Now I'm not the keenest intellect in the world, but my wife and I are reading this cunning guy's self-description, where he claims this or that about his past, anonymously, of course. He's a Josh Marshall guy, that kind of Republican. The kind of Republican who voted for Kerry and loves Eliot Spitzer. In other words, never a Republican, much less a conservative. Now granted, I don't know much and am just a dumb college professor in Boston, married to another college professor. So doubtless, I'm no prize nowhere near as smart as you funny bon mot adjudicators. (But really, pizza and remote, that's funny? Four months saving quips from NRO's blog and honing his wit just waiting to pounce and....pizza and remote? Yuck. Not yuck, yuck. Tell me your friend lives in a basement with cutouts of Liza Minelli and a talk show set and dreams of a guy named Jerry.)

Still, as deficient as I am, I smell a rat. Just sets off my antenna and makes me think about a graduate of my university, one Kos, who suggested a couple of years ago that posers should pretend to be conservatives and rip Bush for betraying those 'values', while leading the idiots to Kerry. Yep, disappointed conservatives for Kerry. Yuck, yuck. Greg, get some sleep, come back when you got your chops back.

Posted by: John at February 12, 2006 02:53 AM | Permalink to this comment

I would not say that, but Mr. Derbyshire can say it. Let us remember this Egypt is the same country that has refused
Israeli assistance both in the rescue effort, and previously
in the Sinai bombings. Who gave us Syed Qutb, the father
of modern jihadism, and his Osama teaching brother;
Mohammed; a whole string of other acolytes like Sheik Rahman, Mohammed Atta, Ayman Al Zawahiri; the late Hamzia Rabia,
Abu Laban, The Danish graphic artist. Abu Hamza, Major
Ali Mohammed, Mohammed Mokkawi aka Col Seif al Adel,:
the director of the Black Hawk down mission in Somalia, among
many others. On another front, accomplishednationalslike Arafat and Said; did much to encouragethe scourge of non-Islamic terrorism; whose governments throughsuch instruments like Al Ahram; spread a plague of Anti-Semitic,Anti-American, and ultimately anti-Civilizational hatred on a dayin andday out method. Did I leave out their welcoming of Germanmilitary and technical specialists after the war; their sponsorshipof the first WMD program, against Israel. It is their esteemed Al Alzhar university, whose alumni include Mssr Quradwi,(the suicidebomber enabling friend of Ken Livingstone. Khalid Yasin, the father of HAMAS, among a whole cast of others. It is this regime,thatto a distressing degree, senior policy makers like Mr. Scowcroft, Baker, Djerian, et al have supported and continue to support, from the likes of the Baker Center; who supported theAlgerian coup back in 1992. which gave rise to the GIA, who haveencouragedthe 200 + year occupation of Chechnya by Russia while giving Israel a hard time over it's scourge of gelignitemessengers. Could more have been done about Phase 1V operations, probably although one doubts the real advantage in it; doubling our forces would have creating twice
as many England, Lynch et al; twice as many convoys, and taken
twice as long to seize the key targets; needless to say, twice as
many targets. The problem lies elsewhere; in the feeder schools
for our personnel.as Sgt. Saar pointed out at least one of the language schools heattended had a strong jihadi orientation, the Near East and SouthWest Asian Area schools of history, politics et al; as typified byCole, Kalidi, Massad, et al; are on the other side. For the reasonsstated above; it would be dubious to consider that troops providedby the predominantly Sunni Arab League; would have been of much use in Shia Iraq; the reception of certain of their attaches,charge d'affaires et al; makes me doubt that point. Was Abu Ghraibregretable, yes, but no need to scourge oneself over and over;excessively inflaming the so called Arab street. The cold realityof this, whether it is Belmarsh The Citadel, whatever the Frenchequivalent is; The Salt Pit, or Gitmo; little consideration is givento 'unlawful combatants rights, and any attempt to show consideration is rewarded with defiance and often escape. The
examples of Omar Faruq, last summer, Jamar Badawi, and Elbar
Sameh, this yearl; are cases in point in this regard. The preponderance of jihadi-disposed madrassas, mosques, from
Bali to Birmingham, generating recruits in the security services
of said nations is a big poblem

(an aside; the other regime mr. TCR has urged our consideration for is Venezuela;a country which under Chavez is creating an amalgam of Nasserist/Baathism along with Castro Communism, and a touch of Islamismin our hemisphere)

Posted by: narciso at February 12, 2006 03:32 AM | Permalink to this comment

The whole Cartooniad should have been one of those things that got it's 15 seconds of fame and then disappeared. Might just have done that had it been dealt forthrightly in the first place. Seems to me that the JP was relatively innocent in their part of the affair, and are right to neither grovel nor to submit for summary jugement and punishment by those calling for their heads. All in all it looks like a brillian information operation which is reaping rich rewards for the islamists who wish to convince the larger Muslim world that the West is waging war against them (Imams to all Muslims: Let's you and them fight!). Rather ptiful, all told, and getting boring as well.

Posted by: Tamquam Leo Rugiens at February 13, 2006 01:49 AM | Permalink to this comment

What is this garbage, now; since Islam arose in the 7th century, out of the same Nejd region, where Wahhabism, would rise a
millenia later; and Tamiyism, five hundred years before, it has
sought to usurp and challenge the West. First the Byzantine provinces of North Africa , Asia Minor, the Balkans, and the Levant; the latter being the area now referred to as Palestine. Next the
Iberian Peninsula under Al Andalus, for the better part of seven
centuries. before stopping on the Cote D'Azur . Then the southern Russian steppes; from whence the Russian occupation of the Caucasus and Chechnya would rise centuries later. Another stab
at Central Europe stopped in Vienna in 1683. Almost every western
power has been partially defined by it's encounter with the Moslem
East. France, beginning with Charles Martel to the Algerian conquest, Britain, from the NorthWest Frontier of India, to the
Egyptian khedives, to Mesopotamia, and the US, with the Barbary
pirates, that's just a start. It was German involvement with the
Turks, that drove further involvement in the former sanjaks and
vilayets of the Ottoman empire.

Posted by: narciso at February 14, 2006 02:57 AM | Permalink to this comment

The whole Cartooniad should have been one of those things that got it's 15 seconds of fame and then disappeared.

Yes, but it's distracting attention from the various Bush administration scandals. And it's kind of fun to keep ranting about islamic intolerance and how it's time to stop tolerating it. No mention what form our response should be beyond reprinting cartoons and buying danish and refusing to get rid of the Bill of Rights. Maybe it will help people get ready for attacking iran, though.

Incidentally, an iranian newspaper says they're having a contest for the best anti-zionist cartoon. I wonder how many of their offensive cartoons will get reprinted in europe or america. I don't see any particular obligation to reprint them any more than the anti-muslim ones, but what is the rationale for printing one and not the other? That people would be offended, maybe?

But then, what happens if they do get published? Americans will get more upset at muslims for printing such things.

There's a saying that when it's time to build railroads, people build railroads. And when it's time to buld freeways, people build freeways. I guess it's time to hate muslims now....

Posted by: J Thomas at February 14, 2006 01:49 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Yes, but it's distracting attention from the various Bush administration scandals."

Its not the Bushies who are keeping it in the headlines. Its the riots in peshawar, the boycott of Denmark,etc. Sorry if I find this more interesting news than that Michael Brown was incompetent.

"And it's kind of fun to keep ranting about islamic intolerance and how it's time to stop tolerating it. No mention what form our response should be beyond reprinting cartoons and buying danish and refusing to get rid of the Bill of Rights."

Thats about it right. Sometimes the important things to do are small things, and not ones that can change the short term situation.

"Maybe it will help people get ready for attacking iran, though."

At this point the world needs to pressure Iran to cut a deal on enrichment - that pressure needs to include the threat of sanctions. That issue has its own dynamic. In fact the govt of Iran seems to be trying to use this to distract from that.

"Incidentally, an iranian newspaper says they're having a contest for the best anti-zionist cartoon. I wonder how many of their offensive cartoons will get reprinted in europe or america."

I, OTOH, wonder how many of their best cartoons will be ones that have already been printed in Europe :)

"I don't see any particular obligation to reprint them any more than the anti-muslim ones, but what is the rationale for printing one and not the other? "

Printing anti Zionist cartoons is SO 2002.

"That people would be offended, maybe?"

WRT to JP (the Danish one, not the Jer Post) That you are NOT subject to death threats for printing antizionist cartoons, ergo theres no reason to explore the issue of death threats and free speech. For everyone else, cause there wont be riots about them, ergo they wont be newsworthy in the same way.

But then, what happens if they do get published? Americans will get more upset at muslims for printing such things.

"There's a saying that when it's time to build railroads, people build railroads. And when it's time to buld freeways, people build freeways. I guess it's time to hate muslims now...."

Our troops are fighting alongside muslim allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ooops, I keep forgetting, some muslims dont COUNT as muslims.

Posted by: liberalhawk at February 15, 2006 07:15 PM | Permalink to this comment

"Our troops are fighting alongside muslim allies in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Our troops are commanding muslim auxiliaries in iraq. The situation in afghanistan is far less clear, but 'allies' is probably not the correct word.

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Posted by: neil diamond at April 5, 2006 10:37 AM | Permalink to this comment

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Posted by: leona at April 28, 2006 11:49 PM | Permalink to this comment