Referring to Steve's Giuliani post upthread, I'd just like to expand a little on something he wrote about the suggestion that was made in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to extend Giuliani's term as Mayor until the spring of 2002, so that he could continue to serve as a shining beacon and guide the shattered citizens home. This may not be a big deal--it probably comes down to either semantics or dueling memories--but as I recall it, the "suggestion" originated not with "Giuliani's supporters [who] were spreading it through the media" but with Giuliani himself, and though Rudy's Raiders did try to please the big man by getting out there and waving the flag for the media, I don't remember that it seemed reasonable to hardly anybody. In fact, I think the most important and revealing thing about the whole affair is that, in raising the issue, Giuliani single-handedly reversed the course of the mayoral election and torpedoed the chances of the Democratic front-runner, Mark Green. Green had been coasting to easy victory before 9/11; he was widely considered a shoe-in to roll over Fernando Ferrer in the primary and then take the mayor's crown in a walk. But when Giuliani began making rumblings about how he might deign to stick around if enough people wanted him to, Green cravenly rushed to say that it was a dandy idea--and Ferrer, seeing his chance, ridiculed the notion, thus clearly setting himself apart from those truckling to Giuliani in his moment of ego-tripping glory. That single move was enough to bring Ferrer back from the dead; he didn't beat Green in the primary, but he did force him to fight back, and the resulting tussle grew so ugly, and left Green looking so diminished, that things turned inside out and suddenly the election was Mike Bloomberg's to lose. Which he didn't.

I think that in the years since, Bloomberg has done about as good a job as anybody could have of demonstrating that it is possible to run the city at least as smoothly as it was run under Giuliani, without the hysterical drama, the self-promotion, the ratcheting up of racial hostility, the defensive circling of the wagons against any cop charged with crookedness or brutality, or the kneejerk baiting of civil libertarians, the economically disenfranchised, the sick, the homeless, and the ferret-owning. It's generally recognized that the city was good and sick of Giuliani before the 9/11 attacks reminded everyone that he had his uses. What isn't so often mentioned, because it screws up the redemption-narrative angle, is how much Giuliani's attempt to extend his term--or,more accurately, his attempt to get everyone to march in the streets begging him to extend his term--got the city to remember why it had been so frigging sick of him. So why did Mark Green put a cannonball through his own hull by rushing to embrace an idea that, it was perfectly obvious even at the time, made him want to puke? Why, after a long career of sometimes distinguished public service, at a time when he seemed to have the goal of a lifetime well in hand, did he make a decision, supporting something of which he did not approve, thus guaranteeing that he will be remembered, if he is remembered at all, as only a small, foul-smelling, cheese-eating thing?

The simple answer is that he thought the public was lame enough that we would embrace it ourselves. And where did he get that idea? Simple contempt for the electorate, I guess. As for the media's reaction to this particular brainstorm, it wasn't exactly an unqualified endorsement and it sure wasn't a fiery denunciation; the best way I can describe it would be to invite you to imagine how you might respond if a very, very rich relative whose final will and testament is still in the drafting stages and who you are sure will die within the week asks you to walk down Main Street dressed as Baby New Year. Knowing what the old boy is capable of, and given his own assurances that you'd only have to put up with him for so much longer, you might just opt to humor him. It seems relevant now, not just with relation to Giuliani but to the election year ahead, because so much of the mess we're in now can be traced back to both politicians and the media guessing that the American public is made up of infantile dumbasses and then trying to give them what they want. I'm convinced that the media hyped both the Clinton sex scandal and the buildup to the Iraq war largely because they believed that "the public" would thoroughly enjoy both and wouldn't stand for having its fun spoiled, and there's a case to be made that in 2000, the press presided over the cartooning of Al Gore because it believed that "the public" desperately wanted to be given reasons to justify its decision, which the media regarded as a foregone conclusion, to vote for "the candidate you'd most want to have a beer with." In every one of these instances, a considerable percentage of the public resisted to the end or initially protested only to finally break down under repeated hammering. Right now, a Democratic Congress that was elected to office by people pleading for change is in the process of Mark Greening itself to an early grave. One can only hope that in 2008, the election results will turn out to be more about the democratic process and less about self-fulfilling prophecy.

Kathy here, guest-posting for Steve. In this post, he referenced Pam on the Jena 6 and the lack of attention from the white progressive blogosphere. Below is my post from yesterday:

Protesters from around the country gathered in the tiny town of Jena LA today, marching in support of six black teenagers who were initially charged with attempted murder after they beat up a white classmate -- who was badly bruised but still able to attend a school function the same night. The beating was the culmination of a series of confrontations that began in August 2006, when black students at the local high school received permission from school administrators to sit under a tree where white kids usually gathered. Some of the white students retaliated by hanging nooses from the tree.

Just pause and take that in for a minute. In 2006, black students had to get permission to sit under a tree because it had been reserved for whites only. And because they did so, white students responded by hanging nooses, the symbol of lynching, in the tree.

Those white students were briefly suspended from school even though the principal recommended that they be expelled. It has been reported that after the school superintendent dismissed the noose incident as a prank, black students began sitting under the tree in protest. This drew the attention of the District Attorney, who came to the school to demand the students end their protest (sitting under a tree?) and told them he could "take away your lives with a stroke of my pen."

More incidents followed, with name-calling and violence and even an unexplained fire that destroyed the main academic building at the high school. A black student was beaten by a white student at an off-campus party. A white man pulled a shotgun on three black students at a convenience store. The white student was charged with simple battery. The white man who pulled the gun wasn't charged, but the kids who wrestled the gun away from him were arrested for aggravated battery and theft.

Shortly thereafter, in early December, six black students beat up a white student who they say was taunting the black student who had been beaten and calling several students "nigger". The victim was hospitalized for a few hours and released in time to go to a school function, but the District Attorney chose to charge the attackers with attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy. Robert Bailey, Jr., 17, was one of the students so charged -- and also the victim of the previously mentioned beating, which resulted in simple battery charges.

Somewhat cooler heads prevailed; Bailey and two other students saw their charges reduced to battery and conspiracy, while one has not yet been arraigned. The disposition for a fifth student, who was fourteen at the time, is unknown. Mychal Bell, who remains in jail because his family couldn't scrape up the $90,000 bail (yes, that's $90,000 -- the range was $70,000 to $138,000), was convicted by an all-white jury of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy, but the charges have been vacated, pending further action by the District Attorney.

Let me say very clearly that I don't condone students attacking and beating other students. I'm particularly angered when a group gangs up on one person. Any student who attacks another student, on campus or off, should be punished appropriately.

That said, it seems this powder keg could have been defused before it blew. I'm still reeling from the words I typed in the first and second paragraphs. There is no place in the 21st century for "whites only" gathering places at public schools (or anywhere else). White students have no business hanging nooses from a tree. It's not a joke. It's not remotely funny. Nooses are a symbol of vigilante attacks, period. They are an implicit threat. Any school superintendent who has so little understanding of history as to write off that incident as a prank really needs to find another line of work. And what looks like ridiculous over-charging of the black students, particularly in contrast with the white attacker, did nothing to ease tensions.

I can only hope that today's demonstration, which has been peaceful and purposeful by all reports, will shed light on the ongoing racism that all people of good will would like to end. An excellent way to start is to recognize it and confront it early, before we end up with another Jena.

BYE

I have to head out of town this weekend. Guest bloggers will be along soon....

HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

A couple of quotes from the big article on Giuliani and 9/11 in today's New York Times -- first, former senator (and semi-Democrat) Bob Kerrey:

"Giuliani did what the president didn't do," he said. "He went to all those funerals. And that grieving got us back to normal."

And this former city official:

"That time was absolutely the best and worst of Rudy," said Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., the city's former corporation counsel under Mayor Edward I. Koch. "Rudy stood up strong and rallied us. But that confidence created the very dangerous idea that we couldn’t survive without him."

Maybe I'm reading too much into Kerrey's words, but it seems to me as if he's saying that people couldn't have gotten through the grieving process if Giuliani hadn't been there with them. But is that really the point when public officials join in grieving?

It seems to me that the point of their grieving, in a siutuation like this, is to show that they take what's happened to us seriously -- if we don't see that, we can't trust them to represent us. It's not because we simply can't grieve without an arm around the shoulder from an important person.

And as for what Schwarz says, yeah, people were talking about extending Giuliani's term past December 31, when a new mayor was scheduled to be sworn in, but that's mostly because Giuliani's supporters were talking about it, and spreading the notion in the media. If it seemed reasonable to some people, it may be because in late September the effort involved in a mayoral transition seemed hard to imagine, with everything else we were going through. But we soon got over that. Apart from the odious Adam Sandler, who (as the article reminds us) at an October fund-raiser rhymed "Giuliani" with "why must you be gone-ee?" I don't know of anyone who actually had the "idea that we couldn’t survive without him." But people who rub shoulders with alpha dogs think the world is all about alpha dogs, and Giuliani, post-9/11, was more than happy to encourage that notion -- and he still is.

MEA CULPA ON JENA

Pam Spaulding, quite properly, chastises white people in the lefty blogosphere for ignoring the Jena Six case.

I know I'm guilty -- no two ways around it.

Pam's two theories:

* "It's not my area of expertise". This is an old saw used to avoid discussing race -- it's uncomfortable for white folks and they want to avoid land mines....

* "It's not my issue" ...

Well, for me those weren't exactly the reasons. I think I've been looking for an unusual angle on the case, and so my desire to write a post on Jena that would make you think I'm really, really clever has meant that I've never gotten around to saying anything about Jena at all. I should have just sat down and done a post introducing readers to the bare facts of the case, because obviously a lot of white people didn't know those facts -- but what do you know, I never got around to doing that (or even linking coverage like the many posts on Jena from dnA at Too Sense, starting with this one). No excuse for that.

Bulworth has another theory:

... we white bloggers are mostly consumed with the Great Partisan Debate. This preoccupation lends itself to a focus on national issues, like war and the economy, and to national figures, like party officials and media elites. That is to say, if an issue, development or situation can be immediately and directly plugged into the Great Partisan Debate, than it is fodder for the blogger mill. But if the issue is perceived as parachial (i.e. local or limited in application) or ambigious, and most of all, if it is not easy to see its connection to the Great Partisan Debate, than that issue will whither on the vine.

Yeah, I'm certainly consumed with that, although not exclusively -- every so often I do a post like this one. But the tendency in the blogosphere is to fixate on the big-name pols and journalists, obviously. We're all trying to stay in a conversation led of elite bloggers, who essentially want to be the big-name pols and journalists, by overthrowing the current ones. That's their ego trip, just as being clever and slightly off the beaten path is mine.

Thus, the white silence on Jena became self-perpetuating. For the next Jena, we need to do better.

THE MARCH OF PROGRESS

I found this at, of all places, the group blog of The American Spectator:

Reports are swirling that the U.S. Secret Service will now be escorting the President of Iran to Ground Zero. Whatever happens, a look back at a similar moment in New York City history might suggest a way to handle one of the world's leading anti-Semites.

When Theodore Roosevelt was the young Police Commissioner of New York, a well-known German anti-Semitic preacher scheduled a visit to New York City to give speeches "denouncing Jews." Smugly pleased with his obvious notoriety and the controversy he brought with him, the preacher requested police protection. Many Jews were infuriated and demanded of TR that the preacher be prevented from appearing. TR later described his response: "Of course I told them (New York Jewish leaders) I could not -- that the right of free speech must be maintained unless he incited them (the crowds) to riot." Then came the wonderfully TR solution: "On thinking it over, however, it occurred to me that there was one way in which I could undo most of the mischief he was trying to do."

What did TR do? He personally selected a Jewish police sergeant as the head of the anti-Semitic preacher's protection detail. Then he assigned 40 New York City cops -- every last one of them Jewish as well -- to serve as the detail. The preacher was quickly made a laughing stock as he made his way to his events surrounded by a flying wedge of Jewish cops.

Whoever is making the decision on any protection for Mr. Ahmadinejad while he is visiting New York, they would do well to take a page from Teddy Roosevelt.

(The story is unsourced in the post, but it's told in Nathan Miller's 1994 book, Theodore Roosevelt: A Life.)

That was Teddy Roosevelt -- he pointedly surrounded the preacher with the very people he hated, but he maintained the core principle that "the right of free speech must be maintained." Which puts him to the left of Charles Schumer, Hillary Clinton, and everyone else who's weighed in on Ahmedinejad's proposed act of symbolic speech (laying a wreath a Ground Zero), not to mention the howling banshees of the right who don't want Ahmedinejad to face tough questions at Columbia University.

TR gave the anti-Semitic preacher an escort of Jewish police officers. For Ahmedinejad, I wonder if the escort could include elderly, retired cops who survived the Nazi death camps. I'm sure the rest of the escort could be filled out with descendants of Holocaust survivors. Do that and make it known. I think that would be a more effective silent witness to the truth about the Holocaust in the face of Ahmedinejad's lies than whatever necktie party Michelle Malkin is planning.

PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM

So I'm reading The New York Observer, and in this article by Jennifer Rubin I'm informed that

Mr. McCain has had a convoluted relationship with the president: first a thorn in his side, then an ally and now, ever so deliberately, a credible critic.

John McCain is a critic of the president now? Did you know that?

Later, Rubin says of Rudy Giuliani,

In many ways the anti-Bush, he doesn't drift, avoid conflict or praise incompetent subordinates.

Got that middle part? Giuliani doesn't avoid conflict -- unlike Bush!

Then I turn to this article by David Lat, which thinks that if Michael Mukasey is attorney general for the rest of Bush's term and then Hillary Clinton becomes president, she might keep him on -- one of Rudy Giuliani's best friends! Lat, however, does admit that it's more likely she'd pick her own AG. His guess? Jamie Gorelick! (Because, I guess, who would get a smoother ride through the Senate than a person Republican crazies think caused 9/11?)

These people get paid to write this stuff?

BEDFELLOWS

You don't suppose the fact that Joe Lieberman joined Ann Coulter on 9/11 this year at a Sean Hannity "Freedom Concert" ever crossed his mind when he was voting to condemn MoveOn in the Senate today, do you?

You know -- Ann Coulter, who wasn't condemned by the Senate when she wrote, of 9/11 widows, "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much"?

PRETZEL LOGIC

Hugh Hewitt got the vapors upon learning that Ahmadinejad wants to go to Ground Zero, and got the vapors again in reaction to the news that Columbia University invited Ahmadinejad to speak and take questions.

In the latter post, Hewitt writes:

President Eisenhower was once the president of Columbia. Recall that Ike ordered Germans marched through the death camps. Things have changed at Columbia....

Er, if that's the valid point of comparison, shouldn't we want Ahmadinejad to go to Ground Zero? Shouldn't we force him to go, even if he changes his mind at the last minute and decides he'd rather not?

Help me out here, Hugh. I'm confused.

*****

(Yeah, yeah, I know: This analogy doesn't really hold up because Ahmadinejad had nothing to do with 9/11 -- in fact, he has, in his own fashion, condemned it -- and because Al Qaeda is Sunni and Arab and Ahmadinejad is Shiite and Persian. Oh, and I'm also glossing over the fact that Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, has vowed to ask Ahmadinejad about every nasty thing he's understood to have said or done. Sorry, folks -- I'm trying to keep this on the same simple-minded level it's been on since right-wingers and other mountebanks started talking about it.)

THE EGO HAS LANDED

This must have been a bizarre moment:

Rudy Giuliani was on the trans-Atlantic campaign trail Wednesday, schmoozing with conservative idol Margaret Thatcher and bragging about his international credentials.

"I'm probably one of the four or five best known Americans in the world," Giuliani told a small group of reporters at a posh London hotel....

Giuliani told reporters he has made 91 trips to 35 countries in five years and many governments seek him out for advice on security. He was given an honorary knighthood in 2002 by Queen Elizabeth II for his leadership after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

But who are the four other best-known Americans?

"Bill Clinton ... Hillary," he said, but he was whisked away for another engagement before he could throw out any other names....

Yeah, Bill, Hillary, and, er, the president of the United States perhaps? That's three. Madonna: four. Michael Jackson: five.

Sorry, Rudy. And I didn't even get to the countless political figures, musicians, movie stars, and athletes who've had more than one moment in the sun and thus are much more famous than you worldwide.

****

Some people talk about Bill Clinton as if he's the biggest narcissist in American politics, but I can't imagine him saying anything like this. Oh, he'll luxuriate in being the center of attention, he'll hold forth at a gathering in an attempt to be the center of attention, but he won't announce to the world, "I deserve to be the center of attention."

Rudy had an ego long before 9/11, and the most common way it's always manifested itself is in his belief that if you don't agree with him about everything, you aren't fit to live among decent people. He gets angry if you cross him; he feels entitled to your respect and deference. (Clinton, by contrast, believes he can get you to see things his way if he can just talk to you long enough.)

When Giuliani lashes out at opponents, that's his sad, pathetic, crybaby ego talking -- lack of deference is entirely intolerable to him. He's a bit like Bush in this regard. Can we stand four more years of that?

(Story also here and here.)

TEE-HEE

Over at If I Ran the Zoo, ahab discovers that David Broder's latest column in The Washington Post is cribbed from a cinema classic.

*****

Seriously, though, here are excerpts from Broder's column. It's supposedly about the brilliance of Newt Gingrich. But that's not what it's really about:

In the years since I first met him in 1974, I have learned that it's wise to take Newt Gingrich seriously.... if there is any politician of the current generation who has earned the label "visionary," it is probably the Georgia Republican and former speaker of the House.

For that reason alone, it is regrettable that Gingrich has virtually decided to pass on the 2008 presidential race....

Gingrich is brimming with ideas on these subjects, but he is realistic enough to suggest that it may be five years before public opinion -- and other politicians -- are ready to embrace some of them.

That five-year estimate is significant. It would run to the end of the next presidential term....

... he says, Hillary Rodham Clinton faces few obstacles to winning the Democratic nomination. And he leaves reporters with the feeling that he thinks a Hillary Clinton presidency would provide fertile ground, just as Bill Clinton's did, for a Republican revival.

... I have no reason to doubt that he'd spend five more trying to put his beleaguered party back on its feet.

...If big ideas and big ambitions can bring Republicans back to life, Gingrich is ready to supply them....

This column isn't about Gingrich at all -- it's about saving America from those dastardly Democrats.

To The Washington Post's elite opinion-mongers, this is the single most important task facing the political class -- not ending the war or finding a new post-9/11 security strategy or getting health coverage to tens of millions of insured people or reducing income inequality in America, but getting the GOP back on its feet. (For another example, see Sally Quinn's bizarre notion, floated back in June, that Fred Thompson should replace Dick Cheney as VP because, among other things, "Thompson would give the Republicans a platform for running for the presidency.")

I'm also struck by Broder's contentment with the possibility that Newt's dazzlingly brilliant ideas might take "to the end of the next presidential term" to sink in, and by his apparent seconding of Newt's belief that "a Hillary Clinton presidency would provide fertile ground, just as Bill Clinton's did, for a Republican revival."

I still think the press lords won't let Hillary win, going after her all through '08 the way they went after Gore. But maybe, instead, they'll go relatively easy on her ... then declare her presidency illegitimate starting on Election Night, framing the narrative as "She didn't win; the Republicans lost." And then they'll undermine her for four years, treating her entire term as a moment when everything went out of whack -- a moment requiring a Republican restoration.

I don't know how many of the press lords will join Broder in hoping Gingrich leads that restoration, but if she wins, restoration is what they'll be calling for before the confetti is even swept up in her campaign headquarters.

*****

I should add that, of course, getting the GOP on its feet isn't absolutely the only way to save American from those horrible icky Democrats, in Broder's eyes -- see also his fascination with Unity08.

ICK

Laura Ingraham's Power to the Same People Who've Essentially Had Uninterrupted Power Since 1980 just hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

(It's #1 on the list that will be published in the September 30 Book Review; the list was e-mailed last night and will appear on the Times site over the weekend.)

When I did an earlier post about Ingraham's book, Mark at Cautious Man linked the lyrics to Patti Smith's "People Have the Power" and included a YouTube video of the song. My problem is that I don't think people have the power -- see: U.S. Congress, 2007 votes on Iraq War by -- but if it'll inspire you, here's Mark's post.

NEXT THEY'RE GOING TO DIG UP REAGAN AND MAKE HIS CORPSE DENOUNCE THE AD

Phony outrage as a way of stirring up the base (and presumably opening up their wallets for the '08 election cycle) -- why limit it to the president's surrogates?

Kate O'Beirne and I just got back from a meeting with the president in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for a small group of conservative journalists.

...President Bush may have been most emphatic though when it came to the topic of "those left wing ads" attacking General Petraeus. The president brought the infamous New York Times MoveOn ad up without prompting, saying of his reaction to it: "I was incredulous at first and then became mad." ...

At this point, if I were the target of these Republican attacks, I'd proudly put a banner on my home page:

MoveOn: Now the Central Front in the War on Terror

****

By the way, Ed Gillespie, as Republican National Committee chairman in 2004, attacked MoveOn because two entries in its "Bush in 30 Seconds" video contest mentioned Hitler. Shortly afterward, Gillespie also referred to an Al Gore address to MoveOn as "hate speech." And now the White House is attacking MoveOn at a time when Ed Gillespie is the White House counsel and has been given parts of Karl Rove's job. Coincidence?

"IT'S A GOOD LIFE," STILL -- WHY?

A number of people have said that life in the Bush years is reminiscent of the old sci-fi story and Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life," about an eight-year-old who's no more mature than his age would suggest but who has powers so great that he terrorizes an entire town into deferring to his will.

I'm looking at a story in today's Washington Post -- "GOP Moderates Weigh Loyalty To Bush vs. Political Realities" ("moderate Republicans in Congress are facing a tough choice: Stand by President Bush or run for their political lives") -- and now at the news that Senator John Warner is offering (with John McCain) a no-obligation, toothless alternative to James Webb's bill requiring active-duty troops to have leaves as long as their previous tours of duty. And I'm thinking about the fact that this timid, terrified deference to Bush on the part of congressional Republicans is happening despite the fact that Bush just reached a new low (29% approval) in yet another poll.

So I feel I'm watching a sequel to "It's a Good Life." In the sequel, the eight-year-old loses his powers -- and everyone in the town continues to defer to him, even though they know he's now just an ordinary kid.

Maybe it wouldn't seem bizarre to Rod Serling, but it seems bizarre to me.

"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP JUST A MINUTE -- YOU'RE A LIAR!"

Fred Thompson's polite, dignified words in a debate during his 1994 Senate race.

No wonder he's running neck-and-neck with Giuliani in the party of rage junkies.

****

(In case it's not clear, my point isn't that most Thompson supporters have seen this video -- few of them have -- but rather that they sense this aspect of his personality, and it makes them feel all warm and runny inside.)

FRED THOMPSON: THE ONE-MAN CONSPIRACY TO KEEP YOU POOR AND STUPID

How much ignorance can Fred Thompson squeeze into his new 88-second video? A lot:

I understand Hillary Clinton has just acknowledged that her new health care plan could require somebody to actually prove they’ve got insurance before they can get a job....

Which (as Joe Klein noted yesterday) is a Drudge-fueled distortion of what she's actually saying:

She said she could envision a day when "you have to show proof to your employer that you're insured as a part of the job interview -- like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination," but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.

Back to Fred:

You know, a job -- the thing that would help you get health care. That kind of mindset is that the government knows best and if you don’t agree, then you’re just going to have to pay for it, one way or the other....

Never mind the fact that the whole point of the plan is that you wouldn't need a job to get health care and would get help if you couldn't afford it:

A Clinton adviser compares the plan's "individual mandate" -- which requires everyone to have health insurance -- to current rules in most states that require all drivers to purchase auto insurance, according to The Associated Press.

In her plan, Clinton said families would receive tax credits to help pay for coverage. The tax credit would be designed to limit the premiums to a percentage of a family's income.

Federal subsidies would be provided for those who are not able to afford insurance...

Fred:

The best way to improve the best health care in the world, which is what we’ve got right here in the United States, is to expand choice, not punishment.

To some Democrats, choice to them is like a cross is to a vampire -- they don’t like to see it coming down the road....

Choice? From the Clinton campaign's description of the plan (PDF):

The American Health Choices Plan gives Americans the choice to preserve their existing coverage, while offering new choices to those with insurance, to the 47 million people in the United States without insurance, and the tens of millions more at risk of losing coverage....

Americans can keep their existing coverage or access the same menu of quality private insurance options that their Members of Congress receive through a new Health Choices Menu.... In addition to the broad array of private options that Americans can choose from, they will be offered the choice of a public plan option similar to Medicare....

Fred:

Hillary says, don’t worry about it -- the punishment -- because the exact punitive measures they’d come up with would be worked out by congress. That’s a thought scary enough to make you sick.

I guess that means that in a Thompson administration there'll be no laws whatsoever passed by Congress -- Congress is scary!

All laws will be written by Fred and a bunch of his whittlin' buddies sittin' around the cracker barrel havin' a chaw.

****

I should point out that I'm not endorsing the Clinton plan -- I haven't made up my mind about it. Frankly, I don't think I'll ever really have to -- I'm fully convinced that universal coverage is something I'll never see in my lifetime, because big-business treachery and effective GOP deployment of scare words will always shoot it down.

IT'S CONTAGIOUS

Senate hearing, 9/11/07:

Senator Warner: Are you able to say at this time if we continue what you have laid before the congress here, this strategy, do you feel that that is making America safer?

...General Petraeus: Sir I don't know actually.

David Brooks today:

I asked [Defense Secretary Robert Gates] whether invading Iraq was a good idea, knowing what we know now. He looked at me for a bit and said, "I don't know."

Why do they hate America?

*****

The point of the Brooks column is that Gates's thinking is really, really different from the we-can-change-the-world mindset of the Bush White House up to now: In addition to his doubts on the war, Gates questions the value of encouraging elections in the Arab/Muslim world, and Gates further contradicts his boss's high-flown rhetoric by saying, "I don't think you invade Iraq to bring liberty. You do it to eliminate an unstable regime and because sanctions are breaking down and you get liberty as a byproduct."

Yeah, that's swell -- but Brooks inadvertently makes a point that's pretty much the opposite of the one he's trying to make.

The real lesson here is that Bush chose Gates as secretary of defense and now isn't paying the slightest bit of attention to Gates's critiques. Bush doesn't give a crap what Gates thinks of his worldview -- all that matters to Bush is that Gates doesn't make it difficult for him to do whatever the hell he wants. Bush's defense secretary may not be a neoconnish "idealist," but Bush's policies are still neoconnish and "idealist." So who cares what Gates says to some wimp with glasses from the op-ed page of The New York Times?

Bush's appointees come in two varieties: apparatchiks and seat-warmers. It's good for the Senate to confirm the seat-warmers (Gates, Mukasey, etc.), because they don't do as much harm as the apparatchiks (Rumsfeld, Gonzales, etc.). But they don't do any good.

DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR

In addition to meeting with Margaret Thatcher and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Rudy Giuliani, in London today, will do a photo op with Winston Churchill's granddaughter.

*****

May I just say something here? When I went back to work in Manhattan on September 12, 2001, I didn't do it because I was stirred to the depths by the profound words and manly presence of Rudy Giuliani. I did it because I had work to do, my office was miles north of Ground Zero and was unaffected by the attacks, my trip to work was no more difficult than it had been before, and what the hell else was I going to do with myself?

There was 9/11 and then there was the brief anthrax moment. Giuliani didn't see us through a war or waves of Luftwaffe attacks on our homes. With Giuliani as mayor, we got on with our lives -- which is precisely what we'd have done if the mayor had been anyone else.

WE'RE WINNING!

A statistic that wasn't on General Petraeus's charts shows up in the Blackwater story:

...A confidential report from the U.S. Embassy Baghdad titled "Blackwater security detail involved in lethal incident" issued Monday and obtained by ABC News says there were five Blackwater security guards involved in the firefight when a car bomb went off near the entrance to the Izdihar financial compound northwest of the Green Zone.

...The contractors were operating under extremely dangerous circumstances. The report says the car bomb that set off the incident was "the 6th attack on [embassy] personnel in eight days."...

But how can that be possible? Isn't Baghdad really, really much safer? Aren't we kicking ass, choosing victory, making tremendous progress, spotting that light at the end of the tunnel?

HE'S DEAD SERIOUS

David Limbaugh:

I don't think nearly enough has been made of the despicable MoveOn.org character assassination attack ad against General David Petraeus and the Democratic leadership's striking refusal to repudiate it.

Yeah, not nearly enough -- denunciations of the ad still aren't mandatory viewing on all telescreens!

****

Bonus David L. quote:

You can be sure Democrats will ratchet up their attacks against Petraeus, and it will only be a matter of time before their endless efforts to discredit him seep into the public psyche. What will have begun as another abominable lie will be believed by increasing numbers of people who place their trust in the Democratic Party and its mainstream-media echo chamber.

And why not? Somewhat like O.J. Simpson, Democratic leaders have not been held accountable for their misdeeds and obviously figure they can continue their chicanery with impunity. No one is above their smear machine if his or her actions interfere with MoveOn's, er, their agenda.

So first Richard Cohen told me that questioning Bush and his surrogate is morally equivalent to McCarthyism, and now Rush's brother is telling me it's equivalent to violent multiple murder. Which is it? I'm so confused....

*****

Oh, and there's also this:

Democratic war opponents, for example, could have argued the facts Petraeus presented. But with early reports of the surge's success, they had to counter with something more than an alternative perspective.

"Argu[ing] with the facts Petraeus presented" is precisely what the MoveOn ad did. Has Limbaugh even read it?

(Though you can't blame him for not getting all the way through it -- it's four whole paragraphs!)

*****

Oh, and Limbaugh says it's all George Soros's fault. Of course.