple of years before he falsely accused the US military of “targeting journalists“), but surely other media outlets were willing to self-censor their Saddam-era coverage of Iraq to maintain their precious “access.” What Iraq’s Interior Ministry is asking is a courtesy that is no different than any other municipal police department, namely that they (the police, and by extension the military in this case) be allowed to have their side of the story presented before news outlets go off half-cocked and issue incomplete and possibly inaccurate reports about what may or may not have happened when incidents take place. Without the context from the police or military, the chances that errors in reporting will take place are greatly increased. Since the errors and lies appear to routinely exaggerate the level of violence and mayhem, and to routinely claim or exaggerate the degree of civilian casualties, their inaccurate reporting could very well be feeding the anger that leads to the violence.

Moles inside Hillel? This is a very real prospect to consider after reading the Dafka report, How Some Pro-Israel Groups Get Silenced at UC Berkeley Hillel, which urges us not to donate funds to Berkeley Hillel. Hat tip to Chuck Minning for the link in an email where he asks the question: “Is it possible that Yael Richardson is but one more example of the infiltration of this insidious group of Jewish Jew-Haters into campus Hillel organizations?”

This was in response to my recent blog, Hillel at Brown U. Acquiesces to MSA, where I revealed the disgraceful complicity of Yael Richardson, president of Hillel at Brown University for allowing herself to be persuaded to cancel Hillel’s pro-Israel speaker by objections from MSA.

Dafka revealed Hillel's growing tendency to welcome anti-Israel viewpoints to the exclusion of the more conservative pro-Zionist side. Hillel at Berkeley has embraced and cooperated with such groups as Students For Justice In Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice For Peace (JVOP), which seek to dismantle the state of Israel and promote divestment from Israel on campus. Concern is being raised that operatives from these groups are infiltrating Hillel acting as a fifth column showing ostensible support for Israel and then shifting gears in compliance with Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups.

Rather, more likely I think Yael may be an agent of a cardinal humanistic tenet of Jewish tradition, that in an effort to appear as sensitive and amicable as possible, is actually sanctioning the enemy and doing the most damage to ourselves as a people and to the state of Israel.

I received the following email on the subject from an Israeli, Ori Cohen who puts it more bluntly:

We are finished by our own doing, Jews with their sympathy and guilt, to their own enemy and destroyers, will bring the end to Israel and the Jewish race, it is just a question of time.

We need to wake up and heed Ori's advice and keep silent no more.

I’ve long, and fruitlessly, called for a credible, independent examination of the stringer policy and procedures of the major media operating in Iraq (and, the Palestinian areas as well). Case after case has accumulated, well-documented, of the major media being used as avenues of lies and propaganda by our enemies, as well as our enemies themselves saying that’s part of their modus operandi. I know of at least one respected academic working on such a study, but far more is needed.

Now that the Associated Press and CENTCOM (along with many blogs) have thrown down their gauntlets to each other, there’s such an opportunity to get such a comprehensive examination, with the case of the purported six Sunnis set aflame as the case study to open the now secretive door to major media’s reliance on stringers and suspect sources.

Curt, at Flopping Aces blog, brings us up to date, along with the critical links.

The Associated Press, like any business, depends upon its customers. Indeed, the Associated Press is responsive to its customers. Those customers are the media that buy AP stories and feeds, providing their customers – the readers and viewers – with a wide range of content that any particular venue cannot itself provide. The AP’s Board of Directors are, themselves, the owners and chief executives of other newspaper and media organizations.

I suggest that you write a brief, polite letter to each of the AP Board members, and to the chief editor of your local newspaper, requesting a comprehensive, independent examination of the AP’s handling of this matter, and that the study be published in its entirety.

Here’s a prototype letter:

Dear _______________:
As a customer of the news provided by the Associated Press and your (newspaper, TV station/network) I depend upon the reliability of what I (read/see).

As a concerned American, I depend upon that news reporting in judging the viability of national policy.

I appreciate how difficult it is to report from a war zone. However, after a number of instances of reports that have been proven or appear substantially unreliable, my confidence in your product is shaken.

I request that you use your position as a (Board member/customer) of Associated Press to press for an immediate, comprehensive, independent, published examination of the AP’s reporting of the purported six Sunnis set aflame, to include the detailing of policies and procedures for vetting stringers and sources.

Thank you, in advance, for working to increase confidence in our (underline “our”) media,
SIGN

You can go to this source to link to every newspaper in America to get the contact info for the AP Board members and for your local editors, or Google their organization to get contact info.

UPDATE: Some have written me they prefer an easier way to write one letter. The AP does not have an email address for its Board, but does offer this, which should filter through:
For general questions and comments;or to contact a specific employee: info@ap.org

The AP Board members are:

AP Board of Directors
Burl Osborne – Chairman
Publisher Emeritus
The Dallas Morning News
Dallas, Texas

R. Jack Fishman
Publisher and Editor
Citizen Tribune
Morristown, Tennessee

Dennis J. FitzSimons
Chairman, President and CEO
Tribune, Co.
Chicago, Illinois

Joe Hladky
President and Publisher
The Gazette Co.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Walter E. Hussman Jr.
Publisher
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Little Rock, Arkansas

Julie Inskeep
Publisher
The Journal Gazette
Fort Wayne, Indiana

George B. Irish
President
Hearst Newspapers
New York, New York

Boisfeuillet (Bo) Jones
Publisher and CEO
The Washington Post
Washington, D.C.

Mary Junck
President and CEO
Lee Enterprises, Inc.
Davenport, Iowa

David Lord
President
Pioneer Newspapers, Inc.
Seattle, Washington

Kenneth W. Lowe
President and CEO
E.W. Scripps Company

Douglas H. McCorkindale
Chairman
Gannett, Co. Inc.
McLean, Virginia

R. John Mitchell
Publisher
Rutland Herald
Rutland, Vermont

Steven O. Newhouse
Chairman,
Advance.Net
New York, New York

Gary Pruitt
Chairman, President and CEO
The McClatchy Company
Sacramento, California

Michael E. Reed
CEO
Liberty Group Publishing, Inc.
Downers Grove, Illinois

Bruce T. Reese
President and CEO
Bonneville International Corp.
Salt Lake City, Utah

Jon Rust
Publisher
Southeast Missourian
Co-president, Rust Communications
Cape Girardeau, Missouri

William Dean Singleton
Vice Chairman and CEO
MediaNews Group Inc.
Denver, Colorado

Jay R. Smith
President
Cox Newspapers, Inc.
Atlanta, Georgia

David Westin
President
ABC News
New York, New York

H. Graham Woodlief
President, Publishing Division
Vice President,
Media General Inc.
Richmond, Virginia

Brian Montopoli blogs for CBS’ Public Eye. He self-describes his credentials as a journalist here:

I came to Public Eye from Columbia Journalism Review, where I wrote about everything from the press coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign to the rise of blogging to the future of network news. Prior to my job at CJR, I was a contributing writer at Washington City Paper. I've also written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, Salon, The New York Observer, The Washington Monthly, and a number of other publications. Some of my favorite story topics have been youth soccer, public radio, and local politicians, not to mention the TV show Jeopardy!, which was kind enough to offer me a tryout (and merciful enough not to let me on the air).

So, we know how he did on TV’s Jeopardy game show tryout, and there’s no indication of military reporting or war experience, so one might understand that he only gets half the “word” in his post about the exposes of faux reporting by the Associated Press, and others, based on reliance upon lying stringers.

Still, this is the first small break I’ve been able to find within the MSM that there’s even a story. His more experienced brethren within the major media haven’t yet even gotten half the word.

Brian says, “A number of right-leaning bloggers are criticizing the Associated Press for a pair of stories from Iraq,” then outlines a bit of the evidence presented, particularly that CENTCOM questions the “credibility” of the AP’s source, not mentioning much more of the proofs.

Brian then says he hesitates to believe:

It's important to remember that we don't actually yet know if the AP's stories are "bogus." They may well be. They may not. Reporters face unique challenges in a war, and it's worthwhile to question the way they operate in Iraq, on everything from the necessary-but-risky use of stringers to the reliance on named and anonymous sources that may not be trustworthy. But because of their instinctive distrust of the mainstream media, some bloggers have drawn conclusions that, at this point, strike me as premature.

At least, at last, Brian turns toward the game board and admits:

It's important, when looking at a situation like this, to take a step back and try to look objectively at all the facts, even the ones that don't fit our preconceived notions. The blogs deserve credit for raising this issue. Now it's time to get to the bottom of it.

Yes, let’s “get to the bottom of it” and before it’s a footnote to Americans abandoning Iraq due to misleading MSM hysteria-stirring. While we’re at it, let’s get to the bottom of the whole MSM reliance on stringers.

Rick Moran (incidentally, to those readers who blithely dismiss “rightleaning blogs,” Rick has called for withdrawals from Iraq), at Redstate blog, does a superb job of discussing the issue of stringers, and suggests the questions that must be answered by media organizations.

Who are they? What are their backgrounds? Are they journalists? If so, what kind of experience have they had? Have then been vetted to make sure they aren't out and out insurgent sympathizers? Or militia mouthpieces?

Do they have axes to grind against America? How does the reporter in Iraq or the editor back home establish their objectivity or accuracy? Does the reporter on site even try and confirm information from the stringers? If so, how many sources are used to confirm their stories? How do you gauge the reliability of those confirming sources?

This is the nuts and bolts of journalism. Raw information is not news. It has to be poked and prodded, examined and re-examined in a process that is supposed to reduce that information to its most basic and understandable parts and then massaged by the reporter and polished by the editor to appear as "news" in the newspaper or on the TV broadcast.

UPDATE:
The Anchoress has had some communications with CBS Public Eye's Brian Montopoli, which leads to her astonishment that journalists wonder why news consumers' are skeptical.

She just alerted me that the Associated Press' International Editor has replied to the charges by accusing questioners, apparently including CENTCOM, of being "frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question." The AP says it has new witnesses:

On Tuesday, two AP reporters also went back to the Hurriyeh neighborhood around the Mustafa mosque and found three witnesses who independently gave accounts of the attack" on 6 Sunni men purportedly burned to death by Shiites.

How convenient! But, how reliable or believable?

The AP says it stands by its frequent "police" source, only saying he "has long been known to the AP reporters and has been interviewed in his office and by telephone on several occasions during the past two years," not mentioning his other suspect information.

Nor does the AP reveal whether the AP reporters who "know" him are, themselves, stringers, who may be suspect sources. This AP rework of its initial reporting does not say.

I repeat, a full, in depth, credible, independent examination of major media reporting practices, particularly its reliance on stringers, must occur, and soon.

Here's a place to start, with the reconstruction of the "evolving" AP coverage, courtesy of Mary Katherine Ham, and her link to the other mysterious sources to the AP from Michelle Malkin's blog.

I just fired off an irate letter to the New York Post in response to the mealy-mouthed letter to the editor from Yael Richardson, president of Hillel at Brown University. This letter was in response to Adam Brodsky’s op-ed Dissent Crushed, about Hillel’s decision to cancel guest speaker, Nonie Darwish after protests from the Muslim Students Association (MSA). Complaining that she was “too controversial,” Muslim students objected to Darwish’s planned appearance and Hillel timidly complied, not wanting to “upset its ‘beautiful relationship’ with the Muslim community” although no one seemed to mind the hate speech emanating from Brown’s anti-Israel events during “Palestinian Solidarity Week.” Fortuitously, I am proud to have met a more gutsy and defiant Hillel president here in New York, Michael Abdurakhmanov a student at Pace University. I recently posted his report of the censorship and viewpoint discrimination he is facing from MSA and Pace administrators, who are intent on banning the film “Obsession” that Hillel had planned to show at a recent event.

Here is Yael Richardson’s letter:

I was disappointed to read Brodsky's inaccurate portrayal of Brown Hillel and Brown's campus community.

After reviewing input from both the Jewish and Muslim communities, the Hillel student board chose not to sponsor Darwish's lecture. The Hillel student board made a thoughtful decision, and I stand by it.

Darwish has a fascinating life story and would have brought an interesting perspective to campus. But it is not Hillel's place to sponsor a speaker who has made statements which denigrate Islamic observance.

Hillel certainly has a responsibility to provide an outlet for a variety of views on Israel, but it also has an obligation to do so in a considerate and respectful way. If that makes us "Jewish enablers," then I am proud to be one.

Yael Richardson
Student President
Brown Hillel
Providence, R.I.

Here is my reply:

Shame on Yael Richardson, president of Hillel at Brown University for acquiescing to the intimidation from the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and no doubt, from Brown administrators who protect anti-Israel hate speech in the name of academic freedom. She should at least not be so disingenuous as to frame Nonie Darwish as someone who denigrates Islam, which Mrs. Darwish has never done. Rather in numerous interviews and articles she praises the beauty of Muslims who practice Islam correctly while speaking out against terrorism and the violent radical strain that has commandeered their religion. Hers is a voice that needs to be heard, rather than bowing to the loud mouth threats of MSA, the campus recruiting arm of Wahhabi Islam, which is the puritanical anti-Western sect at the heart of radical Islam.

One of my favorite blogging arguing and discussion fellows is Steve Bainbridge. When he stopped blogging, he said he was going to come back to focus on his law-related specialty. I’m glad to see that he’s now back to blogging, but his resolve to concentrate has given way to a conglomerate of blogs.

This site http://www.professorbainbridge.com/ serves as a portal to my three blogs, each of whose most recent posts can be accessed from the links;
StephenBainbridge.com: my journal, focusing on politics and culture

BusinessAssociationsBlog.com: my professional blog, focused on law and economics

ProfessorBainbridgeOnWine.com: my wine and food blog

I wrote to Steve that I didn’t get his logic. Today, he responded in his blog.

On the other hand, a friend in the blogosphere emailed this question: "I'm confused by the fragmentation. Why? What are the advantages?"…

I'm now free to do very technical legal analysis at the Business Associations Blog, without worrying that my generalist readers will get bored….

As Clay Shirky observes:
"It is obvious that both the networks and their advertisers are soon going to have to adapt to a fragmented media market where nothing regularly reaches 20 million people, and the only way to get mass will be niche plus niche plus niche."

The analogy to the blogosphere seems clear. There are a handful of stand-alone blogs that reach a mass audience. They dominate the blogosphere the way the broadcast networks still dominate TV. Competing with them looks to be a non-starter. Instead, for the rest of us, targeting "niche plus niche plus niche" allows us to build mass in the fragmented world of the blogosphere.

Or so I'm betting.

I’ve never been a fan of business conglomerates, the synergies usually being overblown and the impediments to effective coordination usually being too high. Bainbridge’s blog conglomerate may follow this generalization, or not, but most lost – even if the “bet” works -- is the cross-fertilization of ideas to the readers who appreciated his old blend. We need more informed generalists, educated to decipher the specialists.

There’s little reason to doubt that there’s severe sectarian violence between some Iraqis in some parts of Iraq. The real questions are: How much is there really?; and, consequently, How really difficult is America’s and other Iraqis’ mission there to construct a reasonably stable and free country that won’t export or encourage terrorism?

There’s, also, little reason to doubt that much of the reporting we’re getting, which is feeding despair among many Americans, is unreliable. The major media has not been forthcoming about its reporting practices, so we are left in the dark with our -- possibly excessive, but definitely debilitating – fears.

The major media’s failure to examine itself and to share that with its customers is nothing short of malfeasance of the highest order. The media’s influence on the fates of hundreds of millions of people and the future of nations requires such transparency, and quickly.

The latest instances were unearthed by citizen bloggers, operating with only their keyboard. The key question that arises, then, is why the major media with all their vast resources could not or would not vet their own stories?

Flopping Aces blog documents Associated Press and other prime news reporters relying on false reports, and Patterico’s blog pretty well demonstrates “the L.A. Times reporting unconfirmed enemy propaganda from an Iraqi stringer with ties to the insurgency,” and Dan Riehl points out another instance of “trash” reporting.

Last September, I posted about Reuters seed-funding NewAssignment.Net with $100,000 to “draw ‘smart crowds’ – groups of people configured to share intelligence – into collaboration at NewAssignment.Net and get stories done that way that aren’t getting done now.” I proposed:

…the first project to be the detailing of the backgrounds of the thousands of stringers employed by the major media around the world. There are, at least, three fundamental questions to be answered: Is the world’s media being manipulated, by whom, and how much?

Instead, if one looks at the link to NewAssignment.Net (above) one will see its direction aimed at more of the liberal left’s agenda of “scandals.”

Without Reuters’ $100,000, however, conservative bloggers have repeatedly revealed the biggest scandal of all, that we can’t depend on – or minimally, don’t know what to depend upon -- in what we hear from the media about the war in Iraq, which has taken tens of thousands of American, allies, and Iraqis’ lives, not to mention hundreds of billions of American dollars, and which directly affects the fates of hundreds of millions of people in the region, Europe and the U.S.

This isn’t a new problem. It was a significant influence on America’s mistakes and ultimate failure in Vietnam, as a new detailed history explains:

Despite a heavy influx of personnel and war supplies via the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, by 1962 the war against the communists had experienced a dramatic turnaround and was going well. Yet Diem's mandarin ways of governing also drew sharp criticism from some of his own people, and Western observers, and this included the American ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge. The overthrow of Diem on November 1, 1963, instigated by Lodge without the consent of President Kennedy, is seen by Mr. Moyar as a terrible miscalculation that resulted in a needless defeat — "Triumph Forsaken" as stated in the title of the book (Cambridge, 562 pages, $32).

Mr. Moyar's basic thesis is not new. It was argued in the 1960s by some of the most experienced American journalists on the scene such as Marguerite Higgins, Keyes Beach, and Joseph Alsop, as well as by scholars like Ellen J. Hammer and Dennis J. Duncanson. The contrary view was pushed by two young reporters, David Halberstam of the New YorkTimes and Neil Sheehan, who looked upon Vietnam as if it were fundamentally the same as the United States and attributed all difficulties to Diem's authoritarian rule. Lodge shared this outlook, and this caused him to view the Diem regime with fierce contempt.

Some of the most interesting parts of Mr. Moyar's book describe how Mr. Halberstam and Mr. Sheehan presented Lodge and their readers in the United States with grossly inaccurate information on the Buddhist protest movement and on South Vietnamese politics, much of it unwittingly received from two secret Communist agents. Pham Ngoc Thao was a colonel in the South Vietnamese army and was touted by the Americans as a brilliant Young Turk who could help turn South Vietnam around. Pham Xuan An worked as a stringer for Reuters and brilliantly manipulated and misled the foreign press. As a result of disinformation and driven by their own bias, Mr. Halberstam and Mr. Sheehan seized upon the Buddhist protest movement as evidence that the Diem government was hopelessly repressive, lacked public support, and therefore deserved to be overthrown. They argued that 70% or 80% of the South Vietnamese population was Buddhist and that to alienate the Buddhists was to alienate the country's majority. In fact, the number of Buddhists was between 10% and 27% of the population, depending upon whether non-practicing Buddhists were counted. Most of South Vietnam's Buddhists lived in the countryside and knew nothing of the political disturbances in Saigon and Hue.

A significant number of the protesters against Diem were communist agents and this included some of the monks. Such infiltration was easy, for any Vietnamese man could pose as Buddhist monk by shaving his head, donning a monk's robe, and acting with humility. For many years the Hanoi regime kept silent about the sensitive subject of its involvement in the Buddhist movement, but in the early 1990s it began publishing detailed accounts of its complicity. A high-level communist resolution in 1961 had advised planting agents in religious organizations: "Once our agents are planted, they then lead these organizations to work for the cause of the people." According to one communist history, the Central Committee of the National Liberation Front "quickly directed the people of all classes of the population to cooperate actively with the Buddhist monks and nuns in a resolute struggle until the goals were achieved."This account credits the NLF with organizing several demonstrations in provincial capitals in which the demonstrators denounced the United States and Diem and demanded "freedom of religion" and "democracy."

I’ve written about this stringer problem several times, pointing at a key cause of today’s increased dependence on stringers, the cheapness of our major media to fund foreign reporting by qualified journalists. See here and here. Others have pointed out simply sloppy, unprofessional journalism. See here and here.

The conclusion is here, that our major media owe us and their own credibility basic journalistic transparency and standards.

Elemental standards of journalism include that headlines should accurately reflect the story, and that a story should be verifiable and corroborated. Instead, much of the major media is too often engaged in tabloid journalism: rumor-mongering and sensationalism.

The MSM has not been forthcoming about its policies and controls in its use of Iraqi stringers. The MSM has not been forthcoming in verifying the statements of “witnesses”, instead echoing their statements….

The MSM has a responsibility to itself and to Americans to start coming clean and clear about its reporting policies and practices, and enforcing them. Or, admit to being a tabloid journalism, not claim to be reporters of record.

The key question that must be answered is where the funding will come from for a major, credible examination of major media reporting in Iraq? It's not coming from the major media, or J-schools, or J-journals. Their paychecks depend upon not revealing the Emperor's illusory threads. It hasn't come from a Republican Congress and is even less likely from a Democrat one, as politicians avoid retribution for their own selfish survival over their national duty. Where's a patriotic billionaire when one needs one?

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin’s excellent post, updated with “when it rains, it pours...here's a third must-read from milblogger John Noonan raising questions about AP stringer Bassem Mroue,” steers me to another example of MSM stringeritis, here.

With Republicans on the defensive in Congress and in the increased number of state legislatures dominated by Democrats, the coming debates on health care could, in fact, be healthy both for Republicans and other Americans.

As in so many other areas of public debate, the Democrats have had a virtually free pass over the past years to criticize Republican policies and administration. That changes somewhat when they have to actually legislate, be more practical, and take responsibility for their actions.

Libertarian and small-government Republicans who criticized their big-government-type brethren or who isolated themselves in ideological corners effectively outside the public debate are probably the majority of conservative activists and commentators. They will also have to either be more involved in the coming debate or yield to even more and more pernicious Democrat big-government schemes.

In short, both activist Democrats and Republicans will have to be either more practical or be more at risk of recrimination or recusal from impact.

Many conservative commentators have, rightfully, noted that only post-election are media analyses emerging with coverage favorable to Republican stewardship of the economy, or the comparative corruption of Democrats, or the wild-eyed ‘60’s gleam in the eye of the next Democrat Congressional committee chairmen, or, or, or… Conveniently, or otherwise, ultimately facts can’t be denied, completely and continuously.

Even the most biased of reporters are directly subject to the same threats to the quality, availability and cost of health care as everyone else. Here, too, facts are creeping in to reporting.

Today’s Los Angeles Times reports that, “On drug prices, are Democrats in a fix?”

"From a rhetorical perspective, Democrats may feel like they gain a lot with this issue, but there are many substantive hurdles that the government faces in trying to negotiate prices," said Dan Mendelson, president of Avalere Health, a consulting firm that tracks the Medicare prescription program.

"If you look historically at the government's experience in trying to regulate prices, it's poor."…

In other words, the VA offers lower drug prices, but fewer choices.

American consumers have repeatedly resisted efforts to save money on medical care by restricting choice. Health maintenance organizations, for example, were once seen as the answer to rising healthcare costs, but millions of people rejected the approach, saying they wanted the freedom to choose their doctors.

One prominent advocate of government-negotiated prices has had a change of heart. Tommy G. Thompson, President Bush's first Health and Human Services secretary, once expressed regret that he hadn't been given the power to bargain.

But in a recent interview he said: "This plan is working much better than ever anticipated. When you've got a law that is working well in the federal government, why change it?"

Why, indeed.

The Washington Post has a similar report, “Success of Drug Plan Challenges Democrats:Medicare Benefit's Cost Beat Estimates.”

It sounded simple enough on the campaign trail: Free the government to negotiate lower drug prices and use the savings to plug a big gap in Medicare's new prescription-drug benefit. But as Democrats prepare to take control of Congress, they are struggling to keep that promise without wrecking a program that has proven cheaper and more popular than anyone imagined….

The cost of the program has been lower than expected, about $26 billion in 2006, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The cost was projected to rise to $45 billion next year, but Medicare has received new bids indicating that its average per-person subsidy could drop by 15 percent in 2007, to $79.90 a month.

Urban Institute President Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, called that a remarkable record for a new federal program.

Initially, he said, people were worried no private plans would participate. "Then too many plans came forward," Reischauer said. "Then people said it's going to cost a fortune. And the price came in lower than anybody thought. Then people like me said they're low-balling the prices the first year and they'll jack up the rates down the line. And, lo and behold, the prices fell again. And the reaction was, 'We've got to have the government negotiate lower prices.' At some point you have to ask: What are we looking for here?"

Government-run nationalized health care is a cure worse than the disease as the way to increase availability, control cost escalation, and create more regulated quality. Some welcome this leaching of the free-market life blood that has, actually, created greater quality, available to more, and at costs – if one includes quality and access – that most Americans support compared to rationing prevalent in the crumbling systems in Canada and western Europe, whose costs are also rapidly rising past affordability by their stagnant welfarist economies. Some despair of preventing the factually hollow populist arguments of providing something for nothing.

Instead, practical resolutions like increasing the competition in the market, a la the Medicare Rx program, and increasing self-responsibility, a la the Massachusetts experiment, are actually the coming wave in health care.

Sterile arguments for statism will not have traction, and offer an opportunity for Republican free-market commentators to drive home the difference. If they will.

No subject I write about gets fewer responses, or links, than health care. Conservative bloggers and commentators need to get up to speed on this issue, or miss an opportunity to impact the public’s understanding of the practical implications of Democrats stuck in the ‘60’s by being Republicans stuck in the ‘50’s.

To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude.

---------Albert Schweitzer

The only way that Democrats favoring government-run healthcare are going to get their way is by eliminating free market choices, to increase dissatisfaction so that Democrat proposed nationalization panaceas will be seen as the only alternative.

That’s their strategy in attacking Medicare’s Part D prescription benefit, the premium costs of which have come in well lower than government forecasts due to sharp price negotiating by experienced insurance companies. Democrats point to the Veterans Administration direct negotiating sometimes lower prices, but fail to mention that the VA’s list of drugs is far narrower than available to Medicare Part D participants.

Now, Democrats want to undermine the HMO Medicare Advantage alternative to conventional Medicare, which offers broader benefits at lower out-of-pocket costs to seniors. Democrats want to reduce the subsidies that go to insurance companies that offer Medicare Advantage, saying it goes to insurers’ profits. However:

The insurance industry counters that the payment gap varies by region. In urban areas, the payments for managed care are comparable to fee-for-service. It's in rural areas where the difference is most dramatic, said Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans.

But that is by design, she said. Medicare also has a subsidy for rural hospitals. If it didn't, then there would be fewer hospitals in rural parts of the country. The same concept applies to insurers.

If the payments are lowered, she said, "there would be a contraction of choices, and members of Congress have worked very hard to get choices in those areas." …

Insurers get only a portion of that funding. Most of the money is passed through to the health care providers they contract with.

You can bet it won't be a beautiful swallowtail.

I was interviewed by Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed for an article (see below) on the controversies surrounding the possible appointments of two professors, Nadia Abu El-Haj of Barnard College of Columbia University, and Wadie Said, who may land a job on the law faculty at Wayne State. I was quoted accurately and think the article gives a fair picture of the controversy, although Campus Watch was mis-identified as "a pro-Israel group that publicizes information about professors who are critical of Israel," which isn't, in fact, what we do. We critique Middle East studies in North America, whether or not those studies (or the professors who perfom them) have anything to do with Israel.

The most compelling parts of the article, however, are the reactions of Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, and Roger Bowen, general secretary (that really is his title) of the American Association of University Professors. Both men come to this story with baggage--see David White's Campus Watch stories on Cole's misadventures at Yale and his unfortunate appearance at Duke. Bowen was president of SUNY New Paltz in 1997 when it hosted an S&M conference titled "Revolting Behavior: The Challenge of Women's Sexual Freedom," which Roger Kimball critiqued in City Journal. Candace de Russy, in her capacity as a trustee of SUNY, led the charge against Bowen, who has a long history of attacking those who object to contemporary academe's homogeneous political atmosphere. Mitchell Langbert has examined one instance of Bowen's selective employment of what one might call his official opprobrium.

Both men object when outside groups and individuals take notice of what goes on in universities. As I told Scott Jaschik during our conversation, they're asking for exemption from the same scrutiny undergone by every politician, from dog catcher to president, as well as from persons in every walk of life: clergy, chefs, movie directors, artists, authors, doctors, businessmen, bankers, psychologists, and craftsmen. All segments of society in a democracy are open to critiques. What differentiates men like Cole and Bowen from the rest of us is their arrogance in the face of criticism.

Read the article and see what you think. And ask yourself: should universities be off-limits to external criticism?

Here's the text of the article:

http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/21/disputes

Hiring and tenure decisions are typically decided (and appropriately decided, most in academe would say) by academics. A series of lobbying campaigns by pro-Israel groups, however, have some scholars worried that those who criticize Israel are being subjected to political tests and having their jobs endangered.

At Barnard College, Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist who is coming up for tenure, is under attack by some alumnae and pro-Israel groups for a book, published by the University of Chicago Press, that was critical of Israeli archaeology and its use in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At Wayne State University, similar groups are pushing the university not to hire Wadie Said for a faculty position in the law school. In that case, critics of Said are attacking him and his late father, the literary theorist Edward Said, saying that both Saids’ activism on behalf of the Palestinian cause has amounted to support for violent groups.

These debates follow the cancellation last month of a lecture by Tony Judt, a professor at New York University, at the Polish consulate in New York City, amid charges that the Anti-Defamation League had encouraged Polish officials to call off the talk. And in June, Yale University turned down Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who is a leading figure in Middle Eastern studies, for a position — after a lengthy period in which critics of Cole argued that he was not a suitable choice for the position, in part because of his criticism of Israel. And Princeton University has faced criticism over a possible hire as well.

This weekend, the Middle East Studies Association, of which Cole is the president, voted to expand the work of its academic freedom committee — which has focused on helping scholars in the Middle East — to engage in efforts on behalf of colleagues in the United States.

“The subtext of these controversies is whether it is going to be allowed for Palestinians to hold positions in academe in the United States. Is it going to be allowed for people who are not Zionists to hold positions? Is there a Zionist litmus test in the United States?” said Cole in an interview Monday. He characterized the pro-Israel groups’ activities as “the privatization of McCarthyism” and said that they represented the most serious threat today to academic freedom in the United States.

Winfield Myers, director of Campus Watch, a pro-Israel group that publicizes information about professors who are critical of Israel, said that Cole and others in Middle Eastern studies are distorting what is going on and that his group respects the right of faculty members to decide academic appointments. Myers said, however, that non-academics have every right to make their views known and that Middle Eastern studies professors are trying to prevent that from happening. “It is ultimately for faculty to decide. We’re not saying ‘approve this guy and turn this other fellow down,’ ” Myers said. But he said that academics do not have the right to make these decisions in a “cocoon of silence” in which information about scholars’ “politicized work” isn’t well known.

The professors who are being criticized were not available for comment on the criticism, much of which is taking the form of e-mail campaigns urging alumni and others to weigh in against them with senior administrators. In the case of El-Haj, much of the criticism concerns her book Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society.

Material published on Campus Watch states that the book’s aim is to undermine the historic connection between the Jewish people and Israel, that the critique of Israeli archaeology is poorly researched and written, and that the author’s anti-Israel bias undercuts her work. The material also questions whether El-Haj knows enough about Israel and has enough mastery of Hebrew to conduct any anthropological work about Israeli society. The material includes Barnard President Judith Shapiro’s e-mail address and phone number.

Wayne State President Irvin Reid has had his contact info — as well as that of Frank H. Wu, the law dean — widely distributed by those seeking to prevent Said’s appointment. The Web site of the pro-Israel group Stand With Us states that Said “shares his father’s views” and is “supportive of his father’s legacy of ‘post-colonial,’ ‘Orientalist’ slander against Israel.” Said is also criticized for his participation in the defense team of Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida professor who reached a plea agreement with the government on various charges against him after a jury rejected some charges and was divided on others.

David Horowitz’s magazine is also coming out against Said. (Defenders of El-Haj and Said make much of the tone of the Web sites attacking them, but some of the Web sites defending them aren’t exactly subtle in their tones either. One site defending Said says “the Negro President of WSU Irvin Reid is a staunch supporter of the racist state of Israel” and that because of his “unconditional support for the settler-colonial state of Zionist Israel,” he has no business running a university in Detroit, home to a large Arab-American population.)

It is unclear what impact the campaigns will have. The academic job market is tough enough that when someone doesn’t get a position, there are any number of reasons that could explain that decision. Winning tenure at Barnard or a faculty position at Yale aren’t easy things to do regardless of whether one is being criticized on pro-Israel Web sites. At the same time, some of those who have lost their shot at jobs — like Cole at Yale — had strong faculty backing and appeared well positioned to gain certain positions prior to the lobbying campaigns.

Wu, the law dean at Wayne State, said that lobbying administrators there will have no impact. He said that the tradition at the law school — which he supports — is that job offers come only after two-thirds of the faculty agree. Wu said he has never tried to influence the faculty vote, and would never do so — or attempt to block a candidate who gained that level of support. Wu said he feels so strongly about this principle that he does not even vote as a faculty member. “We have a celebrated tradition of shared governance and academic freedom,” he said. Sending him an e-mail about Said’s candidacy would have about as much impact, he said, as sending an e-mail about Said to the dean of Harvard Law School, where Said is not a candidate for anything.

If the pro-Israel groups start lobbying professors, Wu warned that the effort might backfire. He said that his faculty holds a range of views politically and that professors likely don’t all agree on whether it’s appropriate for members of the public to seek to influence their hiring decisions. “Some might welcome [the e-mails]. Some might be offended. Some might be so turned off by the e-mail coming in that they may be persuaded to take a position that they might not have otherwise,” Wu said

Roger Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, said flatly that outside groups do not have a role in these hiring and tenure decisions. “Non-academics and external advocacy groups should not be permitted to intrude in hiring and tenure cases in the academy, he said. “Academic freedom also requires recognition that scholars alone have the right to pass judgment on the quality of a professor’s credentials. No scholar should have to be subjected to political litmus tests conjured up by partisan groups.”

A Barnard spokeswoman said that the college has received around 25 letters and e-mail messages from alumnae about El-Haj. The spokeswoman said that the college would never comment on the status of a tenure review. Judith Shapiro, Barnard’s president, has posted on the alumnae Web site a letter about the dispute. In her letter, Shapiro noted that a review of El-Haj’s work would include outside evaluations, by experts in the field. Shapiro — a cultural anthropologist herself — did not offer an opinion on El-Haj’s work. But she defended the type of work done, saying that “it is a legitimate cultural anthropological enterprise to show how archaeological research can be used for political and ideological purposes,” and noted that such critiques are not unique to the Middle East.

And while Shapiro said she welcomed feedback from alumnae, she also said she wanted to share “my concern about communications and letter-writing campaigns orchestrated by people who are not as familiar with Barnard as you are, and who may not be in the best position to judge the matter at hand.”

Cole said that in both the Barnard and Wayne State disputes, good scholars are having their careers unfairly maligned. (In both cases, he said that he knows their work, but isn’t a personal friend.)

El-Haj is “very well respected” and the issues she raises in her work are important ones, Cole said. A long-standing concern of Palestinians, he said, is that Israeli archaeologists dig through materials that cover centuries of key developments in the region to focus on the period of ancient Israel. “Getting rid of this professor would be like replicating what she is writing about in terms of what was done on the ground,” he said.

And while Cole is no critic of Edward Said, he also said it was unfair and inappropriate for people who didn’t like his ideas to take that out on his son. “This shows that it’s a blood feud,” he said.

Ari Drissman, president of the Wayne State chapter of Students for Israel, said that there were legitimate reasons to oppose Said’s appointment. Drissman said that the environment at the university is “very tense” for students who support Israel, who are barraged with anti-Israel leaflets that are “without any facts.” He characterized the publicity being given to Said’s background as similar to a background check done by a business before hiring a new employee.

And Myers of Campus Watch used similar language. He stressed that all the groups are doing is publicizing information, not trying to intrude on actual decisions. As for his opinion, he said that El-Haj’s work is “part of an ongoing effort to delegitimize the modern Israeli state,” and that Said has “some rather radical politics.”

In getting out the word about these people, Myers said, his group “is not part of some effort to silence the Arab voice.” Rather, he said, his group is trying to open up debate. If Middle Eastern studies scholars are offended by the work of Campus Watch, Myers said, “they aren’t used to getting criticism,” adding that information put out by all groups — his own included — should be open for critique.

A few days ago I had a distressing phone conversation with Michael Abdurakhmanov, president of Hillel at Pace University. A friend of mine and Pace alumnus had mentioned to me that students were being censored and bullied into compliance at Pace simply for proposing to show the film Obsession at their campus club event. I asked Michael to write up a brief report documenting the events and some good-hearted people concerned about student’s academic rights and the partisan campuses will stand up and join him in the fight. Already Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has contacted us expressing interest in his case and David Horowitz will post his story on Frontpage Magazine. Here is the report he emailed to me:

Hello,
I am going to describe two situations that occurred in our school were students rights were suppressed. The first one was with the film “Obsession” and the second is with students who got arrested for a peaceful protest.

1) I am President of “Hillel”, a Jewish club at Pace University. Part of our “Judaism awareness week” (week long full of events relating to Judaism- Nov 13 – 17th) we wanted to show the film “Obsession”. Three weeks before the day of the event I contacted MSA – Muslim Student Association, and notified them that I was going to show the film and have a panel of speakers discuss the film before and after it was viewed. I asked MSA if they would like to collaborate with us on and offered them a chance to bring a speaker of their choice. Two weeks later I hear rumors that the Dean, Dr. Marijo Russell O'Grady wants to pull the plug on the film (I was not told of this by the administration until I made the appointment to see them). The Dean O’Grady, Mr. David Clark, who is head of the student organizations on campus, and I met one week before the event. About 5 – 10 minutes into our conversation Dean O’Grady “warns” me that because of the recent Hate crimes that were committed against the Koran at our school it would point figures and me and my organization. The police will also get involved and begin to look at my record even deeper. The fact is that Hate crimes were committed against the Muslim religion and the Jewish religion but the school only made notice of the Muslim students. 4 Days later a mediation meeting occurred – The Dean, David Clark, two people from Affirmative Action and two professional Mediators were called. The president and secretary of MSA were present and I was the only one present for Hillel. MSA has sent Hillel several E-mails that were full of anger, and hate not only against us but made direct statements about or Club and what our religion stands for. During the mediation MSA spoke first. For about 10min the president of MSA was shouting at me until I finally asked her to stop shouting and that was the only time that the “professional” mediators acknowledged her shouting at me. The six administrators that were present were creating excuses for MSA’s behavior. The president was constantly shouting at me and at the administrators, towards the end she cursed twice loud enough for everyone to hear and yet nothing was said to her. But when I tried to speak up in defense of the film and our club I was physically put back in my seat. David Clark was sitting next to me and twice he put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me down as a way to silence me. No one from the administration of MSA ever saw the film so they have no way of knowing what it truly is about. I offered them the opportunity to view the film and both MSA and the administration have turned it down. They didn’t want to hear anything that I had to say because they felt the film would only give the school more bad press. There solution was to put on joint events that focus of “eco-terrorism”. With all do respect but Eco-terrorism did not taken down the World Trade Towers, did not blow two busses in London, hold a school hostage in Russia and continuingly killing thousands in Africa….Radical Islam is the cause and to ignore this and silence those who want to expose this truth is just wrong. When I confronted the Dean about why I was silenced in such a way her response to me was “I am sorry you feel that way”. Its interesting how one group of students gets treated as opposed to another?

2) The second issue was with a demonstration that occurred Thursday Nov 16th. A group of students at Pace organized a protest against the school. Covering issues of increased tuition, poor student support, and freedom of speech. The students proceeded to come closer to the school and the administration arrested 5 students for trespassing. 18 and 19 year old kids were arrested for walking closer to their own University. The same Dean supported these actions.

Let me know if you need anymore information of any of these cases. I am willing to go as far as needed for this cause. I feel that the administration has done great wrong against not only me but my organization. Below are the names of the higher administrators of my university.

President: David A. Caputo, -
President's Office at 212-346-1097, email: president@pace.edu

PhD Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs: Joseph C. Morreale

Dr. Marijo Russell O'Grady, Dean for Students –
41 Park Row, 9th floor, Room 907; (212) 346-1306/1307; fax (212) 346-1563

What contributes to the extreme arguments about the morality of Western conduct in modern wars is not so much the tactics but rather our failure to sacrifice. Due to inadequate means, our war-fighting capacity is too often inadequate to the tasks, which increases the frustrations that lead to either demands to be more brutal or receptivity to those who would have the West be lambs to the slaughter.

Some will argue that there’s no place in war for morality, particularly when one’s adversaries choose entirely immoral means that leave Westerners at a disadvantage, and particularly (the case of Israel most often cited) where actual survival is in immediate peril. Such arguments have validity, especially when placed against the other extreme so common in the West among internal adversaries of Western civilization -- whether directly or through timidity or relativist confusion -- that almost anything done by the West is immoral.

But the validity of being far more brutal – not just having more sensible rules of engagement that recognize battlefield realities – holds up only if one is willing to ignore that we are Westerners. The values and interests we are willing to fight for include limitations on levels of violence that were once more common and accepted in the West.

Where Westerners have diverged more from the past – and its lessons -- is in forsaking preparedness for war. To be unprepared is the larger immorality, and creates needs for or conditions for individual combat immoralities. Europe is incapable of deploying, without U.S. logistics, even puny forces against puny foes. Israel has slacked in its preparedness, not yet fatally. But, the U.S. is, also, incapable of fielding forces adequate to the larger foes.

Consequently, going to war with the military we have (as Rumsfeld had to, following the “peace dividend” ‘90’s reduction of our military), results in less forces being applied than necessary to complete the job in Iraq. Perhaps we’ll craft a solution, through perseverance of our superb volunteer military and some able statecraft. Those forces are still formidable.

However, it would have been more moral – defined as lower casualties among Americans and Iraqis, more infrastructure built there, more assurance of more lasting internal and regional peace, and even more impetus to spreading democracy -- to have at hand and committed adequate forces to begin with.

A Richard Cohen, at least partially, tries to be honest about his shifting motivations being due to perceptions of whether we’re winning or not:

There is the "I" who originally thought the Vietnam War was morally correct, that the communists were awful people and that the loss of South Vietnam (the North was already gone) would result in a debacle for its people. That's, in fact, what happened. It was only later, when I myself was in the Army, that I deemed the war not worth killing or dying for. By then I -- the second "I" -- no longer felt it was winnable, and I did not want to lose my life so that somehow defeat could be managed more elegantly.

Things are precisely the same with Iraq…

Iraqis have similar perceptions about which course works for them, reliance on the inadequate U.S. presence or on their own sect and settling matters themselves.

Joe Galloway’s empathy for the battlefield grunt impels him to much of his opposition to our Iraq engagement, in my opinion excessively negatively. Still, his core point about “Time to Fix What's Broken,” is completely on target, if we care about morality of either tactics or strategy, not to mention winning and survival.

In this dangerous world, Americans must be willing to pay for an Army, and they must be willing to send their sons and daughters to serve in that Army. Nations that are unwilling to defend themselves and are governed by an elite that's unwilling to send its own children to be part of that defense, are doomed.

The Bush administration says we're embarked on what it defines as a long war - 40 or 50 or 60 years of struggle with the forces of Islamic fundamentalism - and if that's true, then it's long past time to begin making some sacrifices at home to prepare to fight and win that war.

Mr. Gates can begin his brief tour as secretary of defense by jacking up the most recent Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon's 20-year look at the future and what will be funded in our defense budgets, and re-ordering its priorities. He must make the hard decisions that Mr. Rumsfeld promised to make but never did.

We cannot have business as usual in the Pentagon. We cannot continue to fund huge aircraft and ship purchases for the Air Force and Navy while starving the Army and Marines who are bearing the brunt of the fighting and dying in this brave new world of ours. Boots on the ground are not as glamorous - or as lucrative to defense contractors - as the high technology so beloved by Mr. Rumsfeld. But in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, there is still no substitute for them.

My old friend Col. (ret.) T. R. Fehrenbach wrote in his landmark history of the Korean War that a nation that wants to hold the barbarians at bay must be willing to put its sons on the ground, in the mud and the blood. It also must be willing to pay the price for an Army and a Marine Corps that's fully manned, well trained, and equipped and supported with everything it needs.

Without that, this brave new century and millennium that were celebrated as America's will swiftly become someone's else's, and we will become no more than a footnote in history - a nation whose days of glory and power numbered only half a century or so.

I’m critical of Republicans who’ve lost their way from First Principles rooted in limited government and of Democrats who’ve lost their way from most any principles outside of resurrecting the welfare state mentality and pelf thought to have been swept aside in the ‘90’s.

Yet, there’s still an underlying, consistent constituency in both parties called national security voters. Their interests are in a strong defense of America, Western values, and of those abroad who are oppressed or in whose lands or periphery dire threats to the West germinate and grow. National security voters are being either taken for granted or ignored by most Republican and Democrat leaders, treated as inconvenient to both’s overriding interest in controlling the government’s spending spigot to perpetuate their entrenchment and self-enrichment.

At the 1996 Republican Convention in San Diego, I was shut up when questioning a leading Republican pollster why he was ignoring national security issues, told that it wasn’t an important issue. Later, I asked George Shultz why this attitude prevailed. He shook his head and said that without a perception of threats, even though there were many, normal politics concentrated on the domestic.

Americans, Republican and Democrat and independent, have paid for that perception since, not only in 9/11 -- and awakening to the threats in Afghanistan and Iraq, where as many brave American troops have lost their lives – but as well in the increased division among Americans in being able to come together to address domestic needs.

The basic truth is that most Americans are pragmatic realists, who continue to be willing to defend vital interests and believe America is worthy of being unique, but not the realpolitik “realists” who acquiesce by abandoning faith in others in order to extend our comforts a while longer whenever the going gets tough nor the “moralists” who believe our values are easily transplanted.

A MIT poll in November 2005 had far more Republicans than Democrats thinking the war in Iraq “worth fighting”, but – although still more Republicans than Democrats – a majority of both parties’ adherents approved the use of U.S. military troops “to destroy a terrorist camp,” “to intervene in a region where there is genocide or a civil war,” and “to protect American allies under attack by foreign nations.” Only 6.5% of Democrats, 17% of independents, and 53.2% of Republicans, however, were willing to use U.S. troops to “assist the spread of democracy.”

The October 2006 Battleground poll from George Washington University found 92% of voters “believe that Washington puts partisan politics before the needs of the electorate,” while “45% think the War in Iraq is worth fighting; 57% think of the War in Iraq as part of the War on Terrorism, and 49% support keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until the situation is confirmed to be stable.”

These may be considered national security voters. Hardly enough by themselves to carry the day, but still close to majority, despite the disappointments in the “long war”, and a number that swells to overwhelming after successes or after direct attacks shift perceptions. The problem is, like in 1996, after may be too late to prevent, and successes don’t just happen but require focus and perseverance.

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds comments on the 60-year “security blanket” the U.S. has provided Europe: “I'd like to see a timetable for getting troops out of Europe. It's time they took responsibility for their own security and stopped their childlike dependence upon / resentment of America. They need to work on more responsible democratic institutions, too. The Iraqis I'll give a bit longer.”

The psychiatrist of Shrinkwrapped blog focuses on the Left’s opinion elite “dirty little secret”: “In order to avoid the deeply hidden questions, maintain consistency in their rationalizations, and continue to retroactively justify their anti-Vietnam War beliefs, the anti-War campaigners are willing to once again abandon people who trusted us….We should not rationalize our failure of will as a triumph of morality; we did that once and it was the height of immorality.”

They may shout loudly, and dominate major media, but time and again they are shown not to represent the voice -– or conscience -- of America and Americans.

The main reason most Democrat leaders may restrain themselves from forcing an abandonment of Iraq is they don’t want to again pay the 40-year electoral price of national security weakness. The main reason that most Republican leaders may restrain themselves from acquiescing in abandonment is to not lose their advantage among national security voters. It’s up to you to remind both on which side their electoral bread is buttered. Both may lack principles, but not self-interest.

The New York Times’ ace-snark David Sanger’s report from Vietnam emphasized the turnout of Vietnamese for President Clinton, when he visited at the end of his administration, compared to little turnout in the streets for President Bush during his stop in Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.

David Sanger’s nose for negative news about President Bush missed that,

Residents along the route from Tan Son Nhat airport to the New World have been ordered by the public security to stay in their homes before and after the arrival time.

David Sanger apparently was too engaged elsewhere to attend the telephone press conference of democracy dissidents, held despite arrests and intimidation.

Ultimately, reporters from CNN Radio, LA Times, AFP, and Reuters were connected to Prof. Nguyen Chinh Ket in Saigon and Attorney Le Thi Cong Nhan in Hanoi. Do Nam Hai was unable to participate as he was still being held at the Phu Nhuan public security station.
Many of the questions focused on the isolation of democracy activists by the public security and even the physical lockdown of their residences. Questions were posed regarding the group beating of Dr. Pham Hong Son on Friday and the detention of Do Nam Hai today.

The San Jose Mercury News is among the very few U.S. newspapers who did report some of the reality, perhaps because there are so many Vietnamese refugees in its circulation area.

Dissidents throughout the country say they have been harassed, detained and, in one case, beaten up by authorities to keep them from meeting with foreign journalists or engaging in any protests while the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting convenes.
The home and cellular phones of many prominent dissidents have been disconnected. Some activists have been locked inside their homes. Throughout the city, barricades have been erected at the homes of many dissidents, typically with four or five police officers standing guard. Signs around the homes warn visitors: ``Restricted Access,'' ``No Foreigners'' and ``No Pictures.''

David Sanger may want to on a future trip to Vietnam to visit more than a Pho restaurant or Hanoi victory museums.

I had intended to blog about the “culture of corruption” that has pervaded federal and state government, singling out New York State, which according to the NYU Brennan Center’s report, is the most dysfunction state legislature in the nation. Before launching into self-reflection on the corruption within my own party, no more culpable than the Democrats, something must be said in defense of President Bush and the GOP. Both have become the target of vilification and abuse, not only from Democrats, the liberal press and academia, but from the Conservative and Republican base as well. New York Republican Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno lashed out at the president, angrily blaming his administration for the election defeat saying that the results of the election was “aimed directly at what people see as the lack of leadership and the right direction out of Washington, out of the White House specifically.”

Mitchell Langbert recently sent me a fascinating article written by Clinical Psychologist, Robert Godwin, who revealed the contemporary irrational logic that dictates a group fantasy intent on demonizing President Bush that is driven by irrational fears and anxiety. This is an unconscious revival of the primordial “ritual slaying of the divine king” that took place in most primitive tribes. The resignation of Rumsfeld after the election was the president’s ritual offering of the secretary’s head impaled on a pike to satiate the public’s appetite for ceremonial sacrifice. Yet the silence of Bush and company has only fed the flames of public rage for blood. The public relations failure of the Bush administration to communicate the reality of economic prosperity and our noble objectives in Iraq and rally the public to unite in a time of war has only exacerbated the anger and fanned the flames of censure that germinate from this unconscious irrational level of the public psyche.

The media/academia driven public neurosis of wrath against our president and the GOP is a case of mythical thinking fed by the unconscious perceptions of elitist intellectuals and academics who use the power of intellect to justify myths and fantasies that have no basis in fact. One ubiquitous example is that President Bush’s alleged slow reaction to Hurricane Katrina proves that he is a racist and doesn’t care about black people. The reality that 100,000 state and federal emergency personnel flooded New Orleans within three days rescuing 100,000 individuals from harm, making this the fastest rescue operation in our history, are facts that get in the way of the mythical slaying of the dragon. Other myths are the oft-repeated mantras claiming that the Bush administration doesn’t tolerate dissent, that he stole the 2002 elections in a national coup, that Bush is plotting to destroy our civil liberties, and he lied to get us into an illegal war to enrich his buddies in big oil companies. Facts are deliberately ignored in order to promote emotionally satisfying illusions.

Now let's look at the economic and political reality of President Bush and the formerly Republican majority in Congress, free from the constraints of the group fantasy painting an illusory perception of gloom and doom. Let me preface this with the caveat that the facts show that spending was at an all time high, that not a single spending bill was vetoed (except for stem cell research), national Medicaid abuse is up to $90 billion in fraudulent payments and nothing was done to abolish the NEA, DOE and the other worthless behemoths stealing from the public dole. Yet the elitist promoters of public illusions will not touch this reality of corruption of a party grown complacent with power. But the overriding truth is that the economy is positively bullish with corporate profits and the stock market at an all time high and unemployment at an all time low. While the Center on Budget and Public Policy Priorities and other liberal think tanks continue to lambaste the Bush tax cuts and the deficit, these measures were stimulants that propelled the economy to new heights due to the simple principle that tax cuts generate economic growth. The fact that economic policy instituted by Bush and the Republican congress cut income tax rates from 39% to 35% and cut capital gains and dividend taxes to 15%, means more capital in the hands of entrepreneurs who put people to work and maintain a prosperous robust economy all across the board from poor to wealthy Americans. “Tax cuts for the rich” is another partisan media driven illusion promoted by the new 2007 chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel and his minions who aim to repeal the Bush tax cuts before 2010.

Turning to the war, President Bush is under increasing pressure to pull our troops out of Iraq and issue timetables for early withdrawal. As the New York Post powerfully editorialized today, Nancy Pelosi, representing her San Francisco constituents who have expelled the JROTC from city high schools, wants immediate evacuation from Iraq. Calls for a “phased redeployment” of our forces, which is a euphemism for “cut and run,” are heard from Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) the new chairman of the Armed Services Committee and Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the next Senate majority leader. But President Bush, has stuck by his principles to win in Iraq no matter how long it takes. As a man of conviction who lives by his principles, he has not caved in to the mounting calls for withdrawal or the 65% disapproval rating indicating the public anger and anxiety over the war in Iraq. This disapproval rating is fed by the purveyors of illusions and misinformation about Iraq. The Vietnam quagmire comparison is one of the major illusions invoked. However the “cut and run” elitists do not bring this illusion to its logical conclusion that the ensuing bloodbath after American forces pulled out of Vietnam could be a cause for alarm. North Vietnam took advantage of the American retreat that cost the lives of millions of innocent South Vietnamese and Cambodians. Has it ever occurred to the illusionist mentality of these elitists and the new Democratic majority that a much more costly nightmare could ensue from quitting in Iraq? Have they considered that the vultures of the Sunni and Shiite insurgency as well as Al Queda and Iranian terrorists would finish off the rotting carcasses of millions more innocent lives? If the Democrat’s call for surrender were heeded, the jihadists would soon set up shop in the heart of the Middle East. The Post editorial poses the question:

With America gone and its enemies in control, how long before oil becomes a powerful strategic weapon - and before those enemies set their sights beyond the region, to places like Europe? And, eventually, America itself? Do Americans really want Iraq left to become a staging ground for terror attacks on New York or Washington?

We can be grateful and proud that our chief executive is the only dominant voice of sanity that has not succumbed to the voices of illusion and group fantasy calling for an early withdrawal. I believe that history will favorably judge the presidency of George W. Bush, should he stand by his principles to the end of his term. Despite the myths, the GOP still remains the only party with the firm agenda to keep America safe, strong and the economy growing. Having said that, I believe that we have a big job ahead to resuscitate the party from its corruption in power, restoring these original principles.

Sixteen-miles. That’s how far stretches the surviving individual records of what happened to millions of the Jews exterminated by the Nazis. Those records have been kept under lock and key by the International Red Cross since they were captured by the Allies after World War II. Soon, they will become available on digital copies.

The Nazi’s meticulous record-keeping, which fell apart late in the war, captures the fates of so many who today are only remembered in big numbers that fail to capture the individual horrors. Similarly, the scope of the death operations is now known to be even larger than previously described.

The files will support new research from other sources showing that the network of concentration camps, ghettos and labor camps was nearly three times more extensive than previously thought.

Postwar historians estimated about 5,000 to 7,000 detention sites. But after the Cold War ended, records began pouring out of the former communist nations of East Europe. More sites were disclosed in the last six years in claims by 1.6 million people for slave labor reparations from a $6.6 billion fund financed by the German government and some 3,000 industries.

"We have identified somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 camps and ghettos of various categories," said Geoffrey Megargee of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, who is compiling a seven-volume encyclopedia of these detention centers.

The archive [also] has some 3.4 million files of DPs _ Displaced Persons….

[Also] Some 50 million pages _ scraps of paper, transport lists, registration books, labor documents, medical and death registers _ make reference to 17.5 million individuals caught up in the machinery of persecution, displacement and death.

When I was a very young child, I recall the extended family gathering around a short note from the International Red Cross about the fate of part of my family: Taken out of their village in Belarus by local sympathizers of the Nazi’s, to dig ditches, then hammered on their heads with the shovels, some shot, and tossed into the ditch like garbage.

I recently came across some eyewitness accounts from a village in the area. Some excerpts:

Itzak Nahmanovitch's Account [4]
The year 1939 arrived. David-Horodok was taken by the Soviets. Many Jewish refugees from western Poland migrated to David-Horodok to settle. Then in 1940 the Soviets began arresting and exiling Zionists and others. The town shuddered. The mood was strained. Still there was the motto: “All for one and one for all.”

Then July 6, 1941 arrived. The town was captured by Hitler’s troops. Many Jews wanted to save themselves in Russia, but the NKVD and border guards would not let them pass. So the Jews of David-Horodok were forced to remain under Nazi rule. Then began the horror, and the Belarusans showed their murderous side. They began catching Jews in the streets and forcing them to do labor.

Many of Hitler’s troops passed through the streets of the town heading east. A few days later they returned because of the bad roads, intending to find another path through the marshes. In town it was rumored that the Germans had been driven back by the Red Army. This was exploited by the newly-proclaimed mayor, the villainous feldsher [paramedic] Ivan Maraiko, who went to Gestapo headquarters in Pinsk to report that the Jews were spreading the rumors and that the Jews were attacking the German army. This vile slander brought on the bloody 17th of Av [August 10, 1941], about one month after the Germans had captured the town.

Bas-Sheva Kushner and Gunm Polavin's Account[5]
On July 5, 1941 the Germans entered David-Horodok. Several weeks before the capture of the town, local Christians headed by Maraiko, Kulogo and Latun, may their names be blotted out, succeeded in creating the impression that the town Jews were waiting for the Red Army to return. As a result the Christians received permission from the SS headquarters in Pinsk to handle the Jews at their own discretion.

The Slaughter of the Men
In August 1941, German SS infantry and cavalry regiments were ordered to clear Polesye’s swampy and wooded areas of the remnants of retreating Soviet units. They preferred the easier task of killing Jews. Thus the first days of Nazi occupation were marked by mass executions or aktionen organized by locals and the Einsatzgruppen, the special sections of the SS delegated with the task of annihilating Jews in their own villages and towns. In the months of August-October 1941, tens of thousands of Jews in the small shtetls of Western Belarus were murdered—in the towns of Hanzevitch, Eishishok, Lohishyn, Luninets, and David-Horodok[6]

On the 16th of Av, 5701 [August 9, 1941], an order was delivered in David-Horodok that at six o’clock the next morning all Jewish men over the age of 14 were to gather at the marketplace opposite the Catholic church, taking shovels with them. It was implied that they would be taken to work. Early the next morning the Jews began assembling at the marketplace, which was surrounded by armed German SS troops and many Horodtchukas. After all had gathered the Horodtchukas spread around town checking for holdouts. The brothers Issur and Hershl Gurvitch, who were found in a hiding place, had their eyes gouged out while being taken to the marketplace.
All those gathered at the marketplace were led away on foot by a strongly armed SS detachment, accompanied by hundreds of Horodtchukas, to Hinavsk, a village four-and-a-third miles from David-Horodok. There the graves had already been prepared. Surrounded on all sides by artillery and machine guns, every single man was shot to death. The cries and the screaming of the unfortunate victims carried through the air and reached as far as David-Horodok.

The gathered Horodtchukas fulfilled a triple mission: They made sure that no one fled from the field. They removed the gold rings, watches, clothing, shoes, boots and even tore out gold teeth. Finally they carried out the job of throwing the victims into the graves, not looking to see if they were really dead or still half-alive. Only two children succeeded in escaping unnoticed from that frightful slaughter. Wandering through the fields they joined a partisan group and thus survived.

The very few survivors are aged, and fewer everyday. Remembering and acting against any who engage in such mass murder, anywhere, is our sacred task.

The extended remarks below by America’s U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, according to a Google check, appeared in India, but not in U.S. newspapers. Perhaps, if the U.S. media broadcast and printed his remarks more often, and those of the rabid despoilers of freedom and decency he confronts at the U.N., Americans would have a better understanding of the international stakes.

John Bolton has done an exceptional job representing both American interests and the needs of others around the world who are subject to or threatened by oppression. You can’t get more American than that, and we should be both proud and thankful to have his voice at the U.N. See this Heritage analysis of Bolton’s job performance.

As U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton has proven a forceful advocate of American interests, a powerful voice for U.N. reform, and a staunch defender of the cause of human rights. He has worked closely with Congress, testifying no less than six times before House and Senate committees. Bolton has been an outspoken critic of corruption, mismanagement, waste, and inefficiency at a world body that receives several billion dollars a year from U.S. taxpayers. He has shaken up an institution that has for decades resisted change and cast a revealing light on an elite U.N. establishment that has long thrived amid a culture of complacency and secrecy.

Due to Senate gridlock, President George W. Bush sent John Bolton to the United Nations in August 2005 as a recess appointment. The recess appointment expires when the new Congress convenes in January 2007, and the President has resubmitted Bolton for confirmation. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to vote on Bolton’s nomination in early December….

Bolton has not been afraid to speak his mind and upset the status quo. Nor has he been unwilling to call a dictator a dictator, expose the rampant hypocrisy of the U.N.’s human rights apparatus, or condemn the actions of dangerous rogue regimes. Effective diplomacy requires forceful leadership and the willingness to back up tough words with action. As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher observed in a letter of support for John Bolton, “A capacity for straight talking rather than peddling half-truths is a strength and not a disadvantage in diplomacy. In the case of a great power like America, it is essential that people know where you stand and assume you know what you say.”

Unfortunately, a few putzes in the U.S. Senate have been standing in the way. Please read Bolton’s remarks below. Then, please contact your U.S. Senator demanding an up or down vote in the Senate in December.

As the Washington Post reports, “Bolton predicts he would win Senate vote on U.N. post.” Even the Chinese appreciate Bolton. So should the U.S. Senate.

"I enjoy working with him," China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said. "Professionally he is capable, he is effective but I don't want to get into the politics of the U.S."

Now, for the news from India, we should be getting from U.S. media: [HT: Pamela]

Bolton in extraordinary outburst against United Nations
Calcutta News.Net
Saturday 18th November, 2006

The U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, launched a scathing attack on the United Nations Friday.

Bolton was furious over the adoption by the General Assembly of a resolution which said the assembly regretted the deaths of 19 civilians in an attack by the Israeli military in the town of Beit Hanoun last week.

Despite the resolution being significantly watered down at the behest of the United States, and being passing by 156 votes to seven, Bolton launched a blistering attack on the UN, and many of its members.

"Many of the sponsors of that resolution are notorious abusers of human rights themselves, and were seeking to deflect criticism of their own policies," he said.

"This type of resolution serves only to exacerbate tensions by serving the interests of elements hostile to Israel's inalienable and recognized right to exist."

"This deepens suspicions about the United Nations that will lead many to conclude that the organization is incapable of playing a helpful role in the region," Bolton continued.

"In a larger sense, the United Nations must confront a more significant question, that of its relevance and utility in confronting the challenges of the 21st century. We believe that the United Nations is ill served when its members seek to transform the organization into a forum that is a little more than a self-serving and a polemical attack against Israel or the United States," he said.

"The Human Rights Council has quickly fallen into the same trap and de-legitimized itself by focusing attention exclusively on Israel. Meanwhile, it has failed to address real human rights abuses in Burma, Darfur, the DPRK, and other countries," Bolton charged.

"The problem of anti-Israel bias is not unique to the Human Rights Council. It is endemic to the culture of the United Nations. It is a decades-old, systematic problem that transcends the whole panoply of the UN organizations and agencies," he continued.

The United States, and Australia joined Israel in voting against the motion, together with four small Pacific island nations. All countries in Europe, including Britain, voted to support the resolution.

The original text condemned Israel over the Beit Hanoun attack and its operations in Gaza, however the adopted resolution had the General Assembly expressing, "regret."

Rather than an outright investigation of the incident the assembly resolved to form a committee, "to look into the facts." The resolution also carried a demand that the Palestinian Authority take action to stop rocket attacks on Israel.

Bolton launched his attack despite gaining these concessions.

Equally critical was Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman who stormed out of the session after telling members, "I caution everyone who will support this resolution. By doing so, you will be an accomplice to terror. The blood of more innocents will be on your hands."

The resolution was taken to the General Assembly after the United States used its veto to squash a similar motion in the Security Council. It was the 31st time the U.S. had used its veto at the UN to stop resolutions concerning Israel and the Palestinians.

Jim Lehrer Reflects on Marines at Museum Dedication

Jim Lehrer spoke of his time in the Marines at the dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va., on the 231st anniversary of the corps.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. President, generals, colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, warrant officers, sergeants, corporals, privates, ladies and gentlemen.

We are the Marines. And in this museum, our story is told. It is a single, monumental story, made up of 231 years of many separate stories of heroism and courage, of dedication and sacrifice, of service to our country and to our corps, of honor and loyalty to each other in war and in peace; 231 years of professionalism and pride, of squared corners and squared-away lockers, perfect salutes and good haircuts, well-shined shoes, and eyes right, 231 years of Semper Fis and DIs.

First time I came to Quantico was 51 years ago. I came as an officer candidate, a PLC on the train from Washington, having just traveled from Texas on the first airplane ride of my life. On the orders of a drill instructor, a DI, I fell in at attention with 40 other candidates on the platform at the train station over at Quantico.

And the DI told us to answer up, "Here, sir!" when our name was called. And he got to mine, and he said, "Le-here-er-er." And, like some kind of idiot, I blurted out, "It's pronounced Lehrer, sir!"

There was silence, absolute silence. And then I heard the terrifying click, click, click of leather heels on the deck of that train station platform coming in my direction. And suddenly there he was, the DI, right in front of me, his face right up in mine. And I paraphrase and cleanse it up a bit, but he said, "Candidate, if I say your name is Little Bo Peep, your name is Little Bo Peep!"

"Do you hear me?" Oh, I heard him all right. And I think it was at that very moment that I really became a United States Marine.

I'm still one today, and I will remain one forever, as did my late father, and as is my older and only brother.


On being a Marine
I came from a family of Marines into the family of Marines. My father served in the 1920s under the great Smedley Butler right here at Quantico. He saw combat in Haiti and came out a corporal. My brother and I were both 1950s Cold War Marines in the Third Marine Division in the Far East.

Since our corps was founded on this day in 1775, there have been more than 4 million men and women who have worn the uniform of a United States Marine. This museum is about all of them, including us three "Le-here-er-ers," and even the Little Bo Peeps. That's because this museum is about what it means to be a Marine, no matter the time, the length, place, rank, or nature of the service.

It's about the shared experience and the shared knowledge that comes from being a U.S. Marine, such as knowing that you are only as strong and as safe as the person on your right and on your left; that a well-trained and motivated human being can accomplish almost anything; that being pushed to do your very best is a godsend; that an order is an order, a duty is a duty, that responsibility goes down the chain of command, as well as up, as do loyalty and respect; that leadership can be taught, so can bearing, discipline and honor; that "follow me" really does mean "follow me"; and that that Semper Fidelis really does mean "always faithful"; and that the Marines hymn is so much more than just a song.

My Marine experience helped shape who I am now personally and professionally, and I am grateful for that on an almost daily basis. And I often find myself wishing everyone had a similar opportunity, to learn about shared dependence, loyalty, responsibility to and for others, about mutual respect and honor, and about the power of appealing to the best that's in us as human beings, not the worst.


People at the core
As a journalist, there has been one overriding effect of my Marine experience: While debates over sending Americans into harm's way are always about issues of foreign policy, geopolitics and sometimes even politics-politics, for me, they are also always about young lance corporals and second lieutenants and other very real people in all branches of the U.S. military, people with names, ranks, serial numbers, faces, families, and futures that may never be.

When Marines stand for or sing the Marines' hymn, as we will at the conclusion of this ceremony, it's never for ourselves personally. It's always for the Marines who went before us, with us, and after us, first and foremost for those who gave their lives, their health, their everything at places such as Tripoli, Belleau Wood, Haiti, Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Chosin, Inchon, Danang, Khe Sahn, Beirut, and Baghdad, Fallujah and Ramadi.

The death rate among Marines in Iraq has been more than double that of the other services. That's a first-to-fight, first-wave pattern that has pretty much held since the Revolutionary War, when 49 of the very first U.S. Marines of our country died in combat. Their mission was aboard ship; there are still Marines who serve at sea.

There are others who fly and maintain jets and helicopters, man the artillery, operate tanks and trucks, feed and supply the troops, compute and collate, train and inspect, march and make music, recruit, guard and escort, radio and communicate, patrol and snipe, as well as save tsunami, earthquake and other disaster victims around the world, collect toys at Christmastime for American kids in need, stage a marathon run through Washington, D.C., for charity, or do whatever else needs to be done, particularly if the need is for it to be done well and be done immediately.

We are the Marines. And in the language of the rifle range, we are always ready on the right, ready on the left, all ready on the firing line, whatever kind of firing is required, and wherever that line may be.

"A Witch's Brew: The Gutmann Affair and Middle East Studies," is the title of my latest column for the Washington Examiner. It represents my most recent thoughts about a story that was broken on this blog and at Campus Watch.

I place Gutmann's infamous photo against the background of contemporary Middle East studies, which, as practiced in universities, are morally and intellectually bankrupt.

Pull quote:

Until real suicide bombers are met with the same moral and intellectual opprobrium meted out to history's other odious actors, be they Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot, Klansmen, slave traders, or the guards at Auschwitz, we'll continue to pay a heavy price through a weakened ability to withstand the threats from violent jihadists.

A friend just forwarded this to me. I searched for a url. This essay is from Pat Conroy's book, My Losing Season.

End your evening, or start your morning, by reading this………and give thanks for our heroes and for those who are honest enough to see the errors of their ways.

Several of Pat Conroy's novels have been made into great movies -- The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, and The Lords of Discipline. He lives on Fripp Island , South Carolina. This article is a most touching piece, and most appropriate in this time when so many Americans appear to be confused over what great causes are worth fighting for... more importantly, what great causes are worth dying for. I know it is a long story, but you will not regret taking the time to read it. -----------------------------------------------------

An Honest Confession by an American Coward by Pat Conroy

The true things always ambush me on the road and take me by surprise when I am drifting down the light of placid days, careless about flanks and rearguard actions. I was not looking for a true thing to come upon me in the state of New Jersey. Nothing has ever happened to me in New Jersey. But came it did, and it came to stay. In the past four years I have been interviewing my teammates on the 1966-67 basketball team at the Citadel for a book I'm writing. For the most part, this has been like buying back a part of my past that I had mislaid or shut out of my life. At first I thought I was writing about being young and frisky and able to run up and down a court all day long, but lately I realized I came to this book because I needed to come to grips with being middle-aged and having ripened into a gray-haired man you could not trust to handle the ball on a fast break.

When I visited my old teammate Al Kroboth's house in New Jersey, I spent the first hours quizzing him about his memories of games and practices and the screams of coaches that had echoed in field houses more than 30 years before. Al had been a splendid forward-center for the Citadel; at 6 feet 5 inches and carrying 220 pounds, he played with indefatigable energy and enthusiasm. For most of his senior year, he led the nation in field-goal percentage, with UCLA center Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabar) hot on his trail. Al was a battler and a brawler and a scrapper from the day he first stepped in as a Green Weenie as a sophomore to the day he graduated.

After we talked basketball, we came to a subject I dreaded to bring up with Al, but which lay between us and would not lie still. "Al, you know I was a draft dodger and antiwar demonstrator." "That's what I heard, Conroy," Al said. "I have nothing against what you did, but I did what I thought was right." "Tell me about Vietnam, big Al. Tell me what happened to you," I said.

On his seventh mission as a navigator in an A-6 for Major Leonard Robertson, Al was getting ready to deliver their payload when the fighter-bomber was hit by enemy fire. Though Al has no memory of it, he punched out somewhere in the middle of the ill-fated dive and lost consciousness. He doesn't know if he was unconscious for six hours or six days, nor does he know what happened to Major Robertson (whose name is engraved on the Wall in Washington and on the MIA bracelet Al wears).

When Al awoke, he couldn't move. A Viet Cong soldier held an AK-47 to his head. His back and his neck were broken, and he had shattered his left scapula in the fall. When he was well enough to get to his feet (he still can't recall how much time had passed), two armed Viet Cong led Al from the jungles of South Vietnam to a prison in Hanoi. The journey took three months. Al Kroboth walked barefooted through the most impassable terrain in Vietnam, and he did it sometimes in the dead of night. He bathed when it rained, and he slept in bomb craters with his two Viet Cong captors. As they moved farther north, infections began to erupt on his body, and his legs were covered with leeches picked up while crossing the rice paddies.

At the very time of Al's walk, I had a small role in organizing the only antiwar demonstration ever held in Beaufort, South Carolina, the home of Parris Island and the Marine Corps Air Station. In a Marine Corps town at that time, it was difficult to come up with a quorum of people who had even minor disagreements about the Vietnam War. But my small group managed to attract a crowd of about 150 to Beaufort's waterfront.

With my mother and my wife on either side of me, we listened to the featured speaker, Dr. Howard Levy, suggest to the very few young enlisted Marines present that if they get sent to Vietnam, here's how they can help end this war: Roll a grenade under your officer's bunk when he's asleep in his tent. It's called "fragging" and is becoming more and more popular with the ground troops who know this war is bullshit. I was enraged by the suggestion. At that very moment my father, a Marine officer, was asleep in Vietnam. But in 1972, at the age of 27, I thought I was serving America 's interests by pointing out what massive flaws and miscalculations and corruptions had led her to conduct a ground war in Southeast Asia .

In the meantime, Al and his captors had finally arrived in the North, and the Viet Cong traded him to North Vietnamese soldiers for the final leg of the trip to Hanoi. Many times when they stopped to rest for the night, the local villagers tried to kill him. His captors wired his hands behind his back at night, so he trained himself to sleep in the center of huts when the villagers began sticking knives and bayonets into the thin walls. Following the U.S. air raids, old women would come into the huts to excrete on him and yank out hunks of his hair. After the nightmare journey of his walk north, Al was relieved when his guards finally delivered him to the POW camp in Hanoi and the cell door locked behind him. It was at the camp that Al began to die. He threw up every meal he ate and before long was misidentified as the oldest American soldier in the prison because his appearance was so gaunt and skeletal.

But the extraordinary camaraderie among fellow prisoners that sprang up in all the POW camps caught fire in Al, and did so in time to save his life. When I was demonstrating in America against Nixon and the Christmas bombings in Hanoi, Al and his fellow prisoners were holding hands under the full fury of those bombings, singing "God Bless America." It was those bombs that convinced Hanoi they would do well to release the American POWs, including my college teammate.

When he told me about the C-141 landing in Hanoi to pick up the prisoners, Al said he felt no emotion, none at all, until he saw the giant American flag painted on the plane's tail. I stopped writing as Al wept over the memory of that flag on that plane, on that morning, during that time in the life of America .

It was that same long night, after listening to Al's story, that I began to make judgments about how I had conducted myself during the Vietnam War. In the darkness of the sleeping Kroboth household, lying in the third-floor guest bedroom, I began to assess my role as a citizen in the '60s, when my country called my name and I shot her the bird. Unlike the stupid boys who wrapped themselves in Viet Cong flags and burned the American one, I knew how to demonstrate against the war without flirting with treason or astonishingly bad taste. I had come directly from the warrior culture of this country and I knew how to act.

But in the 25 years that have passed since South Vietnam fell, I have immersed myself in the study of totalitarianism during the unspeakable century we just left behind. I have questioned survivors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, talked to Italians who told me tales of the Nazi occupation, French partisans who had counted German tanks in the forests of Normandy, and officers who survived the Bataan Death March. I quiz journalists returning from wars in Bosnia, the Sudan, the Congo, Angola, Indonesia, Guatemala, San Salvador, Chile, Northern Ireland, Algeria.

As I lay sleepless, I realized I'