Totally bogus headline

"Libby: My 'superiors' authorized leaks" on CNN.com

I'm no fan of Scooter Libby. I detest sleaze and corruption as much as anyone, but it's never been clear to me he did anything untoward - on this Plame thing or anywhere else. (I try to keep up with the case at JustOneMinute, who are strangely silent on this story so far.)

Reading this headline, I figured that Libby finally revealed or confessed to some conspiracy. The story begins:

Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, told a grand jury he was "authorized by his superiors" to disclose classified information from an intelligence report to reporters, according to the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.

In a letter to Libby's lawyers, obtained by CNN [details, please?], special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said it is his understanding that Libby testified he was "authorized to disclose information about the National Intelligence Estimate to the press by his superiors

.
So in the headline, "Libby: My superiors authorized leaks", the "Libby:" part signifies one person's "understanding" of Libby's testimony. I would not have assumed this. I would assume it was paraphrasing some first hand statement.

Then we read:

A legal source involved in the case tells CNN that Libby did not testify to and has never suggested that anyone in the administration -- including Cheney -- authorized disclosing the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

So another source denies any such thing. (Likely Libby's lawyer) Whether he did say that or not seems at least a little in doubt.

Yet we still have that headline. Does that seem fair?

Chem-Bio scare at U.S. Capitol - IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!

Just wanted to be the first to say it....
story

The world just got a bit prettier

R.I.P.

Raising McCain

I've had mixed feelings about John McCain. Moderate Republicans are usually fine with me as long as they're supportive of the War on Islamofascism. But McCain lost my support with his ill-thought-out campaign finance reform bill - which I believe is a grievous infringement on free political speech. (I also lost some faith in Bush when he signed it and the Supreme Court upheld it.)

But I gotta hand it to him on this letter rebuking fellow Senator Barak Obama for reversing his stand on Senate reform.

I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere.

This is really biting sarcasm! And from a Senator!!

I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions

Love it...

I’m embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won’t make the same mistake again.

I'm liking McCain more these days.

At last, a voice of moderation

Some Muslim students in Scandanavia apologize for the violent reactions of their fellows in faith over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad. (Have they no shame?) (h/t Instapundit)

More of this, please. I want to believe in a moderate Islam that can respect differences, but you almost never hear of any Muslims taking this position. That makes it hard to keep up hope in a peaceful resolution to our conflicts.

I wanted to encourage the guys running this page to post on a regular basis links to more such moderate voices in Islam, but their comments section is overrun with crazies. Someone ought to, though.

Culture of shame vs. culture of guilt

I spend a lot of thought cycles trying to understand just why some people believe the things they do or behave certain ways. For example, I try to imagine just what is going through the heads of today's liberal anti-war American. I try to keep up with what they say and do and I am interested in their opinions and reactions - all in an effort to reach a better understanding and perhaps even empathy. For this example, I have a few theories but for the most part am quite mystified by such things as Bush Derangement Syndrome.

The big question these days is just what is happening in the Muslim world with regard to those cartoons of Muhammad. Via Glenn Reynolds, I found this post by Dr. Sanity on the psychologies on SHAME, GUILT, THE MUSLIM PSYCHE, AND THE DANISH CARTOONS, whose thesis is basically,

Islam has absorbed the dominant features of a "shame culture" from its Arab and tribal roots; while the West has become a "guilt culture".

An interesting read, complete with tables predicting particular shame/guilt behavoirs in each culture. (Disclaimer: I tend to believe that psychology is just barely a science - if at all. So I take this with a few grains of sodium nitrate. But it does help in understanding.)

Some key 'grafs:

SHAME MUST BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS. Everything else is secondary. Contradictions are irrelevant; logic and reason unimportant. HONOR MUST BE RESTORED, and this can only be done at the expense of those who originated the "insult".
[...]
For most shame societies, even the mildest insult must be avenged with death, because now everyone knows that you have been insulted, and without the death (or blood) to wipe it out, honor cannot be restored.

If true, this would explain a lot of what we're seeing and hearing among Muslims lately.
And regarding us:

Meanwhile, in our guilt culture, we obsess about how we might have hurt their feelings and some of us (not me) actually desire to make amends and apologize. This is laudable and very sensitive. It underscores the sense of tolerance that has evolved within Western culture. However well-meaning, IT WILL NOT WORK , particularly in the long-run. Making an apology for having "shamed" someone in such a culture is merely a sign of weakness from their perspective (since you are shaming yourself by admitting guilt), and hence only escalates the self-righteousness and demands that follow; and it does not ameliorate the next insult when it inevitably (and usually unintentionally) comes.

When you hear about "liberal guilt," this is the danger involved - and why Democrats cannot be trusted with foreign policy these days. This also makes for an excellent rational for the tough policies that Bush and Sharon have pushed the last few years.

Muhammad the Prophet

I ask you, could anything be less offensive, less judgemental, less neutral? Yet my posting this is a crime punishable by death. Huh...

Yeah, a real laugher

Speaking of MSM treatment of the story concerning the reaction to those drawings of Muhammad, I got this screen capture from the website of my local paper, The San Francisco Chronicle.

It reads

Warriors Win A Rare Laugher
Danish and Norwegian offices in Damascus torched as outrage over Muhammad caricatures grows.

Caricature witness

The furor in the Middle East over those cartoons depicting Muhammad is up to a full boil now, with European embassies being torched in Syria. Clash of Civilizations? Perhaps. But there are a number of things to note in this developing story that I don't think are given enough play in the media.

First let me try to make clear my position on the matter. I believe in a strong response on the part of the Western Nations. Not necessarily war, but always keeping force an option. I support the policies of George W. Bush for the most part, and acknowledge that there have been errors. I think Bush and his associates have demonstrated vision and clarity - and boldness - in their post 9/11 responsibilities. On the other hand, I continue to believe in the chance that Islam can be reformed, that its power structures can be reorganized to be more representative, less corrupt, and less violent.

So I shun pretty strongly anti-Muslim sentiments because I think the enemy is a hard-core component - a coalition of statist fascists and militant Islamists. I believe the situation is like the Nazis in Germany - a minority of hard core fascists with broad sympathies among the masses, fueled by hate. By all means, come down hard on that minority but at the same time win over the more moderate elements with the promise of economic freedom.

The cartoon imbroglio started modestly back in September when Denmark's Jyllands-Posten (It used to be my local paper. Honest!) published a set of 12 illustrations of Mohammad by local artists. Some were clearly political cartoons and contained explicit critiquing of Islam, and some where more benigh illustrations of a typical Islamic man. The political ones could be seen as offensive, but by Western standards they were pretty tame.

Since September, a small group of Muslims made it their mission to advertise these drawings to the rest of Islam. And in the process they added 3 additional illustrations - these FAR more offensive than the original 12. I saw what were claimed to be these other 3 last night (but have lost the link). Very poor quality, but I think one had the snout of a pig on the nose of a Muslim man, one had a more cartooned image of an mean old Muslim man gripping two children - allegedly a pedophile. The third looked like a photomontage (the quality really sucked) of a dog humping a man. Very offensive indeed.

I can imagine it is these three that really get the protestors blood boiling, inciting them to violence. I also strongly suspect that these demonstrations are being organized by much smaller groups who start out peacefully and then escalate to violence. Austin Bay has this covered, but I wish we saw more discussion of the complicity of some Arab governments and organizations in inciting this violence.

The demonstrations in Damascus began peacefully with protesters gathering outside the building housing the Danish Embassy. But they began throwing stones and eventually broke through police barricades. Some scrambled up concrete barriers protecting the embassy, climbed into the building and set a fire....

Demonstrators moved onto the Norwegian Embassy about 4 miles away, also setting fire to it before being dispersed by police using tear gas and water cannons. Hundreds of police and troops barricaded the road leading to the French Embassy, but protesters were able to break through briefly before fleeing from the force of water cannons.

If we know anything about life in today's Syria, it's that it is impossible for any group to demonstrate without the authorities first being in full control. So the Syrian government is complicit. Note that the the French were afforded some protection. Hmmm....

Elsewhere in the Arab world,

In Gaza, Palestinians marched through the streets, storming European buildings and burning German and Danish flags. Protesters smashed the windows of the German cultural center and threw stones at the European Commission building, police said.
Iraqis rallying by the hundreds demanded an apology from the European Union...
Pakistan summoned the envoys of nine Western countries in protest, and even Europeans [but still Islamic, apparently] took to the streets in Denmark and Britain to voice their anger. (emphasis mine)

Doesn't appear the democratic nations in the region (Iraq) could muster as much anger.

I find the official reactions worldwide disappointing. Lukewarm in support of free speech and supplicant to the protesters. I'm really appalled by the uniform surrender by the MSM in my own country. Tim Blair put it well:

They won't publish cartoons, but they will run anything they can get out of Abu Ghraib. Both sets of images provoke Islamic anger; note how the media behaves when that anger is directed at them.

This is the most depressing thing I've read so far on the issue. Any acquiescence on our part encourages more and worse conflicts later. This was a chance to make a stand on a one of our most dear principles - freedom of speech. Instead, we're showing that avoiding Islamic offense is a higher priority.

OK, this really makes me mad

Gary Busey, who I've always considered a harmless looney, is now "acting" on his basest impulses. (h/t Michelle Malkin)

In this movie, allegedly, U.S. soldiers in Iraq are portrayed as they

... kill dozens of innocent people with random machine gun fire, shoot the groom in the head, and drag those left alive to Abu Ghraib prison where a Jewish doctor cuts out their organs, which he sells to rich people in New York, London and Tel Aviv.

I hope this is a hoax. If not, I hope it gets A LOT of attention here in the U.S.

Prophet-sharing

It looks like the story about the Danish newspapers pubishing cartoons of the Moslem prophet Mohammed is getting some legs - some exposure in the main stream media. It didn't imagine that the issue would get so big, that the reaction of the Islamic world would be so overblown.

As I commented at Tim Blair's site:

It sort of looks to me like a “tipping point” of sorts, or at least a wake-up call for a host of interested parties - MSM, moderate Moslems, EU/UN axis and other enabling lefties.

I mean, it’s just cartoons for chrissakes! Kids’ stuff. And so the over-reaction will get a lot more attention. Hopefully followed by some soul-searching and clear-thinking. (The optimist in me thinks that. The pessimist in me reminds the optimist that I’ve thought something similar several times already, but have been disappointed.)

This tipping-point idea was carried further in this post in a blog that's new to me.

I hope it's clear that I'm not calling for continued war and violence. What I'm hoping will become of this is a greater recognition among those parties that this fundamentalist knee-jerk reaction is unsuited to the modern world - not worth the pain - and that the Wahabbist influence will go into decline once and for all.

Islam wasn't always so intolerant. It's really just a recent phenomena. (as this gallery of Mohammed images demonstrates). So I'm hopeful that the global Islamic culture is not too far gone to come back to the moderation and toleration of which they have shown historically to be capable.

Wake up! Wake up!!

The SOTUation....

Yeah, all of you have bugging me to give my impressions of Bush's State of the Union Address yesterday. I thought it was good enough. Not his best one, but not a failure either.

Since his first inauguration, Bush has on occasion given some very fine and moving speeches. At times I've yelled back at the TV, "Yeah, he GETS it!" and other times I've choked up with him. Other times I wince his over-willingness to compromise with his opponents (Kennedy and No Child.... ?!?! What a joke!) or at how he makes himself such a juicy target for his foes.

There was none of that last night, though I was moved as I looked into the faces of the family of the soldier (marine?) killed in Iraq. Bush touched on all the topical issues: NSA, Hamas, Iran, congressional reform, etc. He was semi-strong on national security issues, almost blunt in his calling out of his "irresponsible" opposition, and a bit visionary in some of his domestic proposals. Nothing stood out though, but nothing objectionable either. But for a 6th year president, that's not bad at all!

The part that had my attention most, though, was the applause-off competition between the right and left sides of the chamber. Will the left side applaud this line with the right? Will they stand and applaud? It was always in the left's court - the right liked it all. At least one time the left applauded pro-actively - and made themselves appear utter fools (proud of having condemned future seniors of their share of their SS contributions). That and the candids of Hillary made last night's SOTU fine entertianment.

Tu Quoque?

A sure sign that Hugo Chavez is spying on the U.S.:

"Venezuela's Hugo Chavez Accuses U.S. of Spying"