John McCain: The Communist Choice?

Hmmm... earlier today, John McCain's former North Vietnamese communist jailer went on the record with his support for McCain, saying he considers McCain an "old friend" and asserting that he would vote for McCain for president if he could. Isn't McCain's communist support something we should consider in determining his fitness for office? Might not his communist support be evidence that he's some kind of fifth columnist?

Obviously (I hope obviously) the title of this piece and the argument above are intended to be ridiculous. But by the bizarre inferences the right has trotted out about Hamas and Obama, my title and argument are entirely coherent. If I'm correct in thinking McCain's communist support isn't going to be a major play on Fox news, it's reasonable to ask why.

Of course, we know why: Fox's purpose isn't journalism; it's support of a political party. Fair enough. But for people with integrity, questioning these inconsistencies is a useful way to expose bias -- not just in others, but in ourselves. So if you're someone who believed a purportedly kind word from a Hamas member was damning to Obama, you should ask yourself why a similar comment by a Vietnamese communist about McCain would be irrelevant.

And if you loathe what President Bush has done to the Fourth Amendment with his illegal, warrantless surveillance program, ask how you can give Obama a pass for breaking previous campaign promises and capitulating to Republican efforts to legalize warrantless surveillance and offer amnesty to telecoms that have previously broken the law. Do you adhere to party, or to principle? Questions like these are a decent way to start finding out.

This is Conviction?

Today's Wall Street Journal features an op-ed by AEI resident scholar Michael Ledeen called Iran and the Problem of Evil. The op-ed contains one severe logical fallacy and one weird omission, each unfortunately representative of much of the current state of thought and argument on the right.

First, the logical fallacy. Ledeen lays out his premises thusly: (1), right up until World War II, the west was in denial about the obvious threat of fascism; (2) today, "The world is simmering in the familiar rhetoric and actions of movements and regimes – from Hezbollah and al Qaeda to the Iranian Khomeinists and the Saudi Wahhabis – who swear to destroy us and others like us" (and later he mentions Syria, Egypt, and "European and American mosques," as well); and (3) we are in denial about the nature of these movements and regimes as we were about the nature of the Nazis. Then finally, two thirds into the article, Ledeen arrives at his thesis statement:

This is not merely a philosophical issue, for to accept the threat to us means – short of a policy of national suicide – acting against it. As it did in the 20th century, it means war.

Even if one accepts Ledeen's premises, how does it logically follow that the only way to deal with the movements and regimes he mentions is by going to war with them? Does the United States really have no other policy tools at its disposal? National suicide or war and nothing else? Holy artificial either/or constructs, Batman!

I've written before about this kind of binary thinking -- once in the context of rightist thinking about "The Terrorists;" another time, in the context of rightist arguments for torture. But the notion that the only way of dealing with a country like Iran, with its basket-case economy and GDP about the size of Finland's, is to go to war with Iran as we once did against Germany, dramatically expands the size and opacity of the blinders the right insists on wearing when it ventures to look out at the world.

But the logical gap in Ledeen's argument is so vast that even he can't avoid it. Because -- and here is the weird omission -- he never actually comes out and says what he means. Here's his concluding paragraph:

Then, as now, the initiative lies with the enemies of the West. Even today, when we are engaged on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, there is little apparent recognition that we are under attack by a familiar sort of enemy, and great reluctance to act accordingly. This time, ignorance cannot be claimed as an excuse. If we are defeated, it will be because of failure of will, not lack of understanding. As, indeed, was almost the case with our near-defeat in the 1940s.

Huh? Why argue that al Qaeda, Egypt, Hezbollah, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and European and American mosques are like the Nazis, that as with the Nazis, we have to accept that the existence of these movements and regimes forces us to choose between suicide and war... and then shy away from what obviously, logically (if you can call it that) comes next: a call for a declaration of war?

I don't mean the question rhetorically. Is Ledeen afraid of being called a warmonger? Does he recognize what he's actually agitating for, and at the last moment shy away from it? Is he carried away by his rhetoric and blind to its actual implications?

I've said before that if you want to argue for torture, argue for it -- but don't hide from your own argument by using doublespeak like "aggressive interrogation" or "enhanced interrogation" or whatever. Call it what it is and explain why it's necessary. Similarly, if you think America needs to go to war with much of the Islamic world as we once went to war with the Nazis and fascists, have the clarity (and guts) to make your argument forthrightly. Otherwise, we're faced with the sad spectacle of a man who thinks he's issuing a courageous call but who in fact lacks the courage of his ostensible convictions.

Hillary's Exit

With some reluctance, I offer a few thoughts on Hillary's defeat, particularly on the notion that she deserves to be, and that Obama should make her, the Democratic vice presidential candidate.

I'm reluctant because Hillary as vice presidential candidate and as vice president is such a self-evidently bad idea that sensible people know it simply will not happen. So I find myself in the slightly weird position of discussing something that in my mind is being discussed only because it's being discussed, like Paris Hilton being famous for being famous.

Okay. Let's first dispense with the idea that Clinton "deserves" the vice presidency. This is ridiculous for so many reasons, not the least of which is that the same Clinton backers who argued (when it was convenient to do so) that superdelegates should be free to follow nothing other than the dictates of their consciences in selecting a presidential candidate now argue that the presidential candidate must surrender that very same freedom when selecting his running mate. I suppose this kind of inconsistency is to be expected from supporters whose approach to politics is flexible enough for them to agree one day that Florida and Michigan would be excluded from the election, and later to find such an exclusion is a moral outrage worthy of a Zimbabwean stolen election on the next; flexible enough, indeed, for them to agree at the beginning of the race that the winner would be determined by delegates won, only to find popular vote counts more significant when the previously agreed-upon rules proved a loss for their candidate. But still.

The irony is, the notion that Hillary deserves the vice presidency is insulting to Hillary. From the beginning, she had a choice: run a relatively positive campaign -- the kind, say, that Mike Huckabee ran on the Republican side, or that John Edwards ran in 2004, or the kind that Edwards, Dodd, and Richardson ran this time -- to position herself as a sensible choice for VP. Instead, Hillary chose to run and all or nothing campaign, doing everything she could do destroy Obama -- including practically urging voters who wouldn't back her to at least back McCain. If her strategy had succeeded, she would have been the Democratic nominee today. But the risk was that if her strategy failed, she would have made herself unsuitable for the #2 slot. As indeed she has: McCain is already using video of Hillary saying, "I've passed the commander-in-chief threshold, Senator McCain has passed the commander-in-chief threshold, Senator Obama has a speech he made in 2002" in his latest campaign ads (although it's encouraging to watch McCain adopt the exact same campaign tactics that have just proven fruitless for the Clintons). Regardless of what you think of her strategy, at least we can respect Clinton enough to acknowledge that she was aware of the consequences of her approach and selected it knowingly. To suggest at this point instead that she should be awarded a prize she deliberately forfeited is to treat an autonomous adult as a spoiled child.

Equally ridiculous, and insulting to Hillary, is the notion that Obama should help her retire her $30 million campaign debt, which includes $11 million the Clintons personally lent to the campaign. The Clintons, their donors, and their lenders all made adult, autonomous, conscious decisions to invest in her campaign the way they did. Why should outsiders have to bail them out? Bear in mind that the Clintons' personal fortune is estimated at about $60 million. Am I the only one who wonders why a politician who professes to care so deeply about the disenfranchised, the invisible, the little people whose votes for her are the same as prayers, is now going to happily stick all those little people with the bill for what since February has been little more than a vanity project? The predictable reply: you're right, it's not fair, but it has to be done to assuage Hillary and get her fundraisers onside. Fair enough, but then let's call this exercise what it really is: extortion.

Look, Hillary could have campaigned in such a way that her proposal to Obama would have been, "Make me your vice president because I'll help you." Instead, her proposal is, "Make me your vice president or I'll hurt you." Even if her implicit threat were credible, Obama would have no choice but to refuse her, lest the next Republican campaign narrative would become (and not without merit), "If he can't handle Hillary, how's he going to handle Ahmadinejad?"

More ironic still is the moniker people attach to the idea of an Obama/Hillary team: they like to call it a "unity ticket." Remember, for the last five months, Hillary has been analyzed mostly through the prism of the Democratic primary. Under these circumstances, it's easy to forget her astonishingly high general election negatives. When a candidate has negatives as high as Hillary's, the only thing she'd be unifying is the Republican party.

Hillary supporters will argue nonetheless that she offers benefits: she can deliver older white women and rural whites, demographics Obama has had trouble attracting. Let's assume this is true. The next question is, is there another candidate who can deliver a similar benefit without simultaneously galvanizing Republicans, alienating independents, undercutting Obama's core message of change, and making Obama look weak by virtue of selecting her?

Pretty hard to believe the answer to that one is no.

Many of her supporters are angry right now. Wouldn't putting Hillary on the ticket mollify them? Maybe... but again, the question is, can the same objective be achieved at lower cost?

The general election is five months away. That's a long time for anger and bitterness to dissipate and for rationality to prevail. Rationality in this case meaning Obama's 100% positive rating from Planned Parenthood, his endorsement by NARAL, his overall policy positions being close to Hillary's. Contrasted with McCain's recent speechifying on conservative judicial appointments (much of it obscured by the dramatic coverage of the Democratic primary) and his record on judicial nominations. Women who are angry today will have to face a question in November: do they want to support, whether by commission or omission, the overturning of Roe v Wade? Do they want their daughters to lose control of their reproductive rights?

The only question at this point is how Obama will finesse Hillary's implicit threats and detach her from her supporters. I don't think any of this is terribly difficult.

First, praise Clinton lavishly. This has been ongoing.

Second, make it known that Clinton is on the shortlist (though in fact, for all the reasons above, she will not be seriously considered). Promise to vet her just as the other candidates will and should be vetted. Leak problems discovered with the opaque and disreputable sources of the Clintons' wealth and the Clinton Foundation's fundraising, with rumors of Bill's behavior, with Hillary's seeming inability to control Bill on the campaign trail, and with Bill's refusal to allow adequate scrutiny of his finances (think of this as the "Blame Bill" strategy).

Third, note that given Hillary's stated passions, indeed, her most recent political raison d'etre, it would be a waste of her talents to take a job that has been famously compared to a bucket of warm piss. She could make a much more important contribution spearheading healthcare reform. How could she turn down such an opportunity? She's explicitly said she's not particularly interested in the vice presidency and that she wants healthcare for every American. Sure, this is all a bluff, but Obama is now in a good position to call.

And fourth, after easing Hillary aside, relentlessly hammer home what McCain means for the Supreme Court and women's rights.

For a long time, Hillary's overall approach has been to threaten punishment if she doesn't get what she wants. This is why she has been so eager to whip her supporters into an unjustified rage, why she encouraged the notion that whites wouldn't vote for Obama, and most of all why she refused to concede on Tuesday even after Obama had achieved a numerical lock on the nomination. The last threat in her arsenal is the threat to disrupt the convention in August and prevent the Democrats from focusing on the general for another two critical months. But with the primaries over and no more excuses for superdelegates not to decide, I think she's realized that any further threats of punishment would force the party to move en masse to crush and humiliate her. Thus her announcement that on Saturday she will indeed acknowledge reality and belatedly concede.

That concession will not cause, but rather instead merely accelerate the inevitable end of the Clintons. Obama will continue to finesse Hillary in all the ways described above. He'll select an appropriate vice president. He'll beat McCain, a remarkably weak, pandering, flip-flopping candidate, in the fall. At which point, the Clintons will have lost all their power to punish.

So it's ridiculous, as well as insulting to Hillary, to suggest that she "deserves" it. Substantively, she makes no sense. Outside the lunatic fringe that always exists and is never ultimately relevant, her supporters will come around in the fall. So now: can we please stop talking about Hillary? The Clinton era is over.

Those Crazy Conservative Activists Again

Yesterday's California Supreme Court ruling, relying on the California state constitution to find unconstitutional the exclusion of gays from the California institution of marriage, is already being (predictably) misunderstood and mischaracterized. For an excellent summary of the opinion and a debunking of the fallacious attacks against it, check out Glenn Greenwald.

Probably the most common charge being leveled against the California court is that its judges were "activist," and thwarted the will of the people, or usurped the role of the legislature, or both. I find these vague charges of judicial activism tiresome: they're raised only when courts reach outcomes the people howling "Activists!" don't like. And the "Activist!" charges ignore the excruciatingly obvious, fundamental fact that when a court in a democracy interprets a constitution, the court is *supposed to* overturn laws enacted by the people or their representatives if those laws violate the constitution. The will of the people, or the laws of the legislature, prevail in a democracy subject to the constitution. So if you don't want "activist" judges overturning popular laws, you might as well get rid of the constitution itself, which is designed and intended precisely to place limits on how the people and the legislature can express their wills.

If the point above doesn't make sense to you, think of how the Supreme Court Justices in Brown v Board of Education overturned the "separate but equal" segregated educational framework that had been enacted with popular backing by the duly elected representatives of so many southern states. If you want to argue that courts shouldn't as a matter of principal overturn laws they find violative of their constitutions, you should be prepared to argue that the Brown court, too, exceeded its authority.

In fact, anyone who wants to argue that gay marriage should be left to individual states (and remember, the California ruling was by a state court, pursuant to a state constitution, and binding only in California), you should be prepared to argue too that Brown was wrongly decided -- that "separate but equal" education did not violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws and should have been a matter for individual states to decide for themselves. I don't see how you can rationally argue that "separate but equal" education was unconstitutional and was rightly struck down by a court as such, but that "separate but equal" marriage (or no gay marriage at all) is constitutional and should be left to states to decide.

You might have surmised by now that I'm not impressed by the notion that gays should be able to form "civil unions" equivalent in all ways but name to marriage (this was key to the California court's finding -- that there is, after all, a great deal in a name). I'd be equally impressed by the notion that blacks should be permitted to attend institutions of higher education as long as the institutions they were permitted to attend were not called "colleges" or "universities."

Here's a little thought experiment to clarify things. Today's Wall Street Journal has an entirely predictable editorial, "Gay Marriage Returns," lamenting the California court's ruling. Let's see how the editorial reads if we replace references to "gay marriage" throughout with references to "black-white intermarriage," instead. If you can distinguish the rights of blacks and whites to marry each other from the rights of gays to marry each other, I'd like to hear the argument (and note that the California court cited Perez v Sharp, where in 1948 the California court struck down black-white marriage bans on 14th Amendment equal protection grounds).

Just when the news was filling with stories about a Republican Party gasping for air, along comes the California Supreme Court's 4-3 decision yesterday legislating black-white intermarriage. The GOP certainly hasn't done anything to deserve such luck...

California's Supreme Court is not the law of the land, but its 4-3 ruling, titled "In re Marriage Cases" for six consolidated appeals, explicitly told both the state's voters and its elected legislature to get lost. Back in 2000, California voters by 61% approved a proposition asserting that the state could only recognize a "marriage" between a white man and a white woman or a black man and black woman...

While the popular spin on these black-white intermarriage rulings holds that this is an all-or-nothing war between Democrats and Republicans, nothing could be further from the truth. Absent an occasional burst of judicial fiat such as this, the American people have been conducting an admirable exercise in democratic discovery about black-white intermarriage.

While 27 states have passed constitutional amendments banning black-white intermarriage, reflecting what opinion polls show to be overwhelming public sentiment, most Americans do not want the U.S. Constitution amended to prohibit black-white intermarriage. Back in 2004, some 52% of Bush voters favored black-white unions stopping short of a "marriage" designation. This was also Mr. Bush's position.

In other words, the American people, rather than simply shunning the desire of some blacks and whites to marry each other, are clearly willing to take up the matter and work it through their legislatures. California's legislature has passed bills twice to authorize black-white intermarriage; both were vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. If California can find a Governor willing to sign off, so be it. It is preposterous, though, to let four judges decide this for a state of more than 36 million diverse individuals.

Most of all, the black community wants social acceptance. It should look to what flowed from Roe v. Wade: unending bitterness. A wiser course in 21st-century America is to trust the democratic process.

If you don't think denying gays access to marriage denies them equal protection of the laws, you must also think such a denial would be constitutional with regard to blacks or other minorities. Do you?

Ultimately, opponents of gay marriage seek to legislate based not on logic, but on the peculiarities of their own preferences. They're guided not by the consistent application of law, but by the fickle idiosyncrasies of their own taste. Rather than reaching outcomes through the application of principle, they seek to conjure principles to support outcomes at which they have already comfortably arrived. And, with the usual unintended irony, they then accuse their opponents of "judicial activism." If it weren't so sad, it would be hilarious.

Confused, Spineless Democrats

I read an op-ed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal called "Obama and the Values Question Mark" by a guy named Douglas E. Schoen. It's an advice piece, and Schoen advises Obama to do nothing but play defense. Attacked for not always wearing a lapel pin? Wear a lapel pin. Attacked about Reverend Wright? Continue to explain, explain, explain (Schoen actually suggests that "Obama does not have to apologize for his own faith and membership in Trinity Unity Church of Christ"... whew, that's a relief). Attacked for not being sufficiently "law and order"? "Obama must also demonstrate concretely that he is sympathetic to the victims of crime... that he understands American concerns about law and order." You get the idea. Schoen comes a step or two short of advising Obama to just fall to his knees and cry out, "We are not worthy!"

I read the article with equal parts disgust and admiration: disgust at the notion that Obama needs to explain his "values" when a divorced adulterer like John McCain apparently does not; admiration at the tactics of the writer, who in the guise of friendly advice to Obama is in fact reinforcing the insidious meme that there's some legitimacy behind the issues on which Schoen purports to want to advise. Boy, I thought, you have to give it to the right: they understand how communication works.

And then I came to a description of Schoen's background: in 1996, he was the campaign manager for Clinton/Gore in Tennessee and Kentucky. And I thought, "Holy shit, this guy is a *Democrat*!"

Look, if Schoen is working for McCain, his op-ed makes perfect sense. But if he actually thought his op-ed would help Obama... well, if this is the way Democrats with actual campaign experience are going to play it, the party is in serious trouble. Op-eds whose real impact is to legitimize right-wing talking points? Urging the candidate only to play "yes I am patriotic, no I'm not soft on crime, yes I do share your values, really, I do, please please please believe me" defense? By common sense alone you know that Schoen's purported course would be a disaster for Obama. But you don't need to rely on common sense: you can also see how well the Schoen model worked for Michael Dukakis and John Kerry.

If Obama were to glue a lapel pin to himself at this point, all it would do is prove that he'll buckle under a load of rightwing bullshit. And since the true purpose of all rightwing wedge attacks is to demonstrate that the Democratic candidate is spineless, weak, a sissy, a pansy, a loser, etc., more than anything else Schoen is advising Obama to show that he can be pushed around and prove the right's point thereby. At the risk of tremendous understatement: this is not good advice.

If he really wanted to help, Schoen should have advised Obama to counterattack. Values? Let's talk about how John McCain cheated on his wife, abandoned his family, and married a much younger heiress. Lapel pins? If John McCain were really patriotic, he would back Jim Webb's GI Bill and actually support our veterans. Jeremiah Wright? Why has McCain deliberately sought the support and endorsements of religious fanatics like John Hagee and Rod Parsley? Hamas supports Obama? You're swallowing enemy propaganda -- McCain wants another hundred years in Iraq, which the 2006 NIE called a bonanza of terrorist recruitment, so it's obvious who Hamas is really rooting for. Etc.

Ignoring rightwing freakshow attacks allows them to fester. Denying them legitimizes them and demonstrates weakness. Counterattacking turns the premises of the attacks around and puts the attackers on defense, while simultaneously demonstrating strength.

If Democrats haven't figured these fundamentals out by now, they're hopeless. Assuming Schoen isn't in fact working for McCain, his op-ed is not cause for encouragement.

Hamas Manipulates Republicans; Republicans Manipulate You

On Friday, I called John McCain the Manchurian Candidate because he and other Republicans are trying to tie Obama to Hamas even though Hamas and other Isamacist groups in fact support McCain. On cue, in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, Gabriel Schonenfeld, senior editor of Commentary, wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal called "Our Enemies and the Election." Schonenfeld makes the usual "Hamas says they like Obama" accusations. Then he goes on to claim that Hugo Chavez, the Iranian mullahs, and Kim Jung Il don't like McCain, and that this suggests "there is a growing pro-Obama/anti-McCain axis" among America's enemies.

It's hard to know what to make of the many Republicans who spout this nonsense. Are they really so stupid that they take terrorist statements at face value? Or are they deliberately using what is obviously enemy misinformation to deceive and manipulate American voters? Or is the explanation that they're so awed by their own playacting image of toughness that they're blind to what a substantive boon they've become to America's enemies?

Look, Venezuela's economy, and Hugo Chavez's power, is almost entirely dependent on the price of oil. Ditto Iran and the mullahs. President Bush has presided over an increase in the price of oil from about $23 a barrel in 2001 to an all-time high of $126 a barrel now. You don't think Chavez and the mullahs, who owe their continued power -- indeed, their continued survival -- to the price of oil don't thank President Bush every day for what he's done for them? John McCain (and Hillary Clinton, it should be noted) advocates the suspension of the federal gasoline tax, which would increase consumption and drive the price of oil even higher. Obama argues against this windfall wealth transfer from America to Chavez, the Mullahs, and their ilk. And people like Schonenfeld think Chavez and the mullahs are rooting for *Obama*?

If there's one thing that characterizes the modern Republican party (besides secret lawmaking, warrantless surveillance, advocacy of torture, and abrogation of the Fourth Amendment), it's an obsession with appearances and a corresponding blindness to facts. McCain vows to be "Hama's worst nightmare," and for the Schonenfelds of the world, this swaggering boast (which would consist of what, exactly?) trumps -- indeed, eclipses -- McCain's actual promise to fund oil powers like Chavez and the mullahs with additional U.S. billions. In other contexts, we would call this mentality "magical thinking."

Whether they're stupid, lying, or in denial, the self-interested purveyors of Hamas propaganda desperately need a turn out of power to have a shot at returning to principle, to reality, even to sanity. If you're a principled Republican, and you care about the party and your country, do the right thing in November: vote Democratic.

McCain the Manchurian Candidate

John McCain was at it again today, suggesting that Americans shouldn't vote for Obama because a Hamas spokesman spoke well of McCain's opponent. As a McCain fundraising email put it recently:

Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders. Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Hamas Prime Minister said, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America."

We need change in America, but not the kind of change that wins kind words from Hamas, surrenders in Iraq and will hold unconditional talks with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

Yes, McCain is being rightly condemned for trying to smear Obama by suggesting he's tied to a terrorist organization. What's been ignored, though, is something much worse: whether out of cynicism, stupidity, or moral obtuseness, John McCain claims to believe that Americans should base their political decisions on the opinions of terrorists. What difference does it make whether McCain says, "We should do what they don't want" or "We should do what they want?" Either way, he proposes that Americans surrender our own judgment in favor of that of Hamas. If McCain were a Democrat, Republicans would be calling him The Manchurian Candidate.

It would be easier to dismiss as crass cynicism McCain's repeated attempts to enlist Hamas's assistance if McCain's brand of "What would Osama do?" weren't so widespread in today's Republican party. Michelle Malkin wants to know which terrorists support which Democratic candidate (Translation: "Don't make up your own mind; ask the FALN!"). GOP Congressman Steve King objects to Obama's candidacy because, he claims, "The radical Islamists, the al-Qaida … would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror" (Translation: "What more do you need to decide other than what I think would make AQ happy!") King goes on to argue that Obama's "middle name does matter. It matters because they read a meaning into that" (Translation: "It's not up to us to decide whether something matters. That's up to Osama bin Laden!") (And by the way, any time someone builds his whole argument on a cliche like "dancing in the streets," he's either exceptionally unimaginative or he's bullshitting you. Or both).

Perhaps worst of all are the people who argue that we need to torture because al Qaeda does even worse things (sorry, aggressively question, or harshly interrogate... and not suspects, if they're in custody it means they're actually terrorists... sheesh, if you really think we should torture prisoners, why not just come on out and make an argument in favor? Why all the flim-flam and doubletalk? What are torture proponents so afraid of? But I digress...). Maybe we could call this the "We're Good Because Al Qaeda is Worse" defense? Or the "Al Qaeda Gave Us Permission" defense?

Look, is the theory that we don't torture only because our enemies don't? Or should it be that we don't torture because we're Americans? As an American, I'd rather develop my own moral code, rather than basing it on what, say, al Qaeda does or doesn't do. But as you can tell from the recent statements of McCain and other Republican politicians and commentators, the notion that Americans should make own own political, tactical, and moral decisions without reference to how terrorists behave or what they claim to believe has become an alien notion.

The really hilarious part of all this is that the same Republicans who think terrorists are so diabolically clever that they can blink code to each other even after three years in captivity believe these same diabolically clever terrorists are unable to grasp the most rudimentary elements of reverse psychology. I mean, what if... going out on a limb here... the code blinkers were just sophisticated enough to figure out the Republican mindset, and run a psyops campaign accordingly? Something like:

Terrorist #1: Did you catch the latest US National Intelligence Estimate? It says the war in Iraq is breeding more terrorists. You think the infidels are catching on to us?

Terrorist #2: Nah, they're not that smart. Look at how Osama was able to provoke them into this massive terrorist-creating enterprise in the first place. More terrorists than ever, America trillions of dollar in debt, the US military nearly broken, Afghanistan falling back into our hands, North Korea going nuclear while American was distracted, the dollar collapsing, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo... the Iraq war is the best thing that ever happened to us.

Terrorist #1: So you think they might elect McCain this year? He says it would be fine with him to keep the infidel armies in Iraq for 100 years. That would be great for us.

Terrorist #2: Sadly, I don't think it looks good for McCain. Polls show 76% of Americans want a candidate different from Bush.

Terrorist #1: So what can we do?

Terrorist #2: Well, Republicans aren't very good at thinking for themselves. They say they torture because we torture. And whatever we say we like, they say they want the opposite.

Terrorist #1: So...

Terrorist #2: Exactly. Get that Hamas guy to say we like Obama. McCain will pick it up and run with it, and use it to get other dim Americans to vote against Obama. Then we can have that third Bush term, and Americans will be in Iraq for 100 years. Our ranks will continually swell.

Terrorist #1: Allahu Akhbar!

Nah, terrorists could never come up with something like that. And when Rush Limbaugh tells his listeners to join Operation Chaos and vote for Hillary, it means he really supports her, too.

So who's really the party of Hamas and al Qaeda? Who are the real terrorist tools?