Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa! I spoke too soon.

Just as I was preparing to shut out the lights here at HH.com for the night, I checked back at that relatively sane Daily Kos thread about the attempt on Dick Cheney’s life. I was curious to see if any of the Kidz had given in to their Amanda Marcotte-like rage. Sad to say, they have. I guess some in the Kos community are uncomfortable relinquishing the “Angriest Progressive Website” crown to the Hufftards without a fight.

I started reading at the bottom of the thread. Lest you think what follows was cherry picked, all of the quoted comments were among the ten most recent comments when I checked in:

• “Lamonth” says that he would agree that it were swell that Cheney survived “if that fat bastard did not cause so much death and destruction - sometimes its probably better for the world if someone gets killed ie Hitler.”

What a dummy! (That’s one for any “Sanford and Son” fans in the audience. I know the commenter has the extra “h” at the end of his handle, but work with me, people.)

• “Bluecollarelitist” has a finely calibrated sense of moral justice: “Bottom line, when you play with fire you are bound to get burned. Cheney wanted war; he was in a war zone. He is a combatant. Death happens. He signed on the dotted line, like my brother in Afghanistan. He did more than sign on the dotted line, obviously. He wrote the paper that the dotted line appeared on, and he has been a part of this 'pulp/publishing industry' for many, many years. With Karma hanging over my head, I try not to wish anyone anything but decent thoughts--though this principle is typically better in theory than practice. Children didn't sign on any dotted line, and I lose more sleep when they die. I literally lose sleep when a child dies, no matter where he or she lives...and then dies an untimely death.” (Ellipsis in original)

It’s a good thing no kids die on most days, or else this guy would never get any sleep at all.

• “Statistician” tells those condemning the attack to speak for themselves: “If they were trying to assasinate Uncle Fester, I am sorry that they failed and wish them better luck next time. I oppose the killing of human beings. Unfortunately graveyface doesn't get accorded that status. He is responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 people, certainly not in the same category as Stalin or Hitler, but certainly no less deserving of meeting his maker as soon as possible.”

Not as bad as Hitler? Someone better get “Statistician” the latest talking points!

• And lastly, “Flashlass” doesn’t hold back: “I wish the guy got blown up. He deserves it. He's an evil P.O.S. who has helped put the world in this shambles it's in. Dead-eye Dick is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, and the sh***y condition of this country today. Why wouldn't I wish harm on the nefarious a**wipe?

When’s Nancy Pelosi writing her next diary for the Daily Kos? I wonder if she knows about any of this.

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com

From her most excellent column today:

The bottom line? The guy who will clearly stare down the jihadists will ultimately earn conservative votes. That may be Giuliani. For now, however, I'm holding out for a leader who comes with even more than that — the one who knows not only that we have a civilization to fight for, but also understands that marriage and the preservation of human life are essential to keeping that civilization going. That may be Romney.

The transcript of my interview with John Agresto, author of "Mugged By Reality," is now posted.

National Review's Andrew McCarthy took note of Agresto's analysis of Ayatollah Sistani today.  The book deserves a wide readership.

1) Are you crestfallen now that it turns out that Al Gore is a Chickengreen, willing to talk the talk but unwilling to waddle the waddle?

Not quite. I have to admit, he had me fooled. All that ranting, all that yelling – he convinced me that he was a true believer in the flouro-boro electro climatic global warming crap. I guess he wasn’t quite as committed to the cause as I thought he was.

2) Does this mean we can at last dismiss him from the public conversation?

No. Definitely not.

3) Please. I’m begging.

No. You’ve actually stumbled on one of my pet issues. Since Al Gore has left politics, he has been a public intellectual. Like all public intellectuals, we should judge him by the qualities of his ideas. The fact that it turns out that he personally has feet of clay doesn’t make his ideas any less accurate. Now, I’ve never been a big believer in the stuff that he was selling but I’ve also been candid enough to confess that I’ve never bothered to develop a fully informed opinion on the matter. But still, Gore’s personal shortcomings don’t diminish his intellectual output. (Using the terms “Gore” and “intellectual output” in the same sentence just caused my hard drive to explode.)

4) Back up a second – you say haven’t cared enough about this issue to develop a fully informed opinion on it. What kind of imbecile are you? The fate of the world is at stake and you won’t read a few books and studies on it? Idiot.

Hold on there. I go where my curiosity takes me. I’ve never been a science guy. Sorry. If I were running for president, I’d make a study of it because it would be my personal responsibility to do so. If I were even writing stories on why Gore is wrong or why he’s right, I’d make a study of it. Again, it would be irresponsible of me to address the subject from a position of ignorance. The subjects that I do address I actually take the time to personally understand.

5) But don’t you think you should take the time to get a handle on this and should write on it?

“Should?” What am I, a public utility? I’m telling you, you want to get on my bad side, tell me what I “should” write about. Really, I don’t care if you’re doing this from the right or the left. Either way, it will bug the crap out of me. If you think I’m spending too much time discussing trivialities like Al Gore now and therefore wasting precious pixels that could be better spent on discussing the burgeoning troubles in Pakistan, wait until baseball season begins when I devote at least one column a week to either the ascendancy of the Boston Red Sox or the continued pathos of the Cleveland Indians. Besides, it’s a big blogosphere out there – if I’m not writing on it and Hugh’s not writing on it and even if the new guy isn’t writing on it, you can bet someone else is.

6) But back to Gore – if he runs for office, should his house and his apparent hypocrisy be an issue?

Of course. Besides, I have a question about one of his defenses – he says he’s having solar panels installed. He’s been on this environmental crusade for six years. How long does it take to install solar panels? He must have hired the same contractor I did to renovate Soxblog Manor’s kitchen. The Big Dig will apparently be completed before Al gets his solar panels or I get my new countertop.

7) I’m very troubled by all of this. He’s a ChickenGreen! Why should I listen to him?

You should listen to him if his ideas are good. Seriously, I don’t like this ChickenGreen talk anymore than I like this ChickenHawk type.

Let me give you an example of how it should work. I just read an excellent book by a guy named Nathaniel Fick called “One Bullet Away.” Fick is a Marine who served as a Recon Lieutenant in Iraq. He was the tip of the spear. Some of you might remember him from Evan Wright’s excellent “Generation Kill.” He is a thoroughly admirable guy who wrote a terrific book on his experiences. (It was going to be this Sunday’s book review, but I never got around to writing it. I had friends in from out of town.)

Captain Fick wrote a more recent article about why the surge can’t and won’t work. Obviously, I respect his opinion and I respect the fact that he has firsthand knowledge that I don’t. But other people with the same firsthand knowledge feel differently about the subject. If Fick and I were to have a debate, his superior biography shouldn’t make him an automatic winner.

8) Of course you’d say that, being a Chickenhawk and all.

Hey, I’m a deeply flawed human being in a million other ways besides not serving in the military (which never was an option open to me for obvious reasons). If you’re looking for a saint, you’ve come to the wrong blog. Actually, the book’s still out on Ruffini, but both Hugh and I fall short.

Fortunately, I’m not running for office so I’m not seeking anyone’s validation of my character. If you’re going to posit that imperfect souls can’t have ideas worth hearing, then you won’t have to spend much time listening to anyone’s ideas, even the people who are positing ideas that you might find to your liking.

9) Chickenhawk! Chickenhawk! Chickenhawk!

Which reminds me – we’ve got some serious problems on our comments board. I think we may have the worst comment boards in the entire blogosphere and considering there are 6 trillion blogs, that’s saying something. There are some people who contribute worthwhile observations (Reynolds, Pasadena Phil and HNAV spring to mind but I know there are others) but they are drowned out by the shrill, the obtuse, the offensive and, worst of all, the repetitive.

So, I have decided to dedicate a modicum of effort to sprucing things up on our comment boards. For people who can’t follow the new rules, the bannings will come fast and furious.

First, if you wish to comment here, you will engage with other people’s ideas, not their persons. For instance, “I disagree with the post because…” is a good, constructive start. “You’re an idiot!” is not. Second, you must stay on topic. If there’s something you really want to say to me, send me an email. If it has nothing to with the comment thread, common sense dictates you leave it out of the comment thread. Third, if you leave three comments in a row and thus engage in a conversation with yourself, this is annoying and pointless. Get your own blog if sharing your thoughts with the world is what you really want to do. If it doesn’t suck, I might even link.

Lastly, and most importantly, do not repeat yourself over and over again. Even if I like what you’re saying, I guarantee you this will get you bounced.

10) You lay out these rules, and “Jeffrey” is still allowed to comment? How? Why? Won’t you rid us of this meddlesome pest?

America is the land of second chances. Because we at HH.com are red, white and blue to our core, we will be the blog of second chances. But now that the rules have been clearly spelled out…

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.

David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times called  my publisher today and requested an interview with me about A Mormon In The White House. I called him back, and the conversation began with the history of the project and my experience filmg Searching For God In America in the mid-90s.  As is my practice, I invited him to conduct the interview on my show so that America could hear how the MSM goes about its work. He declined.

Then Mr. Kirkpatrick asked me how much my advance had been, which I declined to state.

He then asked if I was aware of a Boston Globe story from last year about Romney's spreading money around the conservative movement.  I had not heard of or seen that story.

And shortly thereafter he asked if I or any entity related to me had been paid by Mitt Romney or any organization affiliated with him to write the book.

The answer is, of course, no --"Absolutely not" is how I put it to him-- and I went on to express in no uncertain terms my disgust with his asking the question, which he defended as based on chit-chat he had heard, and he defended the asking of the question in private as a way of debunking the rumor.

"Have you stopped beating your wife" questions are part of gutter journalism, and asking them without any predicate other than rumor astounds me.  As any reader of this site or any of my books knows, I have beliefs about MSM and its many biases and the flaws in its coverage, but I have never believed that any journalist of any stature would take secret payoffs in exchange for writing a story or a book. 

The invitation to Mr. Kirkpatrick to appear on the program and defend his journalistic method remains open, and I have invitations out to other MSMers.  Mr. Kirkpatrick believes they will all defend his asking of the question.  Perhaps they will, but embracing slander as an excuse to go fishing for a story has not been a practice I associate with quality journalism.

Not that this has anything to do with anything, but Jim Treacher is running an interesting poll over at the DailyGut site:

Why does Al Gore's Nashville mansion use more than 20 times as much electricity as the national average?

• Entire east wing is walk-in fridge for snacks
• Tipper says there's no point listening to Cannibal Corpse if you don't TURN THAT $#!+ UP
• Bush stole all the off-switches
  
• Needs to run the AC non-stop to keep his daughters from burning the place down with their hotness
• He's building a Death Star

Click over to see the results! And as Treacher says, “If you don’t vote you can’t complain.”

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.

Again showing signs of increasing maturity, the Daily Kos community has implicitly separated itself from its angry “progressive” cousins at the Huffington Post.

You’ll recall that after yesterday’s attempt on Dick Cheney’s life, the HuffPo community unleashed a paroxysm of joy diminished only by the fact that Cheney did not die. Mike Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard spotted the comment thread first, and Michelle Malkin and I pretty much took it from there.

Since yesterday, the comment thread has been “disappeared” from the Huffington Post’s site much in the way Stalin “disappeared” Trotsky from official Soviet history or the way my grandmother “disappeared” philandering Uncle Izzy from our family photo albums. Fortunately for posterity’s sake, Michelle maintained a PDF of the entire comment thread before Arianna got around to disappearing it. Now, future generations will be able to gaze at the madness of the 21^st century extreme left in its unfettered, unedited and unexpurgated glory.

ALTHOUGH YESTERDAY’S BLOGOSPHERIC EVENTS will probably disappear down the memory hole almost as rapidly as that HuffPo comment thread, I think it represented a fork in the road. The Hufftards went one way, the Daily Kos another.

Last night, a highly recommended Daily Kos diary titled, “We 100% Condemn the Attempted Assassination on Cheney” made its debut. Oh sure, some nitpickers might want to criticize the fact that it took the Kossacks 12 hours to issue such an obviously politic statement. But let’s be charitable – baby steps to sanity and respectability, no?

The comment thread is also instructive. Yes, many of the commenters said something to the effect of, “I’m happy he lived because I want Cheney tried as a war criminal!!!” Still, not a single one yielded to the Amanda Marcotte-like rage that seemed to be boiling inside of them and openly pined for his death like the Hufftards did. In other words, the comment thread was offensive but nowhere near as over-the-top offensive as what appeared on the Huffington Post.

The Daily Kos is becoming respectable. That’s not the same thing as saying that it is respectable. But still, don’t laugh. The Kossacks realize that the world is watching and are trying to act appropriately. They don’t quite understand how the normal world defines “appropriately,” but they’re gaining on it.

For all her money and even with that charming (albeit phony) accent, yesterday proved that Arianna will never be queen of the Nutroots. The Nutroots has only one regent, and his name is Markos.

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.

E-mail #1:

You seem to be a strong supporter of Rudy. My question is: He is for gun control, for Gay marriage, for abortion, why should we even call him a republican, let alone support him? He seems to be more of a RINO than even McCain (though he is more honest about it).

 

Just wanted to note I'm a true neocon (voted twice for Bill C.), and one of the people most responsible for letting me "see the light" was Rudy. His tenure in NYC was nothing short of remarkable. I bought an apartment on the upper east side of Manhattan in '89. I witnessed purse snatchings, squeegie shakedowns, Times Square filth and solicitation from prostitutes. Almost overnight, the change under Rudy was palpable.

 

I also used to read the NY Times, and remember well their attacks on every effort Rudy made early on to change the way the "ungovernable city" was governed. I clearly recall news stories quoting squeegie men saying "if I can't make a living doing what I'm doing, I'll have to go back to robbing and assaulting people", as if there was no other honest way to make a living then scaring the bejesus out of every "bridge and tunnel" car driver trying to take his family to NYC for a day out.

 

Or the first time a murder involving a minority and a police officer took place. Rudy refused to see Al Sharpton at City Hall. "Why should I", he said, "he has nothing to do with this." The whales of outrage from the portly demagogue were announced across every city tabloid, but I knew right then that NYC was dealing with someone different.

 

Or the number of times I'd see a patient who had come to me to sign off on his "right" to continue receiving welfare payments and free medical care. "Why can't you work?", I would ask. I remember one answer like it was yesterday, "hey, I've been on welfare and methadone for twenty years, and I don't plan on starting to work now."

 

And I'm sure the liberal media will make no attempt to recall Rudy's effort to stop a public institution supported with taxpayer dollars, the Brooklyn Museum, from displaying a picture of the blessed mother covered in cow manure. Rudy felt strongly that taxpayer dollars should not be used to offend any religion, and instead should be supported by private funds, but the Sarandons and Robbins were right there telling the mayor that this was a first amendent issue, and besides, a faulty Catholic was in no position to preach. (covenient to overlook separation of church and state when it serves your purpose, isn't it?)

 

Lastly, I was so impressed by the man that I took to watching his daily press conferences on a public access station. You would have had to have seen it to believe how inane 99% of the questions were, and how well Rudy handled them all. (I can't imagine Hilary handling such a press conference with anywhere near the aplumb) If, at any time, he became short with some dimwit for asking the same question for the eighth time, you could be sure to see that video highlight on the local 11pm newscast.

 

Hugh, I'm telling you, this guy is the real deal. No doubt, he must be a bear to work for, because he expects nothing less than the best results.

 

Isn't that what we all crave in a leader?

 

The back stories to Bill Clitnon's pardonalozza were never fully investigated because he left town after the Florida follies.

Now one of them is back in the news, as Hillary's brother Tony gets tagged for a repayment of a loan made in connection to one of the pardons.

But note how the Boston Globe insists it is part of a scheme to injure Hillary:

Clinton critics have been seeking to revive an array of controversies, from the Whitewater land deal to the Monica Lewinsky case. The Clinton campaign has sought to depict them as old or moot cases. But the Tony Rodham case could be different because it is in court just as Senator Clinton's campaign reaches full speed.

Clinton critics have been seeking to revive an array of controversies, from the Whitewater land deal to the Monica Lewinsky case. The Clinton campaign has sought to depict them as old or moot cases. But the Tony Rodham case could be different because it is in court just as Senator Clinton's campaign reaches full speed.

I'd love to see some detail on which "Clinton critics" reporter Michael Kranish is referring to.  David Geffen is mentioned in the story, but he's a Hollywood mogul and old FOB.  Kranish suggests more than that, but having portrayed Hillary as set upon by the same old mob, he moves on to the details of a case that was developing yesterday:

Yesterday, US Bankruptcy Court Judge Marian Harrison of Nashville ordered Tony Rodham to respond by March 16 to the allegation that he failed to repay a loan of $107,000 from the couple pardoned by Clinton, according to attorneys involved in the case.

There is zero connection between the unamed "Clinton critics" seeking to revive old scandals and a ruling from a court made on February 27, 2007.  That Kranish would bother to muddy up breaking news with a preemptive defense of the Clintons only makes sense if the paper is concerned that the Clintons not be unfairly smeared. 

It looks like a reflex:  Charges against the Clintons must be discounted, contained, given context.  They are on the same side, after all, as the paper.

That's where WaPo/ABC shows the race for the Republican nomination, with my man Rudy Giuliani on top.  

There are about 14 political lifetimes between here and Iowa, but Hugh's observation about voters engaging in the process earlier seems to be playing out in these rapidly moving poll numbers.

Another satisfied customer.

You'll enjoy the Agresto interview as well when it is posted here later tonight.

And to the e-mailers wonder where "Shift Happens" is, try here.

John Agresto's memoir of his service in Iraq as senior advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education came out this week. He'll join me in the third hour today.

It is a very personal book, full of regret and sober observations on the mistakes made throughout the post-invasion period. There is plenty of blunt talk as well. Example:

We insisted that the Ayatollah Sistani was surely a "moderate" and a friend to civil and religious liberty despite all the hard evidence to the contrary. Let me repeat my previous observations and predictions: The Ayatollah Sistani is an Islamist bent on establishing a theocracy not far removed from that found in Iran. He is an open anti-Semite and a not-too-subtle anti-Christian. he threw his support behind democratic elections because they were the handy vehicles for imposing religious authority all over Iraq. Nor is he the only one, or even the worst, only the most prominent. Yet while I believe the evidence is as clear here as it is in the case of Chalabi, we only see what we want to see,, not what's visible. In our religious lives, Hope may well be a virtue -- but in foreign policy it is more often a sin, a temptation to willful blindness.

Agresto spent ten years as the president f St. John's College in Santa Fe, and served as a senior appointee for much of the Reagan Adminstration. He ought to be speaking on every show as one of the very few civilians who has lived and worked in post-invasion Iraq.