Honorable Men.

So. I went to see Shakespeare's Julius Caesar today, and I still marvel at how Shakespeare still speaks to me from a distance of 400 years.

I was struck by Marc Antony's funeral oration:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

This reminded me of Grim's post here

Yes, Senator Reid and Senator Durbin and Colonel Gardiner are honorable men. And the wicked may be blasted. But what else may get blasted along the way?

City of Light(ing cars on fire).
(yeah, I stole that).

ANYWAY, it seems incredible that there has been 8 straight days of rioting, violence and property destruction in Paris' suburbs and nobody has managed to get themselves killed yet.

The French can't even stage a race riot correctly.

UPDATE:

Austin Bay comments on the subject.

I can't see how the French are going to get themselves out of this one.

UPDATE 2:

Tim Blair weighs in.

And the Belmont Club.

And the Religious Policeman thinks he knows who started it all.

UPDATE 3:

Chiraq finally notices the smell of burning cars. (hat tip: Instapundit).

Trip

Out of Pocket:

Not sure how much I'll be able to post while out of town. I trust that Daniel, Eric and Joel will fill the empty space if their own schedules permit. Otherwise, feel free to use the comments section to this post to argue about whatever you like. :)

See you Monday, if not before.

Alito

Alito & Spousal Notification:

The nomination of Alito has been a good thing for the country, if only so we could have this debate. The question is, "We've come to something of a settlement on a woman's rights. Now, what rights does a father deserve, and how do we balance the two?" The de facto answer is that we don't: the father's sole reproductive right is to keep his pants on. After that, the woman alone has the choices.

This answer has been reached because of two separate strains of American thought. The feminist strain is well understood. But there is a masculine approach here as well, of which I've been a long-term member, which holds that men have duties and ought to be bound by honor. The sentiment is conveyed by John Wayne's character in Rio Grande, speaking of his son's enlistment in the cavalry: "He must learn that a man's word to anything, even his own destruction, is his honor."

The de facto answer is the cross-roads of those two modes of thinking. The feminists insist that abortion be seen as a medical procedure that is the woman's business and no one else's. The child has no rights that ought to bind her, because the advocates for the woman's position in our law insist on that point. The masculine understanding, however, holds that the man's rights are overwhelmed by his responsibility for the child. The men who have ruled the discussion, men like me, feel that fathering a child is an awesome duty and one that ought to bind you. The compromise position gives both sides what they want: the leading thinkers of the women's position have demanded freedom for women; the leading thinkers among men have demanded responsibility for men.

So here we are. Yet the compromise is not tenable.

Consider the comment thread here, in which the conflict is laid bare by one of the blogosphere's greats, Allah himself. The death of Allah's blog remains a subject of lamentation, but it's good to see him still active. [UPDATE: Slight editing change to update links, Aug 2008.] The key quote that he gets out of Lauren of Feministe.us is this:

I’m obviously no legal scholar, but it seems to be that Alito has to decide between being a good judge and upholding crappy laws. Personally, I’m not so much for judicial means (problematic, I know) as long as it reaches a satisfactory end.

This is, of course, exactly what is meant by "judicial activism" -- the notion that the function of the judiciary is to strike down laws that are unpleasant, or undesirable, rather than unConstitutional. That is the real debate which we need to have, and it is one that has come directly to the fore here.

The fact is that the feminist and masculine reasoning on abortion is not compatible. We have reached a compromise that has lasted this long because the feminists were primarily interested in the effect of laws on women, and the men have primarily been interested in the duties of men. A compromise arose that gave each side what it wanted.

That cannot last. The same focus on duty that underlies the masculine position is horrified by this idea of the judiciary. The duty of the judiciary is to uphold, not make, the law. It is to judge constitutionality in order to preserve the Constitution, not to advance any other agenda. A political force that seeks judges who will advance their agenda in defiance of that duty is not acceptable. It does not matter if they are otherwise right, or otherwise wrong. The debate is pointless. They are demanding a class of public servant who will consider it proper to ignore core duties.

Nothing could be more unhealthy, or less likely to produce good government.

2 More

Two More Men to Admire:

Be sure to read both of these stories, which will inspire you. This is the kind of man America ought to produce.

The first story, via the Nation of Riflemen, is that of Walter Swita, a WWII vet who used his captured German Luger last week. He was defending his home against an intruder who had attacked and robbed him previously, and returned to rob his house:

“Watch out for the blood on the rug,” Swita, 83, said as he welcomed a reporter into the living room of his South Avenue home Monday. “That’s his blood. I hit my head on the TV stand when we fell.”

...

Swita, “shaking like a leaf,” said he sat down to call 911 to report the shooting. The call taker asked if the man who’d been shot was breathing. Swita said he told her he didn’t care.

He assumed the intruder would die because of the shot to the head. He doesn’t expect to be charged with any crime, reasoning that he just defended himself in his own home.

“Was I scared? You bet, both times, whoof!” Swita said, exhaling as he recalled the frightening encounters. “You don’t know what they’ll do to you. A witness said there were two [other] guys waiting on the sidewalk and they ran when they heard the shots.”

That goes to show you that, even at 83 years of age, you can still defend yourself and your home. All you need is the discipline and the tools.

The second story is from Southern Appeal, and speaks for itself.

For 40 exhausting minutes, Wayne Goldsberry battled a buck with his bare hands in his daughter's bedroom.

Goldsberry finally subdued the five-point whitetail deer that crashed through a bedroom window at his daughter's home Friday. When it was over, blood splattered the walls and the deer lay dead on the bedroom floor, its neck broken.

OOH-rah.

Zell/Plame

Zell Miller on Plame:

Former Senator, Governor, and Sergeant of Marines Zell Miller has written a piece on the Plame business. Zell thinks it was Plame and Wilson who decided to attempt to use her position at CIA to influence a domestic election.

It sounds unbelievable, a fiction, perhaps to be called "To Sting a King." But it is no fiction. This is the story behind Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson and the Bush administration. And it appears that Plame and Wilson will get away with the biggest sting operation ever.

No one seems to care that our intelligence agency has crippled our president. Certainly not the media. They are determined to make Wilson a hero. Recall the dozens of times the Washington Post and The New York Times carried his lies on the front page, above the fold. The conclusive story discrediting Wilson was buried 6 feet deep, back by the obituaries.

To the media, it doesn't matter that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence says Wilson lied about what he did and with whom he met while investigating Iraqi attempts to purchase "yellowcake" uranium.

To the media, it doesn't matter that the CIA says what Wilson did actually find supported that Iraq was attempting to buy the uranium — a direct contradiction to Wilson's public claims.

So far, that's my read on the situation as well. Maybe that's just how it looks to folks from the North Georgia mountains. Still, Zell was there in the Senate while this report was being generated. Maybe it's not surprising that he and I tend to see it the same way, as we come from the same part of the country and the same political tradition. All the same, I'm glad to hear him come to the same conclusions independently.

UPDATE: On the other hand, another man I respect comes to the conclusion I've been suggesting we avoid. In a piece called "The Secret Third Party," Froggy puts it this way:

I’m not talking about the Libertarians or the Greens; I’m talking about the CIA party. Partisans in the CIA and the State Department are waging a political battle against the President of the United States while at the same time providing much of the information the President needs to make foreign policy decisions. Have you ever wondered why the White House is so shy about touting the many successes in the Global War on Terror? Me too. The reason is that many bureaucrats at Langley seem to think that they are entitled to set the direction of US foreign policy instead of Chimpy Bushitlerburton the duly elected Commander in Chief and they are not afraid to leak damaging or even false information to make that happen.

Zell Miller has a very interesting piece (h/t Sean) out in the Atlanta Journal Constitution in which he quite convincingly postulates that this entire Niger/yellowcake kerfuffle was the result of a premeditated “sting operation” conducted by Valerie Plame using her husband Joe “Politics of Truth” Wilson as an unaccountable proxy to mischaracterize the situation in Niger publicly in an effort to influence the 2004 election. Unfortunately for the Wilsons, the British Butler Report and the Senate Intelligence Phase One Report on Pre-War Intelligence strongly rebuked their efforts. But a predictably complicit media made things interesting last November and has never stopped carrying the torch for the CIA and the Wilsons. Let’s not forget that George Tenet told the President two weeks before the War that Saddam’s possession of WMD was a “slam dunk”, and yet he allowed an active employee publish a book highly critical of the President’s decisions in the GWOT anonymously in the run up to his re-election campaign.

So, is there a wider conspiracy at CIA to influence American politics -- a 'secret third party'? The case of "Anonymous," which Froggy cites, is a useful way to examine the question.

Anonymous' real name is Michael Scheuer. He appeared recently at Grim's Hall, because of a skit he performed for the Air Force Association. He and Wilson are alike in exactly one way: both used their work for CIA as the basis for activity that was critical of the administration during an election cycle. Beyond that, the differences between them are more important and telling.

Wilson went and published a piece in the New York Times that was at variance with his report to CIA. He somehow -- I agree that exactly how is a question we'd benefit from having answered -- managed to avoid CIA secrecy regulations and agreements. Scheuer submitted himself to agency rules, requested permission for his book, and accepted Agency edits.

Wilson spread a series of flat untruths into the media to try and create a false impression among Americans. Scheuer fundamentally believes everything he has written, and is making an argument to the American people. I happen to believe it is wrong, but it is an honest argument.

Wilson, both before and since, has been an activist. His purpose has always been political. Scheuer, since leaving CIA, has been trying to help the military understand his position. His main purpose is not political change, but improving the GWOT according to his best understanding. As I said in the piece on his AFA skit, I think his central mistake is not realizing how well informed and educated the military actually is already. Still, while he reads disagreement as ignorance, his response is to try and educate. He may be a jackass, but he's an honest jackass who is trying to help America's war effort. Wilson is, as he has always been, trying to destabilize it.

I don't have a problem with people like Scheuer. I think they're wrong, but I respect their work and am willing to consider their arguments -- even if I reject the largest parts of it, as I did with his AFA argument.

If the CIA is full of people like Scheuer, it's a problem, but it's a problem only because it limits intellectual diversity at the Agency. It contributes to the groupthink and stovepiping that were the core problems uncovered in the Senate Select Committee report. It's not a problem because of the fact that they sometimes come to the wrong conclusions, or because they are operating from the wrong premises. Having people who think about these issues differently is a strength, because even when they're wrong they compel those who are right to think their position through more carefully. Plus, no one is always wrong, just like no one is always right. The problem for CIA is a lack of competitive viewpoints, not the inclusion of Scheuer's viewpoint.

Even though my sense is that spies are essentially untrustworthy and dishonorable, I'm not ready to believe that CIA is engaged in a grand conspiracy against its own government. I think most of the people at CIA -- who are not spies but analysts and technicians -- are honest patriots, and that even among the spies there are some who are amoral patriots rather than immoral actors. The CIA, as Zell points out, has strong internal rules designed to control their spies.

For now, I'm not ready to accept that the CIA as an institution is involved in conspiracies. The example of Scheuer seems to me to suggest that even some with strong dislike for the administration and its policies behave honestly and honorably in their actions. Scheuer felt he needed to take an argument to America, out from beyond the wall of secrecy. Good -- we need people to feel they can do that, when they think it's really important. Secrecy is an enemy to the republican nature of the government, and it should be possible for the Agency's denizens to speak directly when they feel they really must. Scheuer submitted himself to the rules and controls. I disagree with him and his argument, but I don't think he did wrong by making that argument.

The case of Wilson, however, appears to be one of genuine bad-acting. How we resolve it will say a lot about how serious we're prepared to be where issues of this sort are concerned. The likelihood of a genuine conspiracy by intelligence officers in the future is greatly increased if the response to this kind of manipulation is muted. To prevent the monster Froggy draws from becoming a reality, we need to treat seriously with this business.

Redebate

Re-Debating the War:

Yesterday's closed session by the Honorable Mr. Reid and Durbin was certainly, as it has been described, a political stunt. Their ready-made statements for the press is one evidence of that; another is the fact that Reid himself occupies an ex officio seat on the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence by virtue of his position as Minority leader, and thus could have applied whatever pressure he felt was necessary from the inside. I think, as I said in the comments to Eric's post, that the point here is to cover the forthcoming surrender on Alito with a big nasty debate over the administration's alleged manipulation of pre-war intelligence related to Iraqi WMD.

You can't blame the Democratic Party leadership for this, as they have no alternative. The National Party must keep their base inflamed in order to maintain the level of political donations, which was for the first time last year on par with Republican donations. Yet they cannot win on Alito, because enough of the "Gang of 14" have already pledged to oppose a filibuster that using the filibuster would only result in its removal as a tool. Alito would still be approved, and in the case of future nominees, there would be no filibuster to fall back upon. Besides, Alito was approved unanimously in previous votes and, in spite of having participated in one notable dissent that will draw liberal fire, he has a balanced record on the law that is plainly not the mark of an extremist. Pulling out all the stops on a well-qualified, judicious candidate is not a winning strategy.

So it's to be the war again. We've already had the first of the Senate Select Committee reports, which examined the ways in which the intelligence community utterly failed to perform in the runup to the war. Now the pressure is on to complete and put out a second report, one that focuses on the administration's alleged manipulations. The hope must be to keep the Left fired up, and perhaps score a few points, by investigating the administration in a public way.

Good.

We will all benefit from such an investigation. It is certainly the Senate's job to perform one. Meanwhile, it may finally resolve questions that continue to dog this nation. Not all of these questions are coming from what we've been calling "bad actors," like Joe Wilson. I'm thinking, for example, of Colonel Sam Gardiner. Gardiner wrote a piece a while back called "Truth from these Podia," which alleged a number of manipulations of the domestic press coming out of the Pentagon.

Gardiner is, to judge from his past work at the War College and his publications, an intelligent and insightful man. He is also, to judge from TftP, a man who has entered into a kind of collective paranoia: in the introduction he reports that several parties to whom he showed his data before publishing it had promised him he 'would be punished.' Well, it's been a little while now, and as far as I can tell, he hasn't been: when he first put the thing out, he was supplementing his pension by giving interviews on US military policy to foreign media. These days, it seems he doesn't have to: he's been working with prominent US media, as well as fringe publications. Certainly, if he's suffered at all from an evil conspiracy, it's not immediately evident.

An investigation of this sort is just what he's been calling for, and I'll be glad to see it. I know quite a few people like Col. Gardiner: sharp, smart, patriotic people who have come to believe, for one reason and another, that America is in the grip of a band of evil liars. It is one thing for teenage anarchists to believe that, but quite another to find patriots believing it. We will benefit from exposing the whole business to the sunshine.

The "bad actors" won't be satisfied, of course; and those whose main interest is political will claim not to be, or will simply ignore the report when it arrives (as they have ignored the first one). We owe these people nothing, except contempt.

There remain also the honest patriots, though, who have become concerned for their nation. America owes its patriots an accounting. Those who have loved and believed in her, fought for her, and served her, they have a right to be heard by her. For the Colonel, then, and for others I have known like him, I will be glad to support the investigation. Doubtless it will bring a storm of political opportunism and nasty rhetoric. May the sunshine that comes in the wake of the storm, however, be bright enough to restore the faith of our patriots in this great nation.

Or -- if they are right, as seems highly unlikely but is not impossible -- may it blast the wicked. Either way, we shall be well served.

Travel

Travel:

I will be in St. Paul this weekend. While I have a busy schedule, I'd be glad to meet with any of the regulars, should it prove that any of you live in the area. Any readers in the area who would like to get together for a beer (or coffee, as you like), drop me an email.

The Democrats are not getting their monies' worth.

So, as Uncle Jumbo predicted, Aspersions are already being heaped on Judge Alito.

However, if this redstate.org post is correct, they didn't cover their tracks very well. Be sure to follow the links. (via Hugh Hewitt)

I just love the internet.

More commentary on this can be found at Captain's Quarters.

If the Democrats keep looking like fools like this, the judge is going to get confirmed. Probably without any real fight too.

Was Meiers really a head-fake? I begin to wonder.

V-IT

Project Valor-IT:

This got put off for quite a while following Katrina. Nevertheless, it was and remains an important charity. It seeks to purchase voice-activated computer technology for use at hospitals so that veterans, maimed by IEDs and other attacks, can remain connected with family in their hardest days. The folks at Fuzzilicious have started a fundraising challenge, here.

There's a USMC team. So, if you're inclined to make a contribution...

elite opinion

Two Elite Opinions:

As we know, elite opinion is very important on matters relating to the Supreme Court. Here, then, are the opinions of two of America's elite.

Former Navy SEAL Froggy says:

You know it’s a good nomination when all the right people are pissed off about it. Just like voting for the California initiatives, looking at the opponents is probably more revealing than looking at the supporters.... Slick move of the day goes to the President for having nominated a candidate from the home state and judicial circuit of Judicial Committee Chairman Specter. This puts the squishy pro-abortion Republican in the position of having to consider the ramifications of punching out a fellow Pennsylvanian while attempting to reconcile that conflict with his fawning NARAL buddies. Touche' Mr. President!

Former Special Forces blogger Uncle Jimbo says:

What we will get is a serious look at some of the most important issues of our times in the confirmation war. Abortion, gay marriage, racial preferences, all will be part of this discussion and that is needed. We have tap danced around them for too long. Let's get the cards on the table and see what the American people think about them. That is a side advantage of a confirmation fight, we get to air the most contentious issues and hear the opinions of the intelligentsia on both sides.

The biggest danger for Dems is not if he is confirmed, it is if they filibuster. That would be political suicide. The public is well in favor of an up or down vote and the Dems could really lose any chance they have of seeming reasonable, plus their least palatable members are about to lose their minds about this guy. That will spill over to anyone who gets out with them in shrill opposition to him. I expect to hear him called a racist, misogynist oppressor and all the money NARAL and the rest have banked will be spent smearing him in any number of vile ways.

Two for two, then.

xm8

Good Rifle News:

Looks like the XM8 may not make the cut after all. The Army has chosen to pull the solicitation in order to "reevaluate its priorites for small caliber weapons, and... incorporate emerging requirements[.]" Hopefully one of those requirements is a caliber in the .30 range.

Patton

Gotta Love Patton:

This month's issue of Equus has an article called "A Remarkable Rescue," which deals with General George S. Patton Jr.'s salvation of the Lipizzan stallion. The Red Army was advancing on Vienna, and had already captured one of two riding schools that still taught the old cavalry techniques on the Lipizzan breed. The Russians, understandably but tragically, slaughtered the rare horses for food. The Vienna school managed, in spite of war necessities, to secure space to ship their stallions westwards -- to surrender them to Patton.

Patton, it turns out, was not only a cavalryman but a former Olympic horseman. He was just the right man. The master of the school, Podhajsky, managed to win an audience to demonstrate the horses and their techniques to Patton on the last day before Germany's surrender. It's a great story, and worth the cover price if you happen to be interested in grabbing an issue.

The best part, though, is the photograph of Patton on the reviewing stand. All the other officers around him are wearing their side caps, but not Patton. He's standing right there wearing his mirror-polished combat helmet, like always. "Be always ready with your armor on," as Baden-Powell put it.

Things not to do w/ broken toe

Things You Can, and Can't, Do With a Broken Toe:

Yesterday I hiked six miles out the White Oak Canyon, up to a beautiful 86-foot waterfall. It's smallish by comparison to 729-foot Amicalola Falls, which I suggest to anyone, but a nice hike all the same. While I was out there, I climbed up a cliff face some hundred feet or so, just to amuse the three-year old who wanted to see me do it.

All that was through the miracle of duct tape, plus good quality boots.

Today, I decided to leave the tape off, and accidentally set my foot down slightly hard in the kitchen. The bones at once re-broke. $#%@#!

So: six-mile hike across broken ground, yes; climb cliff faces, yes; walk around the kitchen, apparently not. Apparently there's something rather important about immobilizing the fractured bone for a long period of time. Well, I'm to fly on Friday; we'll see what TSA has to say about it when I take off my shoes for the scanner.

"Is that duct tape?"

"Why, er... yes, yes it is."

England

Ode to England:

This ode, which is entitled "I Hate England," may be the most complimentary account of the English I have ever read. It ends poorly, as if the author hadn't realized what he'd said; but the first two-thirds is as fine an account of a genuinely noble people as you will find.

Alito

Alito:

Apparently it's time for the next go-round on the Supreme Court appointment. Most of us don't follow judges' careers, but the blogosphere includes quite a few people who do.

The boys at Southern Appeal have been talking about Alito all last week. They can provide you with a sense of what conservative lawyers think about the man, and what his history on the bench and resume provide. They had posts, from earliest to most recent, starting here, and then here, here (a personal anecdote), here, here, here (a cartoon), and here (a parody song). Overall, the mood appears to be one of joy.

SCOTUSblog provides the view from the left, which is respectful of the man's accomplishments but concerned about his philosophy.

Bush, a President who has refused repeatedly to govern from the center, maintained that approach in selecting a judge who is well known as a committed conservative.

Liberal observers of the Court immediately pointed to a handful of Judge Alito's opinions on the Third Circuit as indications of just how conservative they expect him to be. Among those cited, for example, by americanprogress.org were these: 1991, supporting abortion restrictions, in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that later went to the Supreme Court and led to the partial reaffirmation of Roe v. Wade; in 1997, in Bray v. Marriott Hotels, seeming to endorse a limited view of minorities' job rights; in 1991, in Nathanson v. Medical College, appearing to embrace tougher standard for asserting disability rights; in 2000, in Chittister v. Department of Community and Economic Development, finding that Congress had gone too far in passing the Family and Medical Leave Act; in 2004, in Doe v. Groody, embracing broader police search power, including strip searches; and in 2004, Dia v. Ashcroft and Ki Se Lee v. Ashcroft, taking a hard line against immigrants' rights.

Alito has a lengthy resume, filled with strong indications that he is qualified professionally. Those who know him personally, and those who have served with him and appeared before the Third Circuit, have said he is an even-tempered individual. Some expect him to attempt to become a consensus-builder on the Supreme Court, and to be less aggressive in advancing his conservative views than Justice Antonin Scalia is known to be.

Dave Kopel has tried to sort out Alito's 2nd Amendment views, without much success.

Volokh has some talk about Alito this morning (Kerr is "very pleased"), as well as this Kelo post which is not related but interesting on its own terms.

Nothing from Bainbridge yet, but check back. He was one of the leading opponents of Miers, for conservative reasons, and should provide some useful reading on the topic when he has time.

Libby

"Fitzmas"

Indictments are, as everyone knows, proof of nothing except the prosecutor's intentions. The actual trial, at which a defense is permitted, is the point at which real information is likely to emerge. I have known real-world indictments that were dropped entirely without trial, and the prosecutor forced to apologize, once the defense lawyers got involved and began to unmake the case. This prosecutor, however, seems unlikely to have made gross errors of the sort that lead to such a situation.

My basic principles about government-official indictments remain the same:

1) A desire to defend the weaker party, which wants to see the matter resolved in the favor of the innocent whenever an innocent man is threatened by the state's power.

2) A desire to see corruption in government restrained, which desires to see the matter resolved by hurling any guilty men into the dungeon in this case. This is true whether "the guilty" is Delay, or the prosecutor, should the prosecutor in fact be engaged in a political prosecution.

It is also strange to note that "Scooter" Libby's only appearance at Grim's Hall, as far as I can recall, was just the other day:

My respect for the administration, on the wane somewhat of late especially due to the matter of their ICE appointee, is somewhat reinforced by this exchange. It is good to know that there is at least one among them who knows, and honors, the old forms. It isn't much compared to the great matters of war and politics: but it isn't nothing, either.

That stands. I was, and remain, impressed with gentlemanly and chivalrous conduct -- indeed, to some degree I am more impressed with it, if Mr. Libby knew that the generous letter he was writing was apt to result in his own indictment.

Nevertheless, keeping your oaths is at least as important a part of being a man -- and a gentleman -- as respect and kindness to ladies. It is odd to see that someone who has obviously learned the one lesson so well can be brought up short on the other matter. Austin Bay says he thinks Libby just thought he could get away with it; Sovay, who has been watching the case closely, said exactly the same thing.

The most interesting thing about the facts of the case, though, touches on the Wilson/Plame matter. There are two remaining disputes between Left and Right on the facts of the case: who, exactly, outed Plame; and whether Plame recommended Wilson for the job in Niger. Out of those two disputes grow great differing empires of opinion about the proper resolution of the matter. The biggest difference is this one: whether the "real evil act" here was by the White House, one of whose officers chose to compromise national security in order to secure political points by outing a CIA employee; or by the CIA, which is alleged to have been conducting these missions on their own authority with the intention of undermining the White House's foreign policy (which is not acceptable, if true), or perhaps even to manipulate internal US politics (which is seriously disturbing, if true). A third possibility, which I think is the most likely, is this: the real bad actors were Wilson and wife, who were manipulating both the CIA and the press. This would explain the facts as they seem to be arranging themselves.

The summary of charges makes clear that the CIA and State advised Libby that Wilson's wife had in fact been responsible for getting Wilson sent on the trip. This information is summarized on pages 5-6 in the bullet points. It is also clear that the trip was organized by the CIA on its own authority, with Plame's input, rather than at a higher level.

It is also clear, from the findings of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, that Wilson reported one thing to the CIA and another thing entirely to the press. It is also clear that Wilson printed a number of things that were flatly untrue. Lying in the press is not perjury, of course, so there's no legal trouble involved -- but it does appear that Wilson and Plame are guilty of misusing their position to attempt to manipulate US policy and politics.

That does not excuse Libby. The proper response to the existence of bad actors at CIA is not to out them in the press, which -- as the indictment makes clear -- is a matter that seriously disrupts national security, not least by demonstrating that a given corporation is or has been used as a locus for non-official-covers. It can also endanger our foriegn assets' lives. The indictment does not accuse Libby of having done so, but it makes clear that the prosecutor feels Libby hampered the investigation into who did.

Neither does it justify perjury. Oath-breaking is never acceptable.

The plot has thickened, however. The trial is apt to fall on these fault-lines of opinion like a sledgehammer. The radical left is apt to be pushing the "virtuous CIA, Plame not involved in Wilson's selection, Wilson was right, evil White House" narrative into the public, even though the facts plainly don't support it. The radical right is apt to push the "evil CIA/Plame/Wilson conspiracy to manipulate internal US politics" narrative, even though the facts don't support that. Both narratives are likely to undermine public confidence in the secret parts of the government -- the administration and CIA -- that are chiefly running the GWOT. The result could be a disaster for the war.

It could also be a disaster for the truth. The most likely set of facts is that the Wilson pair and Libby were the bad actors. The Wilsonians appear to have manipulated the CIA into sending Wilson, and then deceived the press about what Wilson found in Africa. Libby did wrong, allegedly, by hampering the investigation into the leaks and by deceiving the grand jury. The majority of the administration and the CIA were apparently only trying to do their jobs.

If that is true, as it appears prima facie to be true, then we will have to work hard to make sure that neither of the politically-driven narratives becomes the public understanding of the case. As per my basic principles, I would like to see the guilty hurled in the dungeon and the corrupt restrained. I would also like to see the innocent, those public servants in the administration and intel services who have been trying to do their jobs to protect this nation and further its interests, defended against slander. This case, which until now has been a minor sideshow in American politics, appears to be becoming a true danger.

The Trolley

The Trolley:

Peggy Noonan has written a deeply felt and moving column entitled "A Separate Peace." The reference is to that dishonorable tactics of unreliable allies in war, who are supposed to stand up and fight alongside you, and instead cut themselves a deal with the enemy and leave you fighting alone.

She begins with a feeling, which she says she cannot prove, that the whole world is falling apart.

I think there is an unspoken subtext in our national political culture right now. In fact I think it's a subtext to our society. I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads, unarticulated and even in some cases unnoticed, a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon. That our pollsters are preoccupied with "right track" and "wrong track" but missing the number of people who think the answer to "How are things going in America?" is "Off the tracks and hurtling forward, toward an unknown destination."

I'm not talking about "Plamegate." As I write no indictments have come up. I'm not talking about "Miers." I mean . . . the whole ball of wax. Everything. Cloning, nuts with nukes, epidemics; the growing knowledge that there's no such thing as homeland security; the fact that we're leaving our kids with a bill no one can pay. A sense of unreality in our courts so deep that they think they can seize grandma's house to build a strip mall; our media institutions imploding--the spectacle of a great American newspaper, the New York Times, hurtling off its own tracks, as did CBS. The fear of parents that their children will wind up disturbed, and their souls actually imperiled, by the popular culture in which we are raising them. Senators who seem owned by someone, actually owned, by an interest group or a financial entity. Great churches that have lost all sense of mission, and all authority. Do you have confidence in the CIA? The FBI? I didn't think so.

But this recounting doesn't quite get me to what I mean. I mean I believe there's a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming.

Well, it is. Every young man and woman reading this who isn't preparing to fight as well as to think and work had better stop and take stock.

Noonan seems to have woken to this feeling but lately. She wonders in awe how anyone can deal with it.

I think those who haven't noticed we're living in a troubling time continue to operate each day with classic and constitutional American optimism intact. I think some of those who have a sense we're in trouble are going through the motions, dealing with their own daily challenges.

And some--well, I will mention and end with America's elites. Our recent debate about elites has had to do with whether opposition to Harriet Miers is elitist, but I don't think that's our elites' problem.

This is. Our elites, our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us. I refer specifically to the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere. I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they're living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they're going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley's off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.

I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."

That very well may be true, about the elites. But not all who remain optimistic are those who have failed to notice. Some of us noticed a long while ago, and began to prepare.

What does it mean to prepare? First it means to look around, take advantage of the clear moment to see what you can see. Then it means to look back, to see how other men in other generations have dealt with this and worse. Then you put them together, the new troubles and the old power, and you start making a plan. You begin to match strength to peril.

I look at Peggy's list, and think this: Cloning doesn't bother me. Nukes and epidemics have the same answer, already well underway: an end to the cities, and a return to a more rural life. The suburbs and the exurbs are growing fast, as is the population in plain rural areas, and it is there that you will also find a political culture that tends toward the resiliance needed to survive a crisis. The collapse of order in New Orleans only matters if you live in a city. Those outside handled it better.

The old cowboy skills -- cooking under the sky, knowing how to find and clean drinking water, a neighborly watch on each other's backs -- they stood us tall once, and they will again. The economy? Small businesses, not big business, are the road to wealth. There was a time, during the industrial age, when economies of scale required vast workforces at central locations. The information age doesn't require that; and the just-in-time shipping it enables means that even industrial production facilities can be distributed. It's also true for farms. People are part of something bigger, but still own their own business and means of production. This reality also produces a politics, even as the old labor union model did, one that operates on the assumptions of the yeoman farmer. Jefferson's model.

Homeland security? We press the governmen to do better, but we also form the Minutemen. We volunteer for service. We've been passing "shall-issue" concealed weapons laws across the country these last decades, precisely because we saw society threatened by crime and mayhem and determined to set it right. Crime rates are now at a historic low, especially in the carry states. When those wheels come off, we'll be there to pick them up and put them back on.

The political culture has soured. Senators do seem owned, and the court has lost its way so far as to produce Kelo. Well, you can see the reaction: the porkbusting project as to the one thing, and the absolute refusal by the People to accept a crony nominee to the Supreme Court. It's too important. The wheels are coming off. So we make them get it right.

If that is not enough, and things start to fall apart in a serious way, it will mean that we move to more active measures. For now, we're willing to let the political class continue to manage things. Later, you may see more of us stand for office. I've been hearing a lot about the need for a "populist" scouring of the state. You just may get to see one. It won't look much like what those calling for it are expecting. It will be people like us, who have decided that the government cannot be trusted and must be remade. If we have to have a Constitutional Amendment to prevent Kelo from stealing people's homes, we'll do what we have to in order to get one. If that means standing for office and giving up the life we'd prefer, so be it. That's James Jackson's model.

Things that go south in a serious way will be met with a serious response. We'll form lawful militas to keep order if the government breaks down under disease or disaster. We'll volunteer for government-led efforts if they need us, or form private companies to take care of the jobs the government can't handle. Companies like Wells Fargo used to be, when Wyatt Earp worked for them.

What comes, comes, but however hard it is we shall stand and fight it. It is our way, as it is our heritage.

We are the Sons of Liberty. We have nothing to fear. When death comes for us, we will pass into that world of which so much has been written, where there is no fear but love and all love is without pain. If we have done our duty, we will leave behind us those we have bred or trained in the ways of America. They will take up our cause and bury our bones, and our names will be their warcry.

There are names like that written in gold, below. The men they trained will give them voice. They are warriors, heros, and riders of bulls. Perhaps there is a name like that on your lips as you read this: Washington's? Jackson's? Your father's? Another?

So what is there to fear? Live boldly. This is America, the home of the brave.

Thai Rangers

Guns in Thailand:

Another peril of gun registration -- the enemy knows who is armed.

Armed assailants last night made off with a total of 30 firearms in separate attacks in Pattani and Yala - one of the largest arms robberies in recent months.

A coordinated assault on licensed arms bearers won the insurgents of Southern Thailand thirty more arms, in a place where firearms are rare. The insurgents know who to hit, because they know what kind of people will be "permitted" to be armed. There is little danger that any nearby civilians can come to aid their fellows in the course of the raid.

But that's all right, because it's the government's job to protect you:

In talks with former prime minister Chuan Leekpai at parliament, Gen Thammarak said those servicemen included troops attached to a dozen task forces and three regiments of rangers, plus an army rapid deployment force.... Mr Chuan pointed out a number of rangers had been killed by militants recently. The defence minister admitted it was a "mistake" to deploy rangers at road checkpoints, where several had been shot.

Right. We wouldn't want to deploy rangers where they might encounter armed insurgents.

There is no substitute for the individual right to keep and bear arms. There simply is not.

NIS

National Intelligence Strategy:

The new National Intelligence Strategy is out. It's the first major product by the new "National Intelligence Director" (NID), currently James Negroponte. I was always opposed to the creation of an "intel czar," and now I remember why.

This thirty-two page document is one of those corporate creations that Dilbert founded its success on mocking. You can tell that every word was negotiated at length in committee. And what did all that negotiation produce?

Our Vision -- What we will become:

A unified enterprise of innovative intelligence professionals whose common purpose in defending American lives and interests, and advancing American values, draws strength from our democratic institutions, diversity, and intellectual and technological prowess.

Most of this is a corp-speak description of what an intel agency does. However, deciphering the corporate code, we find that there are three pieces of information contained there which show what will be changing, and what will not:

1) From "unified enterprise" and "common purpose": The NID actually intends to unify the intel services. Since that was his job, this is not surprising.

2) From the specific inclusion of "diversity": Stripping away the political correctness that has bedeviled these organizations will not be a priority. It's too hard, and too deeply set.

3) From "advancing American values" and "draws strength from our democratic institutions" -- Negropont is doing just what Bush sent him to do, which is to snap the intel services to heel from an ideological standpoint. The CIA in particular has been an ideological enemy of the President and his policies. This signals that all "intelligence professionals" will be required to share "American values," including the promotion of democracy as a core concern.

Point three is, I gather, the main purpose of this document. It is job one under "Our Mission," with the relevant codewords highlighted:

Collect, analyze, and disseminate accurate, timely, and objective intelligence, independent of political considerations, to the President and all who make and implement US national security policy, fight our wars, protect our nation, and enforce our laws.

The first few words there, again, are a description of what an intel service does. Yet then there is the mention of "political considerations," which must not be allowed to influence intelligence; and the mention of 'the President and those who make our policy,' to remind the intel services that they don't get to do that.

Reviewing the recent history of CIA leaks, particularly of pessimistic or negative intelligence estimates, and particularly during last year's election cycle, I can see why the President thinks this is a desirable thing to do.

Enforcing ideological conformity among intelligence officers, however, is not a good idea. It is an idea with a history, and the history is not pretty.

Jimmy Carter put Admiral Stansfield Turner in charge of the CIA during his tenure. Turner had an ideological thing against covert and clandestine operations. He felt like a lot of human intelligence operations were immoral (which is absolutely true), and that the United States of America should never do anything that was plainly immoral (which, sadly, can't be true in the area of intelligence). As a result, he essentially scrapped the CIA's capability to carry out these ops, and focused on signals intelligence instead.

Didn't work out too well, did it? But we were in luck: Turner was only in charge of the CIA. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) retained a lot of capabilities that the CIA lost. We still lost a lot: intel networks take years, sometimes even decades to bring to full fruition. When one is cut off and withers, it cannot be replaced right away. Clandestine service intelligence professionals (i.e., spies), though they are at best amoral and often immoral, possess a lifetime of valuable knowledge of the lay of a political landscape, the important figures within it, and personal connections that let them penetrate that landscape and learn where pressure ought to be applied to get results. They are a necessary evil, and one that takes years to develop.

What happens if we get a bad NID now? DIA is going to be forced to conform just like CIA will. If there's another Stansfield Turner down the road, we could wreck our whole intelligence apparatus at a blow -- and the tool for doing it, the precedent that allows the NID to insist on ideological conformity, is now forged.

In addition the danger to covert and clandestine networks, the analysis part of intelligence work above all requires genuine intellectual diversity. That, as we know from education, is the one type of diversity that is not meant when the word "diversity" is included in a document of this type. You need people with a fully developed opinion counter to yours, even if you're right and they are wrong, to keep you honest and keep you from getting lazy. You need the challenge.

Consider this debate at Winds of Change, on the subject of whether democracy promotion will in fact reduce terrorism. That's a healthy debate. I side with the pro-democracy argument, but it is clear that an argument is still required, and evidence is yet to be gathered that will inform the argument.

The NIS short-circuits the argument entirely. Democracy promotion is the #3 "strategic objective." If an analyst wants to argue that, in a particular country for particular reasons, it may not be wise to back an apparently democratic movement (e.g., as it turned out not to be wise to back Castro in Cuba), he will now face a substantial risk to his career. He may, in fact, leave "the company" altogether. While he may be wrong most of the time, he may be right on this one occasion. Even if he isn't right, his presence makes the other analysts work harder getting their facts and getting them straight. He's the mark of a healthy intel service, even if he hates the President's guts and is utterly opposed to the policies being put forward -- whoever the President might be.

Again, I can understand why this particular President feels like this is a necessary step. Nevertheless, I think both the NID concept, and this NIS, are extremely unwise.

Two final, unrelated points:

1) The focus of the NIS on asymmetrical threats ignores real symmetrical threats, which could easily be as or more dangerous than any terrorist organization.

Job #1 is counter-terrorism. Job #2 is anti-WMD. Job #3 is democracy promotion. Yet isn't one of the biggest intel threats and challenges China? China isn't a terrorist nation or a terror-supporter; they're happy to prevent the spread of WMD (having foremost in their minds the examples of Taiwan and Japan); and democracy promotion in China, though a worthwhile goal, doesn't really get at the particular nature of the threat posed by China. The place where we need to be building intel assets in China isn't inside its democracy movements, but inside the navy. That's where we will get any forewarning of an invasion of Taiwan.

2) It's good that "the protection of privacy and civil liberties" is mentioned in the strategy. But absent, so far as I can see, is any call for a robust declassification process for information that no longer needs to be secret. The best defense against intelligence services' capability to do evil is sunshine. Of course, sunshine makes it impossible for them to do good as well, so it has to be applied judiciously. When we can, however, we who are citizens of the Republic ought to know what our government has been doing with its secret forces. That is a critical need for the long-term health of the Republic in my opinion, and it deserves more attention.