The second State Department memorandum rejected this approach, however. It insisted there “must be no doubt who has international executive authority in Iraq,” namely a U.S. led “Transitional Civil Authority.” Although in Afghanistan the rapid transfer of power to Afghans “external” to that country had worked reasonably well, Armitage took the position that this approach would not work in Iraq where, he argued, the “balance” of “real leadership” was “weighted much more to the inside.” In essence Armitage and others in the State Department believed that the Iraqi “externals,” and particularly Ahmad Chalabi, lacked credibility with Iraqis.

Thus, Armitage favored a “multi-year transitional period” during which the U.S. would run the country while “internals” would develop their credibility. Armitage advocated this despite his understanding, expressed in the first memo, that multiple years of a U.S. dominated government would breed instability and terrorism.

Given these probable consequences, which turned out to be all too real, Armitage’s position makes sense only if an Iraqi government dominated by “externals” was likely to be disastrous. This seems to have been Armitage’s view, but on what was it based? He and others in the State Department believed that “externals” like Chalabi lacked credibility with the Iraqi people, but, again, how did they know this? The U.S. had precious little reliable intelligence about Iraq, and there certainly were no public opinion polls regarding popular sentiment there. Moreover, common sense suggests that the credibility of any post-invasion Iraqi government would be a function less of a priori assumptions than on performance. A government that could deliver basic services, get the economy going, and provide basic security would likely be credible enough. And Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had stipulated that the amount of power granted to an Iraqi government would depend on its performance of those duties initially turned over to it.

In short, the State Department’s position against turning power over to Iraqis, and in favor of a heavy-handed occupation laden with adverse consequences of which State was well aware, seems misguided and arguably irrational. It is best explained, perhaps, by reference to the view of Chalabi held by certain Arab states whose preferences have been known to carry weight at Foggy Bottom. To these states, Chalabi was a menace, but not because he lacked “credibility” with Iraqi, and not because he lacked competence. To the contrary, the problem with the charismatic, dynamic Chalabi from their perspective was (a) his pro-Arab democracy stance and (b) his Shiite religion.

One can understand why this might alarm certain Sunni Arab dictators. Why it should have alarmed the State Department and/or why the Department failed to distinguish the interests of these dictators from our own (and from those of the Iraqis) is less clear.

As Feith recounts in his book, L. Paul Bremer ultimately implemented the State Department’s vision for post-invasion Iraq even though President Bush had signed off on Rumsfeld’s plan. Bremer would later write: “What would have happened if the U.S. government had turned over Iraq to the exiles in May, as some in Washington had wanted?” As Feith notes, Bremer “misses the point that the individuals he disparages. . .are the very same Iraqis to whom he eventually turned over the government.” The case can be made that all Bremer and Armitage achieved by delaying the turnover was the instability and terrorism Armitage himself had predicted would likely result from U.S. domination of the post-invasion government.

I'm hardly in a position to answer with confidence, but I think the answer has to do with gutlessness. In this account, Edwards feared that if he endorsed Obama only to see him routed among low income and rural white voters (the voters the former North Carolina Senator sees as his natural constituency), Edwards would look bad. After last night's version of that rout in West Virginia, Edwards probably figures Obama has hit bottom among this cohort. Thus, the endorsement is embarrassment proof.

Most of the MSM would like Obama to have that easy ride. This too is natural. The MSM is ideologically in tune with Obama, and dislikes Republicans to boot.

It is no surprise, then, that Newsweek, an organ that fits the above description more closely than most, has joined the presumptive nominee in attempting to delegitimize criticism of his leftist record and radical associations. Newsweek does so, in key part, through the following claim:

The Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968.

This proposition is an article of faith among partisan Democrats and their pals in the MSM. The easy response is that it is the Democrats themselves who have often scared voters. But let's attempt what Newsweek eschews and actually analyze the concept of "the politics of fear" in the context of the last 40 years.

At one level, both parties try to scare voters, and properly so. When Obama suggests that McCain will keep the U.S. fighting in Iraq for 100 years, he's playing off of voter fear about fighting in Iraq for 100 years. This particular instance of "the politics of fear" is based on a lie; McCain never advocated fighting in Iraq for 100. But if Obama were to say that McCain would keep the U.S. in Iraq too long (meaning longer than he, Obama, would) that would be a justified instance of playing on voter fear. So too if McCain argues that Obama will raise taxes. This charge plays to voter fear of paying higher taxes.

When do such "scare tactics" become objectionable? First, when they are dishonest, as with Obama's claim that McCain would keep us fighting in Iraq for 100 years. But the problem here isn't playing to voter fears, it's dishonesty.

The second case of objectionable scare tactics occurs when the fears invoked are illegitimate ones. But the question-begging nature of this objection is obvious, though Newsweek refuses to recognize it: part of what the parties disagree about is what constitutes a legitimate fear. Should voters be afraid of a government takeover of the health care system? Most Republicans traditionally have said yes; most Democrats have said no. Should voters be afraid of keeping open the option of a preemptive attack on Iran? Many more Democrats than Republicans say yes.

Clearly, though, there are some fears that nearly everyone agrees are illegitimate. Of particular relevance to this election is fear (to the extent it exists) of having an African-American president.

Newsweek wants its readers to believe that the Republicans have been scaring voters through the invocation of race since 1968. It thus recalls that Richard Nixon built a Silent Majority partly with voters "frightened or disturbed by blacks rioting in the inner cities." Newsweek declines to explain why race-riots (an all-to-common phenomenon in our cities back then) were an illegitimate source of concern and/or fear.

The Nixon campaign was 40 years ago. What have Republicans done to scare voters about race since. Newsweek mentions the Willie Horton ad from 1988, which criticized Gov. Dukakis for releasing Horton (an African-American) from prison for the weekend, during which Horton committed gruesome crimes. We've written about this several times. Among the key points are that (1) Al Gore had first raised the issue against Dukakis during the primary season and (2) the issue was a legitimate one -- Dukakis had one of the most liberal prisoner release programs in America and it directly produced the horrors described in the advertisement. Most Americans reasonably view crime, and the treatment of hardened criminals, as a legitimate issue. Indeed, the same underlying issue was raised against Mike Huckabee this year during the Republican primaries, this time in the case of a white prisoner released during Huckabee's administration who later committed murder.

Newsweek also refers to Jesse Helms' campaign. It ran an ad showing a white man receiving a rejection letter for a job he had sought. In the ad, the white man was rejected in favor of an African-American pursuant to a race-based hiring preference. The fear raised by this ad was entirely legitimate. Helms' opponent favored race-based preferences, and such preferences mean, by definition, that some whites will be rejected due to their race for jobs they otherwise would have received. Newsweek, like liberals everywhere, wants the social engineering programs they favor -- racial preferences, prison release programs, etc. -- to be assessed based on the intentions behind them, not their real world effects. But it should not be off-limits to point to these effects.

Inevitably, Newsweek mentions the Swiftvet ads from 2004. Not only did these ads have nothing to do with race, they had nothing to do with fear. The Vietnam War had been lost years earlier, and the criticism of Kerry was thus backward looking, just as criticism over President Bush's service was. In Kerry's case the issue was did he make false claims of heroism, and after leaving Vietnam did he slander U.S. forces and engage in improper conduct to help cause our defeat. The issue, then, was character. Although that's a subject for another day, Kerry ran as a war hero "reporting for duty," which makes it difficult to understand why the matters raised by the Swiftvets should have been off-limits. Moreover, many of their charges, including those relating to Kerry's conduct after his return from Vietnam, are indisputably true.

Uppermost in Newsweek's mind is concern about the role Obama's association with Wright will play this year. I'll discuss Newsweek's specific efforts to rule this discussion out-of-bounds in a subsequent post.

Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, this speech may prove highly useful. If Senator McCain loses the election to Senator Obama, we can return to it for consolation.

UPDATE: Holman Jenkins has a good column on Senator McCain's speech in today's Wall Street Journal. Jenkins writes:

In his climate speech on Monday, Mr. McCain exhibited (as the press usually does) a complete lack of consciousness of the fact that evidence of warming is not evidence of what causes warming. Yet policy must be a matter of costs and benefits, adjusted for the uncertainties involved. Which brings us to today's irony: He who finds a six-figure earmark an affront to humanity is prepared to wave through a trillion-dollar climate bill without, as far as anyone can tell, a single systematic thought about costs and benefits.

[E]very journalistic tendril senses that the fuss over warming is about to cool. Global mean temperatures have been flat for a decade. The biofuel folly has chased away any easy belief that we can centrally plan our way out of reliance on fossil fuels. Voters seem more concerned with high gas prices. Even the town criers of global warming acknowledge that we will be stuck adapting to whatever climate comes along.

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As in all of these recent Republican defeats, analysts will be able to point to factors unique to the particular race. But my takeaway is that the Republican brand is in such bad shape that the Dems can win virtually anywhere if they nominate a candidate whose position on key issues is, or can be made to seem, close to that of the Republican.

Fortunately, the Democrats will not nominate such a candidate for president. And the Republican nominee, whether we feel comfortable about it or not, isn't necessarily seen as intimately associated with the Republican brand. Even so, I think that Republican nominee is running uphill.

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This effort to undermine Lebanon’s elected government needs to stop, and all those who have influence with Hezbollah must press them to stand down immediately. . . It’s time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment.

Obama may well fail to comprehend the first point and believe the second, just as naive leftists of an earlier generation thought that Ho Chi Minh was, at root, an agrarian reformer. In any case, Pollak is correct that "Obama is rhetorically cornered; since his only prescription for the Middle East is diplomatic engagement, every disease gets re-diagnosed as something curable through talking."

No wonder he's Hamas's man.

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Nonetheless, the margin in the West Virginia primary suggests real resistance to Obama among Democrats in that state. Now, Obama doesn't need to win West Virginia in November any more than he needs to win Kentucky, where he's scheduled to be trounced next week. But there are many Democratic voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania who fit the West Virginia and/or Kentucky profile. Obama may need to do reasonably well with such voters to carry these two crucial states.

Democratic superdelegates probably believe the risk that Obama won't do well enough with white rural and working class voters to win in Pennsylvania and Ohio is smaller than the risk that a great many black voters will stay at home if the Democrats nominate Clinton. These superdelegates may be right. But that doesn't mean the risk associated with nominating Obama isn't quite real.

UPDATE: In the end, Clinton's lead approached 40 percent. The analysis remains the same only more so.

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Al Jazeera reports on one precinct that can safely be chalked up to Barack Obama. Hint: It's in close proximity to the state of Israel. Al Jazeera apparently hasn't gotten the memo that this kind of report has been ruled off-limits in the United States.

The most important issue, currently, is the economy, where the Dems enjoy a 14-point margin. What's odd about this is that the Democrats' actual policies are not preferred by many of these same respondents. Rasmussen also reports that 60% of likely voters say that tax increases will hurt the economy. Interestingly, this sentiment is strongest among young voters, 70% of whom think tax increases will damage the economy. Presumably a large majority of voters realize that the Democrats are yearning to raise taxes, so it is hard to reconcile this finding with respondents' expressed preference for Democrats on this issue.

While I can't support the proposition with poll data, I'm pretty sure the same principle would hold with regard to national security and terrorism, where the Democrats now hold an advantage. I'm confident that most voters, if you laid out the parties' approaches on this issue and asked which they prefer, would choose Republican policies, i.e., security through strength rather than security through conversation.

So, what is going on here? I think it's noteworthy that Rasmussen finds that the Dems' generic advantage on the issues does not carry over to the Presidential race:

While voters tend to prefer Democrats over Republicans on a generic basis, John McCain consistently outperforms the GOP brand. In fact, polling shows that he is trusted more than either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton on key issues such as the economy and national security.

It isn't news that McCain outpolls the Republican brand, but why? The reasons are complex, but I would offer this partial explanation: in the American media, which is to say American public life, Republicans are a despised group, much like used car salesmen, Congressmen, lawyers, or, in former times, certain ethnic and religious minorities. Anyone who watches NBC, CBS, ABC, MTV, CNN, MSNBC, or almost any other television outlet, or who reads the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, or virtually any other daily newspaper, or who reads Time or Newsweek, is exposed to a steady diet of Republican-caricaturing and Republican-bashing. We have had partisan media in this country before, but I don't believe we have ever experienced such a unanimously one-party media at any time in our history.

Americans are certainly influenced by this barrage, but there is a silver lining of sorts. People who subscribe to stereotypes have long been willing to make exceptions based on their own observation and experience. Thus: most Congressmen are crooks, but mine is a good guy; most lawyers are shysters, but mine is honest; most [fill in the blank] are no good, but my friend/nanny/gardener/doctor/employee is a good person.

I think this phenomenon partly explains why McCain outruns the party's brand, and why just about any specific Republican whom the public gets to know will do so--albeit, most likely, to a lesser degree than McCain. That's the good news. The bad news is that all Republicans, from the Presidential nominee on down, are running against a headwind that is approaching hurricane force.

Which brings us back to the weird reality that a great many Americans who know that raising taxes is a bad idea are poised to vote for the party that intends to do just that. The title of this post is not ironic; consistency is not required of voters, and it appears that lots of Americans are willing to turn the reins of power over to the Democrats even though they know that the Democrats' ideas and policies are bad.

The complainants alleged that Maclean's committed actionable hate speech when it published an excerpt of Steyn's America Alone. The commission found Steyn guilty of Islamaphobia, but dismissed the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. Its decision is accessible here. I'm not sure that even Steyn himself could have conjured a more absurd outcome.

During his interview at the outset of the show, Steyn challenged the complainants to debate him on the air. The complainants demand 15 minutes alone with Paikin, and then Steyn is brought in from the wings to save the show, a sort of Steyn ex machina. There follows an instructive discussion bearing on the fate of free speech up against determined opponents seeking in the best Orwellian style to exploit the language of human rights superimposed on the legal machinery of the administrative state.

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Generally unremarked, however, was what Obama actually said about Hamas. Here is the key exchange:

JG: Why do you think Ahmed Yousef of Hamas said what he said about you?

BO: My position on Hamas is indistinguishable from the position of Hillary Clinton or John McCain. I said they are a terrorist organization and I’ve repeatedly condemned them. I’ve repeatedly said, and I mean what I say: since they are a terrorist organization, we should not be dealing with them until they recognize Israel, renounce terrorism, and abide by previous agreements.

JG: Were you flummoxed by it?

BO: I wasn’t flummoxed. I think what is going on there is the same reason why there are some suspicions of me in the Jewish community. Look, we don’t do nuance well in politics and especially don’t do it well on Middle East policy. We look at things as black and white, and not gray. It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,” and that’s something they’re hopeful about.

Note how senseless Obama's response is. He is asked specifically about Hamas's endorsement of him. He responds that he "wasn't flummoxed" because he can understand that "there are those in the Arab world" who may like him because of his experiences in Indonesia, his Muslim middle name, the fact that he is "worldly" and "has called for talks" and won't engage in "cowboy diplomacy" like George Bush.

But Obama wasn't asked about some hypothetical Arab-in-the-street. He was asked specifically about Hamas. Does Obama seriously believe that Hamas endorses his candidacy because he is "worldly," has a Muslim middle name and won't be a "cowboy?" If so, he is even more out of touch with reality than we thought. If not, he completely ducked the interviewer's question (not that the interviewer, another Obama fan, noticed) and has yet to explain why he thinks Islamic terrorists want him to win.

As noted above, this obvious omission hasn't prevented liberal columnists from leaping to Obama's defense and denouncing John McCain for mentioning the Hamas endorsement. One of the silliest such columns was by Richard Cohen in the Washington Post. You can catch Cohen's drift from the title of his piece: "McCain in the Mud." Cohen writes:

[McCain's] campaign has sent out an e-mail showing how guilt by association really works. "Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders," it said. The message went on to claim that Obama's foreign policy positions have earned him "kind words" from Hamas.

Never mind that this was the sort of campaigning that McCain vowed to eschew. More to the point is what McCain said in his own defense. Not only was Yousef's praise of Obama "a legitimate point of discussion," he said, but everyone should understand that McCain himself will be "Hamas's worst nightmare." This aspect of McCain is my worst nightmare.

Before explaining why McCain is wrong, however, Cohen turned to a more pressing subject--no kidding--McCain's age! This detour seems to have distracted Cohen, as he never did get around to explaining why voters should be unconcerned about Hamas's support of Obama. Instead, he threw up his hands and confessed that he himself has no idea what to do about Hamas, or about terrorism in general:

When McCain says that he would be Hamas's worst nightmare, what in the world is he talking about? Almost on a daily basis, Hamas launches rockets into southern Israel, occasionally killing some poor soul. The latest victim was a woman of about 70 who was killed yesterday. Israel usually retaliates, and Palestinians -- some of them just as innocent as the Israeli victim -- are killed. You would think that Israel would be Hamas's worst nightmare, but aside from the occasional -- and fruitless -- retaliatory raid, it cannot figure out how to stop Hamas's deadly activities. What would McCain do that Israel has not? *** I hate to say it, but Yousef has a point. The Middle East desperately needs supple minds that are not mired in the past. I look at Gaza and don't know what to do. I have supported Israel in its policies there, but I have to admit that nothing has been gained from the non-recognition of Hamas. War doesn't work. Isolation doesn't work. For Israel, leaving Gaza didn't work, and, surely, McCain's threat to Hamas will not give it a headache -- a belly laugh is more like it.

So apparently the situation is hopeless, and Hamas "has a point." Cohen, fortunately, is not running for President. Barack Obama is, and voters will rightly be concerned that our most vicious enemies, whose minds may or may not be "supple," are rooting for him to win.

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Today, Israel remains the region's only democracy, replete with a resoundingly free press and an independent judiciary. It is the only country in the region where Arab women have the right to vote. In 60 years, Israelis have created a modern nation-state, absorbing millions of immigrants, building prestigious educational institutions and making great advances in agriculture, medicine and technology that have helped the world. This has been accomplished in what can only be called a challenging environment.

Efraim Karsh has been something of a one-man truth squad rebutting the mythical Arab and Israeli anti-Zionist accounts of Israel's founding. His work on the subject goes back to his book Fabricating Israeli History and related essays such as "Rewriting Israel's history." Among his most recent writings on the subject are "The 60-year war for Israel's history" and "The fight over '1948.'"

The current issue of Commentary features Karsh's new essay reflecting archival research in London, Jeruslaem, and elsewhere with newly declassified documents from the British Mandate and Israel's early days. If truth had anything to do with it, Karsh's new essay on the events of 1948 would put an end to the notion that Israel intended or acted to displace the Palestinian Arab population. The Commentary site has just posted an enhanced Web-only version of Karsh's essay as "1948, Israel and the Palestinians: Annotated text." Its opening paragraphs address Fedwa Wazwaz and her ilk:

Sixty years after its establishment by an internationally recognized act of self-determination, Israel remains the only state in the world that is subjected to a constant outpouring of the most outlandish conspiracy theories and blood libels; whose policies and actions are obsessively condemned by the international community; and whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged not only by its Arab enemies but by segments of advanced opinion in the West.

During the past decade or so, the actual elimination of the Jewish state has become a cause célèbre among many of these educated Westerners. The “one-state solution,” as it is called, is a euphemistic formula proposing the replacement of Israel by a state, theoretically comprising the whole of historic Palestine, in which Jews will be reduced to the status of a permanent minority. Only this, it is said, can expiate the “original sin” of Israel’s founding, an act built (in the words of one critic) “on the ruins of Arab Palestine” and achieved through the deliberate and aggressive dispossession of its native population.

This claim of premeditated dispossession and the consequent creation of the longstanding Palestinian “refugee problem” forms, indeed, the central plank in the bill of particulars pressed by Israel’s alleged victims and their Western supporters.

The recent declassification of millions of documents from the period of the British Mandate (1920-1948) and Israel’s early days, documents untapped by earlier generations of writers and ignored or distorted by the “new historians,” paint a much more definitive picture of the historical record. They reveal that the claim of dispossession is not only completely unfounded but the inverse of the truth.

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It sounds like—and it is—an unfair situation; not only unfair, but legally actionable; Mr. Donahoe has brought suit to correct the dilution of his influence; to undo Craigslist’s consolidation of power. Moreover one must confess that the decision by Craigslist executives to shutter outside influence is also bad for the company, which makes it bad for Craigslist shareholders. John Donahoe, understanding all of this, is calling a foul.

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