Council Winners, Double Shot

Here are the Watchers Council winners for the week of March 7.

First place in the council went to Chicago Rules by Big Lizards, about the political roots of Barack Obama.

Votes also went to The Rape of Rape On American Campuses by Cheat Seeking Missiles; The Dershowitz Questions by Wolf Howling; and Exchange Student Woes at The Colossus of Rhodey.

Outside the council, the winner was Dissecting the 60 Minutes Scandal by Power Line.

Votes also went to Why Don't Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them? by James Q. Wilson in City Journal; Defending Against Terror Impossible In International Law by Elder of Ziyon; Inside Iraqi politics -- Part 5. A Look At Legislative Progress: Sunnis’ and States’ Rights by Bill Ardolino in The Long War Journal; Think Happy Thoughts About People Who Want to Kill You! by Breath of the Beast; and Maybe in the Future Things Will Be Different? by Dr. Sanity.

* * *

I was on vacation and did not vote, and thus can't be credited for the choices of winners for the week of March 14.

First place in the council went to Change & The Cessation of British History by Wolf Howling. Congratulations!

Today marks a major landmark along the road to Britain's internal dissolution. In December, socialist Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty - the EU's new Constitution - transferring the majority of Britain's sovereign powers to the EU, subject to domestic ratification.

Votes also went to Californichusetts at Big Lizards.

Outside the council, the winner was Guitar Heroes by Michael Yon.

Votes also went to my nominee, An Empty Revolution, about the failure of Chavez in Venezuela, published in Foreign Affairs; The Tragedy of the Democratic Party by Thomas Lifson and Richard Baehr in American Thinker; The High School Massacre by Jonathan Medved; and Attorney Jon Schoenhorn's Arguments in the Doninger Case at the Second Circuit by Orient Lodge.

Council Winners

Watchers Council winners have been posted for the week of February 29.

First place in the council went to In A PC Nation, How Will The GOP Run? by Cheat Seeking Missiles.

Votes also went to Find the Adjectives, a worthwhile analysis of the writing in a news story, by Soccer Dad; Obama (with links) & McCain's Petard by Wolf Howling; and Unforced Errors by The Glittering Eye, a provocative look at America's recent history in the Balkans. "Provocative" because it effectively challenged some of my fuzzy attitudes toward that region and our relationship to it.

Outside the council, the winner was To Die in Jerusalem, Part II by My Shrapnel.

Votes also went to The Fierce Urgency of Lies at American Thinker; Guns in the Desert by Michael J. Totten; Bobby Kennedy and Why Obama Unnerves Me at Roger L. Simon's place; and Validating AGW Skepticism at The QandO Blog.

Council Winners

Council winners have been posted for the week of Feb. 22.

Appropriately for the date, the winner in the council was Make Washington's Birthday a National Holiday Again from Right Wing Nut House. I've been on board with that for a long time.

Also getting votes were Iraqi Political Progress Leaves Few Places For The Left To Move The Target at Wolf Howling. He rightly picks up on the importance of the CSIS Cordesman report (PDF). It's interesting to watch the reaction to this in the commentariat, as everyone seems to think it fulfills his own version of the Iraq narrative.

I'm cautious talking about the recent changes for the better in Iraq, in part because I have a superstition about bragging on things that are yet fragile. If you look at page 2 of the Cordesman report, you'll see the list of things that still need to be done. Which were the things that needed to be done in 2003, too. So, basically, we're where we were when the Saddam statue got pulled down. And with public patience in the war pretty well worn out. The last 5 years has been a diversion -- perhaps unavoidable, perhaps even necessary to long-term success (certain enemies had to prevail long enough to show their nature; certain people had to get the martyrdoms they sought; certain Americans in country had to learn more about Iraq). But it wasn't something anyone seems to have anticipated -- it doesn't fit either "quagmire" or "cakewalk" narratives. Reality has that quality.

Votes also went to Muslims and the Right Not To Be Offended by Joshuapundit; and Anti-Terror Fantasies by Soccer Dad.

Outside the council, the winner was Michael J. Totten's The Dungeon of Fallujah, an account of his visit to an Iraqi prison. If you want an essential read for determining the state of things in Iraq today, in the essential areas of police and military competence and Sunni confidence, you've got to read these.

Votes also went to How Rachel Corrie Really Died (Hint: Not Protecting a House) by Israel Matzav; Feels Like the First Time at Captain's Quarters; U.S. Rewarding Palestinian Terrorism at The Terror Finance Blog; and Dear Paperlicious -- Stamping and Politics at Paperlicious.

Council Winners

Watchers Council winners for the week of January 18 have been posted.

First place in the council went to Ed. Schools: They're Awful (for the most part) by The Colossus of Rhodey. It's a dead-on post, and as one who got a teaching certificate long ago, I can add my voice to the chorus of people attesting to that.

Votes also went to The Race Card, Liberal Guilt and Our Next President by Wolf Howling, Paul of Mises; or How the New Republic Bewitches the Right by Big Lizards; and 500,000 Iraqis Did Not Die by Cheat Seeking Missiles.

The last was an important post on the new study by the World Health Organization and the Iraqi government estimating 151,000 war-related civilian deaths, as opposed to 655,000 estimated by the notorious and much-criticized Johns Hopkins/Lancet study of civilian deaths in Iraq.

The number matters, in domestic political arguments at least. The authors of the 600,000 figure knew they were throwing out a political grenade, because they insisted their report be timed to hit the headlines just before Congressional elections in the U.S.

The number matters. Because the anti-Iraq War argument often is built around it. A version of it came up recently in a spat between Michael J. Totten and some progressive anti-war commenters, for instance. It can be paraphrased like this: "The amount of damage and death unleashed by the Iraq War is so great as to overwhelm any good that has or can come as a result of it, and anyone who fails to admit this is either insane or vicious." The 650,000 figure is the central prop of that argument.

However, arguing against it is a walk through a minefield. All unnecessary deaths are tragic, all modern wars kill far more civilians than soldiers. It doesn't matter to a dead Iraqi if she's one of 150,000 or 650,000.

Laer generally does a good job of it, but its probably not wise to put the more accurate number into the context of the Dresden firebombings or the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto, as he does; two of the most horrific acts of the last century.

This is the sort of issue you would argue differently among friends and among opponents. But online, every piece of writing is open to both. And an unsympathetic reader would retort with, "OK, so we're comparing ourselves to the S.S. in Poland? Wonderful." Laer's listing of deaths attributed to Saddam before his ouster is a better tactic.

He rightly flags a gross shortcoming in the new study:

Unfortunately, the new Iraq/WHO study, which you can read in its entirety here, does not include a break-down of violent deaths among the three war-related causes -- military ops, insurgent attacks or sectarian violence. If the breakdown were available, I'm sure it would show Islamists to be responsible than Americans for the deaths of Iraqis. I'm looking forward to that study.

Outside the council, the landslide winner was Kangaroo Court, Ezra Levant breathtaking blast at a "human rights commission" that hauled him in to defend himself against publishing things that offended someone. Even people on the American left who found him odious were able to see he's right about this. As Chomsky said, "If we don't believe in free expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

Also getting votes were Ashamed to be Canadian! by Covenant Zone, which dealt with the same topic, Barack Obama -- I'm Sure We've Seen Him Somewhere Before by Armando Iannucci, and The Media Does It Again by Armed Liberal at Winds of Change.

The last was one of many able take-downs online of a big Sunday New York Times cover story on murders committed by returning veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bloggers were able to use easily available statistics to show what the New York Times omitted to learn or report: That the murder rate among such men is not out of line with the general rate among men of that age group who have not been to war.

Council Winners

Watchers Council winners for the week of January 4 have been posted.

The winner in the council was The Freddys Seven by Soccer Dad. His entries often deal with issues relating to Israel, but this one reminds readers yet another attempt is underway to mainstream Al Sharpton, and it makes the case for this still being a bad idea.

Unfortunately for American politics, a certain number of people of all races will only accept a spokesman for black Americans whose sole strength is his commitment to confrontation. Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy might be a good read for such people:

[Kennedy's] main observation is that the views of most black "sellouts" can be legitimately analyzed as founded in the same concern for black uplift as the politically correct liberal orthodoxy. Just as the liberal firebrand considers himself to be doing good in calling on whites to desist in their racism and devote a Marshall Plan-style operation to saving the black poor, the black conservative who argues that poor blacks must learn to fend for themselves because no human beings have ever thrived without learning how to do so can make his argument with great love for his people.

Also getting votes were America Derangement Syndrome -- Or, Yes, You Can Call Them Unpatriotic by Bookworm Room, which takes up the familiar theme of Western European resentment of America via a book on the subject, which makes the point that it goes back a long way before George W. Bush.

It certainly does, and the roots of it are complex and often irrational. In the 18th century Thomas Jefferson had to work hard to rebut Comte de Buffon's scientific assertion that American mammals -- including, according to some of Buffon's French naturalist followers, Americans themselves -- were degenerate runts. Nineteenth century British publications poured out invective on everything they deigned to notice from the United States. The usual practice of British authors was to take every slander of one American by another in a hot political campaign as an absolute truth, and to present the most degraded characters from the frontier or the slum as the typical inhabitant of the United States.

"Both the travelers and the literary journalists of [England]," wrote Timothy Dwight the elder, "have, for reasons which it would be idle to inquire after and useless to allege, thought it proper to caricature the Americans. Their pens have been dipped in gall, and their representations have been, almost merely, a mixture of malevolence and falsehood."

And this was long before America threatened anyone else's sense of national security. The hatred was strong enough to overpower logic, even then. In 1863 the Very Rev. Henry Alford, DD, dean of Canterbury, wrote a "Plea for the Queen's English" which decried the "deterioration" of English in American mouths. He warned Englishmen to hold aloof from the American way with the language and compared the state of English in America to "the character and history of the nation":

its blunted sense of moral obligations and duties to man; its open disregard of conventional right when aggrandizement is to be obtained; and I may now say, its reckless and fruitless maintenance of the most cruel and unprincipled war in the history of the world.

It was the familiar list of crimes and vices and hypocrisies. Every learned Englishman could rehearse it and many of the finest writers, such as Coleridge and Sydney Smith, bent their considerable talents to spelling it out at length. Except that, coming in the middle of the American Civil War, Alford's screed replaced a now-doubtful entry in the catalogue of American vice with a freshly minted one. As H.L. Mencken noted, "Smith had denounced slavery, whereas Alford, by a tremendous feat of moral virtuosity, was now denouncing the war to put it down."

Votes also went to The Best Years of Their Lives: Hollywood and Franklin's War by Big Lizards, a big, fat, juicy post you can sink your teeth into, whether you agree or disagree or are puzzled by the whole thing.

Daffyd's question is, "Why were Americans so much more supportive of World War II" than they are of the current War Against ______. After dismissing the importance of Roosevelt's leadership skills as contrasted with Bush's, he writes, "In a single word, the answer is Hollywood."

I think he's largely right, but for different reasons than he does. He writes:

It is probably the only time in American history that the Brahmins of art and intellectualism were 100% behind the actions of a presidential administration during wartime. Gone was the world-weary cynicism, the smirking and winking, the nihilist anarchy we generally associate with the leftist intellegencia. Peer pressure, ideology, personal economic benefit, and the Vision of the Anointed crashed together in a perfect storm of patriotic production.

He adds, "It was not government leadership that drove patriotic support for the war; it was the vise-like grip on popular media by the pro-war Left," pointing out that the perception of America's entry into the war against Hitler on the side of Stalin was eagerly approved by the domestic left wing.

But I think he's confusing the old Hollywood with the new one. There might have been artists and intellectuals aplenty working in Hollywood in the 1940s, but they didn't control the process the way they do now. Then, the Studio System was at its height, and a mere eight companies ruled the world of moviedom, from the decision about what scripts would get made to the decision about whom to hire to sweep up the spilled popcorn in the aisles of the conglomerate-owned movie houses across America.

A handful of men who served as producers controlled everything. Directors, writers, and stars were as much in their power as the lowliest key grip or gaffer. Producers controlled every aspect of the making of a film and every creative decision was in their hands.

Hollywood then was a lot easier to herd than it is now. And, as is always the case when an industry is in the hands of a few wealthy men, it tended to be conservative and to identify its own interests closely with the government's. It also was more likely to do what it thought was expected of it to head off any call for censorship.

This site makes an interesting observation on the nature of wartime films:

Typically, these films focused on an small group of men involved in a life-or-death mission: struggling valiantly to hold an island or to attack a target deep behind enemy lines. Thus, the film "Air Force" told the story of a single B-17 Flying Fortress; Wake Island, the tale of the small group of marines and civilians who struggled to hold off a much larger force of attacking Japanese; and "Destination Tokyo," on a single submarine's efforts to enter Tokyo Bay in preparation for Jimmy Doolittle's raid on Tokyo in 1942. By focusing on a single isolated group, Hollywood was able to reveal the human meaning of war to individuals that the audience could identify with.

Invariably, this small group was a microcosm of the American melting pot, made up of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, men from diverse ethnic groups, and distinct personality types. "Objective, Burma!" had, for example, a Hennessy, a Miggleori, a Neguesco. The group's very composition underscored the fact that this was a democratic war - a peoples' war - drawing upon every segment of society.

Although these groups were usually commanded by a strong leader, success ultimately depended on the men's ability to operate as a team, balancing individual acts of heroism with professionalism and mutual cooperation. In "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," the story of Jimmy Doolittle's bombing raid, each man played a critically important role, whether he was a mechanic, a navigator, a bombardier, a pilot. Individualism and cooperation both were necessary, according to these films, to preserve American freedoms.

The films were less about our enemies than about us as we needed to be; they were less about changing our priorities than reminding us what they theoretically had been all along.

The good ones, at least. The whole list of Hollywood efforts from 1941 to 1945 contains, as always, much that is forgotten and deserves it. "Hillbilly Blitzkrieg" was one title. A book describes the plot of "Tarzan Triumphs" like this:

Nazi agents parachute into Tarzan's peaceful kingdom and occupy a fortress, hoping to exploit oil and tin. Johnny Weissmuller, a slightly flabby but still commanding noble savage, rallies his natives (all of whom are white) against the Axis. "Kill Nadzies!" Tarzan commands the natives. They nod eagerly. The Germans are so despicable even the animals turn against them. Tarzan chases the head of the Nazi troops into the jungle, and, just as the fear-crazed German officer frantically signals Berlin on his shortwave radio, Tarzan kills him. In Berlin the radio operator recognizes the distress signal and rushes out to summon the general in charge of the African operation. While Tarzan, Boy, and Jungle Priestess laughingly look on, Cheetah the chimp chatters into the transmitter. Ignorant of the fatal struggle in the jungle depths, the general hears the chimp on the radio, jumps to his feet, salutes, and yells to his subordinates that they are listening not to Africa but to Der Führer.

Hollywoood as we know it began only after 1948, when court decisions began to dismantle the studio system and deprive the producers of their artistic autocracy. Certainly Hollywood made a difference then, and it likely makes a difference in the other direction now. But there has to be something deeper than that going on.

For all its pretensions to importance, Hollywood reflects realities more than it creates them. Less than a year after Pearl Harbor, 12 percent of all film industry employees were in uniform, including some major stars, and by the end of the war a quarter of all the men who worked in the movie industry had served. Can you think of even one today? That, if you can explain it, is where the difference begins to appear.

Also getting votes were Did Bush Get Jamie Lynn Pregnant? by Cheat Seeking Missiles; Witness from right here, and Politics Anonymous by Right Wing Nut House.

Though it didn't get any first-place votes, I also would call attention to this week's nomination from The Education Wonk, for the sake of this item from the list of desiderata for 2008:

It would be really nice if the Bush Twins did something for the war effort rather than simply running amok attending social events at venues around the world. We would like to see one or both of the First Daughters in uniform, but if that's not possible, maybe these young ladies could put in a little volunteer time down at Walter Reed Hospital. Historically (and morally) speaking, it's the thing to do in "a time of war."

Come to think of it, Jenna Bush's fiance, former White House aide Henry Hager, is a fine, strapping young man of military age. Why isn't he in uniform? Might be a good idea if one is marrying a presidential daughter during wartime while so many of our nation's other fine, strapping young men and women of military age are spending time away from their loved ones over there in Iraq, Afghanistan, and A Hundred Other Countries. (The nation's future leaders preparing to lead by setting examples: sadly, this seems to be a novel concept nowadays.)

Knee-jerk attacks using the flabby Chickenhawk Meme are so prevalent on the left, and the sadistic wish to see other people's children suffer for the politics of their parents is so off-putting, that too few principled conservatives do what Wonk has done here and acknowledge that a tradition and a virtue that our forebears respected has been allowed to lapse in this administration. They don't have to slog it on foot patrols (and probably would do more harm than good there), but certainly there's a role they could fill. Refer to above statistics on Hollywoood actors in World War II.

Outside the council, the winner was Exploding Myths by Treppenwitz. The myths in question are perceptions about the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Votes also went to Patterico's Los Angeles Dog Trainer Year in Review 2007 at Patterico's Pontifications, which collects in one place all the cluelessness and chicanery Patterico chronicled at the Los Angeles Times; and to Ms. Hillary Does Pakistan at Power Line, which is a post about a post (I tend not to vote for those) about Hillary Clinton's apparent lack of knowledge about Pakistan's electoral system.

It's amusing to see how in some quarters Hillary is regarded as experienced in White House matters because of her husband's presidency. I think Chris Rock got that one about right on New Year's Eve:

"Being married to somebody doesn't make you good at their job. I've been with my wife 10 years now. If she got up here right now, y'all wouldn't laugh. At all. You get on a plane tomorrow, you want the pilot's wife flying you?"

And to a post I liked, The Wodehouse Primary, at The Debatable Land, by Alex Massie, a Scottish journalist living and working in D.C. I'm not among the devotees of Wodehouse, but I like how Massie worked the crowd of White House wanna-bes against a template of the literary characters.

In my sourer moments I find myself persuaded that Bertie Wooster's verdict on aunts also applies to politicians: "It is no use telling me that there are bad aunts and good aunts. At the core, they are all alike. Sooner or later, out pops the cloven hoof."

Council Winners

Watchers Council winners for the week of Dec. 14 have been posted.

First place in the council went to Pearl Harbor... And 9/11 by Joshuapundit, which compares the U.S. response to those two events on the occasion of the anniversary of the former. They couldn't be more different.

Most of the rest of the votes went to posts relating to the NIE report on the likelihood that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. Those posts were: A Deeply Flawed NIE Changes Nothing & Everything by Wolf Howling; What the NIE on Iran's Nuclear Weapons Development Doesn't Say by The Glittering Eye; Release of Iran NIE a Remarkable Testament to American Exceptionalism by Right Wing Nut House; and Hoodwinkers and Their Codependents: In Search of Intelligent Intelligence on Iran by Big Lizards. There's a good range of points of view in those four posts.

Another vote went to Explaining American Jews' Love for Israel and America by Bookworm Room. This interesting post centers on the writer's attendance at "a moderated talk concerning Israel. The speakers were Dennis Prager, John Podhoretz and Mona Charen, with Michael Medved moderating."

When she got a chance to ask a question, she asked, “For those people who claim that America’s and Israel’s interests are antithetical to each other, how do we justify or explain our loyalty to both?”

Podhoretz answered by "pointing to the common values shared by both nations" which have resulted in societies that have much in common.

Although I don’t think he quite said it outright, I gather that Mr. Podhoretz believes that American Jews are not disloyal to America when they support Israel because it is the morally correct thing to do: one beacon of light supporting another. I think he’s right.

Charen pointed out that "the most fervent support for Israel comes, not from American Jews, but from Evangelical Christians. In other words, support of Israel is not some shady Jewish conspiracy, but is part of the value system religious conservatives of all stripes, both Christian and Jewish."

Finally, Michael Medved closed with the flip side to these preceding answers. That is, after Mr. Podhoretz and Ms. Charen pointed out that it is not unpatriotic to support Israel, he explained why Jews are — or should be — patriotic. His take, and one with which I strongly agree, is that America is one of the great blessings bestowed on the Jews.

Since she seeks more feedback in her post, I'll offer some. One can basically agree with all those answers, and I do, and still be left with a nagging doubt. I might rephrase the question and eliminate the class of people who "claim that America’s and Israel’s interests are antithetical to each other," which is, I suppose, not a large or important segment of the population.

Instead, I might phrase it with reference to the fact that many of us seem intent on maintaining an appearance of complete identification of Israeli and American interests, while necessarily those will not always be the same. The range of involvement of America in the world is necessarily wider than that of Israel. The sources of domestic challenges, and their expression in foreign relations, are likewise different.

So is there a sufficient capability in modern America to have a diplomatic discussion about that, without igniting uncontrollable passions and devastating accusations?

As for the answers given, they feel incomplete. Certainly we share historical and cultural values with Israel. We do with Britain and France as well. And we've been able to disagree with them -- even to countenance a degree of active hostility toward them in our national discourse -- without forgetting the common heritage.

Charen's point that this is not only about Jewish-Americans is helpful and necessary to bear in mind. But evangelical Christians have had to justify themselves through the generations -- from abolitionists to anti-abortionists -- to other Americans who suspected their politics were answering to a "higher law" than the U.S. Constitution. And to explain how that works in terms of loyalty and legality.

It can be done. It is not necessarily a conflict. But it is not a question that ought to automatically be off the table as too insensitive to be asked.

Medved's point also is well taken. But it hardly distinguishes the Israelis from the Hmong or a great many other peoples who have found America a rock and refuge in their times of persecution. This is a rough place sometimes, and Jews have not always had a happy time of it here, but it's been a lifesaver, literally, for millions.

Armenians, too, found refuge from persecution in America and later established their independence at home. And we recently debated whether American positions on Armenian matters -- terribly important emotionally to Armenians and Armenian-Americans -- could conflict with purely American foreign policy interests. The same debate has been had in the past with regard to Greece and its hostility to our NATO ally, Turkey. Is there a context for having a freewheeling but respectful debate on such things when Israel and America are involved?

I would bring up -- and hesitantly -- the "Liberty" incident as one that is difficult for many people to discuss dispassionately, with an eye simply to establishing the facts of the case, and allowing for all possibilities. Or Israeli espionage in the U.S. government. Espionage weakens national security, it opens cracks and saps foundations; in that sense it doesn't matter if it comes from your allies or your enemies.

A question of divided loyalty, if you care to ask it, can't be answered with a dodge that insists there never is or can be a true conflict that would test loyalty. America is one nation; Israel is another. Of course their pure self-interests will clash from time to time.

Outside the council, the winner was Men of Valor: Part IV by Michael Yon. His stuff here is a gripping read, as always, but I had trouble telling how much of it he was reporting firsthand and how much of it was recounting stories he'd been told by the British soldiers he was writing about.

Votes also went to What Happens After the Surge by Omar Fadhil of Iraq the Model (writing here in Pajamas Media), which I nominated; and to In Politics Values Matter, Not Theology by Dennis Prager at Townhall.com. Other than those three, the votes went to NIE-inspired posts: What Iran's "Victory" Means at ShrinkWrapped; Iran NIE and a Prediction at Middle East Strategy at Harvard; and William Katz: New National Intelligence Estimate at Power Line.

Council Winners

Watchers Council winners for the week of Dec. 7 have been posted.

Of Islamist Foxes and British Chickens by newest council member Wolf Howling. Way to start out with a bang!

His topic is the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB), a fresh British initiative to deal with the problem of radical mosques. Thank goodness the First Amendment prevents any such initiative in the U.S., as the problems in such a plan are legion, and H.W. cites many of them.

I tend to shy away from straight-up statements like this, however:

What the Labour government is missing is that there is no such thing as a “moderate” Muslim. The issues that are "radicalizing" a substantial minority of the British Muslim population are systemic to the dominant forms of Islam. They are not anamolies. Ayaan Hirsi Ali talked about this recently, and it is perhaps the most critical point our leadership on both sides of the pond needs to understand.

Like I tend to shy away from any insistence on what any religion really is or really means based on a pure reading of its scriptures by people who are not themselves part of that religious tradition. I've read the Quran (in Arberry's transcription). I know what it says. I also have read the Old Testament and the New Testament, in some cases in original tongues, and I know there are great swaths of them that make me cringe.

Someone outside the faith, writing for people outside it, could make a great deal out of "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple," and convince people that that was a core part of the Christian faith. And find historical and contemporary examples that seemed to prove it, if you didn't really know the faiths up close and personal.

Fortunately, I don't see those particular passages acted out by most of the Christians and Jews I know. Religion isn't what's in the book. It's how you live your life.

Some, somewhere, might. But the human religious instinct, which I seem to lack but have long observed, is made of a marvelous substance, strong as steel and malleable as silk, harsh as a welder's torch glare and willfully dark when it doesn't wish to see. I don't need anyone to declare himself a "moderate," which is a relative and delimiting term. I do need people to be human, to live human lives, and I won't ask them to self-label. Ali Eteraz, writing of another Western commenter (Mark Steyn) who takes this approach to Europe's problems, points out the nuance:

The fatal flaw in his thesis is the pernicious idea that all Muslims are one and will uniformly seek to impose sharia law. This is a generalisation that even a crusty curmudgeon - and I use the term most affectionately - such as Christopher Hitchens is unwilling to accept. Citing the example of an Afghan refugee who was killed in the London bombings, the Hitch added: "Many Muslims actually have come to Europe for the advertised purposes - seeking asylum and to build a better life."

Also getting votes were FBI Rebuts CAIR Scare Tactics by Cheat Seeking Missiles; Two Different Worlds by Bookworm Room; Greatest Generation from right here; The Politics of Immigration from The Glittering Eye; If the Huck Wins, the Right Loses by Right Wing Nut House; Bush Signals Iran: US Military Option Off The Table by Joshuapundit.

Outside the council, the winner was Teddy Muhammad at Pierre Tristam's Middle East Issues Blog. Here's where I have to confess. I nominated that. I don't know who might be more chagrined by it, "Pierre" or some of the Council members.

The post itself fits well into the shared frustration -- if not outrage -- that many people in the West, friends as well as enemies of Islam, felt at the recent incident in Sudan. It articulates the sentiment many of us shared and is well-versed in Sudanese history, including a passage on the admirable martyr Mahmoud Mohammed Taha:

Numeiri's most heinous excess, if you'll forgive the tautology, was his execution of Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, a 76-year-old pious, moderate Muslim. Taha was the founder and leader of the Republican Brothers, a religious and political movement opposed to Sharia law. He declared publicly, through a leaflet, that Numeiri had "distorted Islam in the eyes of intelligent members of our people and in the eyes of the world, and degraded the reputation of our country." For that, he was hanged on a red steel scaffold as a thousand Sudanese men shouted in Arabic, "Death to the enemy of God!"

But by far the majority of Pierre Tristam's blogging is in a very different mindset that that of many of the Council members. I've tried a few times in the past to nominate something outside the usual round of reliably conservative blogs. Most of them never got anywhere, but this one did. It's not a matter of trying to punk anyone. But to let both sides notice there is overlap, there is common ground, and there are shared concerns. There are no sides, only people, though some people seem to work awful hard to become sides. So, I hope all is taken in the proper spirit.

Votes also went to The 2nd Annual Worst Quotes From The Daily Kos (2007 Edition) at Right Wing News; UNRWA and Palestinian Suffering at The Volokh Conspiracy; Synthetic Biology -- The Next Proliferation at Winds of Change.NET; Do or Die at Military Times.

Council Winners

Council winners for the week of Oct. 26 have been posted.

First place in the council went to The MSM's Rush Limbaugh Horror Story by Bookworm Room, which looks at the final chapter (as of this writing) in the contretemps over Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" remark. She rightly scolds the New York Times for printing without qualification the version of what Limbaugh said and meant that was spun by the anti-Limbaugh faction.

The Times even ran a correction of some minor details in that story a couple of days later, but did not correct the big mistake at the core of the story.

On the other hand, I was impressed with the Associated Press coverage of the same story, the same day, which was attentive to the different versions of the story and the fact that the person who said something might know what he meant when he said it:

A letter from Democratic senators blasting conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh for using the phrase "phony soldiers" on his program was sold Friday on eBay for a record $2.1 million.

A private foundation made the winning bid, which eBay spokeswoman Catherine England said set a record for the most expensive item sold for charity by the online auctioneer.

Limbaugh's comment during his radio show last month drew broad criticism from Democrats, who said he was smearing soldiers opposed to the Iraq war. Limbaugh and other conservatives responded with outrage of their own, saying Democrats were mischaracterizing comments aimed at one particular former soldier who lied about his service.

Also getting votes were An Inconvenient Demographic Truth by Big Lizards and Walking Back the Cat x 2 by Soccer Dad.

Outside the council, the winner was Michael Yon's latest, Resistance Is Futile. He makes some important points in it, but it's not his typical work and not his strongest. He's out of the combat situations, trying to write about the disconnect between the realities of the war and the perceptions of it everywhere but at the front. That's not unique. But this war offers the reverse of the usual case, in that, in the past, people at home held a positive and sanitized view of the fighting while the men who were in it knew otherwise.

Votes also went to The Massacre at Karsaz Bridge: Analysis of the Bhutto Blast (Part 2) at The Pakistan Policy Blog, which did an excellent job of keeping pace with the horror-bombing as it broke, and to Thompson Gets Immigration Right at Jay Reding.com.

In addition, votes went to a post whose title I hesitate to print, but I will because customarily I list every post in the category into which this one falls: The Niggers of Palestine by Daled Amos. It's not a word I would censor. But it's a word I consider it worthwhile to cross the street to avoid meeting in print, on my own turf.

The topic is the treatment of Jews who lived in Palestine before there was an Israel. The peg is recent commentary on Condoleezza Rice and whether she sees the situation of the Palestinians as on some level comparable to that of blacks in the pre-Civil Rights South of the U.S.

Very well, legitimate topic, but the use of the offensive word seemed gratuitous in the title. It is only mentioned once in the text, in a quote from someone who obviously doesn't know a whole lot of U.S. history (and is talking about actual slaves, not disenfranchised blacks in America). His author is sufficiently aware of this to caveat her statement with a "perhaps."

The whole analogy in the post is fraught with difficulties, which the author seems not to realize as he wades into it. If Rice erred in going there, the same risk stands for everyone else who follows for the sake of upbraiding her.

Extensive statistical comparisons are made, for instance, between the lives of Palestinians in Israel and those outside it. Not surprisingly, those in Israel live better materially. But since the slavery image already hangs over the piece, the reader then remembers that black slaves in the American South lived materially better lives, not only than black Africans of the same era but of free blacks in the North of the U.S. Which doesn't advance the argument being attempted. Better to have left the N-word out of it.

Council Winners

Watchers Council winners for the week of October 19 have been posted.

In a tiebreaker, the winning vote went to Carrolling from right here, over Texas Gang Rape and Murder Case Puts America's Sovereignty In Jeopardy at Joshuapundit.

Votes also went to NY Times, Al Gore and the "Stolen" 2000 Election at The Colossus of Rhodey; Private Anti-terror Efforts by Soccer Dad; and Gore Derangement Syndrome? at Cheat Seeking Missiles.

Outside the council, the winner was The Problems and Course of Rebuilding in Iraq at Dumb Looks Still Free.

Votes also went to MSM Bias and Pallywood: Incompetence or Malice? at ShrinkWrapped; When Heidi Met Mehmet in the Meadow at The Brussels Journal; Timeline of the Amazing Disappearing Blog Posts and Comments at the L.A. Times at Patterico's Pontifications; and A Thought Experiment for Civil Libertarians at Atlas Blogged.

Council Winners

[posted by Callimachus]

Late, as usual, and catching up. Here are the winners for the week of April 20. Nominations were full of Virginia Tech shooting posts.

The winner was Fighting Back Was Not an Option, Part 2 by Dafydd at Big Lizards. This is a careful and thoughtful post which steps deliberately into the most difficult aspect of the story: What ought the victims to have done differently, if anything, to rescue themselves from being victims of the shooter?

Dafydd's conclusion actually is the opposite of the title.

The greater issue is that, by fighting back against evil, the students, faculty, and staff at Virginia Tech would have fired the shot heard round the world, the meme that "fighting back is always an option." Whenever such a massacre is aborted by extraordinary courage on the part of ordinary people, we send the message that good men (and women) must do something to prevent the triumph of evil.

I have some sympathy for that position. It feels right in the heart. But I just don't agree with it as a realistic option. The comparison with the people on Flight 93 is inevitable, but the fact that the passengers on that doomed plane had sufficient time to collect their thought and to ascertain that their plane was going down, one way or another, puts their heroics in a different category.

This classroom shooting was split-second heroics, and perhaps only rigorous military training and experience can equip someone to deal with it with a cool head and make the right choices.

I feel for the young men who were in those rooms and survived. Their agony will last a lifetime. Did they do the right thing? Could they have done better? Are they ashamed simply to have survived? This tragedy will seem to them a test -- a random test that not one in a million men ever has to face, but they drew the unlucky number. They'll lie awake for decades with those thought eating at their souls.

Dafydd wonders about that, too:

Did they gather those around them and hurry with them to safety? Did they save themselves? Each of these is a minor virtue, and I don't want to knock it. Sometimes, such minor virtues are all that a person can achieve, given the time, place, and opportunity.

But surely there must have come a time when a man or woman, hiding not far away, saw that the gunman had turned his back. What that person did in that moment is the true assay of character.

Maybe someone charged at the gunman -- but foul fate intervened, and the butcher heard, turned, and added another victim to his hellish toll. Anyone so killed is as heroic as Professor Librescu.

I have even seen it argued, in other posts at other places, that had there been more ROTC training on campus -- which includes studies of what to do in an ambush -- some quicker and less lethal resolution of this attack might have been possible.

The trouble is, apparently, there was just such a person on the scene, who did just what a hero would have done. Cheat Seeking Missile, another Watchers Council member, wrote about him here:

There was more carnage in the hallway. Kevin Granata had heard the commotion in his third-floor office and ran downstairs. He was a military veteran, very protective of his students. He was gunned down trying to confront the shooter.

In our fantasies, heroes fix things through their heroism. Kevin Granata didn't do that, but he died trying and that makes him a hero of the highest order, like the soldier who falls on the grenade to save his buddies.

I think that's right. The hero isn't defined by his luck or success in turning around an impossible situation, but by the character that drives him to try it. It's human nature to wish for a truly heroic and miraculous outcome to this awful story. To somehow find a way to make it turn out so that the good triumphs. I can't scold anyone for seeking that, even in hindsight.

It reminds me of what I felt after 9/11, and at that time, I found it in Faulkner's evocation of Gettysburg in the mind of a Southern boy who knows the dream of independence was crushed in that short space of time:

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it's going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn't need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose than all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago.

But it never happens.

Cheat Seeking Missile also got a vote this week for the post Media At Its Worst On Display At Virginia Tech.

A few non-VT-shooting posts that got votes, including The Beast Among Us by Eternity Road, and my Happy Netted Nose, both of which took the Don Imus dogpile as an entree into larger social topics; and They Should Get Out More by The Glittering Eye, which is a good kind of post. It takes exception to a bad argument (in this case a newspaper editorial) in favor of something the blogger essentially agrees with. Pointing out sloppy thinking or poor research in an argument you think is fundamentally sound is the hallmark of a true thinker, as opposed to a polemicist. If you are heard and heeded, you make your own case more solid by weeding the field of the argument.

Outside the council, the top vote-getter was The Laughter in the Dark by The Belmont Club. Wretchard just writes this sort of thing so finely, and so tersely, that I think there's hardly any point in me trying to do it, too. But no one seems to listen to him. His starting point is the latest horrific attack on a civilian target in Iraq. And his dismay is, in part, for those who can read about such things and feel the need to surrender to it, to throw up one's hands and leave, rather than the burning desire to end it:

Implicit in the enemy use of these tactics is the presumption that its political target has a moral sensibility -- that it somehow cares about the threat to kill innocents unless it bends to their evil will. Otherwise it would not be affected. Blackmail is useless against those who don't care for the victims because there can be no assault on the sensibility of the insensible. Pity and virtue are treated as weakness -- but only by evil -- by those who hate pity, and hate it from pride.

But still more evil than terrorists are those who help them in projecting a moral inversion. For terrorists are themselves fully cognizant of the difference between innocence and guilt. It is this fine sensibility that allows terrorists to design one outrage greater than the other; that teaches it to seek out the child that they might mutilate it. Lucifer would have been a poor devil had he not the memory of an angel. But their apologists have no sense of evil; and are in some way morally inferior to the terrorists themselves. They have no memory of Paradise Lost. Darkness and light are all the same to them; or rather darkness is light and night their shade of preference. For the apologists of terror, the victims themselves are "little Eichmanns" and those who try to defend the victims blamed instead of the murderers. And not only do they believe this but will try to persuade anyone who will listen of its truth. The phrase "lost soul" is not just a metaphor but a diagnosis.

How can anyone leave the field to such evil? Or think that we could, by giving it victory, escape it ourselves?

I have no idea. But such attitudes walk all around me here where I work.

Also getting votes were BREAKING: Present At the Bombing at Pajamas Media; Tax Day Self-Congratulations at The QandO Blog; Bill Clinton Grabs Some Contributions for Hillary by Pillage Idiot; and A Few Thoughts on Female Leadership by Western Survival. I want to tip my hat to this last one, which, though I don't agree with the argument structure in large parts of it, took a lot of courage to put into print.

Council Winners

[posted by Callimachus]

Watchers Council winners for the week of April 6 have been posted.

The winner within the council was The Scourging by Eternity Road.

Votes also went to Leftist Media Bias, Israeli Style by Bookworm Room; First Israel, Now Britain -- The Chickens Come Home To Roost by Joshuapundit; "Question any Excuses..." by The Colossus of Rhodey; How to Win/Lose In Iraq by Big Lizards; and Not the End of the World from right here.

Outside the council, the winner was Universal Moral Equivalence by Gates of Vienna.

Votes also went to It's a Long Way from Port Stanley to the Shatt-al-Arab waterway by Britain and America; War for Profit by Blackfive; Mainstream Islam Promotes Violence Through Sex by Israel Matzav; and Americaphobia: Final Thoughts by Dean's World.

Also, here are the winners from the week of March 30.

First place in the council went to Demographics and the Medicalization of Human Existence by Eternity Road.

Votes also went to Student Press Rights by The Colossus of Rhodey; Tinker Must Be Preserved by Rhymes With Right; 3 Card Monte -- the Palestinian aid Scam Continues by Joshuapundit; NanFran's Cool Investments by Cheat Seeking Missiles; and O Believers from right here.

Outside the council, the winner was Michael Yon's superb Tabula Rasa.

Votes also went to Iranian Machinations: Sun Tzu Would Be Pleased by Kobayashi Maru; The Special Care and Feeding of Bullies by Freedom's Cost; Geneva What's That Again? by The Sundries Shack; and Sherman -- Stoic Warriors by Chicago Boyz.

Council Winners

[posted by Callimachus]

Watchers Council winners for the week of March 23 have been posted.

First place within the council went to The Contranomics of Global Jihad by Big Lizards, which comes to a conclusion I have thought for some time is accurate:

Thus, Iran appears to be imploding due to the built-in contradiction of wanting to be a super-power -- and simultaneously wanting to be a closed society run by fanatical religious totalitarians. They will only be able to afford military technological development and serious force projection when they transform themselves into a society that has no interest in military technological development and serious force projection.

It looks more and more like Iran will be defeated, not by military invasion, not even by missile attack, but by the economic realities of Western style capitalism.

Also getting votes were Muslim Cashiers Refuse to Touch Pork by The Colossus of Rhodey (if you're not familiar with this story, check it out); The American Ideon: Its Decay and Restoration by Eternity Road; and Skills, Employment, and Energy Use by The Glittering Eye.

Outside the council, the winner was Four Years In by American Digest. The four-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq adventure inspired about a bazillion bloggers to write their summations of what we did, where we got to, and what we ought to do next. If you don't believe we inhabit separate realities, go read some of them.

The one that was recognized by the council was the work of Gerard Van der Leun, and if you know him, you'll instantly recognize the growling vigor of it:

Four years in and the people of the Perfect World ramble through the avenues of Washington, stamping their feet and holding their breath, having their tantrums, and telling all who cannot avoid listening that "War is bad for children and other living things." They have flowers painted on their cheeks. For emphasis. Just in case you thought that war was good for children and other living things.

There were children and other living things on the planes that flew into the towers. They all went into the fire and the ash just the same. But they, now, are not important. Nor is the message their deaths still send us when we listen. That message is to be silenced. The rising brand new message is "All we are say-ing is give...." And it is always off-key.

Also getting votes were Muslim Violence — Crime or Jihad? by Gates of Vienna; The Iraq Insurgency Has Ended, Which Opens a Path to Peace by Fabius Maximus at Defense and the National Interest; The Quadrant Lecture by Melanie Phillips; and Quote of the Day, and Is CAIR Paying Lawyers to Intimidate Air Travelers? at Power Line.

Also getting votes was A WWII Hero That History Almost Forgot by Webloggin. This is a heartbreaking tale of a Polish woman who helped save Jews from the Warsaw ghetto in World War II. It is a small human triumph wrapped in a vast human failure. It is right to celebrate the hero. But when I read her words, all I can feel is the dead-weight force of the tragedy:

It soon proved imperative to get children out on the so-called Aryan side since inside the ghetto it was hell.

We reached homes to say we could rescue children and lead them outside the ghetto walls. The basic question which then arose was: what guarantee could we give.

We had to admit honestly that we could give no guarantee since we did not even know whether we would succeed in leaving the ghetto today.

That was when we witnessed infernal scenes. Father agreed but mother didn’t. Grandmother cuddled the child most tenderly and, weeping bitterly, said “I won’t give away my grandchild at any price”.

We sometimes had to leave such unfortunate families without taking their children from them. I went there the next day to see what the whole building had come to and often found that everyone had been taken to the Umschlagsplatz railway siding for transport to death camps.

...

Often children would have to be moved. There was no end to the attempt to hunt them down and kill them.

I know of cases when the sole chance of survival was the external window-sill, behind a curtain, keeping the child there as long as necessary, holding on with numb hands so as not to fall, until the Germans left the home of his adopted parents.

The children paid dear for the “price of life”. A child sometimes had to be taken away from one “parents” and placed with others for their safety and that of the child.

I once carried such a tearful, broken-hearted little boy to other guardians when he asked me, crying and sobbing, “Please tell me how many Mums can you have, for this is the third one I’m going to”.

Council Winners

Watchers Council winners for the week of March 16 have been posted.

First place within the council went to Serving While Republican by Eternity Road.

Votes also went to What Are Europe's Options? by Joshuapundit, I Disagree by Rhymes With Right, The "Burqini" -- Shaken and Stirred by Big Lizards, and Persistent Libels by Soccer Dad.

Outside the council, the winner was Tenured Deceit by Sigmund, Carl and Alfred.

Votes also went to Tips For New Teachers at Right Wing Nation; Obama: "Nobody Is Suffering More Than the Palestinian People" at Ace of Spades HQ; How the Left Gets It All Wrong at Chicago Boyz; and Sestak CAIRs by In Context.

Also, I neglected to post the winners for the week of March 9.

The winner was Between Iraq and a Hard Place -- Why We Went, How It Got So Screwed Up and Where It's Going -- Part 2 by Joshuapundit, who is doing the good work of trying to see the thing comprehensively while it is underway, and to explain that vision.

Second place went to Death of a Titan by Right Wing Nut House, an eloquent tribute to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., whose name you might not expect to see at the head of a long and respectful post on a site that has "right wing" in its header (even if with tongue in cheek).

But the rise to importance of the mixed-heritage Neo-Cons in the American landscape has brought a great deal of good old liberal DNA over to the right, and I think Rick appreciates Schlesinger for qualities that used to characterize the old true-hearted liberals but now are as often found on the other side:

Schlesinger may have been a liberal’s liberal. But that didn’t stop him from challenging political correctness nor the dominant New Left ideas regarding foreign policy and America’s role in the world. Not only a staunch anti-Communist, Schlesinger was an internationalist in the traditional sense. He saw America’s mission as bringing freedom to the world wherever possible while working with international institutions like the United Nations to solve conflicts. While his faith in the UN may have been misplaced, he never lost sight of American interests and the need to defend them.

Where he parted company with the new left was in some of their wackier ideas regarding social policy. He was a vociferous critic of multiculturalism, specifically “Afro-centrism” that he at one time compared to the Klan ....

As for me, well, for a historian, Schlesinger was a hell of a writer.

Also getting votes were Green Thinking from the Red Planet by Soccer Dad, You Ain't Never Had a Friend Like Me by Bookworm Room, and Who Were the Etruscans?, an interesting discussion of a mystery in historical linguistics by The Glittering Eye.


Outside the Council, the top vote-getter was the parodic Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job? by Websurdity.

Also getting votes were Iraq Trip Report by Bing West at Small Wars Journal; 10 Institutions That Ruin the World -- #1 by Kerplunk; Free Speech, Political Identity, and the Post-Coulter Debate at Protein Wisdom; Swift Boating the Swift Boaters at The QandO Blog; and What Happened To Our Political Discourse? at Rants and Raves.

Council Winners

[posted by Callimachus]

The most recent round of Watchers Council winners has been posted.

First place within the council went to the fourth part of my Germany and Iraq series, spinning out the points of comparison between two American military occupations/nation building efforts. Part 4 focused on Lucius D. Clay.

Votes also went to Means v. Ends by Bookworm Room; A Man of His Times. A Man for All Time, an excellent tribute to George Washington by Right Wing Nut House; and Differing Visions by Soccer Dad.


Outside the council, the first-place finisher was The Blame Game from From My Position ... On the Way! -- a straight-shooting milblogger who addresses the Walter Reed embarrassment with a first-hand perspective. If you read nothing else on this list, read this one. Then get mad. Then do something about it.

Also getting votes were Honor Killings, Silence, and the Meaning of Speaking Out by Augean Stables, a fascinating and disturbing account of "honor killings" of Israeli-Arab women by their male relatives, and the attempts of groups in Israel to do something about it.

Nothing better delineates the split between cultures of honor and shame and those of integrity and guilt, between demopaths and democrats, than this particular and basic battle for women’s freedom from male violence. This is the front line of the battle for civilization.

Votes also went to AP Reports Romney Family's Polygamy, But Not Obama's by Sweetness & Light; Part Hate by It's Almost Supernatural (which I linked to earlier; about the "Israel is an apartheid state" fallacy); 9 other PERFECTLY GOOD REASONS that the assassination attempt on Dick Cheney was justified (a Huffington Post tribute post) by Protein Wisdom; and The Feminislamists: Women of Woe by Council alumna Gates of Vienna, which links to stories about feminist college professors in the U.S. who support female genital mutilation.

Other votes went to Laughing at the Jesus Tomb by The Anchoress. The topic is Sunday's broadcast of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" on the Discovery Channel. As the New York Times review of the show explains, Christians probably don't have much to fear from this:

The archaeological arguments are plausible but not persuasive: This is a breakthrough that relies more on "what if" than "here's how." And even an amateur can see that the ifs are stacked to support one hypothesis. ... The filmmakers get around reasonable doubt with the twin pillars of cable documentaries: hokey costume drama re-enactments and state-of-the-art robotic cameras that see around corners and down dark holes.

Council Winners

[posted by Callimachus]

The most recent round of Watchers Council winners has been posted.

First place within the council went to A Rock, a Hard Place, and the Deep Blue Sea by Right Wing Nut House, which was an excellent look at the bewildering problem of America's relationship to Pakistan in the war against al Qaida.

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to that one. This is an odd kind of war where peoples and national governments that as easily could be counted our enemies are held up as our strongest allies -- the Saudis and the Pakistanis are two examples.

Pakistan is a failed state; like Iraq, it is a legacy of the British pell mell retreat from colonial control. The division of the Raj was made for reasons of short-term political expedience, with the result that millions have died, once-viable regions were rendered economically incoherent, and a new nation was formed that was unable to exert its authority over a third of its land area. The whole story is a sad example of the consequences of taking up an authority over another land -- rightfully or not -- and then running off when you get tired of doing the job.

Rick's post started me down another train of thought, unrelated to Pakistan per se. At the end of his post, Rick goes off to find the predictable left-side blogger who has written recently about the Pakistan problem as something entirely Bush's fault. It's not necessarily germane to his better points about Pakistan to do this, but it's useful once in a while to remind people who think this way that, however bad George W. Bush is, there's a world full of ugly problems he didn't create, and they still will be here even after he's gone. And would be here even if he never had existed.

As an example of this, he happened to light on a post at The Impolitic, which is one of the Democratic/left-ward sites we added to the blogroll here recently during the Great Diversification Movement. Libby -- the Impolitic is female -- puts up her response here.

The Impolitic and DWM ended up on one another's blogrolls through a courteous willingness to acknowledge one another as people worth listening to, even in strenuous disagreement -- at least this is what I take blogrolling to mean. I sometimes wonder why she would choose us, since Reader and I seem to often fit into her lowest circle of Hell:

What I'd like to see is some serious secret rendition on every mealy mouthed stay at home war supporter and see them all wake up on the front lines of the conflict they so blithely support.

But there it is; we're one of a handful of not-overtly-left sites on her roll, and she's one of a small number of aggressively and selfe-definingly left sites on ours. And I find you feel a certain responsibility to or for people when you've put them up on your list. Like, I want to say here that Libby's response, in part (if I read it right), is that the post Rick jumped on is one she doesn't necessarily want to be measured by or go down in history for. And to point out to both that there's a lot of habitable ground between "Terrorism, shmerrorism; it's all Bush's fault" (a reaction of a fellow newspaper editor to 9/11) and "Bush is immaterial."

I wouldn't feel that way without the minimal brush of contact and connection involved in a mutual blogroll. But maybe there's something to this, if we really want to cut into the nastiness of the blog world (that's a big if ... "snark" seems to be a highly valued commodity in one half of it). What if every serious conservative or Republican or pro-Iraq War or pro-administration took into its blogroll a handful of reasonable, but strongly opposed blogs from across the aisle? And vice versa. Not a Malkin or a Kos, but something your own size.

That way, when these periodic stupid blow-ups come along, where one of us little folk gets singled out and hoisted high for a quote out of context or a poorly worded passage, someone within the pack would have the ability to stand up and say, "No, it's not like that at all," and maybe stop the gank in process. Not that that's what I think happened in the specific case above, but it set me thinking down that path.

At any rate, back to the winners. Also getting votes was I'm Tired of ‘Supporting the Troops’ by Joshuapundit; a great and balanced attack on the way the current war has unraveled in the public mind, by "Freedom Fighter" who has been visiting this theme frequently.

To me, supporting the troops is neither saluting a bunch of graves, or using it as a catchphrase to camouflage genuinely anti-military feelings. In a very real sense, it means supporting the country and ourselves as a free people.

It means supporting victory, and giving our troops the tools and the leadership to achieve it. It means putting our nation first, and supporting the men who defend it in prosecuting this war until we face a defeated, humiliated enemy, with the creed of jihad and Islamic fascism totally discredited so that its resurgence is as unlikely as the resurgence of fascism in Germany or Japan.

That's what this war is really about, and that's what victory in this war is going to look like. I and many of my fellow Americans realized it a long time ago, even if our commander in chief doesn't seem to like the idea.

The `Decider' and his advisers might want to take a look at that when they're trying to figure out why the president's poll numbers are plummeting south.

Votes also went to The Impossibility of Victory by The Glittering Eye, which looked at the recent much-touted Washington Post op-ed by retired Lt. Gen. William Odom on the Iraq situation.

My own position on the invasion of Iraq isn’t terribly far from Gen. Odom’s: I believed then and believe now that establishing a stable, democratic Iraq friendly to the U. S. is unachievable using means and within a timeframe that’s politically acceptable in the U. S. As to the other objectives for invading Iraq (eliminating Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and removing Saddam Hussein) I believed that containing Saddam was working and maintaining that containment was politically more possible in the United States than establishing a stable democratic Iraq friendly to the U. S. would be.

In spite of the agreement, however, Dave finds Odom's arguments lacking in substance and realistic expectations.

Also getting votes were Best (And Worst) TV Show "Replacements" by The Colossus of Rhodey; Fallen Angels by Eternity Road; and Global Warming -- What Can We Do? (Part I) an interesting offering from The Sundries Shack.

Outside the council, the winner was Islamist Historiography at Cross-Currents, an account of a speech by Bernard Lewis.

Lewis noted, for instance, that classical anti-Semitism, in the sense of attributing cosmic evil to Jews, has no historical antecedents in the Muslim world. The Ottoman sultans were adamant in rejecting the blood libel. European anti-Semitism is a late import into Islam, fostered by the close association of the Nazis with the Mufti of Jerusalem and Ba’athist groups in Iraq and Syria.

ONE OF the most important points made by Lewis concerned the historiography of the Islamists. Most in the West view the fall of the Soviet Union as a consequence of the Reagan administration’s decision to confront it and engage it in an arms race that proved ruinous to the Soviet economy, but that is not how the Islamists see things. In their view, the Soviet Union was destroyed by mujahideen in Afghanistan, who drove the mighty Soviet army from the country. And that view, says Lewis, is not entirely implausible.

Osama bin Laden wrote at the time that Muslims had defeated the more dangerous of their two main enemies, and that defeating the effeminate Americans would prove easier.

One of the essential tasks, if you're going to fight an enemy, is to be able to see the world as he sees it, and to look at history through the version of it he tells himself.

“Iran is a mortal threat,” says Lewis. And he does not believe Ahmadinejad will be deterred from using nuclear weapons by the fear of retaliation. Mutual assured destruction does not work – indeed it may even be an incentive – to those who view a nuclear conflagration as hastening the advent of the hidden 12th imam. If they martyr their own people in the process, Lewis commented, they have only done them a favor by providing them a quick pass to the great brothel in the sky.

The irony is, the whole idea of "mutually assured destruction" was a classic example of American leadership failing to do just this thing -- see world history through the eyes of their adversaries. M.A.D. only existed on this side of the Atlantic. The Soviet generals and political leaders felt no fear of it: they were determined to fight -- and win -- in a nuclear war. The threshhold of "destruction" they found perfectly acceptable was astronomical, but understandable in a government that began its career with the deliberate death by starvation of tens of millions of its own citizens, then saw tens of millions more consumed in a war.

Also getting votes were No Blogger Is an Island, a timeless defense of principled political ethics by Wizbang; Convergence at Harry's Place; Five Years Went By Fast by Captain's Quarters; Why Global Warming Is a Crock by Alpha Patriot; and On Assumptions by Andrew Olmsted.

Council Winners

[posted by Callimachus]

Catching up on Watchers Council busines, here are the winners from the week of February 16.

First place within the council went to San Francisco Has Bigger Scandals Than a Debauched Mayor by Bookworm Room.

Votes also went to my What a Tangled Web, Squeeze Play: How the Palestinian Summit in Mecca Overturned Bush's Middle East Policy by Joshuapundit, On the Abuse of Religion in Politics by Eternity Road, and At Least He Speaks the Truth by The Sundries Shack.

Outside the council, the winner was Flagrant Evil by Gates of Vienna.

Votes also went to Iran's Obsession with the Jews by The Weekly Standard, Retrospective by The Possum Bistro, First Things First by Villainous Company, and Does Barnard Need Junk Academics? by The Muqata.

Watchers Council Winners

[posted by Callimachus]

Watchers Council winners for the week of Feb. 9 have been posted.

First place in the council went to our friend American Future for Who Is George Soros?.

Votes also went to Once More, William Arkin, With Feeling! by The Sundries Shack; An Open Letter To Governor Rick Perry by Rhymes With Right; What's Dunkirk Got To Do With It? by Bookworm Room; What Do We Do About Iran? by Right Wing Nut House; and Undocumented by Soccer Dad.

Outside the council, the winner was Media Mischaracterizes Senate Resolution Vote by The QandO Blog.

Votes also went to Once in a While a Veterans Thoughts Are Echoed by Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum; The Ugly American by Victor Davis Hanson; and Jewish Liberalism and Its Discontents at Diary of an Anti-Chomskyite.

And I'm still catching up, so here are the winners for the week of Feb. 2.

First place within the council went to 9/11: Just a Real Bad Day by Right Wing Nut House.

Votes also went to They've Finally Admitted It by Bookworm Room; Israel's Position on the Iranian Threat by American Future; Patton Medicine by Done With Mirrors, which still is referring to itself in the third person; The Fog of War by The Glittering Eye; and 2007 SotU Democratic Rebuttal Tidbits by The Sundries Shack.

Outside the council, the winner was New Trend on the Rise: The Patriotic Terrorist by Greg Gutfeld at The Huffington Post.

Votes also went to Self Delusion and Emboldening the Enemy by Dr. Sanity; The Karbala Attack and the IRGC by Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail; and Enlightenment Fundamentalism or Racism of the Anti-Racists? by Signandsight.com.

Council Winners

[posted by Callimachus]

This week's Watchers Council winners have been posted.

First place within the council went to On the Possibility of an Embargo of Iranian Oil by American Future, which describes in detail an intriguing alternative for confronting Iran over its nuclear policies. My reaction? It could be an excellent short-term tool for pressuring the government in Tehran, but the longer it goes on, the more the Iranians will sap it, as Saddam did the Iraq embargo.

Votes also went to Teacher Merit Pay, an excellent and thorough argument against teacher merit pay by The Colossus of Rhodey.

Other votes went to Iraqi Refugees by Done With Mirrors; ‘Moderate’ Abbas: “Aim the Guns Against Israel!” by Joshuapundit; and A Mandatory Disaggregation by Eternity Road.

Two other runners-up struck me as excellent and made me wish I had more than one vote. Alas, though, this is not North Philadelphia. One was Too Much Munich? by Soccer Dad, part of a large-scale reassessment of the hostile reaction many friends of Israel had to Stephen Spielberg's "Munich" (a discussion also represented here).

The other was D'Souza and the Illiberality of Criticism by Right Wing Nut House, who in the best spirit of blogging, despite not having read the book has a strong opinion nonetheless about "The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11."

D'Souza has been drifting toward this argument for a few years, and I'm actually glad he made it; it gets something out in the open that needs to be hashed. He'll get no thanks from the left for effectively confirming their blunt guess that there's not an inch of daylight between an Islamic fundamentalist and a Protestant one. But the differences are worth learning, and maybe this is the only way it can be done.

At any rate, we're looking again at Qutb, which is not at all a bad thing; not because he's all that important on his own, but because his encounter with America can be a good, manageable small-stage version of the big conflict between Us and Them.

Sullivan, for instance, says Qutb, so far from being dogmatically aligned with the Christian right in America, was "a liberal snob, condescending to small-town American life." (more on Qutb in America here and here).

I have read one book of his, Basic Principles of the Islamic Worldview. I wanted to read his thoughts in whole and sympathetic presentations, not just as fortune cookie blurbs plucked by his enemies. But it was disappointing. Instead of telling me anything about Islam as he sees it or how the world should be, he can't stop railing about everything he hates about everyone else's worldview.

First- and second-place finishers outside the council were two worthy examples of Weblog journalism: “Because the Language They Use Is Killing,” Bill's interview with an anonymous Fallujah police officer at INDC Journal; and The Blitzing of Haret Hreik, Michael J. Totten's reporting from the lair of the Hezbollah beast in Lebanon.

Also getting votes were Make the Child Pay by Baytown Bert's Blog -- The Way I See It; and To the Shores of Tripoli by The Belmont Club.