The Dish

Hugh Hewitt is absolutely right to note the barbarism of Hamas, and some of the MSM’s squeamishness in reporting such (much of Hugh’s evidence comes from the MSM, of course). Dean Barnett is also on the mark, I’d say, on this point:

Hamas was the popularly elected government in the Gaza Strip. It reflects the will of the Palestinian people. For those who fantasize about a great silent majority in that part of the world hungering for peace, the events of this week should provide a needed reality check.

But I’d like to know more about this Hewitt aside:

The connections between Sunni Islamist radicalism and Shia Islamist radicalism are also obvious, and do not appear to be at all troubled by the savage sectarian blows one delivers the other in various cities around Iraq.

Can Hewitt substantiate the "obvious" connections between al Qaeda and, say, Ahmadinejad, between Wahhabists and Persian Shiites? Whether we are facing two foes who can be pitted against one another or one homogeneous group called "Islamist terror" is surely critical to crafting a strategy for victory. Everything I have read suggests deep, deep division within the Islamist world, and deep, deep distrust between the Shia and Sunni forces. Yes, they all hate the Jews. But that could be said for almost everyone in the Middle East. My fear is that by conflating the two groups, we not only miss important opportunities but also risk fomenting such a unity. And why on earth would we want to do that? Except for the purposes of crude Republican electioneering?

I think Kos is onto something:

Many Democrats, especially its pathetic consultant class, still believe that the way Democrats show "strength" is by huffing and puffing and threatening to bomb the "f" out of Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, or whatever the latest boogeyman of the moment might be.In reality, Democrats are seen as weak because they are afraid to stand for those things they believe in. And if they won’t fight for what they believe in, how can voters trust them to fight for anything that truly matters, whether it’s national security or anything else?

The lesson of Reagan and to a lesser extent Thatcher – the pre-eminent conviction politicians of my lifetime – is that even those who deeply disagreed with them eventually respected their ability to stand for something unpopular and to lead. When I look at the Democrats today, I see no such conviction. That’s a problem. No one is worse than Clinton, of course.

What’s not to like about the YouTube age? Imagination, skill, humor, subtlety – all the stuff they pay campaign consultants millions for and still don’t get. Now it’s all free, and they can’t even police free speech in peer-to-peer free advertizing. Yay! Of course, these ads are probably too good to actually sway anyone. But they’re making this campaign one of the most unpredictable and democratic ever. This Calvin-Klein-Obsession-style Gravel ad was on the Daily Show last night. Here’s more (no, you’re not stoned):

My quote for the day was originally Jon Stewart’s.

Brad Delong analyzes who on the right sussed out Bush when. I’m in the Class of 2004. But I’d like to mention that my complaints about runaway spending date from well before that. If 9/11 hadn’t happened, I think I would have bailed sooner. I hated the Medicare bill, compassionate conservatism, and the FMA. And as the years pass, the happier I am I bit the bullet and refused to endorse Bush the second time around. That strikes me as the real litmus test, although Bruce Bartlett should be forgiven for finding Kerry a pill too bitter to swallow:

It’s true that I never said I would vote for John Kerry. What I did say, publicly, was that if Bill Clinton had been running in 2004 I would have voted for him.

I admit, with the benefit of hindsight, that I should have seen the light sooner. My defense is that I didn’t believe anything George W. Bush said during the 2000 campaign. I thought "compasionate conservatism" was just BS cooked up by Karl Rove or somebody because it got a good reaction in focus groups.

I assumed it was bullshit as well – bullshit designed to put a Clintonesque gloss on old-style conservatism. I didn’t quite appreciate that Bush might actually believe it – and I deserve a shellacking for my naivete. Still, no one beats Ed Crane in foresight.

Sticking to his pro-life guns.

Pejman wonders why no one has really noticed or absorbed the broader lessons. They have, I think. Check this new NPR story out that Pejman links to. Yes: NPR. The dynamic of Sunni tribes deciding they cannot tolerate Jihadist foreigners is the only paradigm that will eventually work – just as Iraqi Shiites will have to turn on Persian extremism. The question is whether an indefinite occupation of the whole country helps or hurts that process. A smart withdrawal that exploits these fissures as they occur is the key, it seems to me. In fact, a smart withdrawal, if done with finesse, might conceivably undo some of the damage of the dumb occupation. But we also need to be cautious here. As soon as we get news of tribal alliances, we get news of tribal discord. This is Arab culture. They will support you one second and murder you in cold blood the next. And they will do exactly the same to one another.

David Friedman is onto something:

At least in my observation, the people and departments most inclined to favor "diversity" in the conventional sense are among those least likely to want to hire professors whose viewpoints differ from the consensus. What they want are people of the desired gender or skin color who agree with them.

"The only thing worse than an al Qaeda attack would be a gay man stopping that," – fired military linguist Stephen Benjamin, summing up the core of the Republican position on military personnel policy in the terror war. Full Colbert clip here.

A small nugget from the file:

"Despite the pressures of his personal and professional life, Scooter consistently cares about his friends. For example, our eldest child was on an externship in Ghana during the tragic events of September 11th. Upon learning this (and of our concern), despite the enormous pressures of state facing Scooter, he researched the situation in Ghana and called us at 11 pm (having just gotten home from work) to discuss what he had learned."

Perjury? He’s our friend. We only prosecute perjurers when they’re little people. Or Democratic presidents.