Scribbling Monk

The address to my blog has moved. You can now find it at http://scribblingmonk.com

Richard Mintier, in his latest column for the New York Post, thinks we're handling our terrorist "detainees" incorrectly at Gitmo.

America has never faced an enemy who has so ruthlessly broken all of the rules of war - yet never has an enemy been treated so well.

He thinks we're too kind to them. Ya THINK?

The kinder we are to terrorists, the harsher we are to their potential victims.

Striking the balance between these two goods (humane treatment, foreknowledge of deadly attacks) is difficult, but the Bush administration seems to lean too far in the direction of the detainees.

In a related subject, Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters asks Since When Has Geneva Protected Our Troops?

In this war, this argument seems particularly despicable. We have been treated to images of broken and tortured bodies of our soldiers on television and the Internet, courtesy of the animals who oppose us in this war. No one suffers under the delusion that captured soldiers will ever return alive, let alone receive Geneva-approved treatment. Our enemy doesn't even fight according to the GC, so why should they treat our soldiers any better than they treat the civilians they target for their attacks?

Mintier and Captain Ed address the fundamental question of this generaation's Great War. How can we fight using moral standards which are totally ignored by our enemy?

Islamofascists use our own rules to kill us. Mintier cites several ways in his article. Here's one.

Detainees use the envelopes sent to them by their attorneys to pass messages. (Some 1,000 lawyers represent 440 prisoners, all on a pro bono basis, with more than 18,500 letters in and out of Gitmo in the past year.) Guards are not allowed to look inside these envelopes because of "attorney-client privilege" - even if they know the document inside is an Arabic-language note written by a prisoner to another prisoner and not a letter to or from a lawyer.

That's right: Accidentally or not, American lawyers are helping al Qaeda prisoners continue to plot.

Henry V, in Shakespeare's play by that name, addresses the people of Harfleur in a scene bearing elements of what may lie ahead.

Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villany.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

Our soldiers are now well restrained. When they do slip into villainy our own authorities are quick to take corrective action. I have no doubt that some few acts of evil are commited by a very few of our service members. That is especially amazing in the face of the vile disregard for humanity evidenced by our foes.

Islamofascists may yet win the battle as we take great pains to maintain the moral standards this country holds dear. But if they win the battle they will surely lose the war and reap utter destruction. Our nation and others who think they like freedom (they don't active love it or the state of denial of the great peril we face wouldn't exist) will not fully be left to dhimmitude. In the end those who truly love freedom will rise up in terrible anger using all the tools and wrath they can muster to win the war. And what a bloody scene it will be.

How many lives were saved by the decision to unleash atomic devastation on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Hundreds of thousands of American and Allied soldiers and millions of Japanese.

How far will we allow our enemy to push us while practicing self restraint before we are forced to wage war with like means to our enemy?

Amnesty International, usually too busy blaming the victims of terrorism to actually blame terrorists, issued a report claiming Hezbollah committed war crimes by firing rockets into civilian areas. Good morning Amnesty folks. It's now five years past reality.

"Targeting civilians is a war crime. There's no gray area," said Larry Cox, Amnesty's executive director in the United States.

The report makes sure to make accusations against Israel before taking aim at the Hezzies.

During the recent 34-day war between Hizbullah and Israel in which both sides committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, Hizbullah’s rocket attacks on northern Israel amounted to deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate attacks, both war crimes under international law. Its attacks also violated other rules of international humanitarian law, including the prohibition on reprisal attacks on the civilian population.

Hizbullah fired several thousand rockets into northern Israel, killing 43 civilians, including four who died of heart attacks. The victims, among them seven children, included Jewish and Arab Israelis. Many other civilians were injured. Throughout the conflict, hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians remained in the north within range of the rockets, many seeking safety in underground bomb shelters for much of the time. Others – between 350,000 and half a million people – fled their homes and were forced to seek refuge elsewhere.

Amnesty urges people to contact the UN to urge immediate investigation. No doubt the UN is already investigating ways to turn a profit from watching Hezbollah continue to violate existing UN Security Council resolutions.

Former Texas governor Ann Richards, who is most famous for her 1988 Democratic National Convention keynote speech, died Wednesday. Her most famous and oft-repeated line from that speech was a reference to then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, the 1988 nominee for president:

Poor George. He can't help it - he was born with a silver foot in his mouth.

Just five paragraphs later in that speech she spoke longingly of the kind of leaders who helped the country through tough times in the past.

I'm really glad that our young people missed the Depression and missed the great Big War. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders who told us when things were tough, and that we’d have to sacrifice, and that these difficulties might last for a while.

I wonder if she, or any other Democrats, see the irony in that statement and their treatment of H.W.'s son, President George W. Bush?

Probably not. Here's another line from Richards' in the same speech.

I think one of the saving graces of Democrats is that we are candid. We talk straight talk. We tell people what we think. And that tradition and those values live today in Michael Dukakis from Massachusetts.

Just to keep the record straight, for those straight-talking Democrats, here's some excerpts from President George W. Bush's address to the nation on the fifth anniversary of our Sept. 11 wake-up call. I see lots of straight talk and leadership here.

The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation. Our nation is being tested in a way that we have not been since the start of the Cold War.
. . .
America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over. So do I. But the war is not over -- and it will not be over until either we or the extremists emerge victorious. If we do not defeat these enemies now, we will leave our children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. We are in a war that will set the course for this new century -- and determine the destiny of millions across the world.
. . .
Osama bin Laden and other terrorists are still in hiding. Our message to them is clear: No matter how long it takes, America will find you, and we will bring you to justice.
. . .
Five years after 9/11, our enemies have not succeeded in launching another attack on our soil, but they've not been idle. Al Qaeda and those inspired by its hateful ideology have carried out terrorist attacks in more than two dozen nations. And just last month, they were foiled in a plot to blow up passenger planes headed for the United States. They remain determined to attack America and kill our citizens -- and we are determined to stop them. We'll continue to give the men and women who protect us every resource and legal authority they need to do their jobs.
. . .
We are now in the early hours of this struggle between tyranny and freedom.
. . .
With our help, the people of the Middle East are now stepping forward to claim their freedom.
. . .
Across the broader Middle East, the extremists are fighting to prevent such a future. Yet America has confronted evil before, and we have defeated it -- sometimes at the cost of thousands of good men in a single battle. When Franklin Roosevelt vowed to defeat two enemies across two oceans, he could not have foreseen D-Day and Iwo Jima -- but he would not have been surprised at the outcome. When Harry Truman promised American support for free peoples resisting Soviet aggression, he could not have foreseen the rise of the Berlin Wall -- but he would not have been surprised to see it brought down. Throughout our history, America has seen liberty challenged, and every time, we have seen liberty triumph with sacrifice and determination.
. . .
Dangerous enemies have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. They're not the first to try, and their fate will be the same as those who tried before. Nine-Eleven showed us why. The attacks were meant to bring us to our knees, and they did, but not in the way the terrorists intended. Americans united in prayer, came to the aid of neighbors in need, and resolved that our enemies would not have the last word. The spirit of our people is the source of America's strength. And we go forward with trust in that spirit, confidence in our purpose, and faith in a loving God who made us to be free.

So, why are the Democrats, who supposedly long for straight-talking leaders, taking such pains lately to attack a president during a war?

C.S. Lewis, in "The Abolition of Man," titled a chapter "Men Without Chests" wrote of the "progressive intellectuals of his day.

It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so.

And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

Today's partisan rivalyies aren't new. Nor is the sniping at people of faith and vision beyond mere intellect. It usually comes at a very dangerous time when men without chests reflect on their own lack of faith.

The Mujahidin Shura Council in Iraq, which includes al Qaeda, has officially responded to President Bush's Sept. 11 speech. Rusty, at Jawa Report has the full text, but here's the bottom line from those misguided freedom fighters.

Your Mujahidinn Brothers will fight to the end and until Allah’s Law controls the world. It is one of two great ends: The victory or The Shahada (martyrdom)

Last night Bush said:

They remain determined to attack America and kill our citizens

The Islamofascists also had this to say to us:

You and your companions will be defeated as you see what happens everyday on the various lands of Iraq and we will get the victory in the end and the caliphate (the Islamic system of rule) will come back to judge by the law of Allah and at that time we will break the cross, shed the wine and we wont accept jiziya (Islam or Death).

For those who haven't studies Islam or its history, Rusty enlightens us.

The jiziya is the tax traditionally paid by non-Muslim dhimmis in Muslim states. Dhimmis are non-Muslims considered under the protection of Muslims, but in practice have always been second-class citizens (for instance, the testimony of Christians is not equal to that of Muslims in Islamic law). What the MSC is suggesting above is that the normal choice given to non-believers of conversion or becoming a dhimmi will not be offered. Instead, all 'crusaders' will be killed.

They couldn't have said anything better to back up President Bush's speech last night. Here's a reminder.

Our nation is blessed to have young Americans like these -- and we will need them. Dangerous enemies have declared their intention to destroy our way of life. They're not the first to try, and their fate will be the same as those who tried before. Nine-Eleven showed us why. The attacks were meant to bring us to our knees, and they did, but not in the way the terrorists intended. Americans united in prayer, came to the aid of neighbors in need, and resolved that our enemies would not have the last word. The spirit of our people is the source of America's strength. And we go forward with trust in that spirit, confidence in our purpose, and faith in a loving God who made us to be free.

Emilio Karim Dabul has a column in the New York Post today in which he apologizes for the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

WELL, here it is, five years late, but here just the same: an apology from an Arab-American for 9/11. No, I didn't help organize the killers or contribute in any way to their terrible cause. However, I was one of millions of Arab-Americans who did the unspeakable on 9/11: nothing.

Dabul goes on to say his fears prevented public voicing of his sentiments.

The only time I raised my voice in protest against these men who killed thousands of innocents in the name of Allah was behind closed doors, among the safety of friends and family. I did at one point write a very vitriolic essay condemning their actions, but fear of becoming another Salman Rushdie kept me from ever trying to publish it.

Dabul does what's right and encourages other Muslims to also stand up.

Well, I'm sick of saying the truth only in private - that Arabs around the world, including Arab-Americans like myself, need to start holding our own culture accountable for the insane, violent actions that our extremists have perpetrated on the world at large.

Yes, our extremists and our culture.

. . .

Five years after that awful day, it's time for all Arab-Americans, and Arabs around the world, to protest against Islamic fascism, to raise our voices - and, where necessary, our arms - against these tyrants until their plague of terror has been driven from the face of the earth forever.

Another theme of his column counters apologists, including President Bush, who say Islam is a religion of peace.

Every single 9/11 hijacker was Arab and a Muslim. The apologists (including President Bush) tried to reassure us that 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam, but was a twisting of a great and noble religion. With all due respect, read the Koran, Mr. President. There's enough there for someone of extreme tendencies to find their way to a global jihad.

There's also enough there for someone of a different mindset to find a path to enlightenment and peace. Still, Rushdie had it right back in 2001: This does have to do with Islam. A Christian who bombs an abortion clinic in the name of God is still a Christian, at least in his interpretation, and saying otherwise doesn't negate the fact that he has spent a goodly amount of time figuring out his version of the one true and right thing to do.

The men who killed 3,000 of our citizens on 9/11 in all likelihood died saying prayers to Allah, and that by itself is one of the most horrific things to me about that day.

I too have read the Koran and much of the Hadith. I found anger and violence against unbelievers amid calls to service and piety, similar to what's in the Christian Old Testament.

But Christianity has great reformers and authors of its latter-day tenets. Chief among them is its foundation reformer, Jesus Christ who Christians believe to be God.

Dabul, and many others like him, can be reformers. Our communities should reach out to Muslims who embrace and revere freedom for all. Nurture and encourage them to do what is right.

Thank you Emilio Karim Dabul. Thank you to all other Muslims who have spoken out.

It's been the longest and shortest of times. So much has happened and changed in five years yet the memories of that day five years ago are so fresh.

Thankfully we still have our free speech, or most of it anyway. ABC edited but didn't kill "The Path to 9/11." It was perfectly punctuated by President Bush's address to the nation. If you didn't watch him, please read his speech here. If you're one of those people who say you can't stand the man or to watch him, read the speech anyway. Then write a comment below to express your disagreement, if youy can find anything to disagree with. That's allowed in this country. Just don't try to do it in Iran or Syria. His speech wasn't political. He didn't say, "Vote for Republicans," or "Democrats are bad," or anything like that. He just spoke his mind as the leader of the greatest nation on Earth.

We owe a great deal to our brave servants in uniform. They sacrifice comfort that we may be comfortable. They sacrifice freedoms so we may be free. They lay down their lives so we may live.

In 2002 Chaos Manor blog posted an e-mail from a Navy flag officer (that means admiral to you non-military types) about activities in Afghanistan. His sentiments are so applicable today. We still face a fierce and determined enemy who literally wants to slit our throats – men, women and children. His closing paragraph to the Islamofascists who started this war is a great reminder of the spirit of our warriors. Don't stop at the short exerpt below, click the link and read the whole thing.

Think you're tough? You want to kill our families, blow up civilians? Stand by! We are sending our very best to hunt you down and take you out.

These are the guys who are coming to get you. These are the guys who will climb into the mountains and into the darkened caves halfway around the world and look you in the eye, toe to toe, with any weapon at hand (ours or yours), to take you out. These guys have trained longer, are stronger, harder, faster, tougher, and more relentless and lethal than anything you will ever produce. And we will arm them with the best money can buy, from Spectre gunships and thermobaric bombs to knives sharper than any box cutter you can sneak on a plane. They are now on your trail. They're hunting you down. How's it feel to be a terrorist now? Never bring a box cutter to a Jihad.

This war is not a question for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. They know Jihad, whether it be the suicidal bent of the terrorists or the striving in their own hearts to give their all for what they believe. The question is, do the rest of us have what it takes to win this war, whatever it takes?

Here's what I think it takes. Pretty simple, actually.
1. Pray. Pray for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. Pray that they will be sustained, protected and empowered in their righteous endeavors to preserve liberty. Then listen to that still, small voice in your heart says as you pray and ponder. Ask your god, or my God, to point you to whatever you can do to help. Listen for His answers in your daily activities. He will answer.

2. Live righteously. One of the reasons the radical Islamists hate us is that we say one thing and do another. We say we're for our God but break his commandments with abandon. Our enemies won't respect us and our God won't sustain us if we aren't true to our word.

3. Do what you can to help out. Stand with our service members. They've got your back over there. You can cover their back here when your neighbors, acquaintances or even journalists snipe at them. Express your appreciation for their service and the freedoms they safeguard. Tell a soldier's family member that you appreciate their sacrifice and service. My wife's stopped being embarrased when I walk across the street or across the mall to shake the hand of a service member and thank them for what they do for me and my family. When you do, listen to that small, inner voice again. I'll tell you you're doing the right thing.

If you don't know what dhimmitude is then you aren't a student of Islam. It's the status of anyone not Muslim in a Muslim-controlled state. It means you have to do and say as the controlling authority wants you to and that you have no free choice, unless you want to lose your head or some other important part.

The Democratic party, via the voices of Hary Reid, Bill Clinton and others, demands that ABC not air "The Path to 9/11." They are demanding, under threat of government or legal action, that no one have access to a perspective other than what they favor.

Riehl World View says it far better than I ever could.

This is no longer about politics, a Clinton legacy, or for whom one may or may not want to vote for come November. This is now about America's future as a beacon of light for the principle of freedom and true freedom in the best sense of America is something a large portion of the world has never known. During my lifetime in America perhaps we have come to take it for granted. Sadly, the time when we could afford to do that now seems, clearly, to have passed.

If ABC, or we allow a significant political entity in America to wholly trash such a core principle of this Republic, the whole world will be the darker for it. And, not only that, but some very dangerous battle lines will be irrevocably drawn.

What the Democrat Party will be saying just as sure as if it were being said by an Islamo-fascist in a turban and a robe is, you will either see and say things my way, or you will see and say nothing at all. Enough is enough.

The Democrats may fool themselves into thinking they are fighting for some misguided notion of fairness in our world. What they will actually be doing is firing the first shot in a civil war, as it will mean to preserve our free democracy as we've known it, the Democrat Party as currently comprised must be destroyed.

I haven't seen the show but have listeded to and read interviews of the show's producer. He spent two years researching and verifying the content of the show and he's no Republican lapdog. Certainly there are dramatizations. Instead of showing every instance of Clinton's administration dropping the ball, the show's producer and writer conflated them into a smaller number of instances. Perhaps Sandy Berger didn't slam the phone down in one particular real-life scene. But the movie also doesn't show him stuffing 9/11 documents from the National Archives down his pants and lying about it.

Some on the left point to the CBS miniseries "The Reagans," which conservatives demanded be withdrawn from CBS's lineup because of inaccurate depictions of President and Nancy Reagan. CBS didn't air the show but instead put it on Showtime. One very big difference here is that government officials didn't threaten CBS to get the show removed from the lineup. Ordinary citizens did that with grass-roots efforts.

What's happening here is dangerously different. The Democratic party and so-called "progressives" already have significant control over our media, especially the news media. This step by the Dems, especially if it's effective and ABC cancells the show, will not only give one voice even greater control over what we see, but will be a welcoming invitation to fascist controls elsewhere.

Michelle Malkin has the scoop on another beheading of a journalist, this time in Khartoum, for doing his job. Malkin quotes an article in the Scotsman on the murder.

Taha's decapitated body was found dumped on a dirt road on Wednesday. He had drawn protests from Islamic groups last year by reprinting a series of articles questioning the roots of the Prophet Mohammed...

... Taha himself was an Islamist, but his criticism of other Islamic groups angered people. In the 1990s, an attempt was made on his life after he wrote an article about Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi which offended many.

Last year Taha was tried and his paper closed for three months for blasphemy, but sources said he was under close protection by the government during his time in prison.

As both readers of this blog know, preserving life and liberty are major themes here. Journalism has an essential role in that preservation. When truth and the free flow of information is shut down tyranny takes over. While most journalists will agree with the sentiment that free speech is an essential, they're often slow to recognize the imminent danger from Islamofascist tyrants like the ones who have beheaded Taha, Nick Berg and many other journalists.


As Malkin pointed out, Islamofascists mean what they say. They want to kill anyone who disagrees with them.

Isn't it time for journalists to join the ranks of freedom-loving people and shine the light of truth on militant Islam? Maybe they could start by reading President Bush's speech rather than the AP's extreme slant on it. The speech transcript includes informaiton on previously unpublished interdictions of terrorists and the ways Bush's administration is trying to preserve our essential liberties.

But you know, most journalists just want peace. Well, here's the "peace" radical Islam will bring.

The Islamofascists want everyone to agree with them so there will be peace.

I want no part of that kind of "peace."

Recent bouts of Fauxtography in the mainstream press aren't an abberation. They're business as usual, at least for the last few years. Hezbollah and their fawning partisans, including photographers posing as photojournalists, have been passively facilitated in their efforts to control the global media message by the self-proclaimed gatekeeper editors of the mainstream media.

These same editors have more actively facilitated multiple lies by Joe Wilson regarding his assertions (lies) against President George W. Bush, his administration's pronounced reasons for going to war in Iraq and the supposed politically-motivated outing of his wife's identity as a supposed "undercover" CIA operative.

Two peas, Wilson and Hezbollah, in a mainstream media pod.

Lorie Byrd helps wrap up the Wilson/Plame fiasco at Townhall.com.

The Wilson fantasy was reported for years, as fact, in countless set up pieces to fawning interviews with Wilson. That reporting had very real consequences. It was Joe Wilson's claim that Bush lied about the “16 words” that started the "Bush lied" mantra. We now know that many of the claims that "Bush lied" were actually lies themselves, but that has gotten scant little attention.

Democrats have a page in their playbook that they use often and it works almost every time. Make an assertion, even when it is contradicted by facts (in this case by Novak's statement from day one) and then repeat it over and over again until it becomes conventional wisdom. When the facts emerge and it is clear that most, if not the entire thing, was a liberal fantasy, the damage will have been done and since the media was so instrumental in spreading the misinformation, they will call very little attention to the correction.

How true that last sentence is. Get your spin out front, loud and oft-repeated, and its "truth" will resound in spite of mumbled corrections.

Much to their credit, the Washington Post has published an editorial that turns the whole episode into an Emily Latella moment.

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Is the Post referring to the journalists and editors who took Wilson seriously? Isn't it their job to be skeptical? That must be who they're referring to since they'd really have to exercise their civic responsibility to acknowledge the perhaps millions of Americans moved to political activism againt Bush and the war by the Plame fiasco. They certainly couldn't be referring to the millions of jihadists we're fighting who use reports of Wilson's fable and our internal discord to recruit new supporters.

When I was a small child my great aunt and great uncle took me to a farm in Pennsylvania where we'd occasionally pick fresh vegetables. I learned early on to tell the difference between edible and rotten peas. And if the pod was rotten, no sense even opening it for the peas.

David Limbaugh has an excellent article up at Townhall.com countering the Democratic Party's attacks on President Bush and his administration's recent speeches on the Global War on Terror. He points out how the Dems claim Bush & Co. are politicising the war. It's an excellent piece. Here's the summary of counterpoints at the end:

-- They said Bush attacked Iraq "unilaterally," when he built a coalition of over 30 nations, including Great Britain and tried hard to persuade the rest of Old Europe to join. To their discredit, they refused. A unilateralist wouldn't have bothered.

-- They deny Iraq is part of the war on terror, never mind that terrorists demonstrably disagree. Never mind that the Bush Doctrine clearly defines the enemy to include terrorist-sponsoring nations, like Saddam's Iraq.

-- They claim Bush asserted a connection between Saddam and 9/11, when he explicitly said otherwise. He said Saddam had close ties to terrorists, including Al Qaeda and the Taliban, which is undeniably true and which Democrats also persist in falsely denying. Indeed, Iraq was on Clinton's watch list of terrorist nations.

-- They say Bush called Iraq an "imminent threat," when he called it a "great and gathering threat." The Bush Doctrine called for attacking threatening nations before they could become an imminent threat, when it would be too late. But some anti-war Democrats, like Jay Rockefeller, did call Iraq an "imminent threat."

-- They say Bush's sole reason to attack Iraq was its WMD. In fact, David Horowitz notes there were 23 "whereas" clauses in the Iraq War resolution, only two of which mentioned WMD and 12 of which concerned Saddam's violations of U.N. resolutions.

-- They say they were duped into voting for the resolution by administration hype on WMD. But the intelligence Congress received in the National Intelligence Estimate was much less alarmist and more nuanced than the intelligence the president received in the Presidential Daily Briefings. But, hey, they had to give their anti-war base some excuse.

-- They say we had Osama surrounded in Tora Bora and let him go, outsourcing the job of capturing him to Afghan warlords so we could pursue our quixotic junket in Iraq. General Tommy Franks put the lie to all of this malicious nonsense.

-- On the hyped Wilson/Plame nonscandal -- don't get me started.

-- Most unforgivably, they've lied in painting President Bush as a liar on Iraqi WMD.

-- There's much more -- like their simultaneous condemnation and advocacy of preemptive strikes -- but no space left.