The Dish

A reader does some research:

A little digging turns up some fascinating background on “The Right Brothers.” (Yes, I’m bored at work!) The two guys themselves, Frank Highland and Aaron Sain from Florence, Alabama, seem like pretty straightforward good ol’ boys, and God bless ’em. They both chased a songwriting career in Nashville in the 90’s, and while Aaron did all right Frank had left the music business and was running a pool cleaning company by 2001. The two of them hooked up after 9/11 and started writing the occasional bar-room conservative anthem to cheer on the troops. Maybe a gimmick, but who can point fingers?

What turned things around for them was a connection, in 2003, with an outfit called RightMarch.com, and here’s where it gets creepy. RightMarch is an internet fund-raising organization run by Dr. William Greene, a veteran of various “Take Back Christmas” fundraising appeals, and an established if low-flying email fundraiser for hard-right causes (he was a chief online fundraiser for Alan Keyes’ Senate campaign). Greene is also a former VP of Richard Viguerie’s ConservativeHQ.com — where he learned his trade, no doubt, from the best. RightMarch is partly a general-purpose conservative activist site, presumably to build lists, and partly a PAC targeting moderate Republicans as well as Democrats. Greene also runs Strategic Internet Campaign Management (SIC’M!), a political consultancy and another online list-builder.

Greene took charge of promotion for The Right Brothers, put them in touch with Hannity in 2003 to promote a song called “Hey Hollywood,” then rolled them out big time during the Terry Schiavo fiasco, featuring their new antiabortion song and video, “I want to live.” That whole episode wasn’t a brilliant success, but they ended up playing the Georgia Republican convention in 2005 and now they seem to be making another bid for word-of-mouth marketing with “Bush Was Right.” Their own website includes a signup feature for their email list, and I wouldn’t be shocked if the info were shared with RightMarch.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Right? Except — it’s sort of sad to see guys who used to write country tunes about how their old family home got plowed under for a strip mall, coming out with un-ironic lyrics like “The rich man keeps the working man working and alive.” (“Trickle Down.”) Or writing a song against illegal immigration that’s so nuanced and qualified and racially inoffensive it might have been edited by a Karl Rove focus group. Or, for that matter, writing a song about the Iraq war that ends up a paean to Bush’s economic policy. My bullshit-detector just got sad and stopped registering.

So how much is still authentic about two guys who sing about supporting the troops, spanking their children, liking big trucks, and feeling mildly confused by all those gay people wandering around? Who the hell knows? But it’s clear that they’re in pretty deep with some fairly high-powered hard-right activists who are experts in crafting fundraising messages. Nice to see that they’ve finally made it.

And the beat goes on.

Sad but true:

I certainly agree with Zalmay that stakes are high in Iraq – precisely because we’ve put all of our chips, so to speak, on this wild gamble in the Middle East. But Bush has nobody to blame for dwindling public support but himself. This is a President that refuses to acknowledge that there is such a thing as “the American people” and that he is accountable to them. And he shows no signs of this changing. Every significant speech is made to cherry-picked crowds at military academies. Scott McClellan’s briefings have become unintentional comedy sketches. And his surrogates just buzz and strafe Sunday morning talk shows every so often to parrot the same useless talking points. Imagine how much public opinion could be shaped and how much criticism could be defused if he simply addresses the American people to tell us what ‘the course’ that we must supposedly ‘stay’ is. What IS the mission? How many Iraqi battalions being independent and battle-ready will it take before we can at least begin to draw down? When can we expect this to occur? What is he doing to draw the Sunnis more into the political process and away from the insurgents? What is he doing with neighboring nations like Iran to stop their meddling and to seek their help in securing the borders? There are countless other questions – the answers of which could be used to explain in detail our progress, our plan, and a clear direction for America in the Middle East.

But when he is silent and hiding away from his critics, it’s only reasonable for people to begin to assume that he has no progress to report, no plan, and no direction. It would be sad if the hard work of people like Gen. Casey and Zalmay is all for naught because their boss was too much of a fool to explain the rather significant benefits of what they’re now doing in Iraq.

There are times when I wonder if the president is capable of such an address. And the reason I say that is that any candid, credible discussion of where we are now would require an acknowledgment of a series of previous misjudgments and errors. I don’t think Bush is psychologically capable of this. It requires nuance, self-criticism, an abandonment of Manichean rhetoric, and a political decision to unite the country rather than dividing it. All these things he has so far refused to so. Alas, I see no evidence that he has changed, or is even capable of change. And so we stagger on.

Good news from Iran.

More details on the musicians behind “Bush Was Right.”

THE VATICAN BAN: I don’t want to comment at any length until the actual document is released and I’m feeling well enough to tackle it properly. Please be patient. Here’s an interesting take, however, from an influential Catholic leader, Timothy Radcliffe. My own view is that Radcliffe is too sanguine. I’ll explain why soon.

AIDS MORTALITY IN AMERICA: The good news continues.

ISLAM VERSUS GAYS: Another horrific story from the Middle East.

BOOK NEWS: The only silver lining from Michael Oakeshott’s death is that interest in his thought is cresting again, and much formerly buried writing and lecturing is being published. Here’s the latest. Here’s also a new review of “Father Joe,” a book I gave a rave review for in the NYT. It’s by one of the sharpest young Catholic critics out there, Grant Gallicho. I’m relieved Grant sees the enduring merits of the book. I am and was appalled at the subsequent accusations of incest and child abuse made against Tony Hendra by his daughter. I cannot help but feel to some extent conned by the book, if the daughter’s account is correct. At the same time, I wonder if the Holy Spirit doesn’t work in strange ways. That this astonishing account of grace came from a soul still deeply compromised by sin should not surprise Christians. God chooses often very flawed vessels for his message of love and redemption. That, at least, is my hope. My heart goes out to the obvious pain felt by Hendra’s daughter. I hope my review did not in any way intensify it. It was obviously not my intention.

A neocon hard-rock anthem for dispirited Republicans. I’m not sure if it’s a parody, but I suspect not. Whatever it is, it’s a beaut.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY I: “People need to be clear what the stakes are here. If we were to do a premature withdrawal, there could be a Shia-Sunni war here that could spread beyond Iraq. And you could have Iran backing the Shias and Sunni Arab states backing the Sunnis. You could have a regional war that could go on for a very long time, and affect the security of oil supplies. Terrorists could take over part of this country and expand from here. And given the resources of Iraq, given the technical expertise of its people, it will make Afghanistan look like child’s play.” – Zalmay Khalilzad, telling it like it is. As I have been writing for a while now, the paradox is that, as domestic support plummets, we seem to be making some progress in key areas: training Iraqi troops, peeling off Sunni elites, rebooting the economy. A sudden collapse of support for the war effort and peremptory withdrawal would be the worst of all worlds: the Bush-bots will simply revert to a Weimar-style “stab-in-the-back” narrative, with the mainstream media being the villains; al Qaeda will rejoice; the sectarian militias that are already a problem would strengthen and start preparing for the coming power vacuum. Patience, please. Which does not mean, of course, no criticism.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY II: Money quote from a helpful piece in yesterday’s WaPo:

“‘We don’t torture’ means that we don’t use worse tactics than [‘cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment’] — except when we do. Waterboarding (in which a prisoner is made to believe he is drowning) and withholding pain medication for bullet wounds cross the line into torture – and both have allegedly been used. So does “Palestinian hanging,” where a prisoner’s arms are twisted behind his back and his wrists are chained five feet above the floor.
A Nov. 18 ABC News report quoted former and current intelligence officers and supervisors as saying that the CIA has a list of acceptable interrogation methods, including soaking naked prisoners with water in 50-degree rooms and making them stand for 40 hours handcuffed and shackled to an eyebolt in the floor. ABC reported that these methods had been used on at least a dozen captured al Qaeda members. All these techniques undoubtedly inflict the “severe suffering” that our law defines as torture.

It seems to me that the press has not been specific enough. Why hasn’t somebody asked McClellan if the president believes that “waterboarding” is “torture.”

A poem for my current predicament:

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.

– Ogden Nash.

I’ll be blogging at a more normal pace once my own germ decides to surrender.

Some brief Instapundit-style links before I come back on Monday:

Marty Lederman discusses the legality of the CIA techniques outlined in the Dana Priest article in the Washington Post.

There’s a big jump in the number of same-sex married couples in Holland, as the reform begins to change gay culture and social expectations.

Norm Geras reviews the Iraq-exit debate here.

Former POWs add to the groundswell behind the McCain Amendment, as well they might.

Bush administration documents, dated September 21, 2001, reveal that the CIA refuted any past or present connection between al Qaeda and Saddam in the wake of 9/11. The administration did not and will not release these documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee. Why not?

Does “compassionate conservatism” mean an embrace of torture? Marvin Olasky gives the impression that his answer is yes.

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND: “The problem the Bush administration has – and it is a problem that dates back to the beginning of the war – is its inability to articulate the reality. The United States is not staying the course. It has not been on course – if by “course” you mean what was planned in February 2003 – for two years. The course the United States has been on has been winding, shifting and surprising. The fact is that the administration has done a fairly good job of riding the whirlwind. But the course has shifted so many times that no one can stay it, because it disappeared long ago.

Having committed the fundamental error – and that wasn’t WMD [it was not forseeing and then misreading the insurgency] – the Administration has done a sufficiently good job that some sort of working government might well be created in Iraq in 2006, and U.S. forces will certainly be withdrawn. What threatens this outcome is the administration’s singular inability to simply state the obvious. As a result, the Democrats – doing what opposition parties do – has made it appear that the Bush administration is the most stupid, inept and incompetent administration in history. And the administration has been reduced to calling its critics cowards.” – George Friedman, Stratfor.com.

So much to write about, not least the implications of the Padilla case and what seems at first blush one of the darkest hours in the church’s recent history. I’ll deal with all this once I get better, but in the meantime, have a great Thanksgiving.

There years after being detained. I like this detail:

An indictment is merely an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law.

I have no brief for Padilla or any other al Qaeda mass-murderers. But he is an American citizen, presumed innocent, and it took the government three years even to charge him. Anyone who cares about liberty – which obviously does not include many members of the Bush administration, should be appalled by what has occurred and what it means for the future of freedom in this country.

THE POPE AND PRADA: Have you seen those fabulous Prada red shoes? He looks like Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz. And his ditching of the historical tailors that have historically dressed popes? The pontiff has even taken to wearing Gucci sunglasses, and padded quilt jackets. And his personal assistant looks like a GQ model. Absolutely fabulous.

Move over, Mr Rumsfeld. The people actually fighting this war just told something called the truth:

In contrast to the Pentagon’s stock answer that there are enough troops on the ground in Iraq, the commanders said [to a Senate committee] that they not only needed more manpower but also had repeatedly asked for it. Indeed, military sources told Time that as recently as August 2005, a senior military official requested more troops but got turned down flat. There are about 160,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq, a number U.S. commanders in the region plan to maintain at least through the Iraqi national assembly elections on Dec. 15. But the battalion commanders, according to sources close to last week’s meeting, said that because there are not enough troops, they have to “leapfrog” around Iraq to keep insurgents from returning to towns that have been cleared out. The officers also stressed that the lack of manpower-rather than of protective armor or signal jammers-posed one of the biggest obstacles in dealing with roadside bombs, which have caused the majority of U.S. casualties in Iraq. The commanders, according to the meeting sources, said there are simply “never enough” explosives experts on the ground. So far, no officer has been willing to go on record to complain about the need for more troops. But there is one positive sign: the Army recently decided to double the number of explosives experts to 2,500 over the next few years.

I’m not sure whether more troops are now going to exacerbate or improve the problem. I do feel much more confident in believing that the failure to have enough troops to provide post-invasion security was catastrophic to the mission. We paid a high price for Rumsfeld’s ego and intransigence.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “At the end of the day when I’m standing at the golden gates, I’m sure God doesn’t give a shit how many records I’ve sold or how many number one hits I’ve had. All he gives a shit about is how I behaved, how I treated people. So understanding that, and still doing my best making records, is the conclusion I’ve come to. I think about that more now than I used to.” – Madonna, the Catholic girl she’s always been.

TORTURE AND SLAVERY: Some insights on how the two are connected.

PREGNANT IN THE HOV LANE: Hey, there are two people in the car, no? (Hat tip: Nick.)

EMAIL OF THE DAY: An emailer challenges me:

“Seriously, support another war. The war Bush is fighting (thanks to Rumsfeld) is not a war we can win. So we need to fight another one. I haven’t seen you give a good argument against the thinking that a timetable for US withdrawal would force the Iraqis to face the inevitable future in which the US is not the dominant military power in their country.
Bush is fighting god-only-knows who in Iraq. It surely isn’t the enemy we’re facing. He continues to profess a belief that we are combatting – and not fueling – terrorism. If these guys win, it’ll be by accident.
Support a war against the real enemy.”

Last time I checked, Zarqawi was the real enemy. He was before the invasion and he has taken advantage of the Rumsfeld-enabled chaos that succeeded it. I’d be happy to draw down troops if we also ensure a real and functioning national military to control the Baathist revanchists and the Jihadists. But peremptorily leaving another vacuum there right now seems madness to me.