Over a thousand Islamo-fascist militants have now been put in jail by President Musharraf of Pakistan. Over the weekend, he gave a public speech condemning this perversion of Islam, and charting a new path for his country away from the fundamentalist extremism of his neighbors and the past. Is this a response to India’s ultimatum? Yes. But its real origin comes from the will of the United States to fight back against Islamist terror. In a matter of months, we have rid one major country, Afghanistan, of its Islamo-fascist tyrants and profoundly shifted another, Pakistan. Indeed, Musharraf’s new direction is unthinkable without the Bush administration’s determination not to appease terror, negotiate with it, blink in the face of it, but to go out there and take it on. You can fund all the p.r. campaigns you want to keep these populations from hating the West, or engaging in Islamist fantasies. But force counts, and the tentative removal of Pakistan from the roster of terrorist-sponsoring states is a major victory, as big as the fall of Kabul. Now, for Iran and Iraq. And the same lesson applies: force + conviction = success.
SLATE LURCHES TO THE RIGHT: Amazing what a little joshing can do. Only days after I lambasted Tim Noah for running a blatantly pro-liberal feature called ‘Whopper of the Week,” he shows his unbiased credentials by going after Robert Rubin, former Clinton Treasury secretary. As Mickey Kaus would say, andrewsullivan.com gets results! Actually, Noah raises some obvious points about the dubious ethics of Rubin’s apparent phone call to help Enron. Tim even wonders why the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal haven’t covered the Rubin angle more aggressively. Hmm. Tough one, that. Do you want to send Tim a copy of Bernie Goldberg’s book, or shall I?
THE ZEITGEIST SHIFTS: The Philadelphia Inquirer re-examines the Clinton legacy in the wake of September 11. What was once an outrageous allegation is slowly becoming conventional wisdom. Even Fareed Zakaria, who alternates between sharp analysis and worrying R.W. Appleitis, gets on message. In today’s Washington Post, he writes, “During the Clinton administration the CIA actually presented the National Security Council with a list of threats and asked that they be ranked according to priority. That would determine the time, money and effort that the agency would put in. A Clinton administration official recalls, ‘China, Iran, Iraq — these were all No. 1. Terrorism was a 3.’ Despite several warnings and some effort, terrorism never quite made it to the top of the president’s agenda.” Fareed ladles the blame around liberally, as he should. But ultimately he fingers the White House – under Clinton.
THOSE PESKY LABELS I:
“Our guests are two men with very firm, very different ideas about that. Here in Washington, former presidential candidate and conservative commentator Pat Buchanan. His new book gives something of a hint of where he stands. It’s titled ‘The Death of the West: How Mass Immigration, Depopulation and a Dying Faith are Killing our Culture and Our Country.’ And in Miami, we are joined by Jorge Ramos, Emmy-award-winning anchor for Univision, author and columnist. His latest book is “The Other Face of America: Chronicles of the Immigrants Shaping Our Future.”
– Jonathan Karl, CNN.
THOSE PESKY LABELS II:
A reader sends in how the MSN internet network presents the results for website searches:
“Frontpage magazine- ‘read news and commentary from this extreme right wing magazine.’
American Spectator online – ‘selected online features from muckraching American conservative magazine.’
Mother Jones.com – ‘online version of the popular MJ magazine. Provides full text articles from its current issue…. ‘
American Prospect – Bi monthly progressive magazine features news, editorials and interviews with esteemed political writers.”
Ah, that term ‘progressive.’ I’d almost forgotten about that one.
NOT ON MY BEACH: Liberal Malibu residents – Streisand, Geffen, Spielberg – do what they can to keep the public from access to their beaches. Check out this editorial from the Las Vegas Sun. I love those Hollywood liberals – keeping the gays in the closet and the hoi polloi off the beach.
THOSE CRAZY PROFS: Here’s a couple of telling quotes from Stanford professors, worrying about ROTC’s possible return to campus:
“ROTC represents a group of pseudo-faculty preparing students for war and training them to kill, and that is fundamentally unacceptable at a university,” says [Barton] Bernstein, [professor of history]. “I understand that there are times when society wants militaristic approaches to problems, but I don’t think it’s the place of first-rate universities to feed those desires,” says Cecilia Ridgeway, a professor of sociology and a Faculty Senate member. “Universities are about solving problems through discussion, not military approaches.””
Let’s just have a chat with al Qaeda next time, shall we? This is surely pay dirt for David Horowitz’s devastating poll, showing how slanted to the left most professors are. For once, David may be understating his case.
The Dish 