Dangerous Dan

Some people are offended by this faux commercial. Personally, I find it extremely funny.

I'm slightly annoyed by the attention paid to the upcoming Michael Jackson trial since it doesn't deserve nearly the amount of ink it's receiving. Not to spill anymore of the digital variety, but here's what I'll say about it, with plenty of armchair psychology. Jackson is a manchild who wants to live out a childhood fantasy life and who genuinely perceives himself as this noble person who wants to heal the world and help everybody. Unfortunately, he also has adult appetites that he doesn't fully acknowledge, which, when combined with his strange childlike mentality, leads him to do things with boys that clearly shouldn't be done. Given his previously noted noble self-perception, though, he really doesn't understand why the molesting should be an issue anyway, since his noble works outweigh anything else he could do. He's also naively simple-minded. For example, he's unable to fathom why people had a problem with kids sleeping in his bed after the earlier molestation charge against him. Along with this, he is utterly unaware that there are people around him who are merely looking to take advantage of his fame, name, and dwindling finances. His inner circle is continually changing as different feudal lords whisper nefarious plots (planned by others in the circle) against the king into one ear and sweet selfish advice in the other. He doesn't seem to understand that people who claim to have his best interests at heart really don't. As such, he fires longtime assistants, advisors, and lawyers, and then hires Nation of Islam lackies, a German gay porn producer, and other hangers-on.

In short, he's an idiot.

Even given that, I'm a little perplexed why Drudge is splashing his page with the revelation of his recent accuser's mother, Janet Jackson. He even mentions the child's name. Even though the name may be common knowledge, I still don't think such things should be reported in the media. It doesn't seem to be anything new or interesting, but it does seem awfully exploitative. Sometimes Drudge tips too far to the tabloid side.

Reporting from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Jay Nordlinger provides some nice quotes from Bill Clinton:

Soon, Ockrent is hammering Clinton and others about the alleged stinginess of the United States. The U.S. gives only one percent of its GDP in foreign aid, she insists. This is a disgrace. (Never mind the nongovernmental donations, the peerless logistical support that Washington provides, etc., etc.) So she puts it to Clinton: Why is America so ungenerous?

And he gives this answer: "Because no one will ever get beat running for Congress or president" by not espousing foreign aid.

Back to our boy, Bill Clinton. He says we don't need such "picayune" measures as Chirac's taxes. "The White House has just announced another $80 billion for the war in Iraq, and we could take half of that," and solve all these problems. The crowd whoops and cheers. It is the loudest reaction I have heard at Davos.

Back, once more, to Clinton: He says that anyone who complains about corruption in African governments — anyone who expresses caution about handing over money to these governments — "should be put in a closet, so no one has to listen to them."

That's the former president of the United States, former commander-in-chief of her armed forces, former leader of the free world, and former defender of democracy. Thank God for the "former" part. In short order, he gave weight to the false trope that the U.S. isn't generous, dissed the money spent on the war that resulted when he took a pass on the problem, and then supported corrupt kleptocracies by endorsing the notion that anybody who dare criticize them should be ignored and/or ostracized. It's impressive anti-American and anti-liberal values (in the classical sense) work for such a short period of time. But he said what the people of that mindset wanted to hear and I'm sure he soaked up the adulation.

The Kim dynasty in North Korea appears to be in serious trouble. According to this piece, the regime is facing some of the same problems that beset any tyrannical monarchy. There's infighting within the family, relatives jockeying for position to be Kim Jong Il's successor or for their offspring to be such, various assassination attempts, powerful figures in the military and secret police are starting to assume more power, and talk of dissent among the populace is becoming more open and common. In short, it's glorious. Nothing defeats a Stalinist government like itself and it's nice to see North Korea slowly imploding. True, if the regime falls, you never know what will come behind it, but getting rid of the Kims will at least be a step in the right direction.

What's also pleasing is to see the effects Christian missionaries and American policy are having on Kim's slow fall. One of the best things Bush has done during his presidency is deny dictators and rogue countries any kind of moral legitimacy or to allow them to set the rules of diplomacy. Too many practitioners of realpolitik and those who call themselves realists have submitted to the demands, requests, and extortions of tyrannical regimes that better deserve to be crushed by America's heel than to shake its hand. I still loathe Madeleine Albright for visiting North Korea and then watching her clapping her hands and enjoying herself while sitting next to Kim Jong Il at a massive stadium show as tens of thousands of North Koreans performed on the field below. It seemingly never occurred to her that only dictators can marshal a performance so much larger and more extravagant than even the greatest capitalist excesses of the Super Bowl or Olympics. It wasn't a cause for wonder or enjoyment, it was a cause for disgust at the power the SOB at her side had over the innumerable poor bastards below. Walking out of the suite in contempt would have been the appropriate diplomatic tactic there. Of course, it was Clinton who sent her there and it was Clinton who propped up the regime in a naive attempt to bribe the dictator into abandoning his weapons programs. Say what you want about Bush, but at least he holds to our country's founding ideals that prescribe contempt and condemnation for tyrants that hold down their fellow man.

So let the Kims fall and let them burn.

Here are a few pictures of Albright's trip, including one of the show she's clapping at. Oh, it makes me want to vomit.

Time's 10 questions for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi (he has yet to make general), question nine:

Given foreign and local skepticism, is Libya Really reforming itself?

About the economy, quite possible. We have begun to apply the Green Book. It's what we call popular socialism and what Thatcher calls popular capitalism. Elections? What for? We have surpassed that stage you are presently in. All the people are in power now. Do you want them to regress and elect somebody to replace them?

Ah, yes. I too long for the days when this country will get past democracy so that I will be ruled by an iron-fisted dictator in an ostracized nation with no economy to speak of. Also note that Muammar seems to have an identity problem in that he believes he is the collective Libyan people.

(You know, when I write things like those last two sentences, I always picture some lefty moonbat coming along and saying something along the lines of, "We're already there!" as if Bush and Gadaffi or the U.S. and Libya were anywhere remotely similar. It would prove only two things… that they're sadly unable to make proper comparisons and that they really are moonbats.)

Since Kerry already got fisked, why not also fisk… uhhh… Robert Fisk.

I actually won't go too much into this poor editorial he wrote for the Independent. I will note the part where he talks about the "fantasy war." He means this as an ironic slap to America in that he claims we're waging an active war against Iraq that we're not admitting. Since we're not admitting it and since there are no reporters allowed on aircraft carriers or on bases, then it's a fantasy war that's real but remains unknown to the public. The irony, though, goes even deeper because it seems to be just a fantasy of Fisk's mind. Those "since" clauses above are his proof of this war.

There are no "embedded" reporters on the giant American air base at Qatar or aboard the US carriers in the Gulf from which these ever increasing and ever more lethal sorties are being flown. They go unrecorded, unreported, part of the "fantasy" war which is all too real to the victims but hidden from us journalists.

In other words, he has no proof that it's happening, therefore it must be happening. Fantasy indeed.

See Powerline for more.

The ink-stained fingers are becoming a symbol of the Iraqi election and many pundits are happily talking about Iraqis giving the finger to the terrorists. In case you aren't aware, when an Iraqi votes, they dip a finger into indelible ink that won't come off for about 48 hours, no matter how much you wash it or what chemicals you may apply. This prevents people trolling to different polling locations and voting multiple times. If your finger is blue, you've already had your vote. If I recall correctly, this same method was used in the Afghan election.

Which leads me to wonder… why don't we do this? There are all the problems of voter fraud in Wisconsin and Washington, so why don't we make people going to the U.S. polls stain their fingers? It seems like it would be a simple and cheap solution to cut down on at least some fraud. It would certainly make it much more difficult, if not impossible, for people to go from polling place to polling place submitting ballots. It would also be the equivalent of an "I voted" sticker. I guess I just don't see what the problem with this would be.

Along with the success of the Iraqi election, it's also pile-on-John-Kerry day as he appeared on Meet the Press today and made an ass out of himself.

He was expectantly dour on the prospects of Iraqis voting and had this to say about the worried lack of Sunnis participating: "It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote and doesn't vote." So essentially he's just whizzing all over the Iraqi election. If a segment largely chooses not to vote, then the vote doesn't count. There are currently estimates that 70%-90% of Iraq's eligible voters went to the polls, which is huge. If I'm not mistaken, the U.S.'s numbers usually hover around 50% for presidential election years. Does that mean that not a single U.S. election is legitimate either? What worries me is why Kerry was setting up the election as something of a failure. I suppose for no other reason than to score cheap political points against Bush. The fact that he'd impugn such a monumental event for that purpose, though, is rather pathetic. Unfortunately, I think that's just what he's doing. Right before that quote, he said,

No one in the United States should try to overhype this election. This election is a sort of demarcation point, and what really counts now is the effort to have a legitimate political reconciliation, and it's going to take a massive diplomatic effort and a much more significant outreach to the international community than this administration has been willing to engage in. Absent that, we will not be successful in Iraq.

Note how he continues to try pushing his vaunted international cooperation and Euro-detente agenda from his campaign. Oddly enough, we've managed to get to this point without all the international, i.e. German, French and UN, help that he said we so desperately needed. So I'm a little mystified why Iraq will still be a failure without it. I'll grant that Iraq hasn't been a success, but it also hasn't been a failure. The elections today are a big step toward future success and we'll have to see how things go. Go here for Captain's Quarters' take.

Powerline hammered away at the part of Kerry's interview involving his Christmas in Cambodia story. You know, the one where he claimed he was in Cambodia over Christmas 1968 on some secret mission… despite the fact that there's absolutely nothing to support his account and an abundance of evidence to contradict it. What's interesting is this part of his defense that I hadn't heard before:

I still have the hat that he gave me, and I hope the guy would come out of the woodwork and say, "I'm the guy who went up with John Kerry. We delivered weapons to the Khmer Rouge on the coastline of Cambodia."

It's not often that a person would defend themselves by talking about how they gave weapons to a murderous regime that killed millions of its own people.

Powerline also discusses the section about Kerry's military records. I'll just post this section of the transcript as is:

MR. RUSSERT: Many people who've been criticizing you have said: Senator, if you would just do one thing and that is sign Form 180, which would allow historians and journalists complete access to all your military records. Thus far, you have gotten the records, released them through your campaign. They say you should not be the filter. Sign Form 180 and let the historians…

SEN. KERRY: I'd be happy to put the records out. We put all the records out that I had been sent by the military. Then at the last moment, they sent some more stuff, which had some things that weren't even relevant to the record. So when we get–I'm going to sit down with them and make sure that they are clear and I am clear as to what is in the record and what isn't in the record and we'll put it out. I have no problem with that.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you sign Form 180?

SEN. KERRY: But everything, Tim…

MR. RUSSERT: Would you sign Form 180?

SEN. KERRY: Yes, I will. But everything that we put in it, Tim–everything we put in–I mean, everything that was out was a full documentation of all of the medical records, all of the fitness reports. And I'd call on those who have challenged me, let's see their records. I want to see the records of each of those people who have put up a challenge, because some of them have some serious questions in them, and it hasn't been appropriate…

MR. RUSSERT: So they should sign Form 180s for themselves as well?

SEN. KERRY: You bet.

First he attempts to say that everything in the records has been released. Then when it's clear that's false (and odd since if everything were out there, why not sign Form 180 and prove it rather than leave the speculation out there), he says that he hasn't released everything because he wants to make sure everything is "clear." After that, he says he will sign Form 180, which he falsely claimed he would do in the past, and then uses the classic tactic of shifting the blame by denouncing other people who haven't released their records either. This is inane. Just because person A hasn't released all his records, that doesn't mean it's ok Kerry hasn't. When he complains that his opponents haven't released their records, he is also necessarily admitting that his own reticence on the issue is wrong. While he's trying to show the hypocrisy of his opposition, he is also demonstrating his own hypocrisy. How lame.

Update: I'm not the only one who has never heard of the Khmer Rouge angle in the Christmas in Cambodia story. It's new to LGF too and Charles points out that even this has inconsistencies to it. It's new to Captain's Quarters too.

On The Corner, Jonathan Adler opines that if the Washington Post is going to require that op-ed writers disclose any potential conflicts of interest, then the paper should also mandate disclosure of any government money given to non-profit advocacy groups when writing about them. The intent is that people can then see at what kind of groups the feds are throwing public tax money.

This is a fine idea, but still doesn't go far enough for me. There isn't nearly enough disclosure in the media. I don't mean that the reporters themselves have some sort of money trail. Rather, their sources do. While there are many hard-working journalists out there, many more are lazy, and the majority is a contradictory combination of the two. In his book Give Me a Break, John Stossel writes about how earlier in his career, he would routinely report on stories brought to him advocacy lawyers, i.e. plaintiff trial lawyers. At the time, he thought he was doing a good thing by exposing these big issues and that the lawyers were just well-meaning guys looking out for victims. It was easy reporting too since the noble jurists would have all the research and info he needed prepackaged. It wasn't until later that Stossel realized that these guys were just using him to give their cause free publicity, increase public sympathy, and better position their lawsuits with a jury, which in turn led to fatter settlements and awards that mostly went into the lawyers' pockets.

This similarly happened with so-called public welfare groups. They'd throw stuff at him and he'd report it. They're looking out for the little guy, right? Same thing again with certain scientists. They're supposed to be impartial observers of the facts and wouldn't have a hidden agenda, aren't they? Again, he later figured out that they did have agendas. The lawyers, the public welfare groups, the scientists, all had ideological and/or financial agendas that drastically colored the positions they pushed or the reports they issued. So you take a well-meaning journalist who doesn't understand science, add a purportedly well-meaning lawyer/group/scientist, throw in some scientific data that the journalist doesn't understand, and you get lots of bad reporting.

So if the media is going to disclose, how about reporters disclosing where they got a story idea from or where they got the data from. The real conflicts of interest lie not so much in the reporter as they do in the reporter's sources. So, c'mon, media… disclose!

Voting is well underway in Iraq. Early exit polls show John Kerry with a significant lead over Allawi.

Seriously, though, I wish them the best. It's good to see real democracy spreading. It's amazing how this election is scaring the hell out of the terrorists in Iraq and how desperately they're trying to scuttle it and intimidate the populace into not voting. Totalitarians just don't like people having the freedom to guide their own destinies and choose their own government.

Friends of Democracy has pretty good elections posts.

… never meanin' no harm…

You know you want it.

What's always amazed me about the Dukes of Hazzard is that it got on the air at all. In today's politically correct climate, can you imagine somebody pitching the idea to a network exec?

"It's about a couple of good ole boys roaring around the contryside of the deep south in a bright orange Dodge Charger that has a Confederate battle flag painted on top and is called the 'General Lee.' Oh, and the car's horn plays 'Dixie.'"

He'd be tossed off the studio lot.

The other day, Todd, who occasionally posts here, pointed out to me this Slate piece discussing Hillary Clinton's recent speech in which she is apparently softening her views on abortion… in a way. She's agreeing that we should decrease the number of abortions performed and even referred to it as "a sad, even tragic choice." I replied to Todd with the following e-mail:

I thought about blogging on this a couple of days ago, not this article specifically, but on Hillary’s speech. I think Saletan is overstating the issue somewhat. He’s trying to turn HRC’s speech into a party policy shift. More than anything, it’s just Hill trying to position herself for a 2008 prez run. She knows she’s got the support of the liberal base, but is sunk unless she can sway some moderates over to her side, especially considering how much she’ll rile the conservative base against her. So she’s trying to accomplish the classic move that Bill used so well, which is search for some kind of centrist ground, i.e. the third way. The problem is that this is largely rhetorical. She’s got a 100% rating from NARAL-Pro-Choice America. That and as concerns her and the party as a whole, they’re too rabidly pro-choice. One’s support of Roe v. Wade is a litmus test in the Democratic party. Unless you’re committed to abortion rights, don’t bother running. Even Dennis Kucinich, who had been ardently pro-life, had to switch his stance when he made his presidential run… that’s moral backbone for ya from the great peace-preaching moralizer. Anyway, she can talk all she wants, neither her nor the party’s actions will back up the rhetoric. If the Repubs were cunning, they’d poke the beast sometime in the next four years with some sort of abortion bill and make the Democrats put their votes where their mouths are. Since they won’t, that hypocrisy can then be used against them in campaigning.

What amazes me about HRC is that in this and other ways, she’s blatantly triangulating for 2008 and the MSM realizes this and will even note it. Yet they still accept the moves as being somehow sincere when they’re clearly not. A Republican playing against type like this for political purposes wouldn’t be given the same critical pass.

One other point to make here is what she’s proposing as solution. If only the government would do more, abortions would be rare. "There is no reason why government cannot do more to educate and inform and provide assistance so that the choice guaranteed under our constitution either does not ever have to be exercised or only in very rare circumstances.”

Again, it’s a nice rhetorical, but unsubstantive move. And it won’t work for the party. For one thing, the argument is predicated upon agreeing that the proper number of abortions should be zero. The claim is that once the Dems agree on that, the party winning the pro-life folks will be the one that best approaches that goal. Sounds good, except the liberals would have to admit that there’s actually something wrong with abortion such that it should be zero. They won’t be willing to make that kind of moral concession when they’re committed to the view that it’s not immoral and even moral in many cases.

Also, not even HRC is good at maintaining her façade.

“I for one respect those who believe with all their hearts and conscience that there are no circumstances under which any abortion should ever be available," Clinton declared. Many reporters touted that line as an olive branch. They overlooked her next sentence: "But that does not represent even the majority opinion within the anti-abortion community. There are exceptions for rape and for incest, for the life of the mother.”

She doesn’t believe herself that abortion is wrong, she’s merely feeling the pain and paying lip service respect to those who do and then searches for weaknesses in abortion’s moral penumbra. She then tries using those weaknesses to attack pro-life ideology as a whole. My observations of Dems thrashing about trying to coopt values from the Republicans is that they’re miserable at it. They can read polls and get policy strategy papers from aids, but they simply don’t understand the values issue and they look like ridiculous phonies when they try to appear otherwise.

I bring this up because one of the points I made was that the party faithful and liberals in general will never agree to lessen their stance on the issue since even barely softening to the point of saying no more than that there should be fewer abortions would to some extent be a moral surrender to pro-life forces. Agreeing that there would ideally be zero abortions would be an even greater surrender. Now the proof of this is out… the speech is making some folks nervous.

This New York Times article has this quote from Planned Parenthood spokewoman, Carla Goldstein: "We're really concerned that the Democratic Party, of which Hillary is a leader, has indicated that they may need to soften their stance on protecting women's reproductive health and freedom."

When we turn to this American Prospect article, we get even more of it: "'My head lifted off my shoulders and spun around, I was so mad,' said one pro-choice Democrat, describing her reaction to the story." This is the most interesting part, though:

“You see why they’re doing it,” says one pro-choice activist. “But what they don’t understand is that by doing this they gain nothing, and lose a lot. … Soft pro-life voters are not going to believe [Clinton]. They are still going to say she wants to kill babies, and all you end up doing is alienating people in the party who are single-issue voters and who give money.”

Compared with Clinton’s tough speech at the Washington choice march last year, her remarks this week left many people with a taste of retreat in their mouths.

“What some segments of the party are looking for from her is to be like a Ted Kennedy and defend, defend, defend. For her to be no different from everybody else is ridiculous,” said one of the people who heard her remarks.

What they want is what they got from the other senator from New York recently.

“There has been some talk about adjusting our position on [Roe v. Wade],” Chuck Schumer said to pro-choicers at a NARAL dinner a couple of weeks ago. “When it comes to choice, we will not retreat. We will stand at the barricades and defend Roe against all comers.”

The problem is they’re no longer know sure where the comers are coming from.

Indeed. If the Dems keep trying to go the path of a softer stance on abortion, we're going to see some interesting effects. Right now, it's one of the most unifying issues the party has. If the official party line starts going one way, the diehard Dems are going to resist and a fault line will be created within the party, making it more disorganized than it already is. What it will come down to, though, is that the Dem leaders will issue a great deal of rhetoric that they won't back up and people will realize that.

The Diplomad has pointed out two UN reports taking credit for tsunami relief efforts that they don't deserve. The reports also try to lessen the importance of America's role in humanitarian aid by not mentioning the enormous roles of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and U.S. navy in general, nor of the Australian military. It all gets wrapped up in generally crediting the militaries of 20 different countries.

I also find the verbiage in the first document to be very interesting. Here's an example:

Across the region: The World Food Programme is already reaching more than 1.2 million people with food out of a target population of 2 million.

More than 500,000 people are being provided with clean water. Students are going back to school; 60,000 started back to classes in Sumatra today. Hundreds of thousands more will return in February.

Sri Lanka: A WHO strategy targeting one million people is underway. More than 700,000 people are being fed (100% of target population). School supplies for 200,000 students have been delivered.

Indonesia: Shelter has been provided for more than 250,000 people. Malaria control program for 200,000 people. Five UN coordination offices have been established Aceh. 100 UN staff on the ground. Food aid now reaching 330,000, will soon reach 500,000.

Note all the passive voice being used, such as "shelter has been provided," and "school supplies for 200,000 students have been delivered." One would think that if the UN was directly responsible for these things, they would use active voice, like "the UN has provided shelter," and "WHO delivered school supplies for 200,000 students." It's not that the report doesn't use any active voice: "UNICEF is reaching 15,000 people with basic supplies."

The way most of these things are phrased with the passive voice likely means that other entities, e.g. USN and USAID, were responsible for them. The UN, though, is including them in their report in such a way as to make it seem like they did it, but without really lying about it. It's called being dishonest while being technically true.

Ah, more on good ole Ted! He and Sen. Frank Lautenberg of N.J. (the guy who the N.J. Supreme Court allowed to be placed on the ballot in '02 despite the fact that doing so was clearly against the letter, intent, and spirit of a state elections law) have crafted a bill making it illegal for money allocated to the Executive branch to be used for "propaganda" purposes. This is in the wake of revelations that a couple of departments paid bloggers to push their agendas. I guess since Ted and Frank would have more difficulty regulating the free speech of independent citizens, they'll go after the President. Really, the cases have been exceedingly minor and hardly amount to the "propaganda mill" Lautenberg describes. Besides that, I really don't have a problem with a department trying to give its policies good P.R. If you're concerned it's misleading, then just make it a law that any such disbursement to entities for P.R. be publicly disclosed. People know where the money's going and if they don't like, apply public pressure to make it stop. There, settled.

But not for Ted and Frank. The real topper to this bill is that it's a love note to the plaintiff's bar:

The act would allow citizens to bring qui tam lawsuits on behalf of the United States government when the Department of Justice does not respond.

If the matter is taken to court, the bill proposes that the senior official responsible would be fined three times the amount of the "misspent taxpayer funds" plus an additional fine ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. And if a citizen's qui tam suit is accepted, the bill proposes that the plaintiff receives between 25 and 30% of the proceeds of the fine.

So anytime there's alleged misconduct on the part of administration officials and the Justice Department doesn't prosecute (surely not because there's no substance to the allegations!), then a lawyer can sue the federal government and get to keep up to 30% of the resulting fines. That could be a sweet deal, my friend, and the lawyer's got nothing to lose. As if litigation wasn't bad enough in this country, let's add to it.

I doubt this bill will ever make it out of committee and certainly not out of the Senate. It's just a way for the Democrats to make hay of a couple of departments buying good P.R. where the MSM will afford them none and to play up supposed ethics violations. Class act, them.

Whatever happened to the strongwilled and brave Kennedy's of the JFK and RFK type who believed in standing up to international threats to freedom? Ted's a pale imitation. He's declared that all the violence in Iraq is a result of American forces there and that we should be begin pulling out of the country so that the violence could subside.

"The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution," Kennedy said in remarks prepared for delivery at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. "We need a new plan that sets fair and realistic goals for self-government in Iraq, and works with the Iraqi government on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces.

Now, Kennedy said, the United States and the insurgents are both battling for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people and the U.S. is losing.

"There may well be violence as we disengage militarily from Iraq and Iraq disengages politically from us, but there will be much more violence if we continue our present dangerous and destabilizing course," said Kennedy. "It will not be easy to extricate ourselves from Iraq, but we must begin."

He somehow thinks that Iraq will be less violent and more stable by withdrawing U.S. troops and leaving a shaky new government to take care of the insurgents and terrorists whose very goal, as demonstrated by the threats of violence preceding the election, is to overthrow it. Yeah, civil war sounds like a great plan for Iraq. Of course, overthrowing the new Iraqi government would be their primary goal only after fulfilling their current one, which is getting the U.S. out of Iraq. So Ted is essentially arguing for giving the terrorists and insurgents exactly what they want in Iraq… he's seeking to appease them and broadcast weakness and a lack of resolve to America's enemies, which will only embolden them attack us elsewhere. That's a losing strategy that has already hurt us badly in the past. Let's not go back to it.

Update: The Diplomad and Powerline have similar takes on Ted's rhetorical fetal position.