Aiieee!

Israel

Have you looked at memeorandum today? I count 65 separate wire reports and blog postings on the current Middle East conflict. Sixty-frickin’-five. And while I have no delusions of ever seeing EIP linked on memeorandum, I’m going to subject you to Item Number 66 on this issue.

This is a difficult post for me to write, and a first, of sorts. I’ve never commented on the Israeli – Palestinian conflict, and there are a number of reasons. First and foremost, this conflict has been going on for so long (ever since the very day Israel came into existence, back in 1947) that it’s scarcely news; the conflict ebbs and flows, flares up and then recedes, as it has done for the duration of my entire adult life. The conflict also has every indication of being supremely intractable, i.e., there appears to be no solution. Secondly, I feel most everyone has an opinion on this issue, everyone has chosen their “side,” so any thoughts I have to offer will only elicit vigorous head-nods in one direction or the other. Unless, of course, you just emerged from a 30-year coma or have been living in a cave all these many years. And lastly, it’s difficult for me to collect my thoughts, given their scattered and fragmented nature, into a set of coherent statements. But I’m going to try.

Here’s what I know:

Israel withdrew from Gaza about a year ago, handing over complete sovereignty over the territory to the Palestinians.

In the year since Israel withdrew from Gaza, the Palestinians held general elections and elected a government run by Hamas, to the dismay of nearly everyone (the US, the EU, the Israelis) except the Palestinians. Hamas, as is well-known, has embraced violence as a means to achieve their goals, including suicide bombings and direct military attacks on Israeli territory. And Hamas continues to wage war against Israel. Case in point: there have been over 1,000 rockets launched into Israel from Gaza since the Israeli withdrawal.

The US and the EU withdrew financial support for the Palestinian government after Hamas refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Even under severe economic pressure, Hamas, to this very day, still refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist and continues to wage a low-intensity conflict against Israel.

The current madness began in Gaza, when Palestinian forces (terrorists, militia, whatever) tunneled into Israel, assaulted an Israeli Defense Force position, and kidnapped an IDF corporal. Without embellishment, this was an incursion of a sovereign nation by hostile forces. Israel had every right to march into Gaza to (a) try and free the captive corporal and (b) establish a buffer zone to prevent further rocket attacks on Israeli territory from Gaza.

And then Hezbollah escalated the conflict by launching a raid into Israel from Lebanon and taking two IDF soldiers hostage. Israel is holding the Lebanese government responsible for the actions of Hezbollah and has initiated military actions against Hezbollah strongholds.

And here we are. It certainly appears this conflict is going to escalate into yet another full-scale war.

Why did Hezbollah get involved? Some say the Iranians, by unleashing their Hezbollah proxies, are behind the escalation of the current conflict. Chester has a well-reasoned analysis of this theory. He says, in part:

But even if Iran didn't set in motion the current crisis, there's no reason to believe it doesn't want to profit from it.

If Larijani is in Damascus, my guess is they're trying to keep Israel from declaring war on Syria at all costs. Consider:

-Syria is militarily extremely weak compared to Israel
-Iran is not only weaker than Israel, it has no easy method of threatening Israel, save with missiles of questionable accuracy.
-Israel can strike Syria from the air with impunity.

Now consider: from the Iranian and Syrian standpoint, the best course of action is to vex the Israelis as much as possible via their Hamas and Hezbollah proxies. So long as this happens, Israel does take the headlines, and the attention span at the G8. But as soon as Israel declares war on Syria, or commits an act of war, which might be the same thing, then events start to turn sour for the Iranians:

-Iran will have to declare war on Israel or risk losing face in the region, since it has pledged to defend Syria
-Syria's government would likely fall; what might follow it is anyone's guess; what does follow might not be nearly as close to Iranian interests
-Israel and the US have never fought on the same side at the same time, but Lord (and Yahweh) knows they'll help each other in other ways. If a three-way war breaks out, and Israel requested US permission to use bases in Iraq for strikes against Iran, even for refueling, the US might grant them their wish. Alternatively, it was rumored long ago that Israel had set up a deal with the Kurds to use Kurdish bases for strikes into Iran. The same might be true of Turkey, which has no love for Iran either.

Interesting theory, that. Interesting in the sense that the Iranians, and to a lesser extent, the Syrians, feel the time is ripe to provoke the Israelis and engage them once again. Interesting in the sense that actions by militant proxy organizations further the ultimate goal of destroying Israel. Interesting in the sense that Iran and Syria used to understand the US will not let Israel be destroyed. Interesting that the Iranians and Syrians (apparently) feel the US has been sufficiently weakened by the Iraq war that our intervention is improbable. I can further speculate this reasoning is no doubt encouraged by things the Iranian leadership read in, say, the New York Times. Public opinion, and all that.

All arcane conspiracy theories aside, one is left with the following question: Just how much can the Israelis take? Just how much should they take before they say “enough is enough” and unleash the dogs of total war? Israel is a democracy. Israel has built a successful and vibrant nation under the most trying circumstances imaginable. Israel has never launched a “war of aggression;” in the past they have only responded to their neighbors’ invasions, from the 1947 war, to the Six-Day War, to the Yom Kippur War. They have been remarkably restrained in their response to the Palestinian Intifada(s). All this in the face of implacable foes whose stated aim is the eradication of Israel, whose culture glorifies jihad and whose government (?) force-feeds the masses anti-Israeli rhetoric 7x24. The Palestinians do not negotiate in good faith, they do not want a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and they refuse to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

I repeat: How much can the Israelis take?

Update: 07/13/2006 1555hrs MDT. Haifa hit by rocket attack.

In its July 13 rocket attack against Haifa, Israel, radical Shiite Islamist movement Hezbollah likely used Fajr rockets that the group was thought -- but never proven -- to have received from Iran several years ago. In fact, rumor had it that Hezbollah had obtained both the Fajr-3 and the Fajr-5 rockets. Fajr-3 has a range of 28 miles, giving it the ability to hit Haifa from southern Lebanon.

Wandering Around on Wednesday

Some days I cruise around the ‘sphere and don’t find much of anything that tickles my fancy. Today is not one of those days.

Cassandra is good today, very good. I encourage you to go by her place and read her “Must Read of the Day,” an address by General Michael R. Lehnert, the Commanding General of Marine Corps Installations West, to The Military Affairs Advisory Council in San Diego. Gen. Lehnert begins his speech with…

Eight days ago, I was present in the audience when Tom Brokaw addressed the 2006 Stanford graduating class. After the initial pleasantries and one-liners, Mr. Brokaw said something unexpected.

He told the class that they were the children of privilege, fortunate to be attending one of the finest educational institutions in the country, the anointed because they had both the test scores for admittance and parents who were able to afford their tuition. He noted that they could likely expect rapid advancement in almost any endeavor they choose and that they were destined to lead the most powerful country in the world.

The class was beaming.

And then Brokaw reminded them that the liberties and freedoms they enjoyed were being defended by young people their age that did not have their advantages. That at this time thousands of men and women were fighting, dying and suffering debilitating injury to ensure that the rest of us could live the American dream.

There was an uncomfortable shifting in the seats, followed by slow but growing applause from the audience.

When we sent my son to Stanford four years ago, we filled out a form asking for demographic information. One of the questions for the parents said, what is your profession? After it was a list of about thirty professions including doctor, lawyer, congressman, educator, architect. Military was not listed so I filled in "other"

My son was the only graduate who had a parent serving in the armed forces.

As I was introduced to his friends parents, it was interesting to watch their reaction. Few had ever spoken to a member of the military. One asked me how my son was able to gain admittance with the disadvantage of having to attend "those DoD schools". Many voiced support for our military and told me that they'd have served but clearly military service was not for their kind of people.

This year of the so-called elite schools, Princeton led them with nine graduates electing military service. Compare that with 1956 when over 400 of the Princeton graduating class entered the military. Most of the other Ivy League schools had no one entering the military this year.

I assume the emphasis is Cassandra’s, but no matter. The speech just gets better, and better, and better. I know a speech like this is “preaching to the choir” for you, constant reader, but please: do go read. And share it with your friends.

While we’re on about Cassandra, she also pointed James Lileks to this miserable column by the totally clue-free and supremely irritating Joel Stein. Remember Joel? If the name is faintly familiar, he’s the guy who wrote another miserable little column titled “I Don’t Support the Troops Warriors and Wusses.” (FWIW, I commented here.) This time he’s showing his ass thusly, and on the Fourth of July, no less:

I WALKED out Saturday afternoon to discover an American flag planted outside my house, like the work of some incredibly stupid explorer.

My first panic was that, like the North Pole or the moon, the United States was laying claim to my house. I was finally getting payback for not reading those long, boring articles about eminent domain. But my bigger panic was over what to do with it. I'm not a flag-waving kind of guy, but I knew damn well that I couldn't just throw it in the trash. Throwing away a flag is very, very bad. It's just as bad as burning it, which, I believe, brings 30 years of bad luck to your country, leading it to repeat the same mistakes. Like sending troops abroad to fight in open-ended civil wars.

So I was going to have to keep this flag for the rest of my life.

Much like you, at about this point, my wife, Cassandra, got sick of this conversation. So she plucked the flag out of our planter and threw it away, not even in the recycle bin. This is a woman who hates both political parties.

Mr. Lileks was just a little bit offended and devotes a goodly portion of today’s Bleat to ripping Mr. Stein a new one. The Lileks closes with this:

I suspect, perhaps unfairly, that “I love being American” (ed: Stein’s comment) is as deep and profound a statement as “I love the warm feeling of freedom I get when I pee in the pool.” Not that he would want public urination in a communal locale to be the sole basis of his identity, of course, but that’s how I see him now: one guy bobbing in the water, alone among many, a private smile on his face, thinking: like I’m the only one.

Hanging a flag is a sign of an unquestioning, tribal, us-versus-them, arrogant mentality, eh? FDR would have stood up from his wheelchair just to walk across the room and slap you silly.

That’s “just” the end. Like a lot of other things in life, it ain’t the destination, it’s the journey that counts. There are few better at the art of the takedown than James; once again, do go read.

For what it’s worth, I’ve never met an individual like Mr. Stein, and by that I mean a person who would be offended by the very sight of an American flag on his lawn. Never. Perhaps I move in society’s lower circles, or perhaps I don’t get out often enough. I tend to think it’s neither of those reasons; I’d like to think that Mr. Stein is a member of an incredibly small minority, a minority that gets too much attention from the majority. And I’ve already given that SOB waaay too much of my time today.

About the terrorist attacks in Bombay… The death toll is now 200. The very first thing that crossed my mind was “Why Bombay? What have the Indians done to offend the Islamofascists?” Neo has an answer to my question that is hard to refute. Along with some good links to other opinions and information on the subject.

Applause, Aggro, and Astonishment

It’s been awhile since I sang the praises of Radio Paradise, and there are a couple of reasons for that. Number one: their playlist was beginning to get on my nerves. I was hearing waaay too much Arctic Monkeys and sensitive, whiny, singer-songwriters (of both genders, but the males irritate me the most). Number two: I had about a two week run of extremely unreliable and erratic ‘net connectivity, which, in turn, made listening to internet radio impossible due to drop-outs and buffering issues. Well, my ‘net connection has been pretty reliable these last few days and RP’s playlist has evolved, or changed, or moved on…whatever. They’re sounding very good once again, and as such have reemerged as the soundtrack of my life. Where else will you hear a song-cycle like this?

5:24 am - Glenn Miller - A String of Pearls
5:19 am - David Byrne - Hanging Upside Down
5:16 am - Los Lobos - This Time
5:11 am - Bob Dylan - Most of the Time
5:08 am - Split Enz - One Step Ahead
5:05 am - The Jam - That's Entertainment
5:01 am - Tom Petty - Saving Grace
4:55 am - Ray Charles - What'd I Say (Parts I & II)
4:52 am - Thelonious Monk - Straight, No Chaser
4:45 am - Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

This is more than eclectic…it’s fantastic!

About my ISP… The service is frustrating, what with the occasional outages and the frequent slow-downs. I pay for a 384Kb connection, but there are times when my connection speed drops down to 9.6Kb, or less, and stays that way for an hour or two or four. Then it comes back. Then it goes away. I’ve had a few conversations with the techies at my ISP and they’re at a loss to explain but are always quick to suggest the issue may be on my end, e.g., some nasty virus, a Trojan, a bad network card, etc. Sorry, Guys, but I’ve heard all that sort of stuff before, and have used most of those excuses myself, back in the day when I ran a Site Operations Center for a living. Intermittent computer problems, whether on the desktop or on the network, are the most difficult issues to resolve. I should cross my fingers or knock on wood as I write this, because I’ve had no connectivity issues for the past week or so.

Hopefully all those issues will go away by the end of the year. My ISP has a large on-going project to provide “fiber-to-the-prem” for the entire city of Portales, and the project is due to be completed by the end of the year. The last I heard the project was actually ahead of schedule, which is highly unusual for any IT project. I can’t wait. A direct fiber connection should give me multi-megabit connectivity to the outside world, which means streaming video, which in turn means instant access to those C-SPAN programs I wanted to see but missed in real-time, web pages that load in a snap, and so on. I’m wondering how much I’m gonna have to pay for this luxury, but in the end I’ll pay, whatever the cost. Well, within reason, of course.

Yesterday I mentioned being astonished by the fact the Japanese publicly announced they were considering whether or not their constitution permitted a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. There are a few reasons for my astonishment, first and foremost was the absolute frankness of the announcement. The language of international diplomacy, at least among the civilized world, is about as murky, vague, and non-specific as language can be. The classic example is the post-meeting description of high level diplomatic exchanges as “frank,” as in “we had frank discussions.” This, of course, is code for “he insulted my mother and several junior members of the negotiating team had to be restrained from leaping across the table and bludgeoning the opposition to death with water carafes.” This rule doesn’t apply to certified nut cases like Ahmadinejad or Jong-il. I did say “civilized.”

The second reason is the basic nature of the Japanese, their culture, and their language. The Japanese are anything but blunt, and are quite possibly the most nuanced culture on earth, rarely uttering a direct statement on or about anything, unless it’s ordering dinner. But in affairs of the heart or affairs of international diplomacy they are most circumspect. Thus: astonishment.

And lastly, to use the street vernacular, you "don’t let your mouth write checks your ass can’t cash.” The simple fact is the Japanese can’t cash the pre-emptive strike check right now. They have next to nothing in the way of offensive capability at the moment. But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t ramp up very quickly; they most certainly could. Names like Mitsubishi and Kawasaki Heavy Industries used to be famous for a helluva lot more than spiffy little cars, stereos, TVs, and motorcycles. The Japanese have the technology, they have the industrial capacity, and they have the financial wherewithal to become a regional military power almost overnight. The issue is “do they have the will?” I think the answer is “yes, provided there is a clear and present danger.” The danger is real, indeed.

We certainly are living in interesting times.

Monday's Mundane Musings

It was an interesting weekend, in a perverse sort of way. Saturday was completely wasted. I was up all night Friday evening (note the time on Saturday’s post, I hit the hay shortly thereafter) and as a result, slept most of the day Saturday in an off-and-on manner. Thankfully I’m back to what passes as normal these days, i.e., turned in just after midnite Saturday evening, awoke around 0500 Sunday, watched Washington Journal, made my rounds, and then went out and made some real, as opposed to virtual, rounds. And they were good. Nothing exceptional, mind you. Just a great day for a drive at exhilarating— read that: excessive— speeds on two-lane highways with the top down and the Rolling Stones UP, way up, startling the farm animals (and a couple of farmers, too) as I blew by.

When it comes to convertibles there’s a definite comfort window, and that window opens around 65 degrees and closes just below 90 degrees. Above and below that window sensible people put their tops up and engage their on-board climate control systems, as God intended. Yesterday was just about dead-solid perfect, being as how the temp was in the low 70s when I embarked and only hit the mid-80s by the time I got back home in the early evening. I’ll bet convertible people living in San Diego rarely give this phenomenon a second, or even first, thought, seeing as how their temps rarely deviate from the optimum 72 degrees, ± 3 degrees. Ah, but they pay for that climatic luxury, both in terms of filthy lucre and in having to deal with the large numbers of unbalanced interesting people that sort of weather seems to attract. (Present company excepted, Bec!)

Lileks has updated his on-going series, “Bathing Beauties.” He’s up to the end of the Sixties now, having added the 30s, 40s, and 50s since I last pointed you in his direction. You can begin here, if you so desire, as the “index” link is broken. While the photos are great, it’s his commentary that really makes it, for me. The 60s high-fashion bathing suits are a real hoot! Leather!

Why is it that high-fashion of the past generally invokes laughter, rather than a wistful “those were the days” sort of reaction? Your mileage may vary, of course, but I always feel semi-stupid when I look at pictures of myself and friends from, say, the 70s. It’s as if we were habitually on our way to some sort of costume party…and that was our (my) everyday mode of dressing, not “high-fashion.” The one possible exception to this rule is the 1930s. I’ve always thought men and women looked rather elegant in those days, at least those men and women portrayed in 30s era movies and magazines.

There’s just one item in today’s news that caught my attention:

TOKYO - Japan said Monday it was considering whether a pre-emptive strike on North Korea's missile bases would violate its constitution, signaling a hardening stance ahead of a possible U.N. Security Council vote on Tokyo's proposal for sanctions against the regime. The vote itself could be delayed for several days, a news agency reported.

[…]

Japan was badly rattled by North Korea's missile tests last week and several government officials openly discussed whether the country ought to take steps to better defend itself, including setting up the legal framework to allow Tokyo to launch a pre-emptive strike against Northern missile sites.

"If we accept that there is no other option to prevent an attack ... there is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense. We need to deepen discussion," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said.

Whoa! Let me say that again: Whoa! Say what? I agree with Tigerhawk, this is astonishing:

Did you see that as it whizzed by? The Japanese are talking publicly about a preemptive sneak attack. Astonishing.

Captain Ed opines:

Abe wants to put pressure on Beijing with this announcement, not Pyongyang. Kim is too irrational to care about Tokyo; he has his eyes fixed on Washington. Hu Jintao operates on a more rational basis, however, and he will have a choice between propping up the North Korean nutcase or losing trillions of dollars to an arms race on which he had not counted. Japan wants Jintao to understand just how expensive Kim Jong-Il will become in the next few months and years unless Beijing puts a leash on their boy.

The Captain has a point. It’s bound to get Beijing’s attention when the Japanese start rattling sabers. China’s gerontocracy still has personal memories of World War II and those memories certainly aren’t good or pleasant. Without belaboring the point (atrocities, and all that), the last thing China would like to see is the reemergence of a militaristic Japan, or even a Japan with a military that is not constitutionally-bound to self-defense, and only self-defense. The semi-belligerent statements by the Japanese may be just what’s needed to get Beijing off the dime and actually do something to rein in that Jong-il idiot. Let us pray.

A Summer Sunday

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And it looks just like this. I think I'll get out in it. In other words, I don't have anything to say today...other than I'm going to be out and about.

See ya tomorrow!

Further to “She Said”

Well now, that post was a downer, wasn’t it?

For what it’s worth, I feel compelled to assure you that I am, in fact, ≥95% fully-functional. I am not paralyzed by grief, I have not become a misogynist, and when I get depressed it’s usually mild and fleeting. In other words: life goes on. Appointments are made and kept, El Casa Móvil De Pennington gets cleaned, meals are cooked and consumed on something resembling a fixed schedule, and my relationships are in good order (mostly). What I was on about in that post was those times in the early morning when the sadness surfaces, and it’s a solitary thing these days. One thing I’ve learned is that there is a limit to tolerance in others towards your personal misfortune. Immediate family has the most, close friends are next, and strangers don’t give a damn. But even family expects you to “get on with it,” at some point in time. And so you do. Or pretend to, if you can’t.

Gerard wrote:

After some years had passed it surprised me to realize that I had not really thought of her for months. It was surprising to notice that my once nightly mantra of secret thoughts centered on all the wrongs done, and all the years of my child's life stolen from me, had retreated to a much more infrequent pattern. I was relieved that the thoughts that always spiraled down into the dark (where I would imagine the worst sort of things happening to the woman I once loved above all others) had faded to a sometime thing.

I’m not quite there yet, as in not thinking of her for months. The best I can claim is days. She is still my frame of reference. How could she not be? I spent over half my adult life with the woman, if one defines “adulthood” as beginning at 18, that much more than half if adulthood begins at 21, and if you want to double-down on adjectives, three-quarters of my “responsible” adult life. Her presence is felt every morning when I sugar my coffee from the dispenser she nicked from the Notre Dame dining hall as an undergrad. She picked out the wine glasses in my cupboard, handled every piece of silverware in the drawer, cut the top off the gallon Italian olive oil can that serves as the repository for my ladles, tongs, spatulas, and whisks. My butter dish was a wedding gift…and on, and on, and on. And that’s just the frickin’ kitchen! I won’t begin to go into music, because that’s the worst.

I think it takes a long time to obliterate the memories that come with 23 years of a bonded life, if it’s even possible. Gerard is correct: it’s a relief when your visits to the well become a sometime, rather than a constant, thing. When I think back to the first year or two after the breakup, the time when I went to that well and never left, I marvel at the fact I was able to hold on to my job. I did the therapy thing for a while, but quit when the best thing my therapist could offer was “sometimes bad things happen to good people.” The woman was good at what she did and we got along quite well. We reached a point, however, when we both acknowledged it was all up to me, she’d done all she could do.

I also spent some time on anti-depressants, an experience I wouldn’t recommend to anyone except those with serious depression, e.g., suicidal types of disorders. Anti-depressant drugs simply make you numb and the sexual side effects are intolerable. Any street pharmacologist has better and more fun drugs that accomplish much the same thing, without the nasty side effects (unless you get busted). In the end, it’s time and time alone that heals. Or perhaps it’s memory loss. Hell, I don’t know!

But really: I’m OK. It’s just that Gerard hit a nerve, and that nerve still happens to be close to the surface.

She Said

Gerard van der Leun has posted a provocative and very introspective essay on lost love, vengeance, and the internal dialog that transpires at the dread hour of 4:00 a.m.

Gerard:

Nothing good ever transpires in an argument carried past 2AM, and it grows almost lethal as it winds on until 4. It doesn't matter whether or not the argument is with another or just with oneself, let it run that long into the night and you will know -- cold and stained -- the darkest secrets of the self. And you will drink them down as night after night and year after year they are drawn up from the heart's core. And the water will be dank and false and carry an ever increasing taint of poison into your soul. Tasted once, you will have a ceaseless thirst for more of it.

I've been drinking my dark bitter glass from my secret well of hate in the dark hours on and off for what is now going on fifteen years. That's a strange measure since it marks just about the same length of time that I loved the woman and was married to her.

His essay hit me where I live. There are strong parallels between Gerard’s experience and my own, but although our experiences are similar, they are not identical. I’ve lived the “victim” role he writes about so well. I know of the rationalizations, the denial, and the projection of selfish motive and pure guilt upon the other. In those 4:00 a.m. fantasies we ourselves are always guilt-free, innocent, wrongly done. Whereas Gerard admits to thoughts of hateful revenge that afflicted him for such a long time, my fantasies concern themselves not with revenge but with restoration, of a return to what once was but will never, ever be again.

My fantasy always seems to begin with words “But she said…” And yes, she did say. Often. Many times each day. Sometimes tossed over the shoulder, sometimes murmurmed secretively, but always with feeling. And at one point in time, for years and years and years, actually, she meant what she said. But then it changed, she no longer believed, she no longer said, and then she was gone. But here’s the problem: I never ceased believing, even after she stopped saying. In the face of all I know to be true, in the face of all evidence, of things said and unsaid, of legal complaints filed and adjudicated, of new vows taken…in short, in the face of incontrovertible cold hard fact, I still cling to what she said, once upon a time.

Gerard’s tale describes his epiphany, how he came to resolution, and it ends on a positive note. But for some of us, there is no answer. There’s only “but…she said."

Mostly TV

It’s no secret: I’m a big fan of C-SPAN. Last night C-SPAN began a re-run of its three-day series on the U.S. Capitol, originally aired May 31 – June 2. I watched the first installment last evening and will be there for the next two installments, as well. The program is a real tour de force with first-person interviews, extensive film tours of the Capitol, and history…lots and lots of history. The shows run for three hours each night. Here’s a blurb from the web site:

Through original interviews with members of Congress, historians, curators and journalists, learn about the building's history, the art inside it, and the people and issues that have defined not only a building, but a country through the legislation passed inside the Capitol.

Recommended. And check out the website, too. If you have broadband you can watch streaming video of these shows from the web site (requires RealPlayer [free] and a fast network connection – faster than I’ve got!).

So. Unbeknownst to me, Dubya and Laura were on “Larry King Live” while I was watching “The Capitol.” Damn. Missed it. The interview transcript and a link to video highlights are here. A snarky NYT review of Dubya’s performance is here. Good to see the NYT is back up to speed, eh?

Snippet of This Morning’s Brief Conversation with a Park Maintenance Guy:

PMG: So when did Hawaii become a state?
Me: 1959, I think. (I was right)
PMG: So, when were they bombed in WW II?
Me: 1941
PMG: Were you in the service then?
Me: (Incredulous look)
PMG: When did you retire?
Me: 1985
PMG: I was three then…

I must look a helluva lot older than I think I do...

Forgotten Blogging, Part XIV. Meant to write about this last Saturday, but forgot. I caught Robert Plant on PBS’ “Soundstage” last Friday evening and he put on a damned fine show. He’s looking his age, but who among the Boomer’s leading edge isn’t? His voice isn’t quite what it used to be, but it’s still an impressive instrument. Those trademarked wails (“Whole Lotta Love” comes to mind) don’t have the range they used to, but they are entirely adequate. Lest you think I’m damning Mr. Plant with faint praise, let me assure you that isn’t my intention at all. He was great. Fantastic even. From the Soundstage web site:

His Soundstage performance is a must-see for longtime and novice fans of rock ‘n’ roll alike. The retrospective set includes Zep classics like opener “No Quarter,” which receives a more tribal treatment, a funkified “Black Dog” and “Four Sticks,” which is dedicated to former Zep drummer John Bonham, who passed away in 1980. Other gems include songs from Plant’s solo albums, like the political “Freedom Fries” and the cover of “Hey Joe,” which was immortalized by Jimi Hendrix. The show’s finale, a stretched-out bluesy rendition of “Whole Lotta Love” is not to be missed.

No hyperbole, that. It’s all true. Plant isn’t just cashing in on Boomer nostalgia and “going through the motions” with note-for-note reprises of the old Zep classics (and he could not, actually, since Jimmy Page isn’t part of the new band). No, Mr. Plant has assembled a great backing band, the Strange Sensation, and his (their?) arrangements of old Zeppelin classics are bluesy, fresh, interesting, and above all: they ROCK. As do the songs from Plant’s post-Zep solo efforts. The inevitable rerun is well worth seeking out. In the meantime, there’s a video clip at the link above.

Haven’t said much about the weather of late, and that’s because it’s been good. No, check that: great. Moderate temperatures (low to mid 80s) and more than a little bit of rain has been the order of the day for the past week. We’re supposed to get back to oppressive heat next week, and there’s a 103 degree day in the forecast for Friday-next. We’ll see if that materializes. Long range forecasts are typically less than accurate.

And so it goes…

Restless In Portales...

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The coffee’s good this morning! I’m temporarily out of my favorite blend due to the intersection of the long weekend and poor logistical planning on my part. So I dipped into the Emergency Coffee Supply (my logistical planning may be poor, but I always have back-ups) and brewed a pot that is half French Roast and half “100% Columbian.” I should do this more often…

Happy Birthday, Mr. President! Dubya is 60 today. And the New York Times gives him a birthday gift: a remarkably snark-free article commemorating his birthday. Good on ‘em (NYT), for once. I liked this bit:

"Sixty is the grimmest, don't you think?" said Mr. Ellis, who is 53. "All these boomers lie to themselves and say at 50 you're really 40. But at 60, you can't do that anymore."

{sigh} That’s all-too-true…

Radical Left Redux: “Sheehan: 'I'd Rather Live Under Chavez than Bush', Norah Gives Cindy Rough Ride” Details at Newsbusters.org. I’ll not comment because you know where I stand…

So…what does the photo on top of this post mean? I was thinking in the wee small hours of this morning that a road trip may be in order in the near future. A simple road trip, free of Duty and Obligation, full of Go and Be. I’ve been sorta restless of late, more like "rest less." As an example, I slept in shifts last evening—1900 until midnite, then 0415 until 0830—and very fitfully, at that. Strange dreams, up and down, intrusive memories that arrive unbidden and will not go away. The classic American cure for this ailment is the Road Trip. Destination is profoundly unimportant; the act of escape to places unknown, the potential for discovery is what it’s all about. For me, the road trip absolutely has to be on Blue Highways. This is just the germ of an idea at the moment, but it’s a powerful germ…something that should be acted upon. We’ll see. By the way, the pic above was taken on US 191, just north of Bluff, Utah. Beautiful country, that.

Back to Work!

I trust all y’all are well, back to work, and had an enjoyable Fourth. I certainly am/did. Well, except for the back-to-work bit. I won’t rub that in. Much.

Yesterday’s Space Shuttle launch was spectacular, and flawless. What a grand and appropriate event for the Fourth of July! I still get goose bumps watching rocket launches, manned or unmanned; perhaps it’s an age and/or generational thing. NASA’s site has video of the launch, in case you missed it.

Less grand, by an order of magnitude, were the fireworks emanating from North Korea yesterday. I’m absolutely certain the timing of NorK’s missile tests and the numbers of missiles fired had everything to do with Independence Day. It was semi-interesting (read that: not very) watching all the brouhaha over Kim Jong-il’s pathetic display on the cable news outlets last evening. Larry King, of all people, convened a panel of “expert” talking heads to speculate about The Greater Meaning of this event, and it was a sight to see. Or as informative/entertaining as any Larry King interview can be, which, once again, is “not very.” CNN International upgraded the event to an official “crisis” in the wee small hours of the morning, with lots of deeply concerned facial expressions on the part of the anchor-folks and featuring more talking heads and experts from our Euro brethren/sisteren. Personally, I like the way the government is handling this. Dubya hasn’t rearranged his schedule, there are no “crisis teams” being convened (as near as I can tell), and Our Man Bolton is badgering the ineffective UN to do something…the most likely result will be an official “condemnation” from the Security Council. All in all: we knew this was coming. Forgive my yawn.

The weather held last night and P-Town was treated to a half-hour fireworks show. And it was a good one! I was thinking last evening how very cool it would be to be on an airliner at 30,000 feet over the heartland on Fourth of July night. Every town in America, regardless of size, has some sort of fireworks display. How exciting it would be to see them from the air!

Apropos of nothing…It took me numerous tries to put this post up. I lost count, but it’s like up to seven now, I think. Blogger does p!ss me off from time to time. Mightily.

Independence Day

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

(ed: the date/time of this post has been altered so the post remains "on top" for the day.)

Random Notes

The weather has taken an unusual turn…it’s completely overcast today with t-storms in the forecast for this afternoon/evening. And it’s HUMID: 79% relative humidity at 1125 hrs MDT. Thank the Lord our high will only be 89 or so. The standard South-west weather mantra (“But it’s a dry heat!”) certainly doesn’t apply today! Not to belabor the point, but it’s pretty durned sticky out at the moment. And our fireworks are in jeopardy, given the t-storm forecast. It would be the first time since I’ve been in P-Town that we would be rained-out, should that happen.

Park beautification…Dunno if I’ve mentioned this in the past, but La Hacienda Trailer Park is a mixed facility, and by that I mean there are approximately equal numbers of spaces dedicated to RVs and trailer homes. The areas are roughly divided, with separate sections for each type of resident. There’s some inter-mingling, but not a lot. Anyway. This past week I noticed we have a new tenant on the next street over (I use the term “street” loosely), in a “mixed” section of the park. The newbies are an older couple in a large, triple slide-out, Class A diesel pusher motor home. They have a very nice rig, fairly new and well-kept. But what makes their arrival noteworthy is the accessories, for lack of a better term, they immediately added to their space. To wit: a large portable gazebo, complete with patio furniture, the usual satellite dish, and the unusual addition of numerous flowering shrubs and plants all around their space. Some of the plants are in large terra cotta planters, most have been put in the ground. The net effect is a visually pleasing lot. This is the first time I’ve seen such behavior in an RV park, and it’s a good thing. I’m impressed!

Looong weekend, in more ways than one… I did something really dumb this past Thursday. I fell asleep on the couch and didn’t remove my glasses. To make a long story short: I awoke and, after a somewhat frantic search, found my glasses underneath my body. How I managed to do that is beyond me, but the end result is I managed to bend the frames, misaligning them quite badly. But I didn’t realize just how badly they were bent until Saturday morning when I noticed, no, felt this extremely sore spot on the bridge of my nose. My optometrist is closed until tomorrow, of course. I’ve been walking around all weekend with this nerdy-looking kluge of a band-aid on the bridge of my nose and will be glad when the morrow arrives. You can bet the first thing I’ll do is drive over to the Big(ger) City and get these things fixed!

And finally, a link. Christopher Hitchens concludes a column (Christopher Hitchens: This July Fourth, ignore polls on America’s image) on international opinion polls of America/Americans thusly:

Thus, for a Fourth of July message, I would suggest less masochism, more confidence on the American street, and less nervous reliance on paper majorities discovered by paper organizations.

Happy Independence Day.

Good advice.

My Issue with The Left, in 18 Words

Shakespeare’s Sister, commenting on that Agence France Presse news item (Britons tire of cruel, vulgar US: poll)

(News Item) In answer to other questions, a majority of the Britons questions described Americans as uncaring, divided by class, awash in violent crime, vulgar, preoccupied with money, ignorant of the outside world, racially divided, uncultured and in the most overwhelming result (90 percent of respondents) dominated by big business.

(SS) Uh—too many of us, yes, in some places (see previous), yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Yep, good ol’ Sis agrees with your average Yob in The High Street. In writing. I suspect she’d be much more comfortable in a bed-sit in Watford, rather than in this racist, money-obsessed country dominated by Big Business. So...why is she still here?

Just sayin’.

A VERY Abbreviated Monday Post

SN1 blew into P-Town unannounced (well, semi-announced: he called from Albuquerque) late last evening/early this morning. Seems like the family thought it would be a good thing to pack up and go down to ABQ for the long weekend. A snap decision, last minute, seat-of-the-pants kinda thing. In so doing, it turns out there was a reason for SN1 to make the trip down to P-Town and back, so he called and asked if I’d be around last evening to have a couple of beers and chew the fat. “Sure!” sez I… “C’mon down!” And so he did, arriving last evening just after midnite.

Just one small fly in the ointment. I hadn’t re-stocked the Grog Locker, or more specifically the Beer Locker, for a while and there was only one beer in El Casa Móvil De Pennington. An unusual situation, to be sure, complicated by the fact yesterday was Sunday. If this is Sunday, and if this is New Mexico, you don’t buy beer. Check that: you can’t buy beer in most of the state, with the exception of military bases, certain parts of ABQ, and Santa Fe. Gotta love them Blue Laws, eh? So, we dipped into the single malt and fixed the world’s problems until about 0230 this morning. It’s all good!

The morning coffee has been consumed and SN1 is back on the road, headed back to ABQ today, and then home to Utah tomorrow. It was good to visit.

More later, if the spirit moves me.

The Sunday Not-So-Funnies

Mark Steyn is good today on the subject of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld:

The U.S. Supreme Court has now blown a hole in the animating principle behind the Geneva Conventions by choosing to elevate an enemy that disdains the laws of war in order to facilitate the bombing of civilian targets and the beheading of individuals. The argument made by Justice John Paul Stevens is an Alice-In-Jihadland ruling that stands the Conventions on their head in order to give words the precise opposite of their plain meaning and intent. The same kind of inspired jurisprudence conjuring trick that detected in the emanations of the penumbra how the Framers of the U.S. Constitution cannily anticipated a need for partial-birth abortion and gay marriage has now effectively found a right to jihad -- or, if you're a female suicide bomber about to board an Israeli bus, a woman's right to Jews. (ed: emphasis mine)

“…a woman’s right to Jews.” The man can certainly turn a phrase, can’t he? It’s hard to fault his logic, too. After reading this piece one can’t help but wonder what was going through the Supreme Court majority’s collective mind when they ruled al Qaida, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the rest of their ilk deserve every protection and privilege afforded by the Geneva Conventions. If I read and interpret the outcome of Hamdan correctly, this means that if our armed forces apprehend an al Qaida operative on the battlefield and subject him to any sort of interrogation, our people are de facto guilty of a war crime. WE will be guilty of a war crime, simply by interrogating these inhuman sons of bitches! Got that? I’m sure the Salafists are pleased to hear they’re only obligated to provide “name, rank, and serial number.” Even though they don’t have either rank or serial number.

It’s been well-publicized that al Qaida training manuals instruct terrorists to claim long and loud to whoever will listen they’ve been tortured in captivity. Well, the tactic worked. The Supremes heard, and believed. And the Good Guys have lost another battle and must labor in the future under additional irresponsible and ill-considered restraints.

I’m beginning to wonder if we deserve to win this war. Certain highly respected institutions in our society appear to be doing everything they can to assure our enemies, and not us, emerge victorious from this conflict. It’s depressing.

More SWIFTies:

In London, meanwhile, a human rights group said Tuesday that it had filed complaints in 32 countries alleging that the banking consortium, known as Swift, violated European and Asian privacy laws by giving the United States access to its data.

Simon Davies, director of the group, Privacy International, said the scale of the American monitoring, involving millions of records, "places this disclosure in the realm of a fishing exercise rather than a legally authorized investigation."

The Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, has asked the Justice Ministry to investigate whether Swift violated Belgian law by allowing the United States government access to its data.

The American Civil Liberties Union has condemned the program, and a Chicago lawyer, Steven E. Schwarz, filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Swift on Friday alleging that it had violated United States financial privacy statutes.

(ed: emphasis mine)

A common meme the Left uses about the revelation of SWIFT’s association and role in monitoring terrorist financial activity is to say “so, what? Bush said we were monitoring them. They knew! What harm’s been done?” Oh, I dunno. What possible harm could have been done, eh? I mean beyond providing evidence the US government absolutely, positively, cannot keep a secret. Beyond assuring foreign governments and businesses it’s in their interest to cooperate with us. Beyond removing the means to monitor global financial transfers between terrorists. What harm?

The above quotes come from an article in, of all places, the NYT.

Still More SWIFTies…The NYT ain’t taking this laying down. No, not even. Byron Calame, Public Editor of the NYT, publishes an extensive column in today’s paper defending the NYT’s decision to publish. Interestingly, he acknowledges that most people are really pissed about this:

The flood of reader e-mails reacting to the June 23 article has left hundreds of messages in various newsroom in-boxes at The Times. Roughly 1,000 e-mails have come to me, about 85 percent of them critical of the decision to publish the story and a large fraction venomous. It was time to take a close look at the handling of the article in search of answers.

Yet, as many, many people on the Right have pointed out, the majority apparently doesn’t have the good sense to understand how essential “outing” the program was. “The Great Unwashed” simply must be educated!

The most fundamental reason for publishing the article, of course, was the obligation of a free press to monitor government and other powerful institutions in our society. "Our default position — our job — is to publish information if we are convinced it is fair and accurate," Mr. Keller wrote in a letter to readers posted online last weekend, "and our biggest failures have generally been when we failed to dig deep enough or to report fully enough."

Reasonable people will disagree…vehemently. There are simply some things that shouldn’t be revealed. Especially when those “things” are (a) classified and (b) high level officials, both in and out of government repeatedly and forcefully asked (not demanded, but asked) the press NOT to reveal details about the program.

Mr. Calame’s column represents the reasoned and unemotional defense of the Times. Frank Rich, on the other hand, provides the unhinged Bush-bashing component of the defense we all need so badly. Unfortunately (depending on your point of view), his op-ed is walled off in the subscription-only area of the NYT. Fortunately, Editor and Publisher has provided an extended excerpt (among other things) of Mr. Rich’s rantings. Samples:

"No sooner were the flag burners hustled offstage than a new traitor was unveiled for the Fourth: the press. Public enemy No. 1 is The New York Times, which was accused of a 'disgraceful' compromise of national security (by President Bush) and treason (by Representative Peter King of New York and the Coulter amen chorus). The Times's offense was to publish a front-page article about a comprehensive American effort to track terrorists with the aid of a Belgian consortium, Swift, which serves as a clearinghouse for some 7,800 financial institutions in 200 countries.

[…]

"Such ravings make it hard not to think of the official assault on The Times and The Washington Post over the Pentagon Papers. In 1972, on the first anniversary of the publication of that classified Pentagon history of the Vietnam War, The Times's managing editor then, A. M. Rosenthal, reminisced in print about the hyperbolic predictions that had been made by the Nixon White House and its supporters: 'Codes would be broken. Military security endangered. Foreign governments would be afraid to deal with us. There would be nothing secret left.'

"None of that happened. What did happen was that Americans learned 'how secrecy had become a way of life' for a government whose clandestine policy decisions had fomented a disaster.

"The assault on a free press during our own wartime should be recognized for what it is: another desperate ploy by officials trying to hide their own lethal mistakes in the shadows. It's the antithesis of everything we celebrate with the blazing lights of Independence Day."

All too frickin’ predictable, especially the Viet Nam references. And Mr. Rich conveniently ignores the fall-out from the revelations and compromises of the Viet Nam era, specifically the Church Committee’s recommendations that led to the gutting of the US intelligence community during the late 70s and 80s. I’m not denying there were some excesses that were inexcusable during Viet Nam. I am saying the Congressional pendulum swung way too far in the opposite direction in attempting to remedy the excesses. Once again, it appears Mr. Rich and most, if not all, of the NYT think every war is Viet Nam and every Republican administration is modeled on that of Richard Nixon. Can you say WRONG? Sure you can… But the NYT can’t.

The Times, They AREN'T A' Changin'

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published an editorial that took the NYT to task about its article revealing the existence of the SWIFT terrorist financial tracking program, and offered explanation and insight as to why the WSJ also published a story on the classified program. There are many revelations in “Fit and Unfit to Print, What are the obligations of the press in wartime?”, not the least of which was that Congressman Jack Murtha was one of the individuals that urged the NYT not to go to press with the SWIFT article. Further:

Sometime later, Secretary John Snow invited Times Executive Editor Bill Keller to his Treasury office to deliver the same message. Later still, Mr. Fratto says, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, the leaders of the 9/11 Commission, made the same request of Mr. Keller. Democratic Congressman John Murtha and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte also urged the newspaper not to publish the story.

The Times decided to publish anyway, letting Mr. Fratto know about its decision a week ago Wednesday. The Times agreed to delay publishing by a day to give Mr. Fratto a chance to bring the appropriate Treasury official home from overseas. Based on his own discussions with Times reporters and editors, Mr. Fratto says he believed "they had about 80% of the story, but they had about 30% of it wrong." So the Administration decided that, in the interest of telling a more complete and accurate story, they would declassify a series of talking points about the program. They discussed those with the Times the next day, June 22.

Around the same time, Treasury contacted Journal reporter Glenn Simpson to offer him the same declassified information. Mr. Simpson has been working the terror finance beat for some time, including asking questions about the operations of Swift, and it is a common practice in Washington for government officials to disclose a story that is going to become public anyway to more than one reporter. Our guess is that Treasury also felt Mr. Simpson would write a straighter story than the Times, which was pushing a violation-of-privacy angle; on our reading of the two June 23 stories, he did.

Thus the editorial side of the WSJ rationalizes the news side's decision to print the article in question. The two sides of the paper are separate and distinct, with different editors. The “news” side hasn’t commented, as far as I know. At any rate, the justification to print and the chronology of events are just the opening shots of this editorial. The WSJ goes on to say…

The problem with the Times is that millions of Americans no longer believe that its editors would make those calculations in anything close to good faith. We certainly don't. On issue after issue, it has become clear that the Times believes the U.S. is not really at war, and in any case the Bush Administration lacks the legitimacy to wage it.

So, for example, it promulgates a double standard on "leaks," deploring them in the case of Valerie Plame and demanding a special counsel when the leaker was presumably someone in the White House and the journalist a conservative columnist. But then it hails as heroic and public-spirited the leak to the Times itself that revealed the National Security Agency's al Qaeda wiretaps.

Recommended.

The NYT and the LA Times felt obliged to respond to the WSJ. Their response came today in the form of a joint editorial published in both papers. The editorial is here, and doesn’t convince me in the least about both papers’ editorial wisdom in deciding to publish the offending article. The editorial begins with an extended, de rigeur reference to the Viet Nam era, quotes Justice Hugo Black on the subject, and then goes on to discuss the process the papers (I use the plural because it is a joint editorial) use to develop and publish such stories. To wit:

Thirty-five years ago yesterday, in the Supreme Court ruling that stopped the government from suppressing the secret Vietnam War history called the Pentagon Papers, Justice Hugo Black wrote: "The government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people."

[…]

The process begins with reporting. Sensitive stories do not fall into our hands. They may begin with a tip from a source who has a grievance or a guilty conscience, but those tips are just the beginning of long, painstaking work. Reporters operate without security clearances, without subpoena powers, without spy technology. They work, rather, with sources who may be scared, who may know only part of the story, who may have their own agendas that need to be discovered and taken into account. We double-check and triple-check. We seek out sources with different points of view. We challenge our sources when contradictory information emerges.

Then we listen. No article on a classified program gets published until the responsible officials have been given a fair opportunity to comment. And if they want to argue that publication represents a danger to national security, we put things on hold and give them a respectful hearing. Often, we agree to participate in off-the-record conversations with officials, so they can make their case without fear of spilling more secrets onto our front pages.

Finally, we weigh the merits of publishing against the risks of publishing. There is no magic formula, no neat metric for either the public's interest or the dangers of publishing sensitive information. We make our best judgment.

I remain unconvinced. As a matter of fact, I’m much less convinced now about the Times “good intentions” than I was before I read the editorial. All I read indicates the Times is digging in its heels and intends to continue doing as it has been doing. As far as being unconvinced goes, I’m not alone. According to Fox News, 60% of Americans think the NYT aided the enemy by publishing the SWIFT story.

And finally…Gerard posits an interesting theory as to why the Times, more specifically Bill Keller and “Pinch” Sulzberger, the Times’ editor and publisher, are acting the way they are. They’re a couple of perverts. And Gerard backs it up, convincingly.

I know less about Keller, the more mannish of the two, than I do about Pinch. Indeed I know only what I read into Keller's mind and motives from his own mewling and damp "Letter" published last week in the paper. In it Keller is given to "justifying" his latest insult against the Republic that has given him stature, insulation and millions. In a way, seeing how he compulsively betrays the nation, that letter alone is enough to get the small measure of this man, and his "boss," and the entire "smart set" in which they circulate.

For both of them, their behavior is enough to illuminate the dark perversion of the soul that overtook many who came of age in the era of VietWaterNamGate. If there is an aspect of tragedy in their preening it is only that many have lived long enough to rise to positions of unelected power in the media establishment so that their particular perversion of intellect and morality now have the power to stain the soul and honor of the nation itself. But this is as far beyond their comprehension as the very notion of "a nation." For once you are in the bubble of private jets, the nation seems very far below and very faint. After all, in the one world to come there will be, we are assured, no borders or boundaries at all.

The various elements that make up the perversion that drives men like Keller and boys like Pinch are too well known to dwell on at length here. In the most general terms the perversion presents as an emptiness of soul, an abiding cynicism about the good that lies at the foundation of the nation, a smug waft of amoral sanctimony, an obsessive concern with the primping and feathering of the body, an immense self-regard for one's privileged set that justifies the notion that a few men can know better than a majority of citizens what is good for all, and a kind of intellectual pouting that is unremitting when the majority ceases to respect, patronize, and admire the trappings and outer glitter of the perversion.

Ooooh, Gerard is SO good. I’m a believer.