Tigerhawk has a great post about the central debate of our time: Did Saddam and bin Laden have a relationship?

In a way, it really doesn't matter. Saddam is history, someday soon bin Laden will be too. In a sense, the course of the war is set, and in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we have won overwhelmingly.

But it does matter what the ultimate historical verdict is on the war. While I maintain that, on the merits, Iraq is an unqualified success; unless the common perception of this war is that it was a just war and a military success, the options for future Presidents for fighting in the "Long War" will be severely constrained.

By choosing to oppose the war by means of attacking the President's honesty and credibility, liberal Democrats are tying the hands of a future (perhaps Democrat) President. For the foreseeable future, our leadership will need all options, including preemption, at his or her disposal.

While perhaps politically expedient in the short run, accusing our own President of lying (particularly when it's not true) is extremely corrosive to our national interest in the long run.

That's why this debate is so crucial. Simply put, the prestige and honor of the United States matter. Every day, all over the world, a vast propaganda machine is at work smearing the reputation of America. We really shouldn't be helping them.

The revolt against the war in Iraq has revealed deep fault lines in American society. Rest assured, Ahmadinejad and bin Laden are watching. As Ben Franklin once observed, if we don't hang together, we will certainly hang separately.

Apparently, to some Americans, (can you say Kos?) the pursuit of political power takes precedence over simple common-sense American solidarity.

So far in the war on terror, I would say the administration and the military have performed brilliantly. Sadly, many in the political arena have taken the low road.

The connection that mattered between Saddam and bin Laden was simply that after 9/11, no rational American President could have continued to tolerate this serial murdering madman at the controls of a state. Maybe he was collaborating with bin Laden, maybe he wasn't. We'll probably never know for sure. What we should know for sure is that the civilized world simply shouldn't have to be at the mercy of a crazed dictator's whims.

I don't know how this whole right-wing blogging thing is going to work out. I see Ben Domenech got run out of the Washington Post pretty quick. So much for my second career ambitions. Apparently the tectonic shift involved in giving a conservative a voice tore a giant hole in the force.

Now, let it be said, if this kid really is a serial plagiariser, he should be gone. As far as I can tell, there is definite smoke in that regard.

But what is striking to me about this episode is the extreme virulence of the reaction from the left to the simple fact that a conservative got a column. They freaked out like a bunch of French students afraid of losing their guaranteed jobs. Which, in a way, is what they are.

Apparently, there's something of a well-worn career path of pundits rising from the ranks of the liberal advocacy media, or the Democratic party. Look at Russert on NBC and Cris Matthews on MSNBC, just to name two.

Imagine the outrage over a conservative blogger, who worked for the Bush Administration. I mean, with both houses of Congress and the White House in the hands of conservatives, that's just way too out of the mainstream, right?

Anyway, it's disappointing. One would think that if the left had a lot of confidence in their positions they would welcome debate, and not try to shout it down.

It's Not a Civil War, It's a Revolution

One cannot do any better than the incomparable Chris Hitchens when toting up the score at the three-year mark. Or you may want to slide over to Gateway Pundit for a quick summary of some prominent predictions by some of your favorite war critics.

The release of captured Iraqi documents has the potential to be the most earth-shatttering unreported story of this entire episode. For the facts that the Main Stream Media won't report, check out the unrelenting Stephen Hayes who has been virtually a one-man show on telling the story about Saddam's Al Qaeda connections.

People mistakenly thought the first Gulf War put the Vietnam Syndrome to bed. The fact was there has been a giant latent anti-war machinery consisting of old hippies, "artists", the movie business, the music business, and the press, all of whom cut their teeth during Vietnam, who have been waiting a long time to roll out their "I Hate America" schtick one more time. It's hard to be post-modern, ironic, alienated and patriotic. So patriotic has to go.

It's just so, you know, goober to love your country. We all grew up on Vietnam, and Watergate. I mean, who wants to go to a rally and sing "Give War a Chance"? For the most part, people weren't getting high and laid at Young Republicans rallies. Anti-War is just so much more hip.

SO first we were going to lose half a million lives in the war to topple Saddam, then there weren't enough troops to defeat the insurgency, and now the insurgency is defeated so it must mean civil war.

Of course there's sectarian violence right now. The Iraqi's are attempting to form a government. The fact that they're fighting about it shows they take it seriously. Meanwhile, Zarqawi is actively working to foment civil war. Yes, it could all beak down at this late point, but here's betting it won't. In fact, I see the Kurds, Sunni's and Shiite's forming a unity government pretty soon, then uniting to run Al Qaeda out. Pretty good outcome.

As I sit here today, I also see a real possibility for an American defeat in Iraq. If it happens, it won't be because we didn't have enought troops, or because we disbanded the Iraqi army, or because civil war eventually broke out. It will be because the American people never got the whole story.

If the anti-war movement is successful in causing defeat in Iraq, I think they might be surprised at the number and severity of subsequent wars that will lead to. The inevitable conclusion to be reached by our enemies will be--See how easy it is to defeat America.

We have lost 2500 brave soldiers over the course of three years. We lost that many on D-Day. Iwo Jima cost 7000 lives, the battle for Okinawa cost over 20000 lives.

Our threshold for pain seems to have fallen awfully low, yet I don't believe that average Americans would be throwing in the towel yet were it not for an orchestrated, relentless media campaign to undermine the administration at every turn.

Post 9/11, the Bush administration shifted our strategic doctrine to one of pre-emption. I believe many in the intellectual elite have serious issues with that. It would be nice if we lived in a world where no one would use military force unless attacked first. We don't. 9/11 exposed the flaw in our old strategic doctrine. Not only would our enemies attack without provocation or warning, but they would slaughter innocent civilians while attempting to wreck our economic infrastructure.

This is a true vulnerability. If there is a way to take us down, that's it. The great American wealth-making machine makes it all possible. Cripple that, and the whole facade comes tumbling down. We cannot wait to be attacked like that again.

Iraq was to be the test case. Needless to say, not finding WMD, and no conclusive Iraq-Al Qaeda link has put a serious political hole in the policy. But it is still the only sane policy.

Politically, perhaps the only way to salvage the war from Vietnam syndrome will come from some sort of intelligence breakthrough that discovers the remnants of Saddam's WMD, or from the establishment of a definite link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. That's why the release of the OIF war documents is so crucial, and why the press needs to feel pressure to cover them.

We're still the good guys. As convoluted as it may seem, we're still fighting and defeating the bad guys in Iraq. When Iraq forms its government it will represent the greatest triumph of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, and will signal the beginning of the end of the reign of Islamic terror that we've been up against since at least 1979.

I was thinking that I finally agree with George Clooney about something. Let me first state that I'd like to BE George Clooney--at least for a couple weekends. Doesn't that schmuck realize how lucky he is?

Anyway, Clooney wrote over at Huffington the following:

The fear of being criticized can be paralyzing," Clooney writes today on Huffingtonpost.com — pumping up the volume after banging the drum of Hollywood liberalism in his Oscar acceptance speech.

"Just look at the way so many Democrats caved in the runup to the war. In 2003, a lot of us were saying, where is the link between Saddam and Bin Laden? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? We knew it was bulls—.

"Which is why it drives me crazy to hear all these Democrats saying, 'We were misled.' It makes me want to shout, 'F— you, you weren't misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic.'"

Now, it's easy to say in hindsight that he "knew it was all bullshit". It wasn't all bullshit. But I do agree that the time to be against the war was before it started. The President put it up for a vote. He made his position completely clear, and he staked his Presidency on the outcome of his decision. Clooney is exactly right. The Democrats weren't misled. They simply lacked the political balls to oppose the war. The idea of a politician who had genuine misgivings about the war voting for it to save his political hide is nauseating.

Further, I think the President was entitled to think that once it had been voted on, it should be considered a settled issue, time to put aside partisan politics, and let's all get behind the policy and WIN THE DAMNED WAR!

The behavior of the opposition in this war has been a national disgrace. A particularly hot place in hell should be reserved for John Kerry, who voted to go to war, then voted against funding the troops in order to score a cheap victory over Howard Dean, who although I disagree with him, at least had the courage of his convictions.

If there's any way to win politically in this poisonous atmosphere, it's this: Keep putting them on the record. Like today with that miscreant Russ Feingold. You want to walk out there with that bullshit Daily Kos product placement censure--put it to a vote, you gutless wonder.

You want to throw around words like "illegal", go on the record. It was a cheap, transparent political stunt, and everybody knows it.

Democrats better hope that they never actually get any accountability. Payback's a bitch.

Caught a nifty little piece of dishonesty from Reuters today. Money graf:


" The U.N.'s 1992 Kyoto Protocol, which came into force last year after a decade of wrangling, obliges major industrial nations to cut emissions while granting exemptions to developing countries like India and China.
But it was weakened by the withdrawal in 2001 of the United States, whose President George W. Bush said that working to meet its targets would seriously damage the U.S. economy. He has also argued that warming is a natural, not man-made, process. "

The Kyoto Protocol was signed by the US in 1997, But in July, 1999, the Senate voted 95-0 on an amendment essentially stating that Congress would not ratify the treaty unless China and India were forced to participate more. The US could NOT have withdrawn in 2001, because it never ratified the treaty!

It's always Bush's fault!

After the fact, it dawned on me that it was an interesting coincidence that I happened to catch an interview with Wes Clark on the radio on Friday, and then Milosevic died over the weekend. It made me reflect back on the whole Kosovo intervention back during the Clinton admin.

Funny how much less outrage there was over us going to war without the blessing of the UN back then, huh? It's been like ten years, and Milosevic was still on trial when he died. It' s interesting to contrast that war with Iraq. Like Iraq, Kosovo was done without the UN's blessing. Unlike Iraq, Clinton didn't even bother to ask. Militarily, Kosovo was done entirely from the air, no ground troops. We know about Iraq.

We've seen the aftermath of Kosovo from nearly ten years remove. From what I can gather, the picture remains pretty muddled there. What will Iraq look like in ten years?

Speculation: Maybe better, precisely because we did it the hard way. Real change is difficult. Is anything really better in the Balkans today?


Surprise! The Drug Bill is a success! Like any big bureaucracy, getting started was difficult, but now the program is polling quite well. http://www.ahip.org/. The frickin' thing is actually costing 20% LESS than expected.

Good day in the market today. Dow up 75, Nazz up 26.

W has let it be known that he wants some of the millions of Iraqi documents we recovered after the invasion made public. Only something like 2% have even been translated. CBS, of all, actually broadcast some tapes of Saddam's government meetings where he talked about deceiving inspectors, and about a nascent plasma uranium enrichment program.

Watch out. Democrats running on the Bush Lied ticket may have some splainin' to do.

Great thought-provoking piece by David Warren. What if Islam itself is irreconcilable with the West, with modernity?

That's the real elephant in the room. We're coming face-to-face with some hard realities. As Warren notes, the Bush doctrine is built on a conceit that the mass of the Islamic world seeks peaceful coexistence with the West. If we could only remove those tyrannies and let the inherent love of freedom that exists in all of us take root, the thinking goes,we could all live together in harmony.

It is, I suggest, a generous, profoundly hopeful worldview that is at the same time hopelessly Christian, Euro-centric and American. It is for those reasons that I believe we should stick to it.

I believe that a worldview can have the power to shape destiny. I choose to believe that the desire for freedom beats in every heart because I choose to believe that life has meaning and value. If I believe that life has meaning and value, then in a very real way, it does. My belief system animates my reality.

Belief systems control the way we think and behave. Thus the central role of faith in religion.

Freedom is the antidote to extremism. Would a man who believes in the value and meaning of his own life blow himself up?

What we believe matters. Is Islam irreconcilable with freedom? I don't know. But I do know one thing. I am irreconcilable with Islam if it isn't.

"I'm very democratic," he says after a time. "I think I'm the most democratic writer whom I know personally, though I don't know all writers of course." Silence. "I also believe in the United States. I think this is the greatest nation that ever existed, still is. It's really the only really democratic country in the world. Find me one country, just one country in the entire world that would let a foreign people -- different culture, different language, and in many cases different color than the majority of the native stock -- take over politically an entire metropolitan area in less than one generation. I'm talking about the Cubans in Miami . . ."
Mr. Wolfe has a habit of using experience and anecdote to gird an argument or shade a meaning, and he carries on like this for some time. Then, abruptly: "I really love this country. I just marvel at how good it is, and obviously it's the simple principle of freedom. . . . Intellectually this is the system where people tend to experiment more and their experiments are indulged. Whatever we're doing I think we've done it extremely, extremely, extremely well." Silence. "These are terrible things to be saying if you want to have any standing in the intellectual world." Tom Wolfe, in the Wall St. Journal this morning.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114204279173895576.html?mod=opinion_main_featured_stories_hs Read the whole thing.

Dow up 104 yesterday on better than expected jobs creation. Someday, I hope someone will properly recognize the yeoman work of Alan Greenspan and the administration in negotiating the post-bubble, post 9/11 economic landscape. It seems to me that the expansion has shifted into a self-sustaining mode now, which in my judgment is nothing short of miraculous.

The great American wealth-creating machinery continues to hum. One thing we can all be grateful for is that the opportunity to get rich is alive and well. I think rich people are underappreciated. Rich people create jobs, support cultural institutions, and pay most of the taxes in this country. They ask very little in return for the giant contributions they make, except to be left alone to continue doing what they do. Policies that create more rich people should be enacted.

Just had to pass this one on.

Was listening to the Ed Schultz show (I know, what was I thinking) and caught an interview with Wesley Clark. Clark was dancing that fine line between trying to pander to Schultz's audience, and being honest, and actually was doing an ok job. About Iraq, Clark was suitably pessimistic about the final outcome, but he was unambiguously against surrender. Not bad.

Then the whopper. Schultz asked Clark what he thought about the Dubai ports deal, and Clark said something to the effect of, "Well, George Bush taught us all to hate Arabs, so what did he expect?" Whoa!

For a moment, I was truly depressed to contemplate the depths to which political discourse has plummeted.

Then I thought, hmmm, do I detect a little uneasiness about this deal on the left? I mean, sure, the Democrats attempted an end run around the right, which was promptly stuffed by Republicans in Congress, but they may have ceded the vital middle ground to the President.

All of a sudden, George Bush, of all people, looks kind of reasonable. Go figure.

A couple of random Friday rants:

-If port security is so bad, how come nothing has blown up yet?

-If racial profiling is so bad, why can't Dubai run some terminals?

-If the deficit is so bad, why is the Dow at 11000?

-Does anyone truly believe that the party of Ted Kennedy would be better at rescuing people from water?

-Can't wait for the new Soprano's

-Watch out for the 'Cuse!

Dubai Deal Dead

This was one of those sordid Washington episodes where no one came out looking good. We had Republicans turning on the President, we had Republicans turning on each other. In an unusual turn of events,we had Chuck Schumer in front of the cameras. And right there in the thick of the action, in a reprise of her starring role in the Monica Lewinsky fiasco, we had Hillary Clinton shocked, shocked to find that Bill has been cozying up to the crown prince of Dubai for years.



Somebody explain to me again how these two jokers got to be two of the most powerful people in America.

Now, this is unquestionably an embarassment for the President. No one, probably least of all the President himself will tell you that the Administration got the politics right on this one, but, my oh my, the elephant in the room surely has to be "What the fuck is Bill Clinton doing with the crown prince ?" How did all that Dubai dough end up in the Clinton's bank account?

Just when that "culture of corruption" thing was catching on, along come Bill and Hillary to show us all what pikers Republicans really are.

The truly ironic thing about this transaction is that it was probably a good one. In the dazzling confluence of money, power and influence that is Washington, D.C., isn't it possible that someone could cook up a deal where Bill Clinton gets to make a few bucks and it doesn't harm the Republic?

Ready, fire, AIM!

Propaganda

Recent translations of Al Qaeda documents show that AQ believes it's in an information war. The other day, Donald Rumsfeld lamented the fact that the US, with all its multi-media capabilities, is being out-gunned in this vital aspect of warfare.

We have some brilliant propagandists in America, it's just that right now they all seem to be working for the enemy.

Someday, perhaps someone can explain to me what happened to this country between 9/11 and today. We went from being unified, to being polarized like I cannot remember. I'm trying to pinpoint the moment where we lost half the country.

Which gets me back to the information war. Was it Abu Ghraib? Look back at that story. Did CBS have to publish those pictures? At the time, there was no true news value to the story. The Pentagon was already investigating. CBS was not bringing anything to the attention of the authorities. The most plausible explanation for running the story with the pictures was to embarass the American military. There was a time when American media might have taken a pass on publishing something like that.

It is an information war. Perception is reality. Our enemies have studied the history of the Vietnam war. They have learned that the American military is invincible, but that America can still be had if you can get hold of the opinion-making apparatus. If memory serves, CBS was "unhelpful" to America's war effort in Vietnam, too. Supposedly, Lyndon Johnson said, "If we've lost Cronkite, we've lost the American people."

So why is it that our own media is serving as the propaganda arm for Zarqawi and bin Laden? I want you, my many readers, (intentional irony)to think about what perceptions about the war you are getting. Most of the discussion in the media is now in the form of some sort of post mortem, where commentators talk about the war as if it is over and lost, and discussion consists of analysis of where we went wrong. The media is in "When did you stop beating your wife?" mode.

It's a time-honored debating trick. We begin from the premise that the argument is already won.

The argument is not won. The war is neither over, nor lost. There is no civil war. Iraq is on its way to democracy; an admittedly messy and bloody process but one in which Iraqi's have hope for their future:
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/crawford200603070834.asp

Life, indeed, sometimes does imitate the Onion http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45793


Cheers

Today's thought-provoking piece by Michael Barone http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-3_6_06_MB.html explores the intensity with which many on the left hold to their conviction that Saddam couldn't have had a connection with Al Qaeda. As is the case with so much surrounding Iraq, there's some smoke, not yet any fire.

From a purely speculative point of view, it has always seemed to me that that would be exactly what Saddam would want us to believe, if he intended to strike us through a surrogate. Can you say, "disinformation"?

Needless to say, should it ever become evident that "The Connection" did exist, it would be a profound humiliation for the "professionals" in our intelligence, and perhaps some of them are obstructing the discovery of that information.

Many's the time when I have hoped for unimpeachable evidence that Saddam had WMD, and that he colluded with bin Laden. It would truly be a great moment to watch Michael Moore, Kos, and Howard Dean squirm with that one.

But I'm a Buffalo Bills fan. I know what it's like to wait for that moment of vindication that never comes. So I am at peace with the fact that:
1) There may in fact have been no weapons and no connection
2)They may have been there, but any hard proof is down the rathole
3) They may have been there, proof may exist, but it cannot be disclosed due to fear of compromising an ally

So, I believe war apologists, and I count myself as one, need to base their position on the decision-making process in the absence of certainty. Rather than fixating on intelligence certainty, which is a fantasy, one needs to weigh the various choices regarding going to war from the perspective of one who does not, in fact have certainty.

To me, the catastrophic risk of Saddam passing WMD to Al Qaeda, whether we were sure he had them or not, and whether we were sure of a connection to Al qaeda or not, was reason enough to take him out. Yes, many thousands of Iraqi's and Americans have been killed, but potentially hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were at risk had we not taken action.

For many, I feel that this will be a deeply unsatisfying result. It would be sooo much better to have that incontrovertable proof. (Here's where the Buffalo Bills analogy comes in) Ultimately, I came to realize there was true greatness in that run of four Super Bowl losses; a kind of nobility really. To get up and press on without that ultimate reward three more times took a kind of resolve that few people can comprehend. They embodied sport, of which we always say, "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game."

Likewise, the Administration may never get the vindication so fondly hoped for. They may have it, but be unable to use it. They may never get that "I told you so" moment. If so, remember, that Bush and Blair made the only choice they could have made, and take comfort in the knowledge that these two men at a key moment in history, without the benefit of perfect knowledge, or hindsight, made a choice that in the fullness of time, will still prove to be right.

Good News From Iraq

Quick, when you saw that headline, what was your reaction? Was it hopeful? Skeptical? Maybe disappointed? Admit it. Did part of you wish for complete chaos last week after the mosque bombing? Is it more important for you emotionally for Bush to be wrong, than for your country to succeed?

Just askin'...

Follow this link: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64677.htm for a great story. The Civil War that wasn't. To all my comrades on the left--don't you get tired of being wrong all the time?

What is truly tragic about all this is that somehow we've gotten to the point where at least half the country is emotionally and intellectually invested in our country's failure.

If there is one valid criticism of the Bush presidency, it is this: How did we get here? How could they have lost control of the message so badly?

I imagine critics will say that it was the choices they made. Policy. "We had the whole world behind us after 9/11, and this President squandered it." But, I wonder, were they really so behind us then, or were they secretly enjoying seeing America laid low. Suddenly, their own shortcomings didn't seem so bad. It's like watching the king and queen of the prom tripping and falling into the mud. You feel sorry for them, sure, but secretly you're enjoying that they suddenly don't look so superior.

Ever notice how everybody always hates the Boss? I've had lots of bosses in my life, some were great guys, some were SOB's, but it really didn't matter. For most people, just the fact that they were the boss was enough to make them hate them.

I think there's a little bit of that dynamic going on in the rest of the world's relationship with America. We're the biggest kid on the block, the king and queen of the prom and the Boss all rolled up into one, and I've got news for you--they hate us.

After 9/11, I suspect much of the world thought, "Well, this will bring them to their senses. Now they'll finally see the error of their ways." Instead, here comes George Bush, unapologetic, unbowed, saying effectively, "We're not changing. Instead, we're going to effect change elsewhere." And may I add, God Bless him for that. Let me state for myself that I'm not changing anything. I'm a free man and I will never yield to terror. I'm not interested in going back to the sixth century, and I'm not surrendering one iota of my hard-earned lifestyle.

I love America, and I love her for what she really is, not for what I wish she was. I love NFL Football, SUV's, eating meat, rock'n roll, NASCAR (ok, maybe not NASCAR), the Star Spangled Banner (NOT America the Beautiful), Wal-Mart and McDonalds. I like talking on the phone while I'm driving my big German automobile and I love Marlboro cigarettes. I think Global Warming is probably bullshit, just like Global Cooling was bullshit in the '70's. I love American abundance and I make no apologies for it. Somebody give me a cheeseburger!

So to anyone who thinks they're going to impose their lifestyle on me, forgetaboutit. Not going to happen. In fact, if there's any lifestyle imposing going on, let me suggest to the rest of the world that we'll be the ones doing the imposing.

So I think that's what's going on here. I think much of the rest of the world, and maybe about a third of Americans think that America should have just bent over and taken her medicine after 9/11 and retreated from the rest of the world, and start driving those pathetic little shitboxes they drive around in Europe.

Ha!

Some of you no doubt are thinking, "See, that's exactly why they hate us." Wrong. They hate us anyway. We're the Boss. They hate the nice bosses, too. In fact, they're the ones that usually get eaten alive.

Update:

AP FRIDAY NIGHT CLARIFICATION ON BUSH/KATRINA VIDEO Fri Mar 03 2006 19:48:29 ET
Clarification: Katrina-Video storyASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.
The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.
The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn't until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.
To further clarify the AP clarification: Bush was told that the levees could be overrun (which is still inaccurate as a technicality, but as good as we are likely to get from the media), or topped, not breached.

"Breached", not "Topped". It was fun today to see the entire media sail off like Emily Litella getting tripped up like on one of those tricky word problems on the SAT's. Today's Big Story was all about a videotape that shows, among other things, someone giving a presentation to the President prior to Katrina saying that it was possible that the levees could be "topped", meaning that some water could spill over the tops of them.

Days later, the President was quoted as saying, "I don't think anyone anticipated the levees would be breached." "Breached". Not "Topped". "Breached" is what happened, meaning that the levees actually gave way. This discrepancy did not concern the press, who universally ran with the story that the President was caught in some sort of lie.

What it really showed was that the Mainstream Media got everything, and I mean everything, wrong in New Orleans. In the early going, they vastly overstated the magnitude of the fatalities. They repeated rumors as fact, like the story that some young girl had been raped and had her throat slit at the Superdome. Never happened. They glossed over the roles of the Mayor and the Governor and laid the vastly overblown blame solely at the feet of FEMA.

Michael Brown became the designated scapegoat and the President was berated mercilessly for saying, "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job." In the most ironic twist of all, in the tape it is Michael Brown who seems most in command of the situation. Bizarrely, today I heard a commentator accusing the President of scapegoating Brown, now that Brown can be seen as having accurately foreseen the problems.

What is truly distasteful about all this is the relentless politicization of this tragedy. Why is Bush the story? Based on this tape, it seems to me that the Administration was pretty cognizant of the problem and knew what was coming. It was, by the way, reasonable to be concerned about levee topping. It is true that nobody anticipated a breach.

I wish someone could tell me what exactly FEMA should have done that they didn't. Where is an actual analysis of what went wrong? My own feeling is that the politics are driving this story, and that Mainstream Media is all too happy to use it to damage the Administration, particularly among African-Americans. What would an in-depth analysis reveal? My guess is that we would find the lion's share of the blame would fall on the Democratic Mayor and Governor. Can't have that! And, if the Administration tries to defend itself, it is immediately cast as "shifting the blame". Can't win.

Ultimately, however, it's the American people and what's left of the Dinosaur Media that suffer. Each time the media plays the advocate, they sacrifice a little more of their credibility. I know I'm not the only one who sees through this garbage. And then I, and an Army of Davids (ht: Glenn Reynolds and Instapundit) start to chip away at the lies.

Result? The audience for the Dinosaurs gets smaller and smaller, and stupider and stupider; and the American people get less and less well informed. A successful democracy depends on a population that has accurate information upon which to base its decisions.

So that's why I sit here pecking at these keys, and posting this little item out there in the blogosphere. The truth shall set you free!