Month: September 2006

According to this report in the Times of London, Sunni tribes want American arms to help fight al Qaeda jihadists, who are fast taking over Anbar province in Iraq:

Mr Samarrai said that leaders from al-Anbar had made several proposals to the Americans, including arming the tribes to fight al-Qaeda, providing teams of bodyguards for tribal leaders, clerics and politicians who opposed al-Qaeda and making an intense recruitment push to build an indigenous army and police force.

Mr Samarrai predicted that extremist groups such as al-Qaeda would be defeated in a few months if the Americans acted on any of the al-Anbar proposals. Many leaders in al-Anbar believed that the Americans wanted the chaos to continue and were deliberately helping al-Qaeda, he said.

Nah. It’s probably just incompetence, wouldn’t you say?

"Maybe that’s because right-wing, knuckle-dragging Republicans like myself took over Congress in 1994 promising to balance the budget and limit Washington‚Äôs power. We were a nasty breed and had no problem blaming Bill and Hillary Clinton for everything from the exploding federal deficit to male pattern baldness. I suspected then, as I do now, that Hillary Clinton herself had something to do with ‘Love, American Style’ and ‘Joanie Loves Chachi.’ And why not blame her? Back then, Newt Gingrich felt comfortable blaming the drowning of two little children on Democratic values. Hell. It was 1994. It just seemed like the thing to do," – Joe Scarborough, in the Washington Monthly, on the early seeds of today’s conservative implosion. Still, at least, back then, Republicans believed in balancing the budget. Since 2000, they have added over $20 trillion to the debt the next generation will have to pay – more than double the unfunded liabilities they inherited.

"As long as the War Crimes Act hangs over their heads, they [interrogators] will not take the steps necessary to protect [Americans]," – president Bush at an on-the-record briefing with Kate O’Beirne and Rich Lowry (tough crowd).

Well, one way to get the war crimes act from over their heads is to instruct them not to commit war-crimes. But that doesn’t seem to have occurred to the president.

Amherst, Massachusetts, 6 am.

My old boss and friend, Marty Peretz, was almost designed for blogging. TNR’s new editor, Frank Foer, has had the sense to give him one. I guess Mickey can now accuse me of complete unctuousness. But Marty knows I mean it; and I don’t have a major reputation for sucking up. In five years of editing his magazine, I had my fair share of Marty quarrels (and plenty of agreement). Marty gets razzed a lot (yes, Jack, I’m talking about you) – for his passionate defense of Israel, his passionate quarrels with fellow Democrats, his passionate guidance of The New Republic. But there are many worse things than passion. Along with a spine, Marty also has a great heart. He has done more to nurse young talent and to stand up to smelly orthodoxies than most people I know. Now the blogosphere will have to deal with him. Good luck, blogosphere.

Henry Rollins pens a love-letter to Ann Coulter. (Some obscenity.)

Jason Zengerle rightly cringes:

VICE PRES. CHENEY: You’ve got Iraq and al-Qaeda, testimony from the director of CIA that there was indeed a relationship, Zarqawi in Baghdad, etc. Then the third…

MR. RUSSERT: The committee said that there was no relationship. In fact…

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I haven’t seen the report; I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but the fact is…

It’s not denial when you deliberately close your eyes.

"If, on the other hand, Begg’s protestations of innocence are to be believed and the U.S. government was wrong about him, this book documents an unconscionable descent into a hell of government-sanctioned physical and psychological brutality, administered without even the most rudimentary due process. Taken at face value, the stupidity and cruelty that Begg recounts are utterly shocking to anyone who cherishes the vision of America as an enlightened, law-abiding government, not to mention the leader of the free world," – Jane Mayer, on the first book-length memoir from a Gitmo detainee.

Mark Lilla, as always, has an incisive account of what has happened to us in the past five years:

"All sorts of strange types emerged from under their rocks to exploit September 11 – neoconservatives longing for a war that would restore "American greatness" through militarism, legal anarchists who started rewriting the constitution, evangelicals who sensed the opportunity to launch a counter-revolution against all the cultural changes of the last four decades. None of these groups represented more than a fraction of Americans, but, together, they found the ear of a transformed president and of his political advisers, who knew how to exploit them in return. The level of American political debate sank to a new low and is now fixed on symbols – "values," "strength," "family," "security," "life," "freedom" – that bear little relation to contemporary American reality or the world situation. The ’90s were a period of political maturation in United States, but, in the face of trauma, the nation has regressed to an infantile state."

The first chapter of my book is called "A Silver Age: 1989 – 2001."

What do conservative luminaries, Jeffrey Hart, Christopher Buckley, Bruce Bartlett, William Niskanen, Bruce Fein and Richard Viguerie have in common with yours truly? They all hope the Republicans lose this November. For the sake of conservatism and the country.