And this time it was Nancy Pelosi who made headlines because of it. Of course, many failed to understand the context in which the Speaker of the House donned the scarf, but some have taken the time to explain it. The Cunning Realist and Garance Franke-Ruta provide much needed clarity and background.

James Joyner has the best round-up so far.

And the Hillary-Obama ticket will win in 2008, according to Dick Morris in an interview with PJM.

Peter Beinart argues that "George Bush has screwed John McCain one more time". I fear he is right and that he is also correct in arguing that McCain has taken a position of conviction when it comes to supporting the troops surge. But that, alas, may not win you any elections and that is something that will also ultimately affect the Giuliani card.

And McCain is fully aware of the consequences. In the latest edition of Vanity Fair, Todd S. Purdum paints a picture of a man constantly challenged by finding the right balance between political expediency and doing what is right:

McCain says he understands how little public support there would be for more troops. "I read the polls all the time. But does that mean I'm not going to do what is morally right? I look you straight in the eye, my friend, and tell you: I want to be president of the United States. I don't want to be president of the United States so badly that I'm going to do something that I know is not right for the security of this nation and the young men and women that are defending it. So, if this position makes me viewed as too militaristic, or unrealistic, or whatever it is, I will more than happily take those political consequences, because I'll sleep a hell of a lot better."

Well said. Note that these words were spoken before Bush's speech last week.

Not just in Europe is boomer retirement a pressing issue according to Robert Samuelson:

I know many bright, politically engaged boomers who can summon vast concern or outrage about global warming, corporate corruption, foreign policy and much more -- but somehow, their own Social Security and Medicare benefits rarely come up for criticism.

Our children will not be so blinded to this hypocrisy. We have managed to take successful programs -- Social Security and Medicare -- and turn them into huge problems by our self-centered inattention. Baby boomers seem eager to "reinvent retirement'' in all ways except those that might threaten their pocketbooks.

And that explains why some real issues - and I can list a few of my own - which not only require a change in spending priorities but a change in thinking patterns hardly get any attention from those seeking public office these days.

Dan Drezner - in the WaPo - makes an inventory of the various ideas that seek to reinvigorate US foreign policy. This excerpt in particular struck me as thought provoking:

On at least one key dimension, all the contenders for Kennan's throne agree. They all stress the importance of fostering open markets to advance economic development and U.S. power. Just one problem: As Benjamin Page and Marshall Bouton point out in "The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want From Our Leaders but Don't Get ," the greatest gap between U.S. policy elites and the American public revolves precisely around international economic policy. As the recent midterm elections demonstrated, economic populism plays far better with Americans today than does free trade.

The grand strategy that wins out in the end may be the one that -- regardless of specific positions on Iraq or terrorism -- convinces Americans that it is possible to have free and fair trade at the same time. By a hair, then, the front-runner is Lieven and Hulsman's ethical realism. By economizing on other forms of power projection, ethical realism potentially frees up resources to cushion the domestic costs of globalization.

As Drezner concedes, markets alone are insufficient to form a viable and sustainable platform for long-term foreign policy.

Most of my analysis of Europe's problems has always been that social and moral decay are going hand in hand with the inability to address the immediate challenges posed by globalization. The recent popularity of both Europe's extreme left and right plug into this new economic alienation, witness the rejection of the draft EU constitution.

The challenge it would seem for both the American and European elites is to initiate a steady journey towards further economic liberalization at home and abroad. On the domestic side, it will equip the West to better deal with challenges coming from for instance China and India and it will at the same time forge deeper relationships with these emerging economic powerhouses. And like us, these are equally interested in quelling the disruptive forces of jihadism or resurgent collectivism in their respective backyards.

Yes, there were a few die hard conspiracy theorists who had braved the cold to hand out leaflets indicating that the Twin Towers had come down as the result of bombs planted by the US government, but even they could not prevent the warmth and excitement of an evening with Rudy:

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the next president of the United States, Mr. Rudy Giuliani”

I never thought I would hear this in a Vancouver theater, but last night I did and the audience was no less excited than an American one: Rudy is indeed still the mayor of the world. It is a reputation that gives him an incredible amount of currency abroad and it may be a crucial asset if this next president needs to enlist some real support in unifying the west in its struggle with global terror.

The presentation was centered around Rudy‘s principles of leadership (goals, optimism, accountability, preparation, communication and teamwork) which are all discussed in his book on the subject matter. I won’t bore you with the details as it has all been documented and equally well promoted over time, but Rudy can dive into a reservoir of endless anecdotes and turn these business and life lessons into highly entertaining stuff.

The evening was scripted and rather than have the audience fire off questions, local newspaper editor Patricia Graham probed the man who had just launched his 2008 exploratory committee. And that is where Rudy moved into more interesting territory. He was for instance quick to point out that last week’s election most likely would not represent a shift away from the major goal in Iraq: ensuring the establishment and survival of an accountable government. The one thing that differs from before was the bi-partisan nature of the effort, but the trick would be to accomplish that goal without deviating from that key objective. In that he also neutralized the expectation that Jim Baker’s Iraq Study Group would come up with any dramatic changes and he linked this argument back to his leadership principle: remain focused on your goals. So no return to Kissingerian realism and settling for some useful authoritarian partners if that would allow the US an early exit, at least that is how I interpreted Giuliani's message.

Graham then asked where he stood on stem cell research, abortion, gun control and gay marriage. Giuliani was a lot more forthcoming on this then he would be had he been performing somewhere deep in America’s heartland I suspect. He fully supports the right to opt for abortion (although using the standard qualifier that as a person he would never make that choice), he endorses stem cell research, control of handguns and did not see any obstacles to civil unions for gays. “Well, you sound like a Canadian liberal!” countered Graham which was a nice cue for Rudy to drill home his other, more conservative, side. Cutting taxes, balancing budgets and an aggressive foreign policy, Rudy’s list was even spontaneously interrupted by a round of un-Canadian applause when he insisted on a determined effort to pursue the war on terror. And the latter is probably safe in the hands of the man who tells his audience that he continues to think about 9/11 everyday, and who also quite perceptively believes that America still hasn’t fully absorbed what happened on that day.

Walking back to my car it occurred to me that the issues that some of the organizers had wanted to see addressed – urban decay and crime – had not gotten all that much attention from the man who vigorously cleaned up New York. But that was not what the smartly dressed crowd had come for. While they made their way home among the omnipresent panhandlers and drug addicts it became clear that an evening with Rudy is exactly like his term as mayor of New York: a rapid exercise in how to get tangible results with a prescient lesson in foreign policy at the tail end. Despite his perceived tendencies to ‘Canadian values’, that should position him well for his 2008 run. His track record, vision as well as his political capital outside the US is unmatched by any other candidate in the current field of contenders for 2008.

As I mentioned yesterday, this old-new analogy will be part of the Rumsfeld lexicon and stay with us for a long time. It was one of the things he was absolutely right about. There is a distinction between the tired, careful, economically moribund and static part of Europe personified by especially Chirac’s France and Schroeder’s Germany and the dynamic and pragmatic youngsters that are building something new on the rubble of the former Soviet Empire. Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states: they know exactly what they missed out on for some fifty years and are in a serious hurry to reclaim it, unhindered by strife-inducing immigration, regulation and deep complacency.

And that is also a reason to be not all that negative about Europe, although personally I would not like to be sandwiched in between Old Europe and Putin’s Russia. But some readers see the opportunity and here is an e-mail I got from a Dane last week after linking to quotes from Steyn’s new book:

Since I am planning to follow your example and leave Western Europe, we probably have a similar outlook, although I plan to move to Estonia.

Mark Steyn's idea of "Europe" seems to come from the British and American intelligentsia. He ignores the fact that there is a New Europe which is fast-growing (economically), pro-American, and almost Muslim-free.

In addition, there are vast distinctions among various Old European and New European countries. There is no easy analysis, but the Rumsfeld distinction is quite helpful in understanding a very underreported phenomenon.

I have a lot of respect for age, so that is not the issue here. Still, I wonder what has excited West Viriginia voters to return an 89-year old former klansman to the Senate with a 64-34 margin. And: the longest serving Senator in American history will not be a titular senator, he will most likely head the Senate Appropriations Committee again.

The markets were up today. And for a good reason:

Some investors said a divided government would prevent either party from controlling the economic agenda, clearing the way for corporate earnings and economic data to influence shares.

``A stalemate between the president and the Congress is usually a fairly bullish thing,'' said Barton Biggs, who helps manage $1.6 billion at Traxis Partners LLC in New York. ``The fundamentals are what's going to drive this market, not the political events that just happened.''

Exactly.

Dean Barnett writes on Hugh Hewitt's blog today:

The biggest disappointment of the past six years has been the White House’s ongoing inability to express the rationale for the so-called war on terror. For most of you reading this site, the rationale is obvious and well known: There exists an enormous segment of the Muslim world that seeks our destruction. Either we transform our malefactors, or the world’s fate will be unimaginably horrific.

This is a long war, and yet leading Republicans including the one in the White House have yet to articulate why it’s necessary.

He is right and it is a point often put forward here. The Bush approach to terror has always been reactive rather than proactive, laying out a vision and try and rally the nation behind it has never been an easy task for someone essentially lacking that vision. And yes, the notion of 'sacrifice' is totally absent: America got a tax cut during a time of war. But what is also part of the White House's inept messaging is the far more difficult acknowledgement that jihadism is religious and not political in nature. The danger of 'crusader' rhetoric and other politcally correct sentiments ensured that more than five years after 9/11 large segments of the western world are still oblivious of the real threat.

And I use 'western world' with very good reason, as in Europe this is an equally hard nut to crack. The Times today ran a passionate editorial following the sentencing of al-Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot. It is another textbook case of conversion, radicalization and sophistication. But above all one of serious warning:

The Barot case underlines the character of terrorism, its international tentacles, chameleon adaptability and ability to exploit Western fads and weaknesses. It should, and will, make more urgent the need to penetrate and disarm the mindset that kills in the name of a deity. It is a threat that no democratic society can ignore.

The time has come for Republicans and Democrats, Americans and Europeans to find common ground, recognize this lethal enemy and fight it relentlessly. If not, terrorists like Barot will succeed in executing their sickening plans on both sides of the ocean:

His expertise and professionalism in surveying the nine London hotels, three stations, synagogues, banks and Underground lines targeted for destruction is matched only by his sadism in contemplating how he could increase the panic and human suffering caused by exploding gas cylinders, napalm, nails and a radiation bomb.

Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down.

There will be a lot of discussion about his legacy, his successes and his failures. His 'Old Europe, New Europe' classification comes to mind as classic Rumsfeldian analysis, undiplomatic, blunt, but designed to survive the test of time.

My comments last night on the senate balance where off to the extent that I was working from CNN's numbers who put Lieberman in the Democratic camp, and they still do. Incorrect, he ran as an independent and as a reader points out:

What everybody is overlooking is that if the Democrats take VA, MO and MT they still need Lieberman’s vote to control the Senate. Now, politically he is a good fit for them, but they really treated him poorly and he would not be amiss if he required some major mea culpae and demanded an important position.

And Lieberman could demand the same from the GOP. As of last night he has become a very powerful man in Washington, and rightly so as he stood his ground and fought for it.

That is how Christopher Hitchens qualifies last night's results.

So today is the day, and rather than give you my views on the impending divided house, I will leave you with updates and worthwhile links throughout most of the day.

First off, take a look at how the team of contributors at TCS is considering the outcome of today's ballot, especially Stephen Bainbridge's expectations:

For fans of limited government, nothing's better than divided government. Compare the average growth of per capita government spending when the GOP ran Congress and Bill Clinton sat in the White House (0.3%) or Ronald Reagan as President faced down a Democrat Congress (1.7%) with the boom times for big government when a single party held power under George Bush 41 (3.1%) or Jimmy Carter (2.9%). On Tuesday, the American should -- and will -- give fans of limited government a present by turning Congress over to the Democrats.

Ongoing reporting is of course everwhere, but do check out Pajamas Media, which will have video crews embedded at the Lieberman and Schwarzenegger headquarters in Connecticut and Los Angeles.

Joe Gandelman is rounding up some political obituaries and expert predictions.

Towards a divided house? Here is an excellent blog that is exclusively focused on the need to curb unchecked single party rule: Divided We Stand, United We Fall.

Pollster is a good source for results, and it also explains exit polls.

Lots, lots at The Corner. Keep scrolling.

7:45 PM A reader weighs in on the implications of a divided house:

You’re absolutely right that a divided government has its advantages. One thing is for sure, we’ll start seeing a lot more vetoes coming out of the White House. The Democrats have been very successful at keeping their peace throughout this election cycle but I suspect one of the first things the Democrats will do start impeachment proceedings. One reason is payback for what the Republican Congress did to Clinton, which in my opinion was appropriate (Impeachment but not removal from office). Their stated reason will be lying, “illegal” wiretapping, Guantanamo Bay, etc… Revenge and BDS will the true reason. It is going to be a dangerous distraction. If you think you’ve heard rhetorical vehemence, brace yourself. The Democrats will use Congress as a platform to paint Bush (and Republicans in general) as the most hideous of criminals. I believe they will be very effective.

And also has some trenchant comments on the local situation in New Mexico:

Here in New Mexico, our Congresswoman Heather Wilson (R) will almost certainly lose to the sitting State Attorney General Patricia Madrid, who in January will be known as the only person in Washington D.C. who can make George Bush sound articulate. There are serious allegations of corruption and malfeasance surrounding her and I suspect that by the time the next election rolls around she’ll be a resident in a Federal prison. But this is a heavily Democrat state, and many people are knee-jerk voters – no matter the party.

9:10 PM The divided house argument is of course in no way an endorsement of the Democratic Party, but more an acknowledgment that certain excesses need to be curbed. And it is a veritable test for the Democrats to show America and the world that they are able to offer a viable alternative in 2008. That, under the best of circumstances, will remain a phenomenal struggle for that party.

9:15 House to Democrats, Senate split?. Very likely, if Webb wins Virginia, Talent keeps Missouri and Tester captures Montana.

10:12 Talent is in trouble, and Allen-Webb is a recount. This will not be resolved tonight it seems.

10:15 Larry Kudlow explains the possible market reaction:

US stock market futures are down a few tenths of a percent in Hong Kong trading on the news of a Dem takeover of the House. However, Japanese stocks are down 180 points or more than 1% on the US political news. My hunch is that Japan fears a dovish shift in US foreign policy on the global terror war. Any US weakness in Iraq will reverberate very poorly in Japan as it might affect N. Korean policy expectations. If the Dems take the Senate, look for a major stock sell-off worldwide and in US.

Not sure about that. But if there's a sell-off it will be shortlived given the prospects of reduced spending and balanced budgets. Surely Kudlow should have mentioned that.

10:20 I have a 5:50 AM spinning class tomorrow morning, so off to bed.

I have been a longtime fan of Camille Paglia, in particular because she is a non-conventional thinker and able to destruct both the left and the right with her razor sharp wit. The interview with her yesterday in Salon - in which she covers a variety of current topics - is a must-read.

While clearly identifying Iraq as a mess and Bush as "out of his depth" this onetime Democrat has no qualms about reducing her party to absolute rubble. More importantly, she understands the challenges of our future better than most of her contemporaries, note the following:

But my generation of baby-boom Democrats hasn't done much deep thinking about international issues except in terms of postmodernist fragmentation or fuzzy, smiley-face multiculturalism. We desperately need better candidates.

As for looking to the future here are Paglia's key indicators of impending doom:

I'm worried about the future of America insofar as our academically most promising students are being funneled through the cookie-cutter Ivy League and other elite schools and emerging with this callow anti-American, anti-military cast to their thinking. How are we ever going to get wise leadership or sophisticated diplomacy from people who have such a distorted, clichéd view about everything that's wrong with the United States?

And my favorite:

The more liberal parents are, the less contact their children have with religious ideas. That will surely disable our future American leaders from being able to understand the religious commitment of Islamic fundamentalists. Liberal journalists often seem incredulous about how anyone would seek death for religious principles. But that was the entire history of early Christianity, when the saints willingly sought martyrdom. We're heading into that world again.

Paglia is not calling for a religious revival, but for a measure of historical and religious awareness. Looking around me I am astounded to note how incredibly shallow historical knowledge is these days, especially among the 'well-educated' middle classes, the group supposedly forming the backbone of our society. It is one of the key reasons why western societies are so divided over rogue nations going nuclear and Muslim zealots blowing themselves up on commuter trains: most of us simply can’t recognize the phenomenon, much less conceive of any action to protect ourselves against it.

Even as a secular person, I would still strongly advocate to regain some of the moral bearings that religion has given us and at the same time try and raise a new generation with some basic historical awareness. The fact that I grew up in a house stacked with historical works and a father who had seen – and taken me – to war cemetery after war cemetery in Europe did at least leave me in a position where I could write the stuff that I write here on this site.

And Paglia is therefore on the mark in arguing that the absence of any clear leadership from either the right or the left in these challenging times is so troubling. So far we’ve been lucky in escaping any real disaster but we better start investing in a new generation that is bound to face situations where luck is no longer a sufficient enough tool to ward of our destruction.

Have a good weekend. Next week it will be Theo Van Gogh week over here.

Andrew Sullivan is promoting his new book, The Conservative Soul which I haven't read as yet, but the many reviews so far tell me we all should.

If you have the time I recommend the interview Sullivan did with Hugh Hewitt yesterday. Transcript here and audio here. Not sure if it is all that enlightening, but it is a highly entertaining debate.

A reader asks:

A lot of bloggers, like Instapundit, have been mentioning that current good economic news does not seem to be helping the Republicans. I wonder, if markets continuously discount for future events, are the markets showing a preference for a power shift to the Democrats? If so why? Are they sensing a change in War on Terror strategy would reduce costs and associated risks? A possible reversal on tax cuts is warranted? Or is the market predicting any power change in Washington DC will be over shadowed by positive earnings projections etc.

There are two things here. Firstly, despite public perception, there is not an awful lot of good economic news to speak of and secondly, I would argue that most market movements are fairly immune to possible election outcomes. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t manipulate the economic news. Note Amity Shlaes’ comments earlier today:

The politicization of economics is especially evident in the blogosphere, where supposed economic Web sites are really about economics and politics advancing the agenda of one or the other party.

It is tempting to argue that surging stock markets are evidence that sound Republican economic policies are paying off, but such claims lack any empirical basis. Yes, it is an argument propagated by the right during a challenging election cycle for them, but those commentators should bear in mind that they would also argue, correctly, that Bill Clinton was in no way responsible for the stock market boom of the 1990s.

The uptick in the Dow that we have seen over the past few weeks is largely due to the fact that US equities as an asset class have been undervalued in recent years. This, judging from my own portfolio, applies in particular to the heavyweights that constitute the Dow Jones whose recent rise everyone got so excited about. The real estate boom – to some extent influenced by Bush flooding the market with cash – and rising commodity prices have contributed to the relative underperformance of stocks. Slipping commodity prices may benefit the stock market, but any recent gains are sure to be wiped out if the expected downturn in real estate materializes. Neither the Republicans, nor the Democrats will have any material influence on these developments which to a large extent are driven by global market movements. For now I would prefer to keep my eyes on Ben Bernanke, rather than rely on short-term market movements and a set of desperate politicians trying to interpret them to their advantage.

Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club makes an excellent observation about the French riots:

Some may deride Chirac or de Villepin as appeasers. However the probable truth is that no one has yet figured out how to stop a vigorous ideology in its tracks. The West's own experience with Nazism and Communism shows that both accommodation and confrontation can fuel, rather than retard their growth. There is no magic formula; and perhaps there is no formula.

And that explains why politicians from both sides of the aisle struggle to find the right message, especially when it is election time. The intractability of violence fueled by cultural disconnects and social breakdown – a void nicely filled by religion – calls for a pragmatic diversion to ‘easier’ topics. And that is not just a European phenomenon:

With his party facing a difficult midterm election, President Bush is focusing on the positive this week: a growing economy he is using to try to persuade voters to keep Republicans in power in Congress.

White House advisers say Bush is not trying to change the subject from a deteriorating situation in Iraq, and that he will continue to talk about Iraq and the war on terrorism as the Nov. 7 election nears. But Bush advisers said they think the president should get more credit for recent positive economic news.

It all depends on how you look at it. But I see some eerie parallels in the ways in which both American and European politicians steer away from the hard issues and try to lull the electorate back into a sense of oblivious complacency. In the meantime we have a fully fledged civil war in Iraq and a nascent one in the streets of Paris.

Nice Frum quote:

Hillary Clinton is a fanatic pretending to be a moderate; Al Gore is a moderate pretending to be a fanatic. And with impressive credulity, the authentic fanatics in the Democratic base are aligning themselves behind the faux-fanatic rather than the genuine article.

It supports my initial liking of Al Gore, although that preference was to a large extent informed by the hope of an early Clinton dismissal during the late 1990s. Frum's point also highlights how each candidate presents a challenge for both Democrats and undecided centrists and why Gore and Clinton are probably not the best material to put on the 2008 Democratic ticket.

I rarely watch TV these days, but when Andrew Sullivan, Arianna Huffington and Dennis Prager appear on one panel hosted by Larry King, it is time to switch on the old box. There's a transcript here.

The conclusion is that apart from a few electoral pockets here and there, the Foley affair will not have a material impact, nor will Iraq sway voters in any particular direction. And as much as I agree with some panelists on the unrestrained spending and resulting deficits, they so far have only fueled the US economy. Fiscal pain is always deferred and it will be up to future Congresses to help America in digesting the current excesses, never a painless exercise. What I do think is that the issue of control and balancing power will play a potentially decisive role. The GOP panelists were clearly on the defensive and Andrew Sullivan was correct in stating that:

“You know, Larry, I think what some voters are thinking is maybe it's about time we had divided government. Regardless of whether you're a Democrat or Republican, doesn't it work better, sometimes, when there's some group there that actually checks the power of other people?”

And whatever view you have, divided government worked pretty well with Gingrich and Clinton. Maybe it's time to put a check on the Republicans, by having one of the houses with a different party”

The halcyon days of the 1990s and the resulting budget surpluses were indeed to a large extent the work of the balancing act between the Clinton and Gingrich camps (built on the Reagan foundation of the 1980s). Voters have an intuitive understanding about balance and curbing excess, and it is that broader instinct that will likely create a shift back to a divided government.

Churchill-Roosevelt, Reagan-Thatcher, Bush-Blair, and now possibly McCain-Cameron? The Arizona Senator's speech at the British Conservative Party Annual Conference this weekend looks at the past, but also at the future. Key quote:

Inspirational leadership challenges people. It does not seek to mislead them into a false sense of complacency or hide the realities, no matter how intimidating, of a threat. No solution to any great problem can succeed or even be convincingly proposed if the full dimensions of the problem are obscured from public knowledge. Be honest and brave and determined to place the country's interests before anything else, even our personal interests, and the people will give us our chance.

It neatly captures the challenge of having clear and honest political leadership waging a war on behalf of a society that can't be all that bothered to fight let alone pay for it.

Michael Stickings has a good one over at The Reaction.

Roger Simon interviews Senator Joe Lieberman, here.

UPDATE: Roger has some background notes that are definitely worthwhile reading. And, one of my readers commented as follows:

Independent minded Democrats are moving toward the fringe.

Independent minded Republicans are moving toward the center.

In the short run, this is better for the Republicans, but in the long run it is worse for them. I believe the odds of a national (third way) realignment are increasing.

It has been a while since I discussed the disappearing center and to some extent that theory still holds. It is just that a new center is emerging.

Andrew Sullivan is more than a little disgusted over the Bush administration’s fiscal profligacy. The end of small government conservatism it appears. Well, not so in Canada where the Harper government is extraordinary careful in managing the huge surpluses that the country’s economy keeps spewing out:

The Stephen Harper government racked up a $13.2-billion surplus for last fiscal year, all of which will go toward reducing the national debt.

This is one of the largest single debt repayments in Canadian history. It will help bring Canada's debt down to $481.5-billion.

And:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Treasury Board President John Baird announced the surplus Monday afternoon, when they also announced cuts to government spending this year and next.

It should be noted that this is one brave move in handling the budget, especially considering the fact that Harper and friends are still in minority territory. While throwing the Canadian electorate some appetizing bones - the GST cut in particular – they have remained principled bookkeepers. If following an early election next spring they will get a parliamentary majority the temptation of radically cutting taxes could be too much even for Harper, but judging from these fresh numbers, he has some room.

Michael Barone looks at how the US is changing and how no one was able to accurately project the current trends. Therein lies a sliver of hope for Europe: there is potential for the various doomsday scenarios to be debunked. Immigration patterns may change and yes, the joy of having sex without contraceptives may eventually be rediscovered.

… Maher Arar, a Canadian national of Syrian descent, changing flights in the US in September 2002, detained and deported to Syria by US authorities where he was held captive and tortured before being released. He is now back in Canada and making frequent media appearances to discuss his case. This has been front page news in Canada for months now and I find it somewhat surprising that only now it is getting traction in the blogosphere, the reason probably being that Maher Arar was a suspected terrorist, making it difficult for some to advocate the man's rights.

An excerpt form a post I wrote more than two years ago and yes, bloggers continue to be relatively mum about this issue apart from a select group of American left-of-center blogs keen to acquire some ammunition in the ongoing torture debate. This however is not strictly a torture case, but it warrants some critical examination in a way that should be of interest to both the left and the right.

As most of you know, Maher Arar was fully exonerated earlier this week by an independent Canadian commission of inquiry which ruled that Arar has been the victim of inaccurate RCMP intelligence reports and deliberate smears by Canadian officials. Note that these reports were provided to US officials who wasted no time to deport Arar to Syria (he holds dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship) and that the smear emerged following Arar’s return to Canada after a less than pleasant stay in one of Boy Assad’s prison facilities.

There is just too much here to capture in a brief narrative – and you have to make a distinction between the Canadian and American angle here - but let me summarize what is significant:

1. The deliberate smears did their work to the extent that many commentators – and that includes me – while being aware of the problematic behavior of both Canadian and US officials either neglected to defend Mr. Arar or at least presume his innocence. There always was a whiff of jihadist guilt associated with the man, so why bother? Looking away was the better option, an attitude that continues to this very day. Yet, for the sake of honoring independent judicial inquiries we now have to accept that Arar is not guilty of any crime and that he did not deserve the abuse meted out to him by the Canadian, US and Syrian governments.

2. As Majikthise points out, the damage to counter-terrorism operations is phenomenal. There can be little doubt that RCMP heads are going to roll over this affair and even if they don’t, Canada’s venerable police operation will think twice before sharing information with US counterparts. No prizes for guessing what this will do to the already challenged cross-border security situation on the 49th parallel.

3. Like the Hirsi Ali case (where Dutch neocon minister Verdonk ditched Hirsi Ali out of political expediency) it turns out that those who we believed to have staked a certain position in the debate over Islam, terrorism and all that comes with it, would not necessarily remain pure in adhering to that position. The same is true here, but the reverse. Canada’s left-of-center Liberal government (defeated in early 2006) was responsible for this fiasco by adopting an almost Rumsfeldian recklessness in handling this terror suspect. At the same time it wasted no opportunity to distance itself from the Bush administration in order to placate a testy and not overly pro-American electorate. Odd and duplicitous behaviour.

4. In a way this affair also echoes the themes I touched on earlier this week. We can’t under any circumstance allow jihadist terror to put us in a position where the lives of Muslims in general are deemed to be of lesser value. We may not realize it, but the very necessary break with politically correct multiculturalism has gone to an extreme where exactly that is happening. Muslim minorities in western societies need to be assisted and compelled to become the Jews of 17th century Amsterdam, not the Jews of 20th century Warzaw.

5. And torture? Not sure here. There is a good argument to be made that the US simply deported Arar based on immigration law and that there was no arrangement to let its ‘friends’ in Damascus extract some information from the Syrian-Canadian suspect. Seriously, since when have we partnered with Damascus in fighting terror?

So there you have it. My gut feel tells me that we will never learn the real truth here, but the Arar affair provides us with a microcosm of things that can go wrong when pursuing terror suspects. Obfuscating the truth, imperiling future security operations, dishonesty, political expediency, nascent racism and a dose of physical abuse. Incredible failure, highlighting a level of moral ineptitude that will cost us dearly in fighting jihadism.

The anti-war left is now going after Joe Lieberman, leaving the folks at Daily Kos to wonder if the Democrats would really be better of without the Connecticut senator. To me the 'Dump Joe' campaign is nothing short of an incredibly short-sighted move of the hardcore left in the Democratic Party to capitalize on superficial emotions driven by Iraq. If the Democrats start 'dumping' the wiser and more centrist statesmen in their party it will risk ending up in the exact place where it can ill afford to be: the fringe.

In his TCS-column Lee Harris finds an answer to a question which has bothered me for quite a while and that is Why Isn't Socialism Dead? Key excerpt:

Thus, in the coming century, those who are advocates of capitalism may well find themselves confronted with "a myth gap." Those who, like Chavez, Morales, and Castro, are preaching the old time religion of socialism may well be able to tap into something deeper and more primordial than mere reason and argument, while those who advocate the more rational path of capitalism may find that they have few listeners among those they most need to reach -- namely, the People. Worse, in a populist democracy, the People have historically demonstrated a knack of picking as their leaders those know the best and most efficient way to by-pass their reason -- demagogues who can reach deep down to their primordial and, alas, often utterly irrational instincts. This, after all, has been the genius of every great populist leader of the past, as it is proving to be the genius of those populist leaders who are now springing up around the world, from Bolivia to Iran.

From socialism to jihadism - perish the thought that they join forces - the hard battle is again the one of reason against the one of irrational myths. Sorry for wrecking your Sunday, but it seems to me that this century may be as bloody as the last one.

Prescient piece from Daniel Henninger in OpinionJournal today, key quote:

If in 2006 we think that if Iraq would go away the world would not be too different than the world before September 11, then Moussaoui may in time prove right: "America you lost. I won!"

Yes - my review of United 93 made a similar point, here.

Over at GayPatriot. Key excerpts:

One crucial difference between the US and Europe is this: in the US, the question of whether “Christianism” represents a threat to American secular democracy has long been the subject of brutally frank and passionate public debate; in most of Europe, by contrast, an equally honest, no-holds-barred debate about the threat of European Islam remains unimaginable. And Europe is paying the price for it.

And:

Many leftists, including some gay “leaders,” actually admire Islam for the same reason they once admired Soviet Communism – because it’s the only big-time ideology that won’t knuckle under to American capitalism, which, in their eyes, is the world’s great evil.

Read the whole thing.

Here's a long but fascinating piece by Martha Bayles on how America could potentially polish its cultural image abroad:

During the Cold War, the battle for hearts and minds was conceived very differently from today. While threatening to blow each other to eternity, the United States and the Soviet Union both claimed to be defending freedom, democracy, and human dignity. Without suggesting for a moment that the two sides had equal claim to those goals, it is nonetheless worth noting that America’s victory was won on somewhat different grounds: security, stability, prosperity, and technological progress.

Our enemies today do not question our economic and technological superiority, but they do question our moral and spiritual superiority.

My comment to this would be that the absence of moral and spiritual coherence in our society is something that plays into our enemies' hands in two ways. In the first place, Islamic purism provides an alternative but more importantly, the lack of a strong moral compass prevents us from effectively waging a battle, be it a physical one or one of ideas.

Hat tip: The Cunning Realist

NOTE: Martha Bayles blogs about film and culture over at Serious Popcorn.

For some obscure reason I always find myself going through the morning of 9/11 step by step, minute by minute, hijacked plane by hijacked plane. Even now there are days when I try to relive it and bring some order into that chaotic morning. If you go and see United 93 – which I did yesterday – you will go through exactly the same, an almost real-time experience of reliving of what happened that morning. And order you need to create as the movie reveals the chaos and confusion that governed the various flight control centers, something brought home poignantly by the fact that a number of the actors are in fact the actual people that manned these centers on 9/11.

Walking out of the theater there wasn’t the feeling that there was anything new or revolutionary, no; all the facts were very clear and transparent before and after watching the film. The advance question was what director Ron Greengrass would make of it all, and it is fair to say he delivered, even in the parts where speculation was required to fill in some of the factual blanks. While everyone is hyped over the contrast between the praying hijacker and some passengers reciting the Lord’s Prayer, I was taken aback by one other peculiar confrontation. It’s the moment where one of the flight attendants hurries back to the center of the plane to help a severely injured passenger – knifed by one of the terrorists – and flashes the Red Cross emergency kit in front of a terrorist with a look on her face saying, “Please”. The hijacker relents and allows her to treat the dying man, but it was probably the one area where Greengrass’ creative license was used a little too generously.

Yet, it did a number of important things. It highlighted that the hijackers struggled with a degree of uncertainty, it pinpointed the religious aspect with the obvious Red Cross crusader connotation, but above all it allowed the viewer to distill a measure of hope that things might work out well – something that defies logic and yet you’re tempted by it. It gives you something to cling to during the final minutes: there is hope; maybe the airliner will land safely after all. That expectation is fueled by the presence of a pilot with one-engine experience among the passengers who bravely declares that with radio help from the ground he could possibly land flight 93. You’re drawn into the possibility that the passenger revolt might actually work.

So my re-piecing and re-ordering of events may after all be a subconscious attempt to find that redeeming shard of information that will somehow transform 9/11 into something more palatable, something that can neutralize the fear and uncertainty created on that day. Yet, I know better but the omnipresence of the question “Is it too soon?” over the past week indicates that many actually think that the shrill reality of that day can not be revisited again. It points to a feeling that America is still busy looking for facts that can sanitize the horrendous attacks into something that won’t be as haunting, something that won’t repeat itself.

And therein of course do we find United 93’s ultimate strength. The savage and dreadful way in which the plane falls into the hijackers' hands, the ultimate futility of the resistance and the definitive crash into that field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, throws the bare facts once more in front of America and the world at large. There are no redeeming points, there was no hope on that day and any group that is capable of hijacking and crashing four commercial airliners within a few hours is no doubt poised for more in the future. But that knowledge remains something that many would like to blot out conveniently, something which we have also witnessed in Europe following its first encounters with jihadist terror. The justifiable and positive instinct to move on has a nasty fellow traveler called the willingness to forget.

So, there can’t be enough United 93-type films. The test will be in how they evolve over time. Not only will more facts see the light of day, but our attitudes and perceptions will develop to a level where again the events of that morning are reworked and reinterpreted. As long as we keep doing that there is hope that we can face and fight that very real and lethal terrorist threat. But, if we give in to sanitizing history and creating false expectations we are lost. Greengrass' film provides a sliver of hope that we will not give in and have the ability to fight, but the story of 9/11 needs to be retold relentlessly before I can really begin to believe that.

NOTE: There is a huge round-up of blogger reviews over at Hot Air.

AFTERTHOUGHT: I did review one other Greengrass film earlier: Bloody Sunday. That by the way was not exactly a balanced and overly factual piece of work, but it proves the point that filmed entertainment has indeed an unusual capability to rewrite history.

With another news conference Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad further upped the ante, defying the world on Iran’s insistence to increase its nuclear capabilities. It may be worthwhile to note that we’ve been here before and, no, I am not talking about the bungled attempt to desist North Korea from going nuclear. In the early 1960s a deep and definitive rift between China and the Soviet Union opened up the possibility for the US to neutralize China which was on the verge of detonating its first atomic weapon.

The National Security archives provide a trove of documents on America’s stance during the 1960-64 period, and they reveal quite clearly that John F. Kennedy did at a number of instances seriously contemplate pre-emptive action against China. It is of course impossible to establish what would have happened if Kennedy would not have been assassinated, but Lyndon Johnson, probably aware of the Cold War realities and the uncertain state of the Soviet-China relationship, moved in the other direction:

During the fall of 1963 Policy Planning Council staffer Robert Johnson established himself as the national security bureaucracy's chief analyst on the Chinese nuclear problem. Although President Kennedy and his advisers had given momentum to thinking about using force against Chinese nuclear facilities, Johnson tried to push official thinking in another direction: to consider the possibility that for a variety of reasons, a nuclear China would not be as ominous or act as recklessly as some had feared.

[ … ]

Prepared against the background of a possibly imminent Chinese nuclear test, Robert Johnson again considers both pre-emptive action and alternative responses to the PRC's nuclear weapons program. It notes "very and long-lasting political costs" associated with a pre-emptive strike. It also explores options, in the absence of pre-emptive action, for reducing the likelihood of proliferation as well as the potentially adverse political-psychological impact of a Chinese test on its neighbors.

It is hard to compare present day Iran to 1960s China, but it would seem that at every turn attempts to halt nuclear proliferation beyond the two original superpowers have failed. It was believed at the time that India for instance could be prevented from becoming a nuclear power, nations like Pakistan and North Korea weren’t even considered as ever acquiring the lethal technology.

The Soviet angle and the political impact prevented the elimination of Mao’s nuclear adventures; today other geo-political considerations have replaced the Cold War constraints. It prompts the conclusion that barring a miracle, Iran will become a nuclear force within the foreseeable future. Better start preparing for that.

China detonated its first bomb on October 16, 1964 in the Gobi Desert.

Whenever I post some critical notes on George Bush, you can bet that readers will weigh in. Here is one that takes on Peggy Noonan whose reflections on Bush were part of the original post:

Ms. Noonan has fetishized the Reagan presidency as a Demosthenesean age. To criticize Bush in general terms, while generalizing the Reagan presidency as an age of ideal administration as she has done is absolutely ludicrous Nearly every presidency in the past 140 years has been very much a mixed bag; the best presidents of that time interval have become judged as among the best for a.) achieving a few big things while b.) causing the least harm in other areas. The Constitutional limitations on the President strongly bias any President's effect toward falling into this realm of limited effect in most areas, powerful effect in a few. I think it is fair to say that Reagan was effective in reducing taxes and confronting the Soviets, while, in every other major area, he left things basically in the mess he found them. And he does deserve great credit for those two achievements.

Question: Would Reagan have continued to work with Don Rumsfeld?

It’s now some seven months ago that the first real cracks in the Bush façade appeared following the Katrina mess. Flipping through the various comments after some of the White house reshuffles – and the ongoing Rumsfeld imbroglio - of recent it appears we are in the middle of peeling away another layer that somehow insulated Bush from a more definitive reckoning of his presidency. Yes, the Hewitts and Coulters remain steadfast in their support, but the ranks of critical conservatives is growing, take for instance Peggy Noonan who addresses the stubbornness and inflexibility of this presidency. One step further is former Bush-endorser Greg Djerejian who has essentially given up on this president by associating him with tragedy.

Noonan’s piece in particular brings home one of my basic peeves about this president and that is the near absence of a