What Columbia And Harvard Man Could?

From a Mark Steyn headline:

Obama can't say who we're at war with

Well of course he can't - having elected a properly educated Columbia and Harvard man, we look to Obama for leadership on critical issues such as the proper distinction between "who" and "whom", not to mention the vital national security matter of ending sentences with prepositions.  C'mon - this is the President who returned the Churchill bust, so we can hardly look to him for Churchillian leadership.

Now, if Obama could tell us with whom we are at war, that might be helpful.  But can we handle the truth?  Eric Holder seems to think we are at war with the Evil BushCo legacy.

Comments

[boris]

Good quote:

According to one poll, 58 percent of Americans are in favor of waterboarding young Umar Farouk. Well, you should have thought about that before you made a community organizer president of the world's superpower. The election of Barack Obama was a fundamentally unserious act by the U.S. electorate, and you can't blame the world's mischief-makers, from Putin to Ahmadinejad to the many Gitmo recidivists now running around Yemen, from drawing the correct conclusion.

[Captain Hate]

Bingo; like it or not, the country as a whole deserves what they got. Too bad for us 48%

[Clarice]

I wouldn't put money on his knowing those grammar rules either.
Steyn's column, as usual, is excellent. It's time to stop this AQ is our enemy fantasy--it's radcal Islam and it's time we said so.

[Gmax]

I think Massachusetts of all places, might be taking the very first buyer's remorse step in less than two weeks. Stay tune.

ITS ON.

[PD]

Ras -18 today.

[Clarice]

And right on the mark--the WSJ reports that groups are already objecting to the rule regarding more heavy screening of travelers from certain countries:
"http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126299928433022191.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5

Yessir, let's be safe by continuing to strip search Des Moines grannies.

[Rob Crawford]

I wouldn't put money on his knowing those grammar rules either.

That's what his speechwriters are for.

(Yes, lefties, he has a speechwriter. That's why whenever you screech about what Palin did or did not write, we just roll our eyes.)

[PD]

Even if we accept B+'s dolt assertion that we're at war with al-Qaeda, that bit of window dressing doesn't take us very far. What, pray tell, is al-Qaeda's ideological underpinning? What is it about al-Qaeda that makes its members so determined to kill us? Does it, perhaps, have something to do with their understanding of their Islamic faith? Tell us, Mr. Obama, from what springs their deep well of antipathy toward us, and, coincidentally, all others who do not share their view of Islam.

[hit and run]

From boris's quote:

you can't blame the world's mischief-makers, from Putin to Ahmadinejad to the many Gitmo recidivists now running around Yemen, from drawing the correct conclusion.

From http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/clinton-never-waste-a-good-crisis-1638844.html>Hillary to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html>Rahm,from Putin to Ahmadinejad to al Qaeda,we have an unprecedented consensus:

"Never let a serious (US) crisis go to waste."

[peter]

I just sat down and read the dead tree edition of the Sunday Slimes. They are in denial. The whole paper. An article entitled: "The Terrorist Mind: an Update" has a subheading; "it's not just about religion." Ideas and Trends, a column in the week in review, has a whole article about the nationwide extreme cold snap, and never once mentions the email scandals of the AGW disgraced scientists, and assures us the it is certainly not the coldest air that has descended on the United States. Maureen Dowd assures us "our professional president is no feckless W. biking through Katrina. He is no doubt on top of the crisis in terms of studying it top to bottom."

[Extraneus]

It's time to stop this AQ is our enemy fantasy--it's radcal Islam and it's time we said so.

Right on. It was time a LONG time ago.

But is it "radical" Islam that's the problem, or just, basically, Islam?

Their book tells them to convert, enslave or kill us, in dozens of places - head chopping and all. It tells them never to befriend a non-believer. The people who abide by the book, are they radicals, or just true believers?

[Cecil Turner]

It's really no surprise that most lawyers see enemy combatants as a ground-breaking legal case ready to be made. What's less explicable is why do we have lawyers in charge of every facet of the war effort? Seems a lot like assembling a team of plumbers to fix a short in your wiring.

The foregone conclusion approach is very similar to the Team O decision for venue in the Gitmo trials. If you leave it up to the AG, it's really not all that surprising that he decided to move 'em to federal court in NY. And even when the DoD is making the calls, a team of legal beagles (educated at bleeding heart U's across the nation) is doing the heavy lifting.

If this is a war, we ought to have military officers making the decisions on how to fight it . . . including how to cope with unlawful combatants. If we want to treat it as a law enforcement exercise, that's fine, too . . . as long as you're not worried about, well, things like winning a war.

[Captain Hate]

I agree with Ext that a definite chill struck me when somebody from Nigeria was enlisted for the bombing. Previously it seemed that the sub-Saharan muslims were uniformly peaceful in their attitudes and as far from the radical nutjobs as you could get. I realize you can't characterize an entire group based on the actions of one or few, but this has jumbled my previous perception.

[Rob Crawford]

But is it "radical" Islam that's the problem, or just, basically, Islam?

Ask yourself this: Your neighbor has decided to emulate the life of a holy man, but hasn't decided which one. He's narrowed it down to Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed.

Which would you prefer he NOT emulate?

[Rob Crawford]

It's really no surprise that most lawyers see enemy combatants as a ground-breaking legal case ready to be made. What's less explicable is why do we have lawyers in charge of every facet of the war effort?

They run the rest of the government, why shouldn't they run the Pentagon?

[Soylent Red]

If this is a war, we ought to have military officers making the decisions on how to fight it . . . including how to cope with unlawful combatants. If we want to treat it as a law enforcement exercise, that's fine, too . . . as long as you're not worried about, well, things like winning a war.

I could tell you stories...but suffice it to say, I've seen a lot of evidence that DoD is being driven by DoJ these days. Worse than that, the pace at which the mandates are coming and the stupidity is multiplying is increasing.

The problem is, as I see it, that certain aspects of COIN so closely resemble law enforcement activities that those with limited experience or imagination can't see the combat and intelligence aspects of these activities. Instead of a military, they envision some sort of super-duper global SWAT team going hither and thither and "bringing people to justice."

Our CinC subscribes to that view and is resistant to seeing things in any other way. He will have the War on Jihadism conducted in the highly successful and cost-efficient manner we have conducted the War on Drugs. Or, God forbid, the War on Poverty.

[Soylent Red]

Ah crap. Not COIN. Counter-terrorism (CT). Although the statement is true of COIN too.

[Stosh Polowski]

"Senate poll: Coakley up 15 points
By Matt Viser and Frank Phillips
Globe Staff / January 10, 2010

Democrat Martha Coakley, buoyed by her durable statewide popularity, enjoys a solid, 15-percentage-point lead over Republican rival Scott Brown as the race for US Senate enters the homestretch, according to a new Boston Globe poll of likely voters."

LUN

[MayBee]

Karl Rove said on O'Reilly that he has a good source who tells him Obama didn't understand why Holder moved the Detroit bomber into the criminal justice system when he did.

[Rick Ballard]

Main Entry: rad·i·cal Pronunciation: \ˈra-di-kəl\ Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin radicalis, from Latin radic-, radix root — more at root Date: 14th century

1 : of, relating to, or proceeding from a root: as a (1) : of or growing from the root of a plant (2) : growing from the base of a stem, from a rootlike stem, or from a stem that does not rise above the ground b : of, relating to, or constituting a linguistic root c : of or relating to a mathematical root d : designed to remove the root of a disease or all diseased and potentially diseased tissue
2 : of or relating to the origin : fundamental
3 a : marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional : extreme b : tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions c : of, relating to, or constituting a political group associated with views, practices, and policies of extreme change

Wrt islamofascism, IMO, 2 fits like a well made glove, 1 works fairly well and 3 is an absurdity propounded by the ignorant who never bother to read Mohammad's ravings.

If the Saudi's are funding the mosque, 'radical' islam is being preached, whether it's in Indonesia, sub-Saharan Africa, London or an American prison.

[Jack is Back!]

Also, in the Sunday Slime is a Sunday Magazine cover story on the Crist-Rubio match up here in Florida. Written in such a way as to mobilize the remaining fortunes of the upper west side of Manhattan and have them transferred to the Crist campaign to prevent the "1st Tea Party Candidate (Rubio)" from finding his seat in DC. The dred, the fright, the turning of the liberal skew will become more realized than if Sarah Palin was somehow to find her way back to power from her Sydney shoe-shine.

This is the one to watch after Mass senate race. This is the one that sets the standard for the taking back the country from the movement toward government control and socialized living. Its pitchforks and barricades, baby!

[MayBee]

I'm listening to State of the Union and find myself so irritated by people who are defending Obama by saying "He did too say the word terrorist! He did too say we are at war!".

What he said is such a small part. Why is nobody focusing on Brennan and Napolitano's horrible briefing last week. They clearly showed they do not get it, no matter what they call it.
When Brennan wasn't quite clear that AQAP would be willing to strike us, and Napolitano being apparently unaware of the shoe bomber, I got the dreadful feeling that things are just slipping through the cracks with these guys.

And none of them are willing to talk about Muhammed in AR and Hasan in Ft Hood. Those should have been big blinking clues that AQ in Yemen wants to see Americans killed.

The shoe bomber didn't scare me, but this admin's inept response sure does.

[narciso]

Yes, that piece is wretchedly bad, JIB.full of debateable anecdotes and assertions. What
do they say about 'flak and targets' well they certainly think Rubio is the target.

[Sue]

we look to Obama for leadership on critical issues such as the proper distinction between "who" and "whom"

I know that is what I'm looking for. If someone can learn me that proper distinction, they have done their job.

[bio mom]

Globe poll +15D; Herald poll +1D, PPP poll, +1 R. Which is the one that is way out??? You can always trust the liberal major newspaper to publish a D-friendly poll to try to squelch the R momentum.

[Danube of Thought]

For a long time Harry Truman declined to refer to the conflict in Korea as a "war." He kept saying it was a "police action." When I was a 17-year-old plebe a Marine Gunny asked me (rhetorically), "if it was a police action how come they didn't send cops?"

[Ignatz]

--Previously it seemed that the sub-Saharan muslims were uniformly peaceful in their attitudes and as far from the radical nutjobs as you could get.--

Capn,
AQ was HQed in Sudan for a time and it's hard to characterize Somalia, the land of 'Blackhawk down', as uniformly peaceful.
And in Nigeria itself the Islamic north has been fighting the Christian/animist south at least since Biafra in the sixties.

[Sue]

the notion that it doesn't count as terrorism unless you're a member of Local 437 of the Amalgamated Union of Isolated Extremists seems perverse and reductive.

Ouch.

[Danube of Thought]

Hard to figure the Mass. Polling. PPP is as Democrat as they come. And note that the Globe poll is "likely voters."

[Rick Ballard]

Bio mom,

The PPP splits can be found here. The sample size of 744 with a margin of error of 3.6% on a survey taken from January 7 to January 9 from a likely voter mix with a D 44%, R 17% and I 39% split has to be compared to the Globe poll which is described thusly:

The poll, conducted Jan. 2 to 6, sampled the views of 554 randomly selected likely voters. The poll has a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.

It's definitely an apples to orangutans comparison.

[narciso]

I don't trust PPP because there is no consistency in their sampling technique, So
I'll take the Herald poll over the Globe, as much as I would wish the latter to be true.

Liz Cheney, btw, is just batting it out of the park on This Week, on the stimulus, on
the administration's response to AQAP, I had forgotten the Little Rock shooting had a Yemeni link. George is just tagging along by comparison.

[returntosender]

All you need to know about Public Policy Polling, from Nov.1, 2009:

"Doug Hoffman has a commanding lead in the special election for New York's 23rd Congressional District.

"In a three way contest with Democrat Bill Owens and Republican Dede Scozzafava Hoffman leads with 51% to 34% for Owens and 13% for Scozzafava. In a head to head contest with Owens Hoffman holds a 54-38 advantage."

[Pofarmer]

and assures us the it is certainly not the coldest air that has descended on the United States.

All the cold records being set are sure inconvenient, then.

[squaredance]

Yea sure we are at war with "Radical Islam", just like we were once at war with "Radical National Socialism", or "Radical Communism".

Oh wait...our forebears knew that we were at wary with National Socialism and that we were at war with Communism, and that meant that we were at war with Germany, that we were at war with the USSR. Period. They would know, were they with us, that we are at war with Islam. They would know that we are at war with all but Israel and Lebanon in the ME and the Maghreb. Period.

They would also be profoundly ashamed of us.

When a nation such as ours cannot find the will to defeat foes likes these there is little left to protect.

Five years after Pearl Harbor we were astride the world; nine years after 911 and we are a timid third rate country whose whole economy can be pushed over by a pack of opportunistic political insiders on wall street in cahoots with a criminal political class and protected by a compliant media, while all the while the electorate does little else but bleat like sheep.

Nine years after 911 and the WTC is still a hole in the ground. We are rotten to the core. This is the nation that fought and won WW2 and the Cold War?

[squaredance]

The election of Barack Obama was a fundamentally unserious act by the U.S. electorate, and you can't blame the world's mischief-makers, from Putin to Ahmadinejad to the many Gitmo recidivists now running around Yemen, from drawing the correct conclusion.

Not quite right: They are in the pockets of these foreign powers--China's too, and they are in completely spiritual and "moral" agreement with them, to the extent that they can be said to have any "morality" whatsoever.

When will you people understand that traitors rule us? Traitors control almost all of the key institutions of the country, and not just "ideological traitors", but real, actual traitors going about real, actual traitorous acts, plots and agendas. Obama is just a figure head. Much darker forces are at work. They are not destroying this country because they are incompetent. They are competently destroying this country.

They are almost across the finish line. The Dollar will soon no longer be the world's reserve currency. We will soon be so in debt that we will have to seriously cut back our already declining military power. We cannot even with simple wars against tiny countries--countries so marginal that they cannot even seriously be considered States--because of these traitors.

Our industrial might has been hollowed out and soon so will our technological prowess. Soon our middle classes will be impoverished and imiserated and, most likely, they will never come back to the level of size, wealth or influence that they once held. There will just be master and slave. This is all intentional.

When will you people see that it does not matter which flavor of traitor we have in the WH? When will you see that Obama is just a figure head for much darker forces?
At war with Islam? Yes, but that is a front in a much broader war. We are at war with the international tranzi/corporatist/Marxist "axis" too.

We are losing.

We should collectively quake with shame that our political, economic and cultural national life has reached such decadence. We should fear for our very existence. If we had any manhood we would and we would do something about it.

I doubt that we ever find our way back. Our current military is but a remnant of the America we once lived in; likely it is the only remnant left. Soon it will go the way of the military in the UK. One day we will marvel that we once had aircraft carriers and a reasonable nuclear force.

Soon we will br a grimy third rate nation.

The Democrats are almost there, almost across the line. It will take a wise and determined people to turn it around, and it will take a generation. A wise and determined people would never have allowed a creature as hideous as Obama to even run for President, much less actually elect him.

Not only can we not fight our enemies, we cannot even properly identify or name them

[DebinNC]

The NYT article yesterday about Obama's frustration with the Pentagon referred to unnamed "senior White House advisors"..."one White House official" and toward the end added to those frustrated with the military "other White House officials" including two they named. One is Thomas E. Donilon", Deputy National Security Advisor, who is the hackiest of political hacks, starting with Carter and ending at Fannie Mae leading the division tasked with thwarting the federal regulators. That the WH shielded others' names but offered Donilon as someone qualified to criticize the Pentagon is unreal.

[Rick Ballard]

All you need to know about Public Policy Polling, from Nov.1, 2009:

New Jersey Governor - Corzine vs. Christie

PPP had Christie by 6, Christie won by 4.3.

The NJ race was statewide with a very marginal spoiler. The NY race was regional with a huge spoiler.

All you need to know about Public Policy Polling, from Nov.1, 2009:

Virginia Governor - McDonnell vs. Deeds

PPP had McConnell by 14, McConnell won by 17.5.

PPP is definitely a Dem pollster and subject to normal outlier problems. I don't see anything glaringly wrong with their sample mix for MA and I tend to think that Jansen is sincere, if horribly misguided, in his suggestions to Coakely. I don't believe that the Swimmer's flaming coattails will do the trick.

[Dr. Weevil]

The mention of Harvard men knowing whether to end a sentence with a preposition reminds me of an old joke:
It's the first day of the school year at Harvard, and a freshman scholarship boy from Alabama is trying to find the library. He stops an upperclassman and says "Excuse me, suh, can you tell me where the Harvard library is at?" The upperclassman sneers and says "A Hahv'd man does not end a sentence with a preposition." The freshman replies "Well then, can you tell me where the Harvard library is at, asshole?"
Thus endeth today's lesson.

[narciso]

Good god, he is the new zelig of disaster, Carter, the Biden campaign, Dukakis, Warren
Christopher's chief of staff, an atty for Citi,Goldman, and the subprime queen, 'best
men are handling this'

[narciso]

other then preparing for the coup (sarc) what steps would you suggest, square?

[Danube of Thought]

I have never trusted polls for congressional districts. The district boundaries are unrelated to the area code boundaries, and one hell of a lot of people don't know what district they're in. State polls are inherently more reliable.

Anybody seen any details on the Herald poll?

[MayBee]

The NYT article yesterday about Obama's frustration with the Pentagon referred to unnamed "senior White House advisors"

Don't forget Axelrod was willing to throw the Pentagon under the bus before, when Candidate Obama canceled his trip to Landstuhl. Axelrod told anybody who would listen that the Pentagon told him not to come, and told Andrea Mitchell that he thought they did it to help John McCain.

[Clarice]

"why do we have lawyers in charge of every facet of the war effort? " Because the (Dem)Presidents we elect are lawyers with no military service? In fact no experiences outside the political and legal arenas...

As for the Globe poll, I believe I read they had not a very meningful way of etermining who is a likely voter--they just asked whoever answered the phone if he was .I understand a better poll askes about voting history, registration, etc to determine how accurate that self-description is.

In any event whther they are for me or against me, I never pay any attention to newspaper polls. And state polls are notoriously lacking in the kind of baselines we get in national polling because few can afford the cost of a really good state office poll.

[Danube of Thought]

Found this on Gateway Pundit:

"Also, there are reports that the Boston Herald’s poll that will be released tomorrow [Sunday] shows Coakley leading Brown by only 1 point among likely voters.

"Toss up."

I have found nothing more current than that.

[Clarice]

On the question of whther the enemy is "Islam" or radical Islame" --I note that much of the Moslem world was forcibly converted and lives under laws which forbid conversions away . Is it really in our interest in any event to take on billions of Moslems around the world as announced enemies?
I don't think so.

[E. Nigma]

Clarice,
That is just the approach the Bush Administration followed, much to the chagrin of those to the Right that demanded we Name the Enemy.
I don't like the hair-splitting, dissembling and lack of general clarity, but I also don't see a good reason to turn a brush fire into a raging inferno.

This struggle is going to be with us for years, as long as there are failing nation states that have significant Islamic populations that can be energized by Salafist Islam, and made militant against the West.

I read the Belmont Club frequently and am appalled by the eagerness that some embrace nuclear genocide to "solve our problem".
And that is the final logical consequence of making all of Islam your enemy.

[Gmax]

The Herald Poll was done by UNH. University polls on the whole are terrible. I dont have anything recent by U of NH to critique and I am too lazy ( basking in the glow of beating the snot out of the hated Eagles twice in two weeks ) to go look.

Watch how Coakley is behaving though. She is no longer on vacation, and seems to be running tv ads. That should tell you what her numbers are saying to her.

[Sue]

So is Reid apologizing because he used the word Negro? Or because he called Obama light skinned? Or because he used the word negro with dialect? I'm confused here. Mostly because I'm tired of PC. Negro, when used by someone of Reid's age, is a respectful term. But Negroes wanted to be referred to as Blacks so everyone used Black to define them and Negro became a racist word. Then, African-American was the PC term and Black is out. At what point does all this silliness become silly? That Reid referred to Obama using a dialect is humorous to me. I thought I was one of the few that wondered about Obama's fake dialects.

[Fresh Air]

liberal major newspaper Like Goering was a significant figure in the Third Reich air force. The Slimes owns these rotten bastards; they're in the first file of scumball Defenders of the Stupid, Ignorant and Malevolent.

In order to yield meaningful information, polls must be repeated over and over again, then averaged with other polls. One poll, regardless of methodology, cannot be considered predictive or even informative. The problem with the dead-tree scribblers is there isn't a single one of them who ever had a statistics class.

Plus, any asshole who called my house saying he was conducting a poll for the Boston Globe would have had a slew of new vocabulary words implanted in his pitiful ear.

[Rocco]

And Bubba coming in to stump for her Friday tells me there's no way she's 15 points in front of Brown.

[Gmax]

The Boston Globe sample is heavily slanted towards post-grads. Almost 30% of the sample is post-grads while the electorate was 20% post-grade in 2008 in MA. Coakley is winning 70% of these voters.

Shocker here folks the UNH folks surveyed the campuses of Harvard and MIT and found a lot of Coakley supporters!

[Sue]

Rocco,

Bubba as in Bill?

[Rocco]

Sue

Yes

[Danube of Thought]

While it's true in a sense that we were at war with communism, that didn't impel us to unleash military power against it wherever it was found. Rather, we treated it as a protracted war of ideas in which we used power selectively (and not always wisely), but constantly maintained sufficient power at our disposal to discourage anything truly rash.

I suppose we could attempt the same approach with Islam, mutatis mutandis, but I'm not sure what that means we should do. The parallels are not close enough.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Which would you prefer he NOT emulate?

Jesus was apparently the most fun at parties. The other guys were teetotal.

[BMan]

Obama is our 1st "American Idol" President

[Sue]

Rocco,

Reckon that is why Bubba was at the WH last week? Obama asking him to go to MA?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Previously it seemed that the sub-Saharan muslims were uniformly peaceful in their attitudes and as far from the radical nutjobs as you could get.

I dunno. To me it sounds increasingly like the problem is a few nuts in Imam hats who can find suicidal 20 year olds. Get a depressed teenager who can't find a girlfriend, tell him about houris and being a hero, and you've got an enthusiastic, if not very competent, detonator.

[narciso]

It seems hard enough to isolate known Salafi like Khurastani (Badawi), Hassan, the Little Rock shooter, Abdulmutallab, even when their record is fairly clear. This is what is meant by profiling

[Jane]

Geez you guys go on and on - so I'm skipping ahead:

But is it "radical" Islam that's the problem, or just, basically, Islam?

I was thrilled to see a bunch of Muslims in Detroit picketing against the undy bomber. The clip I saw had a guy saying - "you want to kill Americans, come and get me". First time I have ever seen a Muslim protest against radical Islam.

WRT The Brown race: Read this about the internals: The Globe under-sampled independents - which is about 60% of the state. I don't necessarily trust PPP but I don't trust the GLobe either.

And I just read that the Lawrence Eagle Tribune endorsed Brown. This is the north shore (without the shore) very poor Lawrence and very rich Andover. The first time I ever saw Ted Kennedy in person was at the Lawrence Eagle Tribune, for what it is worth.

[Gmax]

How old was Major Hassan again? Exception to your rule that proves the rule or do you need to reformulate a tad.

Include in the reformulation that fact that the peaceloving and moderate Malaysians are busily burning churches at the moment, all over whether the word "allah" can be used by the churches!

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Globe poll +15D; Herald poll +1D, PPP poll, +1 R. Which is the one that is way out??? You can always trust the liberal major newspaper to publish a D-friendly poll to try to squelch the R momentum.

According to the PPP guys, the Globe poll started 5 days earlier. I suspect what you have there is a measure of the direction of the momentum.

[Captain Hate]

I thought I was one of the few that wondered about Obama's fake dialects.

Laura Ingraham nails him on 'em pretty regularly. Plus many of us are pretty sure he doesn't know when it's correct to use "a" or "an" before a noun, although that might be one of his BS affectations as well. But just remember: He's soooooooooooooooo articulate.

Slick "helping" Croakley? Stick a fork in her; he's never helped anybody but himself.

[Rocco]

Could be Sue. And I just heard on channel 5 that Obama may also make the trip here to help her out.

[Clarice]

Legal Insurrection has twice gone to the phone call hqs for Brown and was overwhelmed (like Jane and Rocco) with the enthusiasm among independents and the number of Dems who say they are voting for Brown. They cannot keep up tiwh the demand for yard signs, etc.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Gmax, with Hassan he certainly sounded like he had psychological problems, being (a) a major loner who had trouble with human relationships, (b) given to inappropriate outbursts with guns, and (c) a psychiatrist. But I'm thinking more about lone bombers, suicide bombers. They seem to run very heavily to late teens to early 20's males, with occasional females who generally have some history of social stigma like having been raped.

In our society, someone who is willing to preplan and execute a colorful suicide like that is almost by definition depressed. I wonder what a screening test of potential bombers would show?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Oh, similarly, a mob burning a church is a pretty different phenomenon too. Hardly any Klan members became suicide bombers.

[Gmax]

I hope Obama does go, so that just like for Deeds, when he fails stem the tide, we can tie it like an anchor around his neck. Nationalize the race Obama. That way we can make it a referendum on you. Even in progressive Taxachusetts.

[Frau Fragezeichen]

"Not only can we not fight our enemies, we cannot even properly identify or name them"
Jeremiah squaredance?

Talk about lamentations! That's all I heard during the last two major elections. People didn't want to vote, weren't going to "waste" a vote, had had it with politicians ... narciso asks a good question: what do we, the 47-48 percenters, do? We are a large minority, aren't we? Who needs to know how to diagram a sentence when the country is being destroyed?

[Gmax]

Anyone got a spare tank for a prop for Coakley? It would make a great photo op if she could climb in one, put on a helmet and take it for a spin with her head popping up out of the tank. Mike can give her the fine points.

[Jane]

I'm more worried about keeping the momentum going for another week than I am about losing. I am absolutely sure that if the race was this Tuesday, Brown would win.

(Rocco, do you recall the name of the guy who told me to use his name yesterday? I don't think I ever knew it.)

I just realized I have never seen a Martha Coakley sign - anywhere. As of yesterday Scott was out of signs, bumperstickers and phones.

[narciso]

That's true about Atta, but Tanweer of 7/7, the Madrid bombers that's not really clear about. But Hassan and Abdulmutallab do seem
to have that problem

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Yeah, I had that thought too. "Oh, don't throw me into that briar patch, Br'er Obama."

OT, did you know a lot of the Br'er Rabbit stories are old Mississipian tales? Rabbit, to my Injun ancestors, is like Coyote to the Southwest Indians: the trickster who's sometimes a little too tricky for his own good.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I think the dynamics are more complex in the team attacks. Depressed people don't make good groups. I think the dynamics might be more like gangs, or even military units; start with a bunch of disaffected and even depressed kids, give them a group identity and a sense of esprit. Then figure in a long-tail — there are lots of unhappy teenage boys, so if you can somehow select the most tractable, most disaffected ones, it should be easy to get together a few dozens of them.

[narciso]

The goal is still the same, the Senate is still steering toward, some would say, through
the Iceberg. I wouldn't be surprised if this book, 'Game Change' is yet another tool, to
quell any kind of dissent to the bill, as they
did in the fall of 2008, toward the Obama campaign.

[Rocco]

I think it was Bob Lashua who told you to email matt

[Clarice]

In Yiddish folk tales the fox is the clever one, not the rabbit. FWIW.

[Jane]

Did you guys see this at Legal Insurrection:

Snot-Noses for Coakley

This should motivate you. This sort of attitude has motivated me for years. From an erudite "reality-based" pundit at Blue Mass:

Let's just be obvious about this: Scott Brown has absolutely no business being in the same area code as Martha Coakley. Not to be too personal (we've met, he's nice), but ideologically, he is a predictable George W. Bush Republican -- (pro-torture, anti-health care, etc.), as much of a breath of fresh air as a high school locker room.

Yes, because Martha has that certain savoir faire, or is it joie de vivre, je ne sais quoi.

And if Scottie wins, mon Dieu.

[centralcal]

Bubba in Mass. for Coakley, huh? Perfect. Suppose anyone will ask him about fetching coffee or about his 2008 mistress?

No, suppose not.

[Clarice]

Personally, given the psychosexual drama which is at the heart of a lot of jihadists, we ought to say with each failed attempt the bomber had a very mall penis and that probably is really why he did this.Then translate that and beam it throughout the ME.

(Surely those Berkeley shrinks who always claim Republicans are crazy could be paid to perform this service.._

[Clarice]

**SMall penis**

[Pofarmer]

Then figure in a long-tail — there are lots of unhappy teenage boys, so if you can somehow select the most tractable, most disaffected ones, it should be easy to get together a few dozens of them.

The middle east is full of madrassas, and there are some in the U.S.

I think you underestimate the scope of the problem.

[Pofarmer]

Guess what I'm saying is that the Jihadist's aren't just going out and finding disaffected youth, they are creating them.

[Fresh Air]

And I just heard on channel 5 that Obama may also make the trip here to help her out.

I'm sure it will work as well as his trips to Egypt, Venezuela, Iran, Copenhagen, London and Virginia.

[narciso]

Sadly true, Po, the Saudi Islamic Academy is certainly one of the latter, and it's valedictorian, Abu Ali, was convicted of trying to assasinate Pres. Bush. Sadly it's
a surprise there aren't more bombings not less.

[Clarice]

Maybe they can get Caroline to campaign for Coakley while the Globe runs a retrospective on "The Tragedy of the Kennedys"---again.

I hope this string has finally been spun out,

[Jane]

So is Ahhhhhnold trying to bribe Obama - he'll lay off Obamacare as long as the feds give him the billions he needs?

[Elliott]

Obama was at war with Eastasia AQ Arabian Peninsula: Obama had always been at war with AQ Arabian Peninsula.

[E. Nigma]

In a social structure that promotes polygamy, there are always going to be men that will not be able to get a mate (wife).
The age old answer is the razza or jihad. Go out, conquer, collect a wife and pass Go!
Islam is, in part, based on the constant outward expansion to provide wives to the unnattached men, in their polygamous world view.
Hasan was not married, not because of polygamy in America, but because like many Muslim men, their social skills in the closed circle of Moslem culture precluded him from the best opportunities to find a mate. Frustration, outrage, find in Jihad an identity and an outlet.

Failed or failing nation states just provide a more fertile place to preach Jihad. It has always been the ready excuse to lash out against the foreigner, the Westerner, the Hindu, Buddhist or Christian. The Other, the one outside of the House of Islam.

[Danube of Thought]

American Spectator asesses the PPP/Globe differential. Can't link from here but it's up at Lucianne.com.

[Clarice]

I didn't find it at Lucianne--there are two, the longest my Phillip Klein says he doesn't see brown winning.

[Old Lurker]

It is easy to blow hot and cold on George Will...but the LUN nails CA to a T.

[Old Lurker]

Well that LUN was a bait n switch to a Kudlow...also good. THIS LUN is to Will...

[Jane]

I linked it earlier.

[Danube of Thought]

The Klein and AmSpec items are one and the same. Maybe I got it at Hot Air.

[Danube of Thought]

OL, your link took me to a Larry Kudlow article.

[Old Lurker]

Sorry DoT, see the correction in my next post.

Sorry Jane, I must have missed yours...great minds and all that.

[Ignatz]

--It is easy to blow hot and cold on George Will...but the LUN nails CA to a T.--

You know my family has been here since before the Gold Rush and it still gives me a grim satisfaction seeing these effing idiots choking on their own social experiment.
But it's mixed with a great deal of sorrow watching what was once a great state (and outside of our two large urban centers still is) descending into the progressive's whirlpool of envy and greed.

California is always touted as ten years ahead of the rest of the country. If our leftists destroy this state, as seems inevitable and as DC Dems seem destined to emulate nationally, we may find out early by what happens here whether America as a whole is going to go quietly into that good night or if there is going to be a revolt.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

All you need to know about Public Policy Polling, from Nov.1, 2009:

And apparently all you need to know is that your understanding of statistics is extremely limited.

[Danube of Thought]

OK, I found and read Will, who is spot-on this time. I have zero doubt that CA will indeed become a failed state, though I have no idea how the dénouement will play out. It is my understanding that states cannot seek bankruptcy protection.

I am lagging so far behind because I am gamely reading, following lnks and posting with my I-phone while watching the Pats get stomped in humiliating fashion. In the first qtr Brady's total of sacks, INT's and fumbles exceeded his passing yards, and the mellifluous song of the boo-birds came cascading down with gratifying frequency.