"McCain's willingness to take a chance"

Wherein Silly Season 2008 goes out with drums and trumpets and fireworks -- all provided at no cost to e-spectators by Signorino Guglielmo di Kristol, ideofootsoldier to Ruperto della Murdoch, capo di tutti capi:

A spectre is haunting the liberal elites of New York and Washington--the spectre of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism, rising out of the American countryside, free of the taint (fair or unfair) of the Bush administration and the recent Republican Congress, able to invigorate a McCain administration and to govern beyond it (..) a working woman who's a proud wife and mother; a traditionalist in important matters who's broken through all kinds of barriers; a reformer who's a Republican; a challenger of a corrupt good-old-boy establishment who's a conservative; a successful woman whose life is unapologetically grounded in religious belief; a lady who's a leader.

Ideally one would like to be able to decide that Kristol Minor is kidding, but alas! like most animals, he has no sense of humour at feedin’ time. And feedin’ is exactly what that drool is all about. There is scarcely a syllable of it that the bully boy genuinely cares about or believes in, but so what? Maybe bilge and Party cries and man’s incorrigible mind -- plus womankind’s Governess Sarah Putin (sp?) -- can make sure that Commanderissimo J. Sidney gets in, and that is all that matters.

Before we have more cheap fun with Bully Boy and his Boss, Mr. Bones, thee and I might pause to wonder exactly why electing J. Sidney should be all that matters to them. Why do they bet all their chips on black, and abandon red altogether? If le rouge should come up on 4 November -- not an absolutely impossible event -- they are certainly going to have to scramble on behalf of Team Aggression. There could be a stiff uphill struggle for the weekly-standardising cuckoos before they manage to evict the family and friends of the legitimate nestholder and make the Free World™ completely safe for Rear-Colonel Freddy von Kagan once again. If I was them, I should probably be pursuing an exactly opposite strategy on the theory that there will be no difficulties for Team Aggression if Cap’n M’Cain is installed, so the thing to do is to start corrupting B. Hussein Obáma and his entourage at once, so as to minimise the difficulties that might arise down that fork of Contingency Road. For surely the true Nirvana of Murdoch and Murdochites would be for it not to make a bit of difference to their own crew’s special interests which ludicrous mob of vulgar partisans "wins" in the electoral circuses? Yet here comes Bully Boy wearing a silly hat and whanging a noisemaker and generally doing his damnedest to make himself look like only another clueless clown from the Party of Grant and Hoover and Atwater.

I suppose Baron Rupert must have decided, after deep consultations with Miss Sappy Conventionalis, that the Commanderissimo’s fate depends on making sure that the Big Management Party’s ‘conservative’ base-and-vile actually go out and vote for him in sufficient numbers. His Lordship will then have instructed Bully Boy, who is technically a citizen of the United States, to do whatever he can in that direction. Thee and I are moved only to laughter, Mr. Bones, by the spectacle that Kristol Minor makes of himself trying to comply with his latest instructions from Kangaroo Centre. In the nature of the case, however, it does not matter what thee and I make of this clownish performance, but rather what the GOP base-and-vile make of it. Probably that will not be much either way, because I do not think Bully Boy interacts with them much. If the B&V are unaware that this clownin’ comes from a Weekly Standardiser and a wannabe Weltherrscher, they are unlikely to see anythin’ special about it. [1]

As thee will have seen if thee read that footnote, Mr. Bones, we may perhaps learn something about Team Aggression by scrutinizing Master Kristol’s drool; there is scant danger that we will learn anything about practical politics. Before I lose the thought, let me suggest that we can perhaps learn a little bit about the mind of Rupert Baron Murdoch as well: is not that baloney about Governess Putin likely to be His Lordship’s notion of the ideal customer of NewsCorp? Especially the ideal U. K. customer, because, as I have suggested already, His Lordship’s green tabloid thumb is not quite so green when it gouges the holy Homeland. And speaking of ‘holy’, the drool about "life is unapologetically grounded in religious belief" obviously applies to colonial North America exclusively. Airstrip One is not much like that.

But naturally it is the mind of Bully Boy himself that concerns us most. Since thee and I are not just seeking thrills, but serious instruction, we may start from the word ‘unapologetic’ and the phrase "taint (fair or unfair) of the Bush administration and the recent Republican Congress." Not being a pro rabblerouser, Bully Boy makes certain technical mistakes like raising that parenthetical fairness issue. He stuck that bit in to please himself, obviously, but the fact that Master Wm. Kristol happens to consider the reign of George XLIII Bush a tainted thing that needs to be apologised for does not belong in this particular scribble. Saying that has not the slightest tendency to inspire the GOP base-and-vile to flock to the polls in the path of J. Sidney McCain. If the B&V notice such a self-indulgence at all, it can only cause them to wonder who Bully Boy is and whether he is entirely loyal to Boy and Party and Dynasty and Ideology. Perhaps it is harmless, perhaps it is counterproductive, but there is no positive good in it, and accordingly it ought to have been omitted.

When pro rabblerousers seek the effect that Bully Boy appears to have been aiming at, their standard ploy is to equate distance from Washington City, literal and spiritual, with wisdom and virtue, [2] making no explicit mention of taints or apologies. "Accentuate the positive, / Eliminate the negative!" "Boost, don’t knock!" And for Pete’s sake don’t talk about yourself -- not unless you’re the candidate. Sheesh!

It seems to me possible that Bully Boy does not read much of this rabblerousin’ genre that he undertakes to work in. He really is not good at it. His Lordship really ought to have assigned this particular job to one of his other wage slaves, perhaps some up-and-comin’ neocomrade over at the Wall Street Jingo. [3]

But ’tis time for some more innocent merriment:

Millions of Americans--mostly but not only women, mostly but not only Republicans and conservatives--seemed to get a sense of energy and enjoyment and pride, not just from her nomination, but especially from her smashing opening performance. Palin will be a compelling and mold-breaking example for lots of Americans who are told every day that to be even a bit conservative or Christian or old-fashioned is bad form. In this respect, Palin can become an inspirational figure and powerful symbol. The left senses this, which is why they want to discredit her quickly.

"Her smashing opening performance," eh? Master Kristol seems blithely unaware that just the other day his own crew thought they were scorin’ scads and scads of points with Televisionland and the electorate by presentin’ B. Hussein Obáma as a mere light-weight ‘celebrity’. And then there is "a sense of energy and enjoyment and pride," which in hostile hands could easily be made to seem contemptible psychobabble: the Sarah Putin groupies like her only because likin’ her makes them feel good about themselves -- and so forth, and so on. Bully Boy cannot be much of a chess player, given his patent inability to think for his opponent a couple of moves ahead.

One more lucky dip:

[I]f Palin holds her own against Biden, as she is fully capable of doing? McCain will then have succeeded in combining with his own huge advantage in experience and judgment, a politician of great promise in his vice presidential slot who will make Joe Biden look like a tiresome relic. McCain's willingness to take a chance on Palin could turn what looked, after Obama's impressive speech Thursday night in Denver, like a long two months for Republicans and conservatives, into a campaign of excitement and--dare we say it?--hope, which will culminate on November 4 in victory.

Apart from some additional Hope-and-Excitement gush for the ladies’ magazines, I detect here a gross overestimation of the importance of the Vice Presidency of the United States of America.

Most fascinating of all is "McCain's willingness to take a chance," which is a very two-edged sword indeed for Bully Boy to be brandishing. If the Big Party base-and-vile read Master Kristol at all (which they won’t), and if they understand the implications of those six words (which they would not have done), then the Senatorino from Cook County is in like Flynn (as of course he is not.) "McCain's willingness to take a chance" ought to scare the bejeezus out of any self-esteemin’ neo-narcissist of a ‘conservative’. This willingness is perfectly real, it is by no means a mere Marxo-Kristolio-Murdochoid ‘spectre’.

Allow me to expostulate with the sweet puppies a little, Mr. Bones:

"But look at the record, O base and vile! Every time your now Commanderissimo takes a chance, who does he take it with? Always with Demoncrats and unspeakable l*b*r*ls, no? And look at the polls: after he gets in, your now Commanderissimo will almost certainly be saddled with a Congressional and Senatorial majority consisting of Demoncrats and unspeakable l*b*r*ls. I.e., the people your J. Sidney has always taken his chances with will also be the people he must compromise with if anythin’ beyond a few additional aggressions and semiconquests and occupations and quagmires overseas is ever to be accomplished! What do you think is likely to happen under those circumstances, O base and vile? That your J. Sidney will always do just exactly the libertarian thing that former Governess S. Putin of Alaska would do if she were set up as sole and unobstructed Dictatrix over the holy Homeland? ‘If you believe that,’ O base and vile, why, ‘You would believe anything.’ " [4]

I wish thee Happy Days, Mr. Bones, trusting that a glance at Bully Boy’s scribble will make them a little happier still.

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[1] To be sure, sir, the second biggest reason why thee and I laugh from it is that in fact there ain’t anythin’ special about it. Here is a credentialled Master of the Unive®se (Second Class) performing services to Party and Ideology and Commanderissimo for which Neocomradess A. Coulter and Neocomrade M. Savage would be distinctly overqualified. Any militant extremist Republican Party clown whatsoever could drool that drool.

The first biggest reason why Bully Boy is laughable chez nous is his utter insincerity, a point on which he is indeed very different from rank-and-file Wingnut City clowns. But to appreciate the difference and enjoy the fun in full one must already have a reasonably clear notion of who Bully Boy is, and who he works for, and what he and his Boss think. If one is capable of that enjoyment and actually enjoys it, one quickly finds oneself in my own present condition, discussing the quirks and quiddities of Weekly Standardisation and Murdochite libido dominandi, matters of some interest, indeed, yet extremely remote from the main stream of human events in the holy Homeland.



[2] Given a Big Party ticket that need not appeal to anybody who lives east of the Rocky Mountains, Master Kristol ought not only to have adopted the standard anti-Beltway ploy, but laid it on with a dump truck. The Commanderissimo and Mme. Putin must be positively wallowin’ in wisdom and virtue on those terms!



[3] The Big Management Party base-and-vile don’t read the WSJ? Perfectly true, but then, the sweet puppies of Rio Limbaugh most assuredly do not read the Weekly Standard either. I believe His Lordship still owns the New York Post? Perhaps we should take a look over there to see what they have to say about Governess Putin.


[4] Duke of Wellington anecdote XVIII.

"Many Happy Returns (And Especially If You’re Elected, Sir!)"

Happy birthday, Johnny Mac! You're 72 now, a cancer survivor, and a presidential candidate who has said on many occasions that the most important criteria for picking a vice president is whether he or she could immediately step in if something happened to the president. Your campaign against Barack Obama is based on the simple idea that he is unready to be president. So you've picked a running mate who a year and a half ago was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of 8,500 people. You've selected a potential leader of the free world who knows little or nothing about the major issues of the day beyond energy. Oh, and she's being probed in her state for lying and abuse of power.

Apart from the last sentence, which I am sure we will be hearing more about, Mr. Alter gives the natural first reaction of any decent political grown-up.

However he and the rest of them then get distracted from the true analytical path, as it seems to me, partly due to their fixation of the horse-race aspect [1] and partly due to taking the Commanderissimo of AEI and GOP and EIB rather too strictly at his own word. Since not even a dumb Mugwump admires gambling games, we can correct both mistakes by attempting to look at things from J. Sidney’s own point of view, weird and uncongenial though it be.

Briefly: (1) JSM certainly approves of Mme. Sarah Putin (sp?) on grounds entirely independent of whether or not she will help to get him installed. No courageous self-profiler would be caught dead actin’ on naked self-interest like that. Your generic Mister Profile would rather perish rather than appear self-interested in the slightest. The specific J. Sidney McCain is surrounded with Big Management Party operatives who would like to win the election in the worst way -- in the Lee Atwater way -- so he could not indulge his dumb mugwumpery altogether without stint or limit. The hired handlers managed to talk him out of Sen. Lieberman, at least, but I suspect he made a deal that they were not to say ‘boo’ about the exact identity of Anybody-But-Holy-Joe. [1]

(2) That was J. Sidney’s mugwumpery in action. His dumbness was active as well in the selection of Governess Putin, in the sense that the man is not clever enough to understand his own motives and express them accurately. Accordingly, he had different and stronger subliminal or ‘unconscious’ reasons for this exuberance than will have appeared in his own words and thoughts, even the campaign-confidential ones.

The thing to do, I’d say, is to work backwards from the undeniable public act to the ideally best possible set of J. Sidney McCain private motives for such an act and the best possible JSM private understanding of the act’s context -- without relying too heavily on the perp’s own testimony, let alone on his hired handlers’ or his Party neocomrades’ spin-ridden testimonials.

As follows, approximately:

Q. GIVEN that Mme. Sarah Putin, extremist Republican governess of the great state of Alaska, is the best possible runnin’ mate for Cap’n M’Cain, what colour is the sky in M’Cain World? A. (forthcoming)

But God knows best. Happy days.


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[1] And then some of ’em probably did say ‘boo’ even after promisin’ not to. But that would be perfectly OK with J. Sidney. Additional evidence that other mortals are not up to his own self-profiled mark can never be entirely unwelcome. One cannot play the rôle of Coriolanus without a large supporting cast of vulgar importuners continually whisperin’ vile things about "whatever it takes to win!" into one’s imperial ear. To get mad at them for importunin’ would be silly as well as indecorous.

The Impression Created

Impression must depend, to some extent, on what sort of mud one’s boot was impressed upon. Thee remembers the scholastic tag, Mr. Bones? that one about quidquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis? In the case at hand, the boot is reasonably familiar, but the mud is exotic, fetched from the farther shores of Airstrip One and the outlying parish of Torygraph Regis:

The impression created this week was not one of a unified America going bravely into the future that Mr Obama talked about: it was one divided on rudimentary levels on class grounds, in which (as used to be the case in the old Labour party) the working man and woman are there to be revered and looked after and the rich (which most Democrats seem to agree is anyone on a salary of more than $250,000, or £135,000 a year) are there to pay for it. Mr Obama’s good ol’ boy running mate, Joe Biden, unwittingly emphasised these divisions in his speech accepting the vice-presidential nomination, and again in his impromptu appearance before the Obama speech. Mr Biden seems to be occupying the constitutional position in American politics that used to be filled in Britain by John Prescott: he is designed to be at the right hand of an elitist, slightly effete head of government and to be charged with mentioning, in every speech he makes, how wonderful blue-collar workers are. The inference that all other Americans are there to pay taxes for these people’s benefit is something the Republicans need to get after next week, and continually until the election.

Master Mudd, who uses the nom de guerre "Simon Heffer," is far-fetched and torygraphic and Sassenach-parochial indeed, and accordingly difficult of access for those of us who have not a clue about who John Prescott has (had?) the dishonour to be. Still, Mudd does sort of gloss his hard words for us, does he not, Mr. Bones. At any rate, it is tolerably clear what axe he grinds against the Demosthenes of Delaware even without a footnote about Mr. (Lord?) Prescott.

Speaking of impressions, Master Mudd wishes to be mistaken for St. George Orwell, or perhaps, less improbably, he wishes to create an impression of being the great man’s ideological great-grandnephew. Unlike Senator Biden and Prescott Who, Master Mudd knows where the TRUE best interests of the toiling masses are located. [1] Furthermore, he, too, is credentialled to discuss the ins and outs of class warfare at levels far above the rudimentary.

Unlike Mr. Orwell, however, Master Mudd is distinctly IQ-challenged. How else account for his shocked complaint that the Obama-’n’-Biden Show did not resemble "a unified America going bravely into the future"? An explicitly partisan event somehow failed to create an impression of nonpartisan unity upon Master Mudd: Quelle surprise! And "What is the world coming to? I ask you!" Maybe this little laddie will amount to something when he grows up mentally, but I fear we shall have to wait a while. He has a long way to grow.

As a reflective medium for the recording of impressions, this exotic mud is not totally defective, to be sure. BHO and JRB reaffirmed the traditional values and interests of the American Democracy, which La Contradémocratie en Amérique began detestin’ and denouncin’ as imported-from-France "class warfare" even before the contra gentry first congealed in party-political opposition to General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren. After eighteen decades of it, to speak of "an old song" seems pretty warrantable to me. Were it not for the wombschoolin’ and Niederdümmung that have prevailed in the holy Homeland since August 1968 or perhaps January 1969, we natives and locals might find the song so old as to be tedious. Fortunately, from the entertainment perspective, the empowered and emboldened contrademocrats have more or less had they way with their Big Management Party maxims "History is bunk" and "That was THEN, this is NOW!" The Big Party’s wombscholars and downdumbees have only a vague notion who Andrew Jackson was, and as to knowledge of his thoughts and actions -- surely you jest? Thus the BHO/JRB/LBJ/JFK/FDR fight song renews its youth. For those who never heard it sung till last Thursday evening, it might -- almost -- as well have been composed last Thursday morning as way back in the 1820's.

Master Mudd is not unfamiliar with the tune of "Yank Class Warfare," but he prefers a markedly contrademocratic verson of the lyrics: "All other Americans are there to pay taxes for these people’s benefit." THAT tripe and baloney does not date back to the 1820’s, obviously. How could it, when the Big Managers were not crushed by taxation until a far more recent date, more or less 8 December 1941? [2] Prior to that, they had lots of reasons to be contrademocratic, but immediate peril to their investment portfolios was not among them. (Who knows, perhaps if Airstrip One had been callously abandoned to its fate seventy years ago, Daddy Warbucks would still not have to place the Internal Revenue Service at the top of his enemies list? But God knows best about contrafactual history!)

In addition to being neoteric and right-wingnutty, Master Mudd’s version of the lyrics to the "Yank Class Warfare" melody seems to be inaccurate. Contrademocrats who actually have to live in the holy Homeland do not moan and whine about "pay taxes for these people’s benefit" in the sense according to which Mudd takes "these people." The main offense is that really obnoxious class of persons that the Bidens and Obamas and Clintons and Carters and Johnsons and Kennedies and Trumans and Roosevelts insist on handing their taxation loot over to once they have stolen it. The received hieroglyph or stereotype here used to be "welfare queens," and that soundbite should still convey the contrademocratic notion clearly enough, although perhaps Big Management’s hired spinsters have moved on to some different cliché. ("Union thugs" seems to me to be making a come-back lately; any fool can see why Big Managers would not care for them! ) If the Demoncratic uppers would be content with brandy and cigars -- and yachts and limousines and châteaus at Kennebunkport ME and ranches at Crawford TX and ‘educations’ at Yale and . . . -- strictly for themselves alone, vastly less tax loot would be required. [3]


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[1] For Yank toiling masses in particular, the best interests are located in Minneapolis-St. Paul startin’ Monday, don’t you know? Literaliter, in the Party of Grant and Hoover and Atwater.

I hope Master Mudd will be able attend the Grant Party’s big quadrennial human event also and get himself an additional impression created when the other boot drops. I shouldn’t dream of whining about torygraphic attitudes or Airstrip One ignorances, if Master Mudd hates Yank donkeys, why, he hates us, and that is that. He should certainly be encouraged to explain why, though, since we might possibly learn something from even such a señorito as this one.

The present specimen of Muddly politics criticism should have been pruned by some kind friend less unfamiliar with the colourful folkways of the holy Homeland, because to blame donkeys in particular for things that all Americans do when in convention assembled is of no value as instruction or reproof. Making mistakes of that nature merely encourages less thoughtful donkeys to write Master Mudd off as a Brit ignoramus whose impressions could never be of any importance. Under that rubric, his editor ought to have included everything Mudd scribbled in the vein of

I have wondered whether, instead of watching a crucial meeting of the main opposition party of the world’s leading power, I had wandered in on a soap opera, a poor Hollywood film, or a dire reality TV show.

To abuse my poor long-suffering Uncle Sam as proprietor of the United States of Bad Taste is an admissible parlour game too, naturally, and one with a long and venerable history. But it is not the same parlour game as Bash-the-Demoncrats. When Master Mudd confuses the two recreations, he is open to the objection once made to M. Prokofiev that "he steps on the throat of his own song." He also violates Herr von Kirkegaard’s canon about Purity of Heart™.

Half or more than half of this nastygram to B. Hussein Obáma and J. Robinette Biden and to us humble dupes and marks thereof establishes only that Master Mudd does not much enthuse for the Heimatland Gottes or for Modern Times. One has no problem with that, but one detects no salience in it either. Considered as political journalism reported from an undisguisedly partisan event, Expugnetur! is the chief impression it creates on me.


[2] Talk about "a day that will live in infamy!"


[3] I am not discussing how the holy Homeland actually works, only how it is alleged to work in partisan agitprop.

"complete alienation of the Iraqi street"

This just in from from the Goofville Pretzel Corporation:

Ultra-low voter-registration, with a particular drop in support for the Islamic parties, seems to be consistent with the overall point of view expressed by the Al-Qabas op-ed writer (see prior post) [*] namely that the government (supported by the Islamic parties Dawa and the Supreme Council) feels obliged to keep on putting out these recent tough-sounding statements on the bilateral negotiations, because it is "going through a difficult situation in which it is threatened with the complete alienation of the Iraqi street..." [*] [Cartoono detects a] "confusing yes/no pattern of Iraqi assertions of a withdrawal-schedule followed inevitably by the US denial .... [Snip summatorial from al-Qabas] It is in response to this intense pressure [from watan-nationalists] that the Maliki administration continues to make these would-be reassuring statements about agreement with the occupier ...."

COMPLETE ALIENATION OF THE IRAQI STREET must sound like a really splendid idea to Miss Lynx and Mister Badger and Doctor Cartoonoclastes. The student will note, however, that it makes a good deal of difference exactly what the noble and heroic Street Arabs are alienated from. And it makes at least some difference, though perhaps not quite as much, which way the heroes and nobles jump towards when they jump away from X. There can be no question of Goofville approving of itineral alienation simpliciter, as can be established by a thought experiment that is not difficult. Imagine the attitude of the Mu’ámara Junction gentry to an IQ Street that should have the impertinence to be alienated from themselves after they finally gain control of the former Iraq. Or rather, when their native and local ideobuddies are restored to that natural mastery of Mesopotamia that they have unaccountably been deprived of for over half a decade.

Now the student will have observed for herself a major point that Lynx, Badger, Cartoonoclastes LLC probably will never be caught drawing her attention to: COMPLETE ALIENATION OF THE STREET is the accepted everyday condition of all the other political rackets in the Greater Levant. Life in the former Iraq is rapidly becoming ... -- well, perhaps not exactly "better, comrades, ... more cheerful" but at any rate, more normal. [1] What hath Petraeus wrought? [2]

That is only a major point about ex-Iraq, however. More important is today’s quite different major point about Miss Lynx and Mister Badger and Doctor Cartoonoclastes, namely that COMPLETE ALIENATION OF THE IRAQI STREET is the very first time that they have condescended to mention the existence of an "Iraqi street." (Unless I missed something, naturally.) I had thought they considered it somehow demeaning to their belovèd TwentyPercenter clients and their ideobuddies of the Sunnintern when invasion-language journalism talked that way. Apparently I was mistaken.

One can never be entirely sure with pretzelmongers, I daresay, yet it LOOKS as if for once the LBC crew take a view of the present correlation of farces not altogether different from my own. That is, as if "the Iraqi street" is an entity that has just recently congealed or clotted or otherwise come into being. An expression that was quite unsuitable six months ago has now become useful and convenient and not too misleading. Perhaps these Parmenidean personages do not really believe anything so crude as that. As a mere grovelling Aristotelian, however, I shall take a low WYSIWYG view as usual and assume that even appearance-despising pretzelmongers are really up to what it looks like they are up to primâ facie until that hypothesis proves completely unviable. Dr. Cartoonoclastes used the words "seems to be consistent with" in the declamation quoted, so let us hypothesize that the recent emergence of a ‘street’ in the former Iraq seems to be consistent with the way Cartoono has modulated his own verbiage.

To be sure, what has most strikingly emerged in the former Iraq of late is the Hannibal of Da‘wa. Cartoono’s "consistency with" is consistent with the Metamorphosis of Málikí™ being the stimulus that has caused a Post-Iraqi Street to congeal at last. Applied to the actual matter of his sentence, though, there may be slight difficulties of the lucus a non lucendo sort: are we to say that "ultra-low voter-registration, with a particular drop in support for the Islamic parties" is evidence for the existence of a Post-Iraqi Street? "I am, therefore I decline to register to vote"? Easy to see why a Parmenidean pretzelmonger might think so, but can decent political grown-ups go along for that ride?

Well, perhaps. Our own underlying guess is that ex-Iraq has been reverting rapidly towards Greater Levantine normalcy of late, and it is quite possible to view the Street Arabs in general as a negativity, as the ragamuffin ninety-nine percent who JUST SAY NO to the Palace Arabs, to the empowered and emboldened OnePercenters. Just saying NO does not have any detectable effect on Arab Palace policy and governance, most of the time, but it could nevertheless be the key to all Arab Street mythologies. We are not in Kansas any more, after all. Unfortunately.

As soon as I assemble my own sketchy notions into something like coherence, I discover, not very surprisingly, that Miss Lynx and Mister Badger and Doctor Cartoonoclastes, along with their faithful clients and zealot ideobuddies, cannot possibly agree very extensively. Being naturally low-minded and Aristotelian and WYSIWYG, I make a verbal cartoon of it: now that Hannibal Redux has erected some preliminary facsimile of a Post-Iraqi Palace, 99% of his (nominal) subjects respond by paving a Post-Iraqi Street around it. Quite apart from the vulgar idolatry of it, the pseudocartoon must displease at Goofville because the gentry are not open to the idea that poor M. al-Málikí has actually accomplished anything the least bit palatial. [3]



___
[1] Good cheer bordering on a flat-out goofiness almost worthy of Cartoono the Magnificent himself is not absent from the former Iraq, if the Associated Press knows what it speaks of:

Iraq is calling on companies to submit designs to build a giant Ferris wheel in Baghdad — the latest in a string of lavish proposals painting the capital as a leisure friendly city. The Ferris wheel ... will soar more than 650 feet over the city and feature air-conditioned compartments that would each carry up to 30 passengers, Baghdad municipal spokesman Adel al-Ardawi said Wednesday.

This development deserves separate treatment, however. Its implications are fathomless and extend below and above and generally far beyond the parochial frontiers of ex-Iraq in every geographical direction and conceptual dimension. Meanwhile, a second AP story from 27 August 2008

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) — The city's first airport is weeks away from opening, but already a bigger one is talked about. Land prices are soaring. Merchants say they don't remember business ever being so good. Four years ago, Najaf was an urban battlefield with American troops fighting Shiite militiamen loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Today, the Shiite holy city is a hot spot of a different kind thanks to improved security, a free-for-all market economy — and a direct pipeline to the Shiite-led government. The boomtown buzz in Najaf is more remarkable for .... [1]

indicates that the capillaries are co-prospering with their jugular. At least, some of the capillaries do.

The student had better read that gem through as well, though ever mindful that the cheer of Most Noble Najaf must necessarily be merely sectorian in nature as compared to the cheer of Brave New Baghdád.


[2] Not a rhetorical question. Although we have already supplied the answer several times, here it is again: Petraeo-McNamaran counterinsurgency hath wrought (1) that the big battalions once again look likely to win, and (2) martial law is shown to remain a perfectly workable scheme in Century XIV/XXI. (This is not as big a deal as AEI-GOP-DoD-USIP-EIB groupies like to make it out, but it is a long way from contemptible all the same.)


[3] They still think their team is winning, even. (Golly, let the student think of THAT!)

In nineteenth-century England , a fierce quarrel once broke out between two women shouting at one another from second storey windows on opposite sides of the street. An Anglican bishop, passing by with friends, predicted, ‘These women can’t possibly agree; they are arguing from opposite premises.' In [discussion of the former Iraq], for similar reasons, the debates rage on.

"Save it for 2050"

How Mark Sidney McPenn shall now go on to crush Osama ’n’ Biden:

[Spinster Mark Penn] made the ... suggestion to target Obama’s “lack of American roots”: "All of these articles about his [Senatorino Obama’s] boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light. "Save it for 2050. "It also exposes a very strong weakness for him—his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president DURING A TIME OF WAR who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values. He told the people of NH yesterday he has a Kansas accent because his mother was from there. His mother lived in many states as far as we can tell—but this is an example of the nonsense he uses to cover this up. "How we could give some life to this contrast without turning negative: "Every speech should contain the line you [Senatrix Rodham-Clinton] were born in the middle of America to the middle class in the middle of the last century. AND TALK ABOUT THE BASIC BARGAIN as about the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today. Values of fairness, compassion, responsibility, giving back. "Let’s explicitly own ‘American’ in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t. Make this a new American Century, the American Strategic Energy Fund. Let’s use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let’s add flag symbols to the backgrounds."

There is one obvious, though minor and technical, difficulty: the Commanderissimo of AEI and GOP and EIB was unfortunately born a purty fur stretch from the geographical centre of the holy Homeland:

John McCain was born at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone to naval officer John S. McCain, Jr. (1911–1981) and Roberta (Wright) McCain (b. 1912). At that time, the Panama Canal was under American control.

As the Wikipædiatricians mention, J. Sidney’s natal turf was Homeland-controlled as of 29 August 1936. [1] There are, of course, no more strictly legal questions about J. Sidney’s U. S. citizenship than about B. Hussein’s. Yet in both cases there is undoubtedly a certain peripheral quality for Spinster Penn to avail himself of in the path of the Senatrix for New York and from the North Side of Chicago. [2]

This triviality may be slightly less trivial than it appears. The natal turf of JSM is not, after all, under Homeland control at the moment and has not been so for a number of years. A hostile analyst might point out how this detail fits in with the Commanderissimo’s personal contribution to our splendid triumph over North Vietnam in -- what year was it? Anyhow, it is notorious that JSM managed to get himself shot down. Why, he does not deny that rumor himself! No one, I trust, questions J. Sidney’s strenuous devotion to Success and Victory, but his devotion does appear to be offered only from afar in certain respects. [3]

Apart from that, the Commanderissimo can take over where the Senatrix left off so smoothly that the Osama-’n’-Biden forces might not even notice that the enemy is under new management apart from reading about the transition in the papers.

I have emphasized two high points of the McPenn Method, of which DURING A TIME OF WAR scarcely needs more discussion than it gets already. TALK ABOUT THE BASIC BARGAIN, on the other hand, borders on obscurity. What on Gore’s green earth is this "basic bargain" that the Commanderissimo and the Senatrix have agreed to, but the Senatorino has declined? Spinster Penn does not explain his own allusion, and neither does the journalist I here follow, one Joshua Green employed by the Atlantic Monthly.

Mr. Green has systematically looted the Senatrix’s campaign headquarters and published his booty in more than two dozen different dribs and drabs. My pet google comes back numerous quotations of precisely the passage in need of elucidation but nothing that obviously tends to elucidate it. That negative result means that all the political scribblers must think they already know what The Basic Bargain™ is, in which case I suppose I know too. Or at least I know half of it, the protasis, the half that runs "If you work hard and obey the rules, . . . ." As to the apodosis, well, I seem never to have heard that clause spoken so clearly that it registered. In context, something like ". . . then you will get the President of the United States that you want." A swell deal THAT would be, if only one could find it! Worded that way, the Basic Bargain™ is merely ridiculous, but I am really at a loss to see how else to word it.

If one closes the shortest short circuit between the Basic Bargain™ (in the McPenn Spinster School recension) and the former Real World™ and says "If you work hard and obey the rules, then you DESERVE to get the President of the United States that you want," it stops being a bargain at all, it dissolves instantly into a mush of moralism. But 99.9% of the time that one comes across Basic Bargain™ fans, they are not discussing the Presidency of the U. S. A. In that case, though, one is stuck with a fortune cookie like "Work hard and obey the rules and then you will get what[ever it may be that] you deserve and want!" Princess Cassandra and Dr. Pangloss and Pollyanna and even Mrs. Eddy were gloomy grinches compared to anybody damnfool enough to buy that product!

Something funny is goin’ on here, and it smells funny with a whiff of that brand of narcissism and self-esteemism peculiar to Rio Limbaugh and Wingnut City. I suspect the reason why I cannot remember the apodosis exactly is that the apodosis is an insinuation, a wink-wink-nod-nod, rather than anythin’ a Basic Bargain™ fan would ever care to put in writin’. In the case of the Commanderissimo and the Senatrix and the Senatorino, as spun by Master Mark Penn, a naked spellin’ of it out would, as I conjecture, yield "If you work hard and obey the rules, then you will at least be far better than Osama ’n’ Biden ’n’ their [exp. del.] supporters are."



Less restricted by context: "If you work hard and obey the rules, then you may pat yourself on the back in public ever after."

In the decent obscurity of an extinct language and an abandoned superstition: gratias ago Tibi quia non sum sicut ceteri hominum. [4]



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[1] Though e-rudite, that mention may well be a mistake or misunderstanding, in that JSM’s claims to be accounted estadounidense do not repose themselves upon political control of the colony in question.


[2] "Hillary Diane Rodham was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois."

It appears that the Edgewater Hospital is located at 5700 N. Ashland St., about five miles south of the True Omphalos, which is, needless to say, one’s own birthplace.

It further appears, that like the Commanderissimo’s Canal Zone, the Senatrix’s Edgewater Hospital must be spoken of in the past tense.

¡Eheu, fugaces, Postume, Postume!


[3] Now, if I was to take up spinstering in the manner of the Mark Penn School, I’d suggest we suggest to Televisionland and the electorate something like this:

"Cap’n M’Cain is a jinx and a Jonah. It is no fault of the man’s own that he happens to have two black thumbs, of course, and doubtless we would have lost control of the Canal Zone even if he had been born somewhere else. Similarly, we would no doubt have succeeded almost as well in Indochina if Cap’n M’Cain had been the holy Homeland’s very own Red Baron. Nevertheless, I ask you, my fellow Americans: would it be wise to elect such a person to lead us DURING A TIME OF WAR? Did not Napoleon say that luck is the most valuable attribute a general could be endowed with?"

[4] Ev. sec. Luc. XVIII:11.

"this framing actually follows"

Maliki is casting this [campaign against the Bribe-a-Tribe™ pensioneers] as another step in the "law and order" campaign, with the refrain of no arms in the hands of militias familiar from earlier campaigns in Basra et al. IRONICALLY, this framing actually follows what I've advocated for well over a year - establishing effective state sovereignty, which the U.S.-backed Awakenings project undermined."

Just when one begins to worry that journalists and publicists and agitprop engineers have run out of ingenious and improbable things to do with ‘irony’, along comes M. Quelquechose with that specimen, which is as if the sorcerer's apprentice were to cringe and whimper "Ironically, they didn’t stop when I told them to, sir."

S-’n’-M

Have thee heard about St. Steve and the Archangel Mike, Mr. Bones?

the Washington spin machine seems to have gone into neutral, with the Ambassador continuing to tout security improvements, while the news reports nothing but renewed violence. The uncertain direction of the spin is leading to signs of unusual disunity in the Washington "policy community": STEPHEN, it seems, is breaking with MICHAEL and THE OTHER GUY over some aspect of Iraq policy. And the hottest question of all: Was COLIN Kahl too optimistic?

"The other guy" can only be Neocomrade K. M. Pollock, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy to the Brookings Institution (may the shadow thereof be lengthened!).

Goofville suffers from swollen head as well as delusions of triumph, and I fear we may be partly to blame, O Bones! Are not thee and I those who feigned an Omniscient Triunity of Miss Lynx and Mr. Badger and Dr. Cartoonoclastes? Enough to go to a certain class of self-esteem artist’s head, that sort of thing! True, we sufficiently understand the less entertaining reality of impotent lone goof plus keyboard plus Arabic dictionaries all along, but what is the Use of Phantasy™ [1] if one cannot get a little farther out of one’s own box than that?

Be the cause what it may -- and perhaps we ourselves are blameless for a change -- Cartoono the Magnificent seems to have worked himself up into a late summer snit against Stephen and Michael and Colin and Quartus, those more empowered sort of whippersnappers whose keyboards might conceivably have a detectable impact upon the unhappiness of the former Iraq. [2]

Party Proconsul R. Crockerius, mark thee, does not get the buddy-buddy treatment. Even goofs possess a sort of grudging respect for Sole Remainin’ Hyperpower and its credentialled reps, I daresay, that holds them back from fake-casually referring to that Imperial worthy as "Ryan." [3] However, with his boss lady just recently in town, perhaps we too may pass Ryan over, spinmachinewise, and go straight for the particular capillary that Dr. Cartoonoclastes has singled out, the WPC, "Washington ‘policy community’ ".

The S-’n’-M (‘Stephen’ and ‘Michael’) gossip goes like this, giving Steve’s side of things first

"We want to have our cake and eat it too, support Maliki and the Sons of Iraq. . . . Maliki wants to make that as hard for us as possible. He wants us to choose him," said Stephen Biddle, a Council on Foreign Relations defense expert who has served as an advisor on strategy to Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq. "What it looks like we are getting is a Maliki government that won't behave itself and wants to crush the Sons of Iraq." [4]

Mike, not without Ken, presumably thinks eating the cake that one has is a perfectly feasible operation.

Presumably. I fear the source that Dr. Cartoonoclastes ‘borrows’ from [5] does not actually quote any WPCer who disagrees with Stevie. (Collie is quoted as agreeing with Stevie; we will get to that in a moment.) So strictly speaking one cannot derive a Sign of Unusual Disunity -- of any disunity at all -- from the tea leaves as presented. Still, if we look rather at the substance of what Neocomrade S. Biddle told the Los Angeles Times, we may guess that some of the WPCers would pick poor M. al-Málikí on his own terms if forced to choose, whereas others, like Stevie and Collie, would opt for some post- or at least extra- Málikiyyan option or another, if givin’ the distinguished statesperson a sound kick in the head or two does not cause him to straighten out and fly right. Though Dr. Cartoonoclastes be pleased for goofball reasons of his own to assume and assert "unusual disunity," is it not much more likely that all the WPCers want to try the kick-in-the-head method first, and disagree only about what should come next if that approach fails?

An objector might object that some of the WPCers may account poor M. al-Málikí’s head quite kickproof and therefore propose to omit a step than cannot be successful. This is not impossible, but it is the sort of question that one needs better than random cartoonoclastic evidence to pronounce upon. While waiting for such evidence to turn up, let us listen to Collie supporting Stevie:

... Colin Kahl of CNAS ... is also reconsidering his former optimism ... "There's even some evidence that he wants to start a fight with the Sons of Iraq. Al-Maliki doesn't believe he has to accommodate these people. He will only do it if we twist his arm to the breaking point." Kahl -- noting the slowdown in absorption of Sunni militia members into the Iraqi military and the assignment of humiliating jobs to those who were being incorporated into the central government's payroll - stated "The last time we humiliated thousands of these guys is back in 2003, and we got the insurgency."

Collie probably was not deliberately tryin’ to be oracular there, but he manages to achieve it. Does "to the breaking point" anticipate that the Hannibal of Da‘wa will give in at the last moment before his humerus snaps or that he will not give in? It is an important point, surely, for what paleface planmonger can wish to have poor M. al-Málikí around in a condition too badly damaged for him to be able to help her impose her own chosen druthers on the former Iraq? Still, Collie may not know himself what would happen. Like Stevie, Collie seems to think it an experiment worth lookin’ into.

It is antecedently probable enough, perhaps, that other WPCers rule that sort of experiment in political vivisection out on principle. However our general impression of Mikey (not without Kennie) does not suggest that he/they would take that line. And indeed, the antecedent probability question is not altogether easy in general. None of the WPCers have any conscientious objections to invasionism as such, let alone to opportunistic impositionism in the wake of an aggression disapproved of. For the head of poor M. al-Málikí to be perfectly immune from kickin’ by X, X would have to seriously believe in the Four Pillars of Piffle, namely the sovereignty, independence, democracy and constituitionalism of the International Zone neorégime. None of the WPC kids are in Mister X’s case. Mikey and Stevie and Kennie and Collie might advise the Powe®Pointe®s proper that it would be inadvisible for thm to be seen too plainly to regard all that as piffle, but there can of course be no question at all of honourin’ one’s own piffle at face value.

Does the Hannibal of Da‘wa realize this? Now there’s a really hard question! Let us skip it and ask rather with Dr. Cartoonoclastes, "Was Colin Kahl too optimistic?"

Of course he was. They all were, and I refer to an ALL vastly more comprehensive than just the WPC. Almost everybody from the most gung-ho Occupational Therapist to the goofiest goofball tiersmondiste has been far too optimistic about the benefits of pandering to the TwentyPercenters. Of the few of us who never cared for that conventionally wise malarkey, most were, naturally enough, interested parties, Free Kurd hillbillies or Twelver heretics who would have to be taken from in order that the TwentyPercenters might be given unto more abundantly.

The moral of the tale, valid against thug planmongers and goof planmongers alike, is perhaps that of M. de Kirkegaard: "Purity of heart is to will one thing." At any rate, willin’ percentages and proportions is what has created so many pesky little problems of success for Team Aggression and so much goofiness from Lynx and Badger and Cartoonoclastes. (Not even to mention the Righteous Virtue of Reidar Visser!)

The former Iraq might theoretically have been returned to normalcy by restoration of the old Sunni Ascendancy IN FULL, but nothing can come of mucking about with mere Affirmative Action™ schemes. The Natural Masters of Mesopotamia naturally (I suppose it is) want mastery, not just two-and-a-half votes instead of one. Some sort of Vast Cartoonoclasm was bound to occur eventually, though not necessarily the sort of cartoonoclasm that seems to be going on at the moment, which consists in the Hannibal of Da‘wa having become strong enough (he figures) to insist that it is not ‘fair’ that the TwentyPercenters get two-and-a-half votes apiece. Alternatively, there might have been a Bushie-Ba‘thí Pact of Steel, prominently featurin’ a Pipesovitchian "pro-democracy strongman" less implausible than poor M. al-Málikí. Yet that plan would not have worked in practice either, because the TwentyPercenter theocommunity has been smashed to smithereens. The Natural Masters almost certainly could not have held up their end of the traditional racket even with Château Kennebunkport and Rancho Crawford solidly behind them.

Least troublesome for everybody would have been to give poor M. al-Málikí -- or rather, the heretical theocommunity as a whole -- more or less what he has recently started to grab for himself, a plan which never crossed the mind of Sappy Conventionalis and her countless fans. As matters stand at the moment, the "not invented here" syndrome will probably kick in and make sure that Hannibal II does not get very far in the direction he is headed, while also making sure that nobody else gets very far in her direction either. [6] Were I a conspiratorialising goof, I might conclude with Cartoono the Magnificent that the saps must be acting sappy on purpose:

On the underlying question of the Awakenings, the funny thing is that the "policy community" isn't drawing any connection between the Maliki crackdown on the one hand, and American attempts to get him to sign a bilateral security agreement on the other--involving, for instance, possibly giving Maliki the green light for a purge, on the idea that this will not only please Maliki as part of the bargaining, but will also generate feelings that perhaps the American troops are in fact needed for just a little longer, depending on circumstances of course.

But it will not do to suppose what the gentry of Mu’ámara Junction suppose about the character and motives of AEI and GOP and DoD and USIP and EIB and . . . . Team Aggression are simply not bright enough to come up with the ingenious schemes that Goofville keeps attributing to ’em. [7]


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[1] Thee are to imagine an unread and perhaps unreadable poem from Century XII/XVIII thus entitled to match The Pleasures of the Imagination .


[2] ("He’s jealous.")


[3] Thee might alternatively conjecture that the Lynxes and Badgers and Cartoonoclastes of our alien and bewildered world do not seriously respect anything much that is not a PowerPoint.

Too prolonged an immersion in rigorously nondenominational pro-Sunnianity might have that tendency also, since both the TwentyPercenters of ex-Iraq and the ever-august Sunni International more broadly are rather fonder of "Clubs are trumps" than seems quite decent to Königsberger wimps like thee and me.



[4] http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-sons23-2008aug23,0,2435302.story
begat http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/08/malikis_aproach/ begat Cartoono’s latest, linked too from the e-roof of our own humble abode.


[5] The second URL in note [4] above.


[6] That Kiddie Konstitution krafted by Feldman of Harvard and Khalílzád Pasha of AEI and GOP is of great importance in this connection. Cartoono is not interested in such things, and neither are Mikey and Collie and Stevie and Kennie. So much the worse for them!


[7] Cartoono is very weak on Crawfordology. In addition to not being intelligent enough to come up with any of his nifty scenarios, the cowpoker vigilantes usually would not behave like that even if they thought of it.

Joe Biden Meets the Moonbats

Senator Biden was rather a nine hours’ than a nine days’ wonder here at La Casa del Chipo de Silicio, Mr. Bones. By Labor Day it will be impossible to think of him and the silly yawpin’ about him from the direction of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh and Radio Free Enterprise without irritation, so let us try to be serious about the poor man briefly before impossibility sets in.

The less unintelligent members of the señorito element invite Televisionland and the electorate to conclude that the anointment of J. Robinette Biden ‘means’ above all that B. Hussein Obáma thereby effectively ‘admits’ that he does not know anything much about foreign and invasion policy. That is close enough to the truth as seen at LCCS to be a bit dangerous. Fortunately the vast majority of GOP geniuses and of Big Management Party base-and-vile, both alike, are not up to exploitin’ the real weakness of it properly. The bad news, of course, is that the Commanderissimo Presumptive of GOP and AEI and EIB and NATO and Heritage and Hoover and America’s Moonpaper can probably be installed successfully quite without reference to anybody’s second bananas.

The gutter is never an inappropriate place to begin when considering the Party of Atwater, so let us hear a little kiddie analysis from the employees of His Christokorean Effulgence:

The Democratic Party elite and grass-roots members are all raving about their presumptive vice presidential nominee Joe Biden in between letting everyone know the talking point of the week -- the number of homes and condominiums that John McCain owns. The Democrats, now able to stop panicking about Barack Obama's slide in the polls, can live it up in Denver. Or can they? The fact is that the Democrats are going to have to spend this week and the next two months explaining to their voters how the "change" campaign became the "business as usual campaign" and why that is better for the country - especially for young people who had armed themselves for a generational takeover. A separate problem remains with Hillary Clinton supporters, who have refused to get over the fact that she didn't win the nomination and wasn't selected to be vice president. These people are feeling vindicated, even though this ticket represents a far better best-of-both-worlds scenario than her presence would have produced.

Christokorean moonbats are only, at best, moonbats of an inferior sort, prone to Superstition and Enthusiasm. It would be unreasonable to raise, at their level, any tricky questions about exactly where J. Sidney McCain stands on the Change-As-Usual issue. But any fool can work out they are not interested in J. Robinette for himself, but chiefly as a Hillary-free zone, and secondarily as a specimen of Altzheimer’s fodder. If Cap’n M’Cain ever reads their editorials, a thing nigh unto incredible, maybe even he will be able to work out that he is now under no pressure to anoint either a female or a juvenile. Not that such an unorthodox anointment was likely in any case -- with the Commanderissimo it has , of course, all along been only a question of which apoplectically middle-aged, brain-dead white male should be greased. [1] We shall see, but I doubt the Atwater Party anointee will be worth commenting on, unless it be Sen. Lieberman, and in that case we shall be descanting about what an exceedin‘ly dumb Mugwump JSM is, mentioning the positivity of Holy Joe scarcely at all.

So, then, the core Christokorean analysis seems to be that Lady Rodham will win this one for the Flyboy Hero, not out of affection or ideological affinity, but because B. Hussein Obáma is in her way as much as in the Atwaterites’ way. The fact that Lady Rodham began her political evolution as a dupe of militant Republican extremism back when the Big Managers were runnin’ a Party of Goldwater rather than of Atwater is no doubt merely coincidental. Probably.

But the moonbat element have already been conferrin’ with the señorito element, it looks like: "[H]is selection reveals Mr. Obama's own insecurity about his own credentials." They drop that sentence into a remarkably long paragraph (long for a wombscholar-oriented fishwrap, that is). They drop it in, but I fail to see that they do anythin’ else with it. The rest of their piffle marches to the tune that BHO and JRB are interchangeable, "[B]oth men have been firmly ensconced on the political left when it comes to" foreign and aggression policy.

Well, perhaps the moonbats figure that the ‘insecure’ Senatorino figures that his credentials can be fixed up in a jiffy by just adding in more of the same, the supposed deficiency being strictly quantitative and not qualitative. A decent political grown-up would assume that running as a Demoncrat automatically assures BHO of whatever benefits there of that nature there may be to scarf up. In short, BHO has just wasted his vice-presidential card in order to obtain what he could scarcely have failed to possess anyway, what only a definite repudiation could have caused him not to possess. [2]

However, the ‘insecurity’ of B. Hussein Obáma is a figment, tripe and baloney concocted at, and by, and for Wingnut City and Christokorea. The Atwaterites know that themselves, since they spend the other half of their time swiftboatin’ Televisionland about BHO’s insufferable arrogance and his pluperfect and arugular élitisme. Presumably they calculate correctly that wombschoolin’ and Niederdümmung have now advanced to the point that the average swing voter is unlikely to be puzzled by a combination of Satanic superbia and a cripplin’ sense of self-unworthiness. Or do they calculate correctly that their ‘populist’ dupes and their ‘no substitute for Victory!’ dupes will never compare notes? (But God knows best what moonbats calculate!)

Here is the Moonbat Times bottom line:

The hope is that Mr. Biden will help Mr. Obama overcome a major political problem: the growing perception that he is unprepared to lead a nation at war.

Certainly no loyal Atwaterite hopes anythin’ of that sort. I presume it must be doves and donkeys of which Christokorea sings. If one may tediously go back to the first hurdle that the fishwrap artists leaped over without fear and without discussion, does the holy Homeland, taken by and large, in fact consider Herself to be "at war" as of 23 Sha‘bán 1429, the former 25 August 2008?

If that were really the case, would not the Big Management Party’s Commanderissimo Presumptive be a shoo-in? Moonbats and señoritos and the rest of their pack as well like to wonder out loud why the Senatorino from Illinois is not twenty or thirty points ahead in the polls if he is really half so wunnerful as his swooning groupies make out, but if we assume that the Long War™ and the Kiddie Krusade™ are truths universally acknowledged, the shoo ought logically to be on the other foot, nicht wahr?

If we drag in the former Real World, it is obvious at once that nobody around these parts is at war and never was for more than a few minutes in her imagination immediately following the Pentagon/WTC attacks of 23.VI.1423. Insurance auditors have long since revised their rates for airliners and skyscrapers, and that was that, in mere Real World terms. What matters for proper evaluation of moonbattery and of the Biden anointment is not whether our holy Homeland is ‘really’ at grips with hate-inspired antagonists in a life-or-death struggle -- of course She ain’t, circumspicete, for Pete’s sake! -- but whether Televisionland and the electorate would like to think so or not. Christokorean kiddie analysis takes for granted that the Dan Quayle couch potatoes are still ‘war’ fans. Postinfantile señoritos can analyze a little better than that, perceivin’ that the Big Party’s ‘war’ has been over for quite a while now. Señoritos regret that it should be so, but by and large they do not let their hormones run away with them the way moonbats do, overrulin’ their brains as to the actual correlation of farces. Señoritos think ‘we’ oughtabe at ‘war’ against the Islamophalangitarian Terror™, but they also manage to notice that ‘we’ actually are not.

The Senatorino from Illinois and the Senator from Delaware and about ninety-eight percent of America’s party do not believe in the AEI-GOP-USIP-EIB ‘war’ either as fact or as value. The other two percent, Sec. Albright and Amb. Holbrooke and Sen. Lieberman et hoc genus omne, remain gung-ho for ‘war’ in the path of Military Humanism™, or in the path of hyperZion, or in both paths simultaneously, but these gentry are sufficiently best and brightest to see that they cannot march towards their radiant destination openly and expect to find the other 98% of us marching behind them. They appear to have figured out that they will have to conduct their ‘war’ on the side and on the sly. The Dan Quayle couch potatoes will put up with quite a lot of bipartisan CFR-Brookings-Hambaker bipartisan model ‘war’ as long as they don’t run into it on TV too often. [3]

By my analysis, then, the moonbats are badly mistaken. (Imagine that!) The Commanderissimo of AEI and GOP and Heritage and Hoover is not goin’ta collect many fresh votes with his ‘war’ mongerin’. If he does not monger with a good deal of circumspection, the Party of Atwater will actually lose votes because of their ‘war’. Not a great many votes, probably, and assuredly not enough to cost Atwaterism the election single-handed, but still . . . .

Since BHO does not suffer from the ‘problem’ that America’s Moonpaper professes to have diagnosed, it follows that Sen. Biden cannot be the solution to it. Perhaps there would be more to say for kiddie analysis if they had scribbled about Obamatan unpreparedness simpliciter instead of "unprepared to lead a nation at war." Such analysis would be more suitable to the former Real World, but on the other hand they "are an Empire now" [4] and furthermore J. Sidney is the new Emperor thereof. Simply escapin’ from reality does not eliminate all of the Big Management Party’s problems: to trade in reality-basin’ for Cap’n M’Cain may not prove the best bargain that moonbats and señoritos and right wingnuts generally have ever made. The GOP geniuses have rallied stoutly behind their new Commanderissimo, as necessarily they must, but the Party base and vile are rather notoriously not crazy about the Hero Aviator. When it comes to "preparedness to lead a nation at" anythin’ other than ‘war’ . . . . Well, let us say that lots and lots of good folks at Rio Limbaugh and Wingnut City think that the Big Party’s Commanderissimo is headed entirely the wrong way on xenophobia ("immigration reform") and demoplutocracy ("election reform" &c.) and the pretended global warmin’, among other items. If it was not for ‘war’ leadership, I daresay they’d have gladly let J. Sidney McCain go commanderissimate elsewhere and over others. Just like they did in 2000, before anybody dreamed of ‘war’.

This puts the extremist GOP base and vile in a position comparable to their own Boy’s position in the former Iraq: they find themselves somehow saddled with JSM, and apart from ‘war’ this saddlin’ does not make any sense, not even by the dim lights of EIB and Christokorea and Wombschool Normal U. So unless the B&V are to consider themselves demented, -- an unthinkable proposition! -- ‘war’ must be central to the electoral campaign. And then if ‘war’ is centralized in general, naturally individual campaign events such as the anointment of Joseph Robinette Biden must be furnished with an exegesis in terms of ‘war’ also. For instance,

Mr. Biden, since his election the Senate in 1972, has generally voted with the George McGovern/Ted Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party on national security issues, whether the question was defeating communism in Central America, the Reagan defense buildup of the 1980s that helped bring down the Soviet Union or the 1991 Iraq War. That said, Mr. Biden is no knee-jerk leftist, and he has a healthy tendency from time to time to turn his scorn on the political left - as he has done during the past year regarding funds for military operations in Iraq.

Moonbats are too far removed spiritually from the holy Homeland to be expected to gauge JRB’s "healthy tendency" correctly. It was not about ‘war’ as such, it was about the Fedguv Constitution, a domestic matter that can not be expected to be of importance to Christokorean nationals. Though even they ought to be able to work out that B. Hussein Obáma can not have been attempting to annoy the "knee-jerk leftist" when he decided to anoint Mr. Biden. Sheesh!


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[1] Gov. Jindal of Louisiana was briefly ballyhooed back when the Party of Atwater were still a little afraid of BHO, but of course that was an impossible scheme mentioned only in desperation. The Party of Atwater do not install their señorito element in leadership positions until they grow up to be apoplectic and middle-aged to the eye, and most likely brain-dead within.

Gov. Roosevelt of New York in 1900 was perhaps an exception, but one hundred and eight years really IS a long time in politics.



[2] On the ridiculous assumption that thee or I were campaigning for POTUSdom, Mr. Bones, such a repudiation can be imagined: we would climb up on the platform and resoundingly JUST SAY ¡NO! to the whole Albright-Berger-Holbrooke-Indyk-Lieberman-Ross cabal. Plus maybe Pan Brzezinski as well.



[3] The recent "Three Trillion Dollar War" shtyk was wasted ingenuity. The couch potatoes don’t mind what ‘war’ costs, they mind having to see it on the tube all the time even after they have plainly announced that they are bored with it.

Righteous Virtue Meets the Delaware Monster

Primâ facie one expects to be served typical North Danish baloney like

"the addition of Joe Biden to the Obama ticket might aggravate these tendencies, because in the past Biden has been a leading American voice in promoting an interpretation of Iraq as a country of three mutually hostile and internally stable population blocks. His various “plans for Iraq”, while frequently misunderstood, in different ways reinforce the view that the main problem in Iraq has to do with a centralised state structure and coexistence issues. Like many others in American politics, Biden has failed to acknowledge the emerging non-sectarian trends in Iraq, seeking instead to push ideas about “Sunni federalism” during his visit to the Anbar governorate.

But we had better have the Wonderbread in which the baloney is embedded as well, an account of the tendencies that might be aggravated. Dr. Righteous Virtue begins strikingly, disagreeing with about 98.3047% of the known universe:

" ... the real context of the upcoming Democratic convention is that ‘the surge’ in Iraq is not working at all. Despite measurable successes in bringing the levels of violence down, the American-sponsored political system in Iraq is actually more dysfunctional than ever...."

Emphasis added, naturally, and also added in such a way as to run across the break between two of the sophist’s sentences. That seems fair enough to me, though, or anyway no more twistificatory than what Dr. Virtue does to his own foes -- ’no-’count know-nothin’s that they are! Taking the emphasized part in isolation, then, we learn that violence levels in the former Iraq have no connexion with the Ever-Victorious SurGe of ’07™. [1] We also learn that R. Virtue doesn’t mind dictating to AEI-GOP-DoD-USIP-EIB-etc. what they are up to. Possibly they are unaware that the real reason why they surGed was to functionalise the Khalílzád Konstitution, but all the same, that is what happened. North Danish Virtue is militantly objective, much like Rio Limbaugh virtue, though the latter is only your lower-case ethical type. Petrolaeus and Crockerius are doin’ what they are doin’ after all. Everything is what M. Reidar Visser says it is; why should we wish to be deceived?

The psychology of docta amentia is fascinating, but let us discuss that topic some other day. At the moment we need to know exactly what the word ‘dysfunctional’ means in the most recent oracular deliverance:

"... actually more dysfunctional than ever, incapable of delivering the results that both Iraqis and Americans are looking for. Perhaps the best evidence is the fact that it is now Washington’s own darlings in Iraq and their pet projects that stand in the way of progress, as seen in the vice-presidential vetoes this year against the provincial powers law and the provincial elections law. There is in fact a cross-sectarian majority in the Iraqi parliament that wants to have early elections and power-sharing in Kirkuk, but Washington’s allies among the Kurds and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) keep blocking progress towards national reconciliation and a more sustainable political system. The salient cleavages in Iraqi politics are increasingly of a non-sectarian nature – the alliance that challenged the Maliki government through its demand for early elections and power-sharing in Kirkuk had an eminently cross-sectarian composition, and no matter how the media likes to spin it, the recent sacking of the police commander in Diyala did pit some powerful Shiite players against each other – but American policy fails to respond to this reality."

Thus R. Virtue completes setting his miniature replica Stage of Ex-Iraq for the appearance of the (not so very) new character, Bidenius. We have seen before that Dr. Virtue can be in a red-hot rippin’ hurry to shoehorn whatever just happened into accordance with the established platform and by-laws of his own Party of Zero. That seems to have happened here, where he distinctly talks as if he used to be conjoined with militant extremist Republicans in an alliance for "progress." As I recall RV has never touched more pitch and filth than to notice that GOP-AEI-DoD-USIP-EIB-etc. happen to possess the power necessary to stuff the Visserian Peruna down the natives’ throats willy-nilly. R. Virtue never came even close to agreeing with Team Aggression about the recipe for the salvific gunk required.

Should the OBB ticket (improbably) prevail, it will inherit Sole Remainin’ Hyperpower as a matter of course, and then R. Virtue will have to stand in line with the rest of the exotic exile pols of the world -- Saakashvilis, Makiyas, Chalabis, Kys, Thieus, Imperial Pahlavis, Pinochets, Batistae -- who think it would be really neat if Uncle Sam were to install themselves, and their cousins, and their family's traditional clients, and their ideobuddies, and their roommates at Yale in power back home. [2] Power draws Chalabis and Vissers the same way an open jar of honey draws files. "Why should we wish to be deceived?" In particular, why deceive ourselves that the flies care much about the taste of the honey?

The toy theater stage is set. Enter Bidenius from the left:

Remarkably, however, it seems that Biden may have cleaned up his Iraq rhetoric as part of his VP bid. At least, it is quite conspicuous how every trace of his “plan for Iraq” now appears to have been erased from his website at joebiden.com, where he now instead supports Barrack Obama’s more general argument about shifting the focus to Afghanistan. Also, at some point between April 2008 and today, Biden’s website specifically devoted to his soft partition schemes, www.planforiraq.com, was quietly shut down – at this site, Biden’s rhetoric had consistently focused on a tripartite Iraq to the very end. Only on his Senate website traces of his Iraq policy remain, but even there a more toned-down version appears, with the emphasis on a general push for federalisation. This is still in contravention of the Iraqi constitution (which specifically rejects any kind of elite-driven federalisation process) but it could perhaps mean that Biden increasingly realises that his plans were unsustainable and that trends in Iraq militate against them.

So perhaps the poor pol has definitively recovered from his bout of schizomania mutilans? Or perhaps, on the other hand, he has not, since it would be indecorous for an aspiring Second Banana to hawk a foreign and invasion policy different from that of Numero Uno. And on the third tentacle, perhaps R. Visser has already made calculations not unlike our own that tend to demonstrate the advantages of never setting oneself up bumptiously against the wielders of Sole Remainin’ Hyperpower. Even if poor Joe continues to be wrong about nearly everything ex-Iraqi from the Party of Zero standpoint, conciliation might win some concessions eventually, whereas strict principled intransigeance must come off empty-handed. "Softly, softly catchee monkey!"

Directly badmouthing Top Banana donkeys may be inadvisable, yet one can always kick the rank and file around a little:

Democrats appear to be equally ignorant about the survival of Iraqi nationalist sentiment, but they express this in a different policy: acceptance of Iranian influence in Iraq as something natural. This was even written into Obama’s “New Strategy for a New World”, released in mid-July. Commenting on Iraq, Obama writes, “Iraq is not going to be a perfect place…we are not going to … eliminate every trace of Iranian influence”. He seems unaware that this particular statement may be seen as deeply offensive by many Iraqi Shiites who are proud of their Iraqi identity but fearful of Iran and the pro-Iranian elites that have been empowered by the Bush administration. Their fear is that a new Democratic administration will accord Iran exaggerated influence in Iraq as part of a grand, Dayton-style regional settlement designed as an antidote to the Bush administration’s unilateralist policies.

Party-of-Zeroist technique stands out there, does it not? Dr. Righteous Virtue does not speak for North Denmark or for Old Europe or for himself, he speaks for "many Iraqi Shiites." Who can be so low-minded as to doubt that he would show us a valid power of attorney from "many Iraqi Shiites" if we demanded such a thing? Certainly I shall not doubt it, being anyway more interested in the holy Homeland angles.

RV does not seem to understand the Heimatland Gottes very well. Or possibly I don’t. Either way, nobody has been hollering for "a grand, Dayton-style regional settlement" loud enough to capture my ear. In addition to there being no detectable groundswell for such a scheme, the ideology in the Tanks of Thought has not sloshed like that either. Nobody worth mentioning in the holy Homeland wants to accord the evil Qommies "exaggerated influence." North Danish ideas of exaggeration may differ slightly from those of Crawford and Kennebunkport and South Succotash and central Chicagoland, but not enough to salvage that particular exuberance. [3]

Meanwhile, back in Cloudcuckooland,

Democrats cannot simply close their eyes and imagine that the Iraq of 2008 in any way represents a natural state of affairs, and that a quick withdrawal automatically will prompt some kind of Hobbesian reset whereby the country will find back to its true self. Real change in Iraq would mean that Obama realised that for five years straight the United States has promoted and consolidated an artificial sectarian system in the country, and that disengagement from Iraq should also aim at reversing this trend.

Which is to say, Extra Visseritatem nulla salus. Which figures, of course, considering the source of this morning’s baloney sandwich.

It befits the Silly Season well enough to try to fill in that scenario in one’s imagination. The transition back from Corrupt Artificiality to pure and unsullied Nature would be presided over by an integalactic force drawing mainly on North Denmark and West Neptune! If they ever get the public water supply working reliably, Murti-Bing Pills® will put down corruption and artifice and icky sectarianism, imported from darkest Crawfordestán half a decade ago, the same way fluoride conquers tooth decay!! Everybody remotely connected with the Supreeme Hakeemes will be imprisoned for life as a matter of public sanitation!!! [4]

Perhaps I get carried away.

How about a fifty-dinar fine for even thinking the word ‘partition’ in a public place?


___
[1] Sure, R. Virtue mentioned only "violence REDUCTION." But there are limits to even my polemical charity, vast though it be. He will certainly get the whistle called on him if he ever tries in future to object to SurGe and SurGists on grounds of increased violence. He can have his "not working" both ways or neither, but not only one way as between Up and Down, let alone a wobble back-and-forth. So we shall assume SurGin’ is violence-level neutral - period.


[2] R. Virtue and the Party of Zero do not crave power for themselves personally? No doubt, but ‘idealists’ of the Reidarian ilk can be a damnable nuisance under foot all the same. M. Pascal and the Muses and I are not impressed with the notion that disinterestedness is the ace of trumps in ethics and politics. Working that principle backwards, Dr. Virtue’s excessive swooning over the ‘nonsectarianism’ of his own pets amongst the former Iraqis probably arises from Idealismus too. It seems never to have occured to some shallow reflectors that there can be an unjust judge whose injustice takes a form quite different from lining his own pocket with bribes or grabbing the local cathedral for his own religionism all but fifteen minutes weekly, alternate Thursday mornings from 0230 to 0300.


[3] The sophistical exuberance is perhaps too nebulous to merit even ridicule. Would a "regional settlement" necessarily include a solution of the Palestine Puzzle? If so, we can securely count on it never happening. If not, what on Gore’s green earth is Dr. Righteous Virtue going on about when he emits such a phrase?

Regardless of whether it is the Commnaderissimo of GOP and AEI and EIB who wins in November or the feckless OBB twosome, it looks as if Dr. Righteous Virtue will be bringing coals to Newcastle in the form of lobbying Uncle Sam not to be too nice to the sinister Safavids. Oh, well, it is not as if anybody empowered is going to err for purely Visserian reasons!


[4] It is, to be sure, DOCTA amentia that we encounter in Dr. Righteous Virtue. He's a regular whizkiddie on Basra trivia questions, it is only a few minor points about Right v. Wrong and that sort of thing that cast him into a witless kerfuffle.

Cereal Capitulations, A Subsocratic Dialogue

Try this with thee’s raisin bran, Mr. Bones!

MISS LYNX: One reason for the silence [1] is the serial capitulations the US is making. On elections, on time lines, even on their beloved Sons of Iraq program. All of which suggest they have fallen behind the Maliki makeover program into the new Saddam. It's a tough thing to come to terms with, after all the wasted energy over "democracy" and the COIN "enlightenment" path toward it. DR. CARTOONOCLASTES: Or possibly ... that Bush, turning the whole idea of "conditional engagement" on its head, is telling Maliki et al that they should take advantage of their friend Bush's last months in power let him help them secure their grip on power, if they will just please sign something. In other words, that the Americans aren't just capitulating but have actually joined the parade in a proactive way... MISS LYNX: I think thats right, that the US is on board with Maliki's radical new make over. I meant that those doing the capitulating were those democracy and COIN folks towing the line - for what now appears to be at best, token propaganda.

Perhaps the Silly Season has finally infected even me, Mr. Bones, but there seems to be less nongoofiness in about 180 words there than in six months of regular output from the angelic agitprop mills of Lynx, Badger, Cartoonoclastes LLC. There is not any more evidence for today’s baloney than usual -- not any evidence at all, really -- but the huntin’ - shootin’ - conspiratorializin’ gentry have deviated into plausibility for once, if not into Sense pure and simple.

Naturally that means they must have stumbled onto turf previously taken possession of by thee and me, sir. And so they have, for what does this alleged proäctivity amount to but a specific exemplification of our own fundamental Crawfordological speculation that Team Aggression, for a long time now, has been prepared to accept pretty well anythin’ whatever in the former Iraq as long as it can be maketed to Televisionland and the electorate as Success and Victory for Boy and Party and Ideology. The positive character of the bushogenic quagmire, the weal or woe of thirty million spear-won subjects of AEI-GOP-DoD-USIP-EIB -- such exotic details count for nothing or little compared to makin’ sure that the cowpoker vigilantes can holler "Yippee, we finally won!" -- plus naturally add in a less exuberant tone, "Plus please note for future reference that the Demoncrat Party did NOT win."

Oddly enough, we arrived at that Crawfordological guideline of ours by looking towards Crawford. Over at Goofville, they look more towards beautiful downtown Takrít, the Mecca of Sunninterní Antisectarianity. That indirect procedure is as if one were to pursue astronomy by gazing always downwards into a dentist’s mirror. Thee will not be amazed, O Bones, that it might take them rather longer than us to arrive at this little scrap of common ground that I think I have unearthed.

The odds are heavily stacked against sanity persisting at Mu’ámara Junction, alas! The selection of Senator Biden is bound to set Cartoono the Magnificent and his clown troupe off on a bender. Old White Joe is, of course, the very model of a modern schizomaniac, forever chuckling to himself with glee at the prospect of tearing other folks’ former countries to shreds for them, then setting the shreds on fire, then "dance around the funeral pyre, playing a violin, -olin, playing a violin." [2]

The good news is that Barry and Barry’s Joe will lose in November. [3] Once J. Sidney has been safely installed as Commanderissimo of AEI-GOP-DoD-EIB (&c. &c.), the USA neorégime won’t have to truckle to poor M. al-Málikí any longer. His whole Hannibal of Da‘wa shtyk will crumble rapidly, as the irresistable military supremacy [4] of Sunnintern and TwentyPercenters combined makes itself felt. In no time at all, it will be "Helicopters on the roof, aloof." (And about time!)

So everything is still all right, basically, from the Goofville perspective: more annoying delays of the inevitable, but no fate worse than that. Today’s unaccountable deviation sensewards is not so extreme as to involve Cartoono & Company becoming less idealistic and Parmenidean about the strictly military prospects of their pets. When Himself speaks of poor M. al-Málikí and selected I. Z. quislings "securing their grip on power," he means, I take it, their power vis-à-vis the remainder of the Quisling Community. The Mighty Muqáwama is entirely another story.

Perhaps I had better specify the ungoofy part of the MJ new look with more precision. Above all it is the guess that ruling circles of AEI-GOP-DoD-EIB have decided to allow poor M. al-Málikí to borrow their Uncle Sam’s hyperpower and warm bodies and violence pro expertise in order to advance specifically Málikiyyan objectives in the native politics of the International Zone neorégime. After they have assisted the Hannibal of Da‘wa, little Miss Lynx’s "new Saddam," to make himself intramurally supreme, Hannibal will be replete with gratitude and willing to agree to pretty well anythin’ that Cap’n M’Cain may subsequently desire of him.

That is not bad at all, especially if it could be taken with assurance as the effort of a recoverin’ goofball, but it is not perfect. It may well soar over the heads of the GOP geniuses unnoticed that the sort of loyalty that they expect from Hannibal Gloriosus is not common in the evil public sector and will probably not be forthcomin’ in any marked degree. "Austria will astonish the world with her ingratitude."

Regardless of what the cowpokers themselves miss or figure in, Miss Lynx and Dr. Cartoonoclastes have not noticed their own new analysis product’s strongest point, namely that it implies a return of the former Iraq to Greater Levantine normalcy. Hannibal is to become what Gen. Mubárak or Messrs. les altesses royales du Ryad have always been. This mode of being involves some very particular specifications about the loyalty-gratitude nexus: Hannibal must be kept on a short leash, compelled to be loyal and grateful on a day-to-day basis, he must never be allowed not to worry about somebody else supplanting him, whether, improbably, from below by ‘revolution’ and muqáwama or, far more likely, from the side, by some near peer who sneakily persuades Team Aggression that he could be an even better Kirkpatrician "our S.O.B." for them than poor M. al-Málikí. Fifteen or twenty years deeper into the Century of J. Sidney McCain, these unpleasantly paranoid requirements will be less necessary, and Hannibal, or Hannibal’s heir, will at that point no doubt be trustworthy out of sight for short periods of time. But to dispense with the leash at the outset would be madly irresponsible.

I conjecture that Lynx and Badger and Cartoonoclastes do not care to notice this aspect because it seriously interferes with their Pangloss-cum-Pollyanna attitudes about the swiftly approaching triumph of strict nondenominational pro-Sunninternianity. They do not want a short leash to connect Hannibal with George XLIII and John XLIV and Ignoto XLV and .... What they crave is Hannibal left on his own in some shady corner where their factional pals can tear his [exp. del.] guts out with claw and fang and impunity. So to speak.

If goofiness is to be eschewed altogether, Cartoono & Co. will have to learn to keep their hormones in check. To think ‘unthinkable’ thoughts, such as that once in a while the bad guys really do prevail, and that’s that.

Oh, well.

____
[1] Cartoono had scribbled

[R]ecall the Diyala operation of Monday, where the American involvement has been made clear (a "rogue operation" according to the deputy commander of US forces in the region), and this American involvement has elicited no follow-up whatsoever by those who purport to explain "counterinsurgency" to the American people from some kind of a supposedly progressive standpoint. Preferring instead to push ahead with the story about the American forces as a moderating influence.

So one must infer that Miss Lynx ponders the ‘silence’ of Juan the Wicked, and Helena the Foreign Policy Foxite, and Maarcvark the Off-On-Vacation-While-Baghdad-Burns. No doubt there exist other fake-progressive nonfollowers-up, but that unholy trinity will do to indicate which hand is getting bitten by Miss Lynx. Himself, being in a temporary snit against Dr. iRack, probably meant that nogoodnik in particular by "who purport[s] to explain ‘counterinsurgency’ to the American people." Anyhow, what the traitor fiends are ‘silent’ about is the story about the extremist Republican forces as a perpetual wellspring of s*ct*r**nism.


[2] T. Lehrer fecit

About a maid I'll sing a song, Sing rickety-tickety-tin, About a maid I'll sing a song, Who didn't have her fam'ly long. Not only did she do them wrong, She did ev'ryone of them in, them in, She did ev'ryone of them in. (...) She set her sister's hair on fire, a-Rickety-tickety-tin, She set her sister's hair on fire, And as the smoke and flame rose high'r, Danced around the funeral pyre, Playin' a violin, -olin, Playin' a violin.

[3] Good news for rabid schizophobes, I mean. Should the MJ gentry actually care about any other branch of progressivity in central North America, they may not be quite so burblin’ly happy on the morning of 5 November 2008. Mais nous verrons.

Maybe ‘Feverish’ After All?

Perhaps one should not make light of the Oracles of Virtue after all, O Bones! No matter how pomposely they set themselves up to be revered and resorted to, there is always at least some possibility that they may guess the future correctly by accident. Or, indeed, "by inspiration, like a bagpipes."

More specifically, McClatchy and McClatchy’s Fadel have gone around the bend and out of sight about the Diyálae Affair, which I shall henceforth punctuate that way so as to remind thee and the Muses of M. Dreyfus. What does one say about a news story that starts off as follows?

Key U.S. Iraq strategy in danger of collapse Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers last updated: August 20, 2008 06:31:07 PM BAGHDAD — A key pillar of the U.S. strategy to pacify Iraq is in danger of collapsing because the Iraqi government is failing to absorb tens of thousands of former Sunni Muslim insurgents who'd joined U.S.-allied militia groups into the country's security forces. American officials have credited the militias, known as the Sons of Iraq or Awakening councils, with undercutting support for the group al Qaida in Iraq and bringing peace to large swaths of the country, . . .

. . . and off she goes!

What does one say? Not a hard question. One says, "Why was that twistification not marked as an editorial?" Only a thoroughly ideologated goofball could seriously suppose that the ‘collapse’ of a whole system of neocolonial occupational therapy should be presented as if it were a new bridge felled by an engineering mistake.

Having got the main point off one’s chest, one may attend to the tale rather than the title, and wonder what the corporate media fiends think they are doing, exactly. What is Diyálae to them, or they to Diyálae? At that point one reads the twistatorial through and discovers that the D-place is not so much as mentioned in it. Curiouser and curioser; not only feverish, but cryptofeverish are the Banát McClatchy! [1]

Perhaps the best clue to this ‘professional’ misbehaviour [2] begins with the seventh microparagraph from the end. Repunctuated for grown-ups, here it comes:

Colin Kahl, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a centrist policy institute in Washington, who recently visited Iraq, said the dispute over the militias could set the stage for a return of widespread bloodshed, particularly because the Maliki government seemed intent on thwarting the plan. He noted that of the militia members slated to join the security forces, only 600 have completed the required training. Of those, most are Shiites. Kahl, who spoke with senior U.S. officials during his visit to Iraq, said that the Iraqi government was providing jobs to the militia members in "humiliating ways." He said former Iraqi army officers were being absorbed as low-level beat cops, and men who saw themselves as the "slayers of al Qaida" were being asked to become plumbers and bricklayers. "The last time we humiliated thousands of these guys is back in 2003, and we got the insurgency," Kahl said.

It can’t do much harm to accuracy if we simply suppose that L. Fádil has been good enough to allow C. Kahl to borrow her corporation’s keyboard -- with or without her own private brain tossed in -- temporarily. The thesis being twistified for by her whole scribble is stated plainly there and expressly attributed to Kahl of CNAS. To state it a bit more ab externo: poor M. al-Málikí is headed straight for the Dustbin of History® if he does not quickly join Prof. Colin Kahl of CNAS, and Dr. Gen. David Petraeus of Princeton and West Point, and Proconsul R. Crockerius of Kennebunkport-Crawford, and Mlle. Sappy Conventionalis (of ubiquitous provenance) aboard the Bribe-a-Tribe™ Express. Should it depart the station without him, Núrí Kamál is doomed indeed!

Considering that every dove and every hawk with even a slight trace of lemming blood in her veins seems to agree with that mistake already, ‘feverish’ probably will not do. Yet Señor Kahlfeidal (so to christen the consensus errantium) does seem to think the Bribe-a-Tribe™ Express situation is somehow more urgent than it was last month or a year ago or back when they originally aggressed.

I guess the fuss and feavers must be mainly about the cowpokers down at the ranch, who have indeed not been particularly eager to kick poor M. al-Málikí in the head so as to insure that he does the right thing. [3] The GOP geniuses are not, to put it mildly, used to bein’ successful in their colonial policies. Now that poor M. al-Málikí has managed to set up as the Hannibal of Da‘wa without instantly getting hooted off the stage, the geniuses are perhaps a bit reluctant to interfere with such scanty helpin’s of Success and Victory as have come Team Aggression’s way merely because NKaM may possibly be succeeding and triumphing off in slightly the wrong direction. What I have insolently referred to as "a kick in the head" may appear to the exponents of Big Management as a comparatively minor in-course flight correction that can be made at any time.

There is no sign (known to me) that the Harvard Victory School MBA classes have reconsidered their underlyin’ strategy for the bushogenic quagmire. They still agree with Miss Sappy that the Arabophone Sunní theocommunity must be specially pandered to, that the spurned and slighted TwentyPercenters must be slathered and inundated with Affirmative Action™. However, now that their poor M. al-Málikí does appear to be making a certain amount of progress on other fronts, they do not see any reason to be in a great hurry to kick his head about Sunní-panderin’. If Charlie McCarthy was to get really annoyed about being pestered about Bribe-a-Tribe™ all the time, he could mess up the AEI-GOP-DoD-USIP act pretty seriously. Remember the SOFA!

Señor Kahlfeidal may or may not realize as much. I. e., McClatchy and the New Securitarians are quite capable of egging on a quarrel between the ventriloquists and their native not-so-dummy in order to make AEI and GOP look bad, maybe so bad that they lose control of both DoD and of colonial policy next November. Whether that is what Señor Kahlfeidal is really doing, I dunno. It is clear, though, that he thoroughly believes in Sunní-pandering. For somebody like me, who have not the honour to agree with the consensus errantium and expect only more trouble from Sunní-pandering in general and from those ever-receding provincial elections more specifically, the question of who is to impose, and afterwards take credit for, a misconceived finagle that is not going to work anyway cannot seem urgently important.

The sewer of error does not encompass absolutely everybody, of course. At Mu’ámara Junction, the goofballs will ferociously reject the idea that the TwentyPercenters require to be pandered to. As thee knows, Mr. Bones, the (saving remnant of the) TwentyPercenters are going to be in complete military control of the whole shebang by the end of next month. There is no reason for those all-but-conquering heroes to make concessions to anybody whatsoever. Once they take over, the innocent will have nothing to fear -- ‘innocence’ meaning, of course, a devout attachment to the dogmas of pro-Sunní watan-nationalistic antisectarianism. (What else could the word ‘innocence’ possibly mean, and especially in Arabic? I ask thee, O Bones!)

"Ding-a-dong, ding-a-dong! / And they all sang a song."

"Freedom means peace."

Best Wishes for a happy and edifyin’ SillySeason to all!

Yours as ever,
McRawk


___
[1] Dr. Virtue will be gratified that the culprits persist in hushing up the name and the very existence of M. Ghánim al-Qurayshí.



[2] As the Bulgarian proverb doesn’t exactly have it, "The chicken is not a bird. Russia is not a foreign country. Journalism is not the name of a profession."


[3] Still, they might at least leave Little Brother alone till after Labour Day. It’s not as if publicists and PowerPointe®s never take vacations! Plus the laddie is no doubt deeply engrossed at the moment in tryin’ to figure out how to save M. Saakashvili from the evil neo-Coms. Also in how to save J. Sidney McCain from the hordes of O’Bama.

Last time George XLIII distinctly attended to the former Iraq, it was lookin’ pretty good, wunnit? (From the AEI-GOP-DoD-USIP perspective, that is, naturally.) How can Mission Rea©©omplished go all to pieces again in ten minutes as soon as he turns his back to sneak a figurative smoke?