A Level of Ignorance that Astonishes

[Note: * Begun on March 22]

It’s taken three days of bloviating*, but slowly, almost imperceptably, the chattering classes have almost gotten all the way to the 1973 War Powers Act.

I remember it well, and debated it collegiately for a year, so it seems astonishing to me that here, in 2011, our “experts” and “legislators” have only now, just, managed to make it to 1973. Wikipedia:

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C.1541–1548) was a United States Congress joint resolution providing that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or if the United States is already under attack or serious threat. The War Powers Resolution requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war. The resolution was passed by two-thirds of Congress, overriding a presidential veto.

For those hoary heads like Dick Lugar and Dennis Kucinich who have raised their grizzled heads to party like it’s 1972, let me note that they might want to save those flair jeans (for their kids) and save the lava lamps. There will come amazing games that you can actually play on your TeeVee and even teleophones that can tap into a World-wide Web of computerized … oh wait. That last might be going a bit too far. They need to make it to the Eighties and MTV — back when “Music Television” played actual music —  first.

I will tell you what happened, and you can  look up the contemporary citations yourself if you don’t believe me.

In 1973, the Vietnam War was at its peak. Nixon had inherited Johnson’s War, and had doubled down on Vietnam, invading Cambodia, Laos and all the rest. The release of the Pentagon Papers in 1969 had confirmed the worst fears of a nation carrying with it the idealism of a JFK, having come through World War II and Korea.

Congress demanded that the war powers of the increasingly Imperial Presidency be reined in. (Or, should I say, “reigned in”?)

Nixon and McCain in 1973

And, over Nixon’s veto, the War Powers Act was passed, two-thirds of each house of Congress voting in the affirmative, and (gasp) with quite a bit of bipartisanship, as I recall. At least, it would seem to our polarized and paralyzed national torpor of the present day.

It was noticed that the war powers act gave any president the power to, unilaterally, commit troops to any place on the Earth that directly affected the national “vital” interests, or other meaningless legalese that, in practice, meant that the Prez gets 60 days, has to notify Congress in writing within either 48 or 72 hours (no “secret” wars, which, as we learned with Nixon, and, later, Reagan, were becoming an Imperial Presidential prerogative,  and which the Congress of that moment in history perceived as a greater problem.)

It wasn’t perfect, but Congress could agree on it. And that’s the way it’s been, lo these past many years. That our current generation of chatterers wouldn’t know this is understandable, given their general lack of education or erudition, but you’d think that in one newsroom, somewhere, someone who rememembered would say “Enow! Have at ye then?”

Come ye dogs. Have at thee. S’blood!

We had these morons impeach ONE president over nothing, NOT impeach another president with every reason to do so, and now I would hope that they would take their “impeachment” twaddle and shove it up their hoary asses. We’ve had enough gratuitous impeachment talk to last a generation, at least.

This twaddle about “constitutionality” is as noxious and vapid at the bloviating level as it as at the tea party level. And that’s pretty damned awful.

Salem, Oregon Tea Party, 2009

Let me explain something about the law that the assistant District Attorney of Tarrant County, Texas taught me a long time ago in Criminal Practice and Procedure, at a TCU night class.

There’s the law as it’s written. And there’s the law as it’s practiced.

The Star of The West turns back after
being shelled in Charleston Harbor, 1861

And, the practice has been that Congress decided to give presidents a 60 day mulligan on military actions, as a prudent means of quick response to swift threats, like, say, Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) bearing MIRVs (Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles) surfing over the Northern Lights at a few thousand miles an hour, headed straight for downtown Peoria, U.S.A.

That’s the law as practiced. [*Note, see update at end.]

The law as written?

Well, we have an almost evenly divided Supreme Court (increasingly divided across the lines of fiction/nonfiction), who say what it is that the Constitution means. Once, it meant Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson. Then it meant Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. Now, it means “Citizens United” and Thurgood Marshall’s dissent in Rust v. Sullivan, just before he left the Court and shortly thereafter passed away: “A chill wind blows.”

The point is that the law, as currently practiced isn’t practiced at all, so what’s the big fucking deal?

I have no doubts that had someone not acted four days ago, they’d be raping Bengazi women and throwing live babies onto bonfires.

Libya’s Civil War features somewhat
different uniforms and armament

And, according to a CBS News poll out today, 70% of Americans agree with that.

But I have not spoken for the past several days, because I have never heard so much concentrated idiocy in 120 hours in my entire life (and believe me, I’ve heard a LOT of concentrated idiocy since Sputnik was launched, so that’s saying something.)

Predictably, the Reichty Blogosmear™ took every insane shot at it, with political calculation trumping any notice of a REAL FUCKING CRISIS where actual people get killed for no reason, and another ethnic cleansing. And I had thought that we had, collectively, decided that we weren’t going to stand idly by and let that shit happen anymore, and if you had any sense at all, you’d realize what an evolutionary step that is on a planet where the Uzbeks were universally known for their favorite torture method, which was to lower the prisoner into a cauldron of burning oil.

And that’s what we’re 120 hours into stopping.

But it hasn’t been about that.

It’s been about US.

The fucking BBC and the fucking NBC correspondents in Libya are almost openly sneering at the rebels. They have no order, no discipline. They have no Thomas Jefferson, no great leaders.

Duh. It’s in moments like this that great leaders arise. One hundred and fifty years ago, Ulysses S. Grant was keeping the books for his father’s tannery in Galena, Illinois, the smell of which had always sickened him from childhood.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was teaching classics at obscure Bowdoin College in Maine.

And, it was a bunch of rag-tag militia that defeated the Redcoats in some of the most memorable battles of OUR revolution: The Cowpens. The Battle of Lexington and Concord. Washington himself was repelled by the hopeless indiscipline of his troops besieging Boston.

The big story in the New York Times is how THEIR reporters were mistreated in the custody of He Whose Name Cannot Be Spelt. HWNCBS?

Gaddafi, Qaddafi, Kadhafi, Gadhafi, Khaddafi,  and even here, where the Gothamist spells it two different ways in the same cut and paste … er, post: Qaddafi and Gadhafi. Sadly, Codoffy and Quadawfee don’t seem to have been used yet, but one can always hope.

They can’t even spell the guy’s name twice in a row the same way. But suddenly everybody’s a expert on the kornstitushun.

I just turned on the radio, and a congresscritter from Maryland’s Something District named Roscoe Bartlett was on  NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” sayin‘ in a corn pone drawl: Ah’m not sayin’ I don’t think we shouldn’t be in thayer … I think we shuuuuuld. I’m just sayhin’ that we ought to have had this debate,” and “Ah’m a gran’ father o’ ten, and we’re handin’ ‘em a billyun dollahs o’ debt ever’ thuhty seconds, and I think we shud a had this duhbate.”

Ah. I’m in favor of the action, but I didn’t get mah drayma!

And it’s been a continuous yowl for 120 hours now, as the media have dithered every whichaway to find some reason to not be in favor of the action we’re taking.

We’re in a WAR!

Uh, no. We’re in a bombing run. Just because there’s explosions don’t make it a war. Trust me on this one.

There’s real fiction and there’s fictional fiction:
This book is FICTIONAL fiction.

And, without a whole lot of insane bad luck, it won’t become a war.

It astonishes me that so many who were so WRONG on the Iraq War are suddenly so knowledgeable about this. You’d think that when you’re as wrong — demonstrably wrong — about something, you’d man up and say, OK I got that wrong, and my opinion is this, but other people might have better opinions, and certainly opinions worth considering, too.

That’s what we do in democracies. Whatever we do these days isn’t that. But take a look at this piece of persiflage from another time like our own, and see if its smug, dismissive tone doesn’t strike a remarkably contemporary tone:

The Southern Press cartoonists react
to the Emancipation Proclamation

The arrival of a special messenger to Major Anderson, last evening, produced some comment and curiosity in the city. The gentleman who was the envoy of the Administration at Washington, is Mr. G.V. Fox, of Massachusetts, formerly of the United State Navy. He was accompanied to Fort Sumter by Capt. Henry J. Hartstene, at 8 o’clock p.m. Mr. Fox only remained at Fort Sumter for half an hour, and left for Washington in the 11 p.m. train.

He announced that the object of his mission was simply to hear from Major Anderson the exact condition of the garrison. From the shortness of the stay of this Envoy Extrordinary, we presume that it did not take the gallant Major long to give him an inventory of his provisions, &c.

Now as the communication between Fort Sumter and Washington is open to the garrison of the former, are we to believe the object of Mr. Fox’s excusion was simply to ascertain whether Major Anderson was in a temper to have his military prestige sacrificed upon the altar of Black Republicanism?* By this we would enquire whether it is the intention of Lincoln and his pack to leave him to eat his last ounce of bread, and then to let loose the Northern howl, which has already commenced, against him for retiring? So far as South Carolina is concerned, we believe that Major Anderson will be permitted to salute his flag on hauling it down, and to march out of the fort with his side arms, leaving the property intact. When we remember the disgraceful manner in which the late Administration sneaked out of the San Juan del Norte affair, and turned Commodore Paulding over to the denunciation of the country for obedience to orders, which he could only construe as he did, and then coolly, a year afterwards, in a State paper, appropriated the whole honor of the affair, we have a right to ask what we have. They can do as they please.

* The contemporary analogue of that term of derision “Black Republican” would be “liberal.”

And here is the header from The American Civil War – The American Civil War presented day by day as it happened 150 years ago.

On March 22, 1861 the Charleston Mercury reacted to the news that Fort Sumter had received a visitor from the North the evening before. The fire-eating editors of the Charleston Mercury could only guess at the reasons for the visit by Gustavus V. Fox.

“Lincoln and his pack” would be spoken in the same terms of smug derision that “Obamacare” is tossed about.

Dead Americans at Antietam (or Sharpsburg)

In that case, they would be killing one another within months. You ought to get used to reading The American Civil War, day by day, because the historical parallels are eerie. In a sense, right now we have several states “virtually” seceding from the Union. And, the political philosophy of the Kochs and their Plutocratic allies is fundamentally the same as the political philosophy of those “gentlemen” who ran the South.

The dead at Gettysburg

Sincerely, until I had seen our current crop of tea partiers, I could never understand how it was that men could be convinced to vote and die for the interests of a richer class to whose ranks they could never possibly hope to aspire.  It is now plain from the Southern secession documents of the time that it was slavery and slavery alone that was fought for, and yet to this day, the myth is perpetuated that it wasn’t.

And in this battle, it is greed and greed alone that rules. The rule of law has all but vanished from all levels of society, the greatest criminals in the history of Mankind walk scot-free among us, and are even interviewed by the doe-eyed Barbie dolls that candy the eyes from the panderers at network.

I think you know who I’m talking about, Faux Nooz.

I seem to recall when Bill Clinton finally put jets over Kosovo, the killing STOPPED. But all the country was in a tizzy over blue dresses and Ken Starr’s ongoing research for the book of pornography that he would produce at taxpayer expense — the single most expensive bit of pornography ever produced by the hand of Man, and all financed by a grant from the Congress of the United States of America. Who says that Republicans don’t support the Arts?

The blithering and blathering of all the drama queens who were not consulted in the run up to us doing the right thing has been omnipresent if sorely lacking in omniscience. It has been universally omni-impotent and I feel like I have to clean my ears out after listening to it.

Surely these tapes will be lost. Surely the networks and news shows will scrub these embarrassing, mind-numbing excursions into the land of the zombie breadfruit that only barking moonbats had been on intimate terms with, formerly. If I described it as the aural equivalent of a potato salad made only with fluids and oozes that would be found in an auto repair shop, that would not quite capture the sheer gunky stickiness of so much dark, viscid blather.

Limpid pools of nonsense gleamed in the amplitude and frequency modulations of the aether. Tumescent gobs of it wafted in the tidepools of rhetoric, like sea anenomes attached to stony glares of hosts, of whom Shakespeare wrote, unknowing “There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune.” (Henry V) But T.S. Eliot nailed it better:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Which was what came to mind as I heard Neal Cohen and Bob Woodward on National Public Radio yesterday. But they were not the finest exponents. That laurel goes to BBC overnight’s long talk Sunday night/Monday morning, when, in the absence of much real news, three mouths combined in a trio of such triviality, such endless second-guessing of second-guessing and sheer flights of poly-sci fantasy that I could turn to another radio station, come back and not have missed anything. Just endless blather, sound and fury signifying nothing.

A day has passed since I wrote the foregoing and stopped. And then this appeared on the ABC News site:

The Note:
Confusion Reigns In Washington As Mideast Erupts
March 24, 2011 9:03 AM

Now, I’ve told you to be wary of headlines, (“Mysteries of the Universe Revealed #412: Headlines” 9 Dec. 2009) but in this case, it’s a perfect summation of the article following and of what I said 24 hours ago.

Sadly, it’s taken five days of pointless dithering to begin to forge a national consensus, and there is yet no national sense of unity. Hell, there is no national sense of nation.

Was there, in actuality, a unicorn
in the garden eating roses?

Which ought to be a no-brainer, in this case. Without mission-creep, this seems an entirely worthy American enterprise, well within our own self-defined terms as a force for good in the world. (And, while I know it’s propaganda, the new U.S. Navy commercial isn’t lying with its tagline: “A force for good in the world.”)

We have shattered into entirely predictable lines: the Right will forge and tolerate any slander, so long as it is maximally hurtful and minimally verbal. (K.I.S.S. our collective ass, Mr. Luntz. And, because sequentiality matters in parsing Engish: Mr. Luntz K.I.S.S.es our collective asses.)

The Left will angrily denounce all options, including ones put forth by others of their ilk, and as the army of the Right pours into the gap in the Blue State lines, the Moderates (or Neutral) will realize that there is no dialectic, Hegelian or otherwise that can bridge this ideological gap — and decide that it’s a great day to pile the family into the station wagon and drive on down to Busch Gardens to look at the flamingos.

At this moment in history, from this rampart on the Pacific Rim, it appears that our President acted with deliberate speed, allowed the proper coalition of nations and groups to crystallize at the crisis moment and then acted decisively. This is in keeping with wise governance and generalship. I believe it was Grant who said (although I may be misattributing) that the great lesson he’d learned about war was to never make a decision until you had to.

Which seems wise: choose too far out, and you’re making decisions not on the moment-by-moment fluctuations that crisis brings, but on some notion in your head about the “reality” of the situation. Dither at the crisis point and you’re sunk. Taking decisive action at moments of peak crisis is the hallmark of a wise leader, and I believe that’s what we have. Even if the past five days in Washington D.C. have resembled nothing so much as a chicken coop that  realizes a fox has made it into the henhouse.

Feathers will be settling to earth for weeks, methinks.

Lightning points on Freedom’s Feathered Headdress
(U.S. Capitol Building) for more, see link.

And, oddly, while everyone was complaining that the President was in Brazil, he was the ONLY denizen of the District of Columbia who was actually working on job creation, which suggests that HE, at least, has his priorities straight. Sadly, he was forced to cancel, and ended up getting back so early that he was locked out of the White House. Except that if you watch the original video, it was ONE locked door, and he walked to the NEXT door and it opened. A manufactured “story” what with so little actual news transpiring at present.

It is entirely fitting and proper to post the repellent Jim “Magic Eyes” Hoft’s Gateway Punditry on this subject, if only as a gauge of just how dangerously radioactive the rhetoric has become:

Our prayers were answered.

When Obama came back from his vacation in Rio someone at the White House locked him out.
NECN reported:

Hmm. Maybe it was the mother in law?

Of course, if he was a Republican we would have all seen this replayed every 5 minutes by the state-run media.

UPDATE: My bad. The mother in law went with them to Rio.

And that’s just LOW. (In contrast, one might suggest that Hoft’s mother not only WORE combat boots, but birthed them in lieu of actual completed fetuses. But that would be wrong.)

Because he knows how big crowds are on either
coast, even though he lives in St. Louis misery.

You see, we are NOT in a war in Libya. Hostilities exist, but it is not a war.

We ARE in a war in the formerly Somewhat-United States of America — the Incivil War — and hostilities have existed for some time, and probably will exist for some time to come. (And we ought not recall Lincoln’s paraphrase of the Bible, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” from his famous “house divided” speech of 1858.)

We have dithered at the ballot for far too long, and now we trifle with the bullet.

2011 is already an annus horribilis.

Toxic worms?

So damn much has happened so fast that we never even found out about why all those birds fell dead out of the skies on January 1.

I’d like to leave you with something hopeful, but, instead, dear Posterity, I’d like you to see one little snapshot of what the news and blog traffic was last night. You can glean some of that confusion from the headlines. Click on the link to see the actual page, and if the links still work, go to the referenced stories.

Here’s what “we” were saying about the actual shooting war in which actual people are getting hurt (I’m going to code them BLACK for neutral, RED for Rightie, Blue for Leftie, and Gray for I don’t freaking know, and Fuscia for I don’t freaking CARE):

Memeorandum at at 1655 EDT, or 4:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Wednesday afternoon, March 23, 2011:

Telegraph [UK]:*

* according to Wikipædia [sic], “The Daily Telegraph has been politically conservative in modern times”

Libya: Gaddafi’s air force ‘has been destroyed’ — Allied forces successfully targeted Col Muammar Gaddafi’s troops in the rebel-held city of Misurata on Wednesday, pushing back tanks as a senior British commander said the Libyan air force had been destroyed. — Gaddafi’s tanks have been hit repeatedly by the coalition forces

–Discussion:

Bloomberg: Airstrikes by Allies ‘Pressurizing’ Qaddafi’s Forces on Ground
Spencer Ackerman / Danger Room: U.S. Jets Step Up Attacks on Gadhafi’s Troops
Washington Post: Allied strikes pummel Libya’s air force but do little to stop attacks on civilians

» All Related Discussion

New York Times:

Allies Pressuring Qaddafi Forces Around Rebel Cities

–Discussion:

Mj Lee / The Politico: Obama is keeping his peace prize
Kamalwallace / This Just In: Libya live blog: ‘Many, many Libyans are safer today,’ Clinton says [CNN]
Jim Hoft / The Gateway Pundit: Barack Obama Tells Reporters: I’m Keeping My Peace Prize
Doug Mataconis / Outside the Beltway: Report: British Navy Could Run Short Of Tomahawk Missiles
Tom Maguire / JustOneMinute: Obama: Maybe Qaddafi Can Stay If He Delivers Change We Can Believe In
Prairie Weather: Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe this was a mistake.
Jill / Pundit & Pundette: Comments on Libya — Ben Stein wonders who put the UN Security Council …

And that’s IT for the “war.”

(And note how there is very little cross-talk: blue bloggers blog about blue bothers, while red ravers rave about red requisites.)

Here’s what “we” were saying about our own feelings getting all hurt and sechlike:

This is a snapshot of memeorandum at 4:55 PM ET, March 23, 2011.

Maureen Dowd / New York Times:

Fight of the Valkyries — They are called the Amazon Warriors, the Lady Hawks, the Valkyries, the Durgas. — There is something positively mythological about a group of strong women swooping down to shake the president out of his delicate sensibilities and show him the way to war.

Leave it to Maureen Dowd to find the road not only less traveled, but the one with the big WARNING, BRIDGE OUT sign at its egress.

Ms. Dowd  (“MoDo”) Strikes Agin!

–Discussion:

Alex Pareene / Salon: Maureen Dowd gleefully adopts “henpecked into war” line
BooMan / Booman Tribune: Wanker of the Day: Maureen Dowd
Colby Hall / Mediaite: Pat Buchanan Says Obama’s Libya Policy Ruled by Emotions Of His Female Advisers
W. James Antle, III / AmSpecBlog: Women and War — Liberals continue to be fascinated by the gender …
Katha Pollitt / The Nation: This Just In: Women Are Not All Pacifists

Daily Mail [UK]:*

* a British tabloid, seems to scrape the celebrity/tabloid gutter with stuff like today’s headline (picked at random): “Bikini-clad mum sparks Burger King riot after leaping onto counter and hurling things at staff” Or they could be a surrealist paper, catering to surreal estate agencies.

Who’s in charge? Germans pull forces out of NATO as Libyan coalition falls apart — Tensions with Britain as Gates rebukes UK government over suggestion Gaddafi could be assassinated — No-fly zone called into question after first wave of strikes ‘neutralises’ Libyan military machine

–Discussion:
Bryan Preston / Pajamas Media: Obama abdicates commander-in-chief authority, Germans pull forces out of NATO Med operations
Howard Portnoy / The Greenroom: Germany Withdraws NATO Support: Libyan Coalition in Tatters*

* “the Green Room” is HotAir’s virtual annex for wannabes. It is to Rightie blogging what amateur porn is to porn.

Doug Mataconis / Outside the Beltway: The Plan In Libya? There Is No Plan
Josh Gerstein / The Politico: Barack Obama: Libyan air campaign could last
Bloomberg: U.S. Says Libyan Campaign to Ease as No-Fly Zone Secured
Alberto de la Cruz / Babalú Blog: Define the mission AND then look for a coalition!
Jason Bradley / The Western Experience: Absent of direct national interests: Did we get forced to own another war?*

* Also blogs for Andrew Breitbart’s Big “breaking” wind sites.

Breitba(r)t

John / Verum Serum: Obama’s Coalition Collapsing, Leading from the Back Not Working
Pejman Yousefzadeh / A Chequer-Board of Nights …: Libya is Becoming a Cluster Something
Lew Rockwell / LewRockwell.com Blog: Germany Pulls Forces Out of NATO
JONATHAN TURLEY: Tchau: Germany Pulls Out of Libyan Campaign as Brits Call To Assassinate Libyan Leader
Don Surber: Libya 1, Obama 0
Jeff G. / protein wisdom: “Who’s in charge? Germans pull forces out of NATO as Libyan coalition falls apart”
Scared Monkeys: President Obama Cancels Events in South America to Prove He is a Leader
Josh Rogin / The Cable: White House: Turkey on board with NATO command in Libya; France not so much*

* the blog for Foreign Policy, published by the Washington Post group.

Wall Street Journal: U.S. Jet Crashes in Libya as Air Strikes Slow

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:
Fox News’ Steve Harrigan Tears Into Nic Robertson: ‘Dull,’ ‘Has A Screw Loose,’ Does ‘Bullsh-t’ Reporting … A Fox News correspondent who was singled out by an incensed CNN reporter spoke out on Tuesday about the attack—and was just as heated in his response.

Discussion:

Stephen C. Webster / The Raw Story: Fox News ups war of words with CNN: ‘This guy has a screw loose!’
Think Progress: ThinkFast: March 23, 2011 — Nearly seven in ten Americans …
Mark Joyella / Mediaite: Fox News’ Steve Harrigan: CNN’s Nic Robertson Has A ‘Screw Loose’
Roy Greenslade / Guardian: Libya’s other war – between CNN and Fox News (note, see below)
Brian Beutler / TPMDC: Fox News Reporter Lambastes CNN Rival, Calls His Reporting ‘Bullsh*t’
HotAirPundit: Fox News’ Steve Harrigan Tears Into CNN’s Nic Robertson: He’s ‘Dull,’ ‘Has A Screw Loose,’ Does ‘Bulls**t’ Reporting
Michael Scherer / Swampland: Cable News Wars Find New Front In Libya

* the blog for the has always leaned-Republican Time Magazine

Politics Daily: CNN Reporter: Fox ‘Nuts’ for Saying Libya Used Journalists as Human Shields
Adam Clark Estes / Salon: Fox News missed key facts with its Libya “human shield” exclusive

And then this:

John Bresnahan / The Politico:

Senate Democrats defend Obama on Libya — Top Senate Democrats came to President Barack Obama’s defense on the Libya bombing campaign Wednesday, insisting that the U.S. participation in the operation was limited and would soon end. — In an unusual conference call designed …

–Discussion:

The Note: Democratic Senators Levin, Durbin and Reed Throw Their Support Behind President Obama on Libya*

* OK, the blog for the always creepily leaning Right ABC News department, I’m just being polite

Russell Berman / The Hill: House panel plans hearing on US intervention in Libya*

* “The Hill” is supposed to be ‘balanced’ which in their case seems to mean that they include bomb-throwers from both sides, equally. Dick Morris and Markos Moulitsos (Kos of Daily Kos) are listed as columnists.

–Discussion:

Felicia Sonmez / Washington Post: Three top Democratic senators back Obama on Libya, suggest defunding efforts will fail
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air: Gates: No timeline for end of Libyan mission

Front Page Magazine:
Why I Am Not a Neo-Conservative — Posted by David Horowitz on Mar 23rd, 2011 and filed under Daily Mailer, FrontPage.

–Discussion:

W. James Antle, III / AmSpecBlog: David Horowitz: I’m Not A Neoconservative

Kill da wabbit!

and, finally:

Michael Barone / Washington Examiner:
The damning contradictions of Obama’s attack on Libya
–Discussion:
Hugh Hewitt / Hugh Hewitt’s TownHall Blog: Freeing Libya — Michael Barone rightly slams the haphazard approach …
Washington Post:
Dana Milbank — Obama’s quick trip from tyrant to weakling

–Discussion:

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air: The empty-office presidency — My new column for The Week focuses …
Amb / Fox News: AMB. JOHN BOLTON: 4 Mistakes We Cannot Make Again When We Sanction a Military Intervention
Prairie Weather: Brazil cost Obama

New York Times:
4 Times Journalists Held Captive in Libya Faced Days of Brutality

–Discussion:

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish: The Missing NYT Reporters, Ctd
Evan Levine / The Highchair Analyst: The war reporter — The four New York Times journalists …*

* Andrew Sullivan quotes him to make points, so I guess he’s whatever Sully is.

Roy Greenslade / Guardian [UK]: NY Times quartet tell of ordeal during detention in Libya

* according to Wikipædia [sic]: “The paper’s readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion”

Greg Pollowitz / National Review: The Kidnapped NY Times Reporters on their Ordeal

What a fatuously smug and self-centered bunch of bastards we are.

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

Courage.

========================

UPDATE 26 March 2011 10:42 AM PDT: Horrifying though it is to be on the same side of this issue as John Yoo, the “torture enabler” shyster of BushCo, nevertheless, he’s right.