The Dish

Some sleazily sourced stories are trying to convey the impression that Barack Obama attended a Muslim madrassa as a boy. It seems to be without factual foundation and the motives of those spreading the rumor are suspect, to put it mildly. Fox News’ resident bigot, John Gibson, does not disappoint. But Obama’s staff really need to do a better job of responding. Here’s a not-for-prime-time soundbite:

"The allegations are completely false," says Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. "To publish this sort of trash without any documentation is surprising, but for Fox to repeat something so false, not once, but many times is appallingly irresponsible. This is exactly the type of slash-and-burn politics the American people are sick and tired of."

It’s "trash" to say that someone was raised a Muslim? Gibbs didn’t mean that, did he?

My continuing online dialogue with Sam Harris on faith and reason has a new entry from me: "Taking Scripture Seriously". The full dialogue so far can be read here.

A theocon activist is about to release the second part of his "Mitt Romney Deception" file. Romney can run, but he can’t hide.

Litvinenko was poisoned in a tea-cup:

Mr Gordievsky told The Times yesterday how "Vladislav was described as someone who could help Mr Litvinenko win a lucrative contract with a Moscow-based private security company. Sasha (his name for Litvinenko) remembered the man making him a cup of tea. His belief is that the water from the kettle was only lukewarm and that the polonium-210 was added, which heated the drink through radiation so he had a hot cup of tea. The poison would have showed up in a cold drink," he added.

The British police now have a clear suspect. Sources say he is very close to Putin and the FSB. If that pans out, the consequences for Europe-Russia relations are profound.

The appropriate anger in the Congress – on video:

But not if it’s porn.

"Most members of the armed forces reflexively expect the Democrats to pay lip service to supporting them while doing all they can to see their mission fail for political gain … Republican Senators such as Chuck Hagel, John Warner and Olympia Snowe have publicly stated that the president‚Äôs planned strategy adjustment will not work and that they will not support it. I challenge each of these august public servants to go over to Bethesda Naval Hospital TODAY, find a seriously wounded Marine and say to him, ‘Son your sacrifice was in vain.’ GO TODAY Senator. Stand up and be counted. If your vote for the war was wrong, say so today and do what any decent officer would do, resign. Resign immediately," – Hugh Hewitt.

Hewitt’s politics seems to consist in the view that no criticism of the president’s conduct of a war is permissible in a democracy, and that the Senate should have no role in formulating foreign policy, or calculating the risks of warfare. He also seems to believe that every criticism of the management of the war is a betrayal of the troops, a slap in the face to wounded troops, and treasonous to the country. He doesn’t only believe this; he believes this after one of the most disastrously-run wars in American history.

Are they working? Recent events suggest that Iran is less monolithic in its leadership than we might once have feared. Neutralizing this dangerous state requires exploiting these internal splits, not ignoring them.

Dinesh D’Souza and Ted Haggard.

One thing, it seems to me, that Mark Steyn, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and yours truly have in common – despite our many differences – is our loathing of politicized, Wahhabist Islam. On that, I think we all agree. But unlike Steyn, I’m not a believer in the West’s inevitable demographic collapse or in its inability to defend itself in the face of this threat. What matters in a culture is the fight in a population not the population in a fight. I’ve also, like others, become far more aware these past four years of the limits of military force in countering the new religious fascists. The trick is exposing and countering the evil of Wahhabism, while not slipping into lazy hostility to all Muslims, or all Islam. Hitch reviews Steyn’s Spenglerian book here. Money quote:

Steyn makes the same mistake as did the late Oriana Fallaci: considering European Muslim populations as one. Islam is as fissile as any other religion (as Iraq reminds us). Little binds a Somali to a Turk or an Iranian or an Algerian, and considerable friction exists among immigrant Muslim groups in many European countries. Moreover, many Muslims actually have come to Europe for the advertised purposes—seeking asylum and to build a better life. A young Afghan man, murdered in the assault on the London subway system in July 2005, had fled to England from the Taliban, which had murdered most of his family. Muslim women often demand the protection of the authorities against forced marriage and other cruelties. These are all points of difference, and also of possible resistance to Euro-sharia.

Agreed. The great risk is that, by our actions, we force sane Muslims into the arms of Jihadists. We have to get smarter than that, it seems to me. We have to see the divisions within Islam as our most powerful weapon, and our cultural diversity and political freedom as our greatest strength. Steyn, in my judgment, diagnoses the problem correctly, but his solutions are either too crude or too vague. He is too down on the West, and not subtle enough in the distinctions within the Muslim world.

Still, he gets what we’re up against. Which is the precondition for everything else.