* * political doodle * *

ABE: The Dems Gear Up To . .What?

The Good Old Days
Nancy Pelosi Reassuring Ba'athist Dictator Bashar Assad

O’ the thanklessness in being today’s Democratic strategist.

For the past few years the Democratic playbook wrote itself. With the seemingly fruitless loss of blood and treasure in Mesopotamia, all an aspiring Democrat had to do was utter a single word—repeatedly and loudly: Iraq. It also helped to talk about America’s “falling standing” in the world and the supposedly resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. If you were looking to pick up Black votes you sprinkled appearances with rhetoric about Katrina; if the fringe was your thing you mentioned Halliburton, and so on.

ABE: Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West - a conversation with director Wayne Kopping

". . . And I always thought Churchill looked a little Jewish . . ."
Jerusalem's Grand Mufti and Adolf Hitler in 1941

Classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote recently:

“The great lesson of September 11 was not that the jihadists ever believed that they could kill us all. Rather, they trusted that enough of the West and indeed enough of us here in America, might at the end of the day declare that we had it coming.

In this long war, that belief was — and is — far deadlier even than an unhinged murderer at the controls of an airliner.”

“The greatest deeds are thoughts,” said Aristotle. For the substantial number of Westerners whose thoughts veer towards the “we had it coming” end of the spectrum, the newly available documentary Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West should go a long way in changing minds.  I often hear things like, “Of course al Qaeda’s crazy, but if we change our policies in the Mideast they’ll keep their craziness to themselves.” Others offer, less delicately, “Let them rot.” Obsession, (available at Barnes and Noble, Best Buy, Blockbuster, and other major outlets as of September 11 of this year) forces the viewer to confront the fact that our policies are beside the point, and that the rotting—well underway—refuses to be contained.

On the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks I spoke with the film’s director Wayne Kopping.

ABE: 9/11 - It's Surreal Time With Bill Maher

Bill Maher

Bill Maher wants us to know three things about him:

1.    He sees through the evil machinations of George W. Bush.
2.    He likes Black people, and
3.    He smokes pot.

Maher references this triangular worldview ad nauseum on every episode of his HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher. The show isn’t about politics or culture, it’s about its host. Each phase of each broadcast is like a mini-self-realization workshop allowing Maher to reconnect with his convictions and assert them confidently in front of millions of Americans.

Aside from being a glimpse into the psycho-theater of one man, Real Time is an indispensible barometer of left wing thought. Maher, hyper-aware of his own “moderate” placement on the continuum of populist paranoia, serves as a stable point against which his guests’ delusions can be measured. When a guest goes off the deep end the host reels him back in. From these interactions, we glean just how far into the mists of incoherence and fantasy the moderate left is willing to venture.

ABE:: "John Ennis Is In Control"

Political Doodle readers are very lucky to have John Ennis making the case for the right over the next week or so.  John is a writer from New York City. He will fill in while  I finish up another project.  John is extremely modest and begged me not to praise him. But I can't comply. He is frighteningly informed, reasonable, and extremely dangerous.

You are in good hands.

ABE: "Contradictions In Caveland" - A Review of The Al Qaeda Reader

Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden
"We grin to the faces of some peoples. . ."

I was in my local bar when George W. Bush made his September 20, 2001 speech about the attacks of 9/11. The music was muted, the television turned up, and everyone clustered around the set to find out where we stood in relation to the future of humankind. I recall distinctly the following excerpt from the President's speech:

ABE: “John Edwards – Twice As Lovely (Half As True)”

“If your eyes were half as bright, they still would light my way,
If your heart were twice as true then you'd be mine today.
That's why I often wish that you were half as lovely, twice as true.”
-Sammy Gallop
Half As Lovely (Twice As True)

In October 2004 I clicked on Andrew Sullivan’s blog to get his take on the then-recent debate between Vice President Dick Cheney and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards. Sullivan thought Edwards had Dick Cheney beat on the articulation of ideas. I disagreed. But that wasn't the assertion that really stunned me.

ABE: "The Defeat-Junkies Sweat Out Withdrawal-Withdrawal.”

On July 8th The New York Times printed an editorial entitled “The Road Home.” A document of breathtaking moral cowardice, it called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, genocide notwithstanding. The piece stated:

"It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.”

And went on:

“Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide.”

In other words, we need to leave and stay out, even if this means the institutional statewide slaughter of our allies.

Talk about winning hearts and minds.

Abe: "Che Guevara! Intifada! Radical Chic Eats All!"

The myriad examples of writer Don DeLillo’s uncanny prescience on the attacks of September 11, 2001 have yet to be fully catalogued and dissected. My own incomplete dossier on the matter includes:

- His 1977 novel, Players. The couple is Pammy and Lyle. While Pammy works at a grief-counseling center—the goal of which is to help people deal with loss, and the offices of which are located in the World Trade Center—Lyle becomes a terrorist.
- His 1985 novel, White Noise. A main character reads a fictional tabloid account of a death cult that flies an airplane into the White House.
- His 1997 novel, Underworld. Here’s a quote from a passage about a waste management executive visiting the Fresh Kills landfill (which would later become the dumping ground for the rubble of the fallen towers.)  “The towers of the World Trade Center were visible in the distance and he sensed a poetic balance between that idea and this one [the idea of the Fresh Kills landfill].”

To give but three examples.The man deserves our attention.

So how should we respond to this DeLillo quote from a recent interview?

Abe: “Crimeless Victims and the Left’s Perennial Witch Hunt”

Some weeks back I had a drink with a gentleman who became less gentle as we discussed U.S. foreign policy. The trajectory of his argument (and temperament) took a predictable course. Having spent 6 years as a Neocon in New York, I know what I’m up against. I give you the 8 phases of leftwing polemic:

1. Moral Indignation (Don’t tell me you believe in this monstrous war!)

2. Stupefication (You do believe in this war.)

3. Intellectual Indignation (Haven’t you seen Fahrenheit 911?!)

4. Acclimation (I’m digesting this.)

5. Grudging Acceptance (You seem sane.)

6. Grudging Respect (Well, you obviously know more about this than I do, but. . .)

7. Flailing (Look, I mean, Bush is an oil guy right?)

8. Forfeit (Sorry, I have to get up for an early meeting tomorrow, otherwise. . .)

   

Sure, otherwise you’d mop the floor with me. Given the number of early business meetings I’ve heard lamented it’s no wonder this country’s economy is booming.

Abe: “Iraq: The Evolution Will Not Be Televised”

One sure sign that the Iraq War is going well for the U.S. is that the media has stopped covering it. Newspapers, TV shows, and websites are now telling us to be depressed about Pakistan instead. Also, I did hear an NPR broadcaster clear his throat by saying that U.S. troop deaths have dipped in the past month. Neither of these things speak to the true extent of recent U.S. success. Not only are Iraqis now working with US troops to kill and capture al Qaeda and Shia extremists in several provinces, but Iraqi Police and Army units are already involved in the post-al Qaeda rebuilding of their country.

I discussed Iraq recently with a person of vigorous intelligence who works counterinsurgency at the Department of Defense. Here’s what I learned.