Larry’s Craig’s bathroom antics should be a source of glee for no one - save in the obvious, sardonic sense. Politically speaking, it’s no more a joy for the Democrats than it is for the Republicans. If anything, it exposes a particularly poisonous rift between the parties that should trouble them both, but that neither seems to be bringing attention to.

The rift I refer to is the sell-out of the Republican party to the socially conservative interests - to the homophobes, to the Bible-thumpers who scream damnation, to people who lose sleep because prayer in public school isn’t mandated. And in case people on the Right are interested, it’s those interests that make the people on the Left think there’s something wrong with you: They wonder how you could ever support a political movement that so thoroughly desecrates our national heritage of equality, acceptance and freedom of belief. They don’t get how slightly lower taxes is more important than ridding our nation of sodomy laws and their ilk that ruin lives like Larry Craig’s.

Larry wanted to hook up, chances are. And chances are, if it had been a straight guy instead of a cop, the guy in question would have walked out that bathroom feeling a little wierded out. If it had been a gay guy, who knows? But the point was that it was neither - it was a law jockey on a sting detail that, in his own words, leads to arrests like Craig’s “every day” - and rather than either of the two innocuous outcomes above, Larry’s been sent up the river.

The reasons why have not been in question so far as most commentary is concerned, with right-wing talk radio outlets being the usual insipid exception. Hannity, shaking his head such that it was audible, posited a liberal conspiracy. Jason Lewis, filling in for Rush yesterday, attributed Craig’s defamation to liberal assaults and a conservative unwillingness to fight back. Surely, listeners the nation over nodded, they too feeling powerless and bitterly glad to have someone to blame. Craig, in that sense, was irrelevant.

But the talk radio commentary was highly relevant in that it was dancing on the edge of a moral abyss that, in our ostensibly socially-progressive new century, few on the right want to admit. Namely, that the Republicans are locked into vicious condemnation of homosexuals given that their party still depends on catering to the social conservatives - both as a bloc like Ralph Reed’s Christian Coalition, and simply to the base, frightened instincts of people who feel their traditions challenged by the self-expression of others. Gay marriage blowing your mind? Who you gonna call? Thousands know the answer to that question, and in 2004, the winning team cited “voting its values” on social issues as the principal reason to cast a vote for Bush.

As a consequence, it wasn’t the classic villains of the Democratic stable like Reid, Clinton or Leahy that went after Craig - it was McCain, eager to suck up some burly social-conservative support to bolster his anemic campaign; it was Romney, never slow to miss a chance to prove he’s just as judgmental as any Liberty University student or our current Commander-in-Chief; it was his own party that fell on him like jackals.

You want to know who’s behind the attacks on Craig, Hannity? Want to know why the Republicans aren’t defending him, Jerry? It’s because they’re the ones making the attacks!

Inspecting this political cannibalism, you see at the bones of it a particularly twisted perception of modern American history. There’s a trope about the good old days, that if FDR or Eisenhower were around today, they’d be leagues more conservative, socially, than even Tom Tancredo. And I don’t buy it.

I don’t think that even the vaunted “founding fathers” - those who truly believed in the words of equality they set down, like Jefferson and Washington - would hesitate a moment to recognize the equal worth of any American, regardless of that person’s sexual orientation. Civil rights issues may be relative to our time, but the fundamental principals that fight for civil rights do not change, and have enjoyed what success they have in this country from being hallowed in the philosophical sinews of our nation. And yet, having been withered by three decades of Democratic dominance, the Republicans allied with the crooked champions of Jim Crow and Southern Baptism - the Dixiecrats - to restore their party’s strength, and conservatism has since paid the price of that bitter pill. Nixon fought off the dominance of the religious lobby for a long time, then Reagan welcomed in the Moral Majority and by the time of Gingrich’s “Contract with America”, it was assumed that if you didn’t get vein-poppingly mad about the “moral relativism” in our culture one moment and praise Christ the next, you were not going to float in a red state. Barry Goldwater summed it up well when he turned to Bob Dole in 1996 and told him, “We’re the new liberals of the Republican Party. Can you imagine that?”

Sadly, it seems many Republicans can’t imagine that, and commentary like Hannity’s and Lewis’ doesn’t help any. They and others who want to keep small-government, pro-economic frugality, pro-defense voters under the right-wing of the tent will grind their teeth about Democrat scheming, corruption and defamation - all to avoid the real issue:

It’s not about the Democrats. It’s about the Republican’s own party being beholden to the prudish, to the intolerant, to the people who dress in salvation and legislate damnation. It’s those people who’re sending Larry Craig down the drain. And of all the things to be offended by in this seedy story, I think it is those “values” that forced him to skulk in the bathroom in the first place, criminalized him for doing so and now are leading his colleagues to rip him apart that are the most “disgraceful”.

It’s easy to see where “values voting” can be prioritized, in that much of what we do abroad is policy, whereas how we treat one another is immediate and defines our national character, either as hypocrites or as champions of freedom. When Republicans go to the polls to select their next battery of candidates, I do encourage them to vote their values. They would just do well to remember them first.

It is a popular saying about Hillary Clinton that you either “love her or hate her”, as if she were an iconoclastic crusader whose extreme views either galvanize or ostracize. The truth is that when one examines Hillary’s record and conduct, the reason she loses appeal is not for fierce progressivism. For while the notion of a female President is progressive in and of itself, the reason why I went from someone guardedly hopeful about such a candidacy to someone ardently opposed to her is because she seems to promise only more of the same divisive, negative, establishment politics. But I’ve also come to realize that not many people recognize this.

So it is in the interest of appealing to those who see virtue to a Clinton candidacy that I’m writing this. I’m not preaching to the choir of her conservative opponents, nor am I demanding that her converts hate her out of hand. This is a breakdown of my personal conversion from critical observer to zealous opponent.

1. More Negativity and “Base” Politics.

One of the things that has been most objectionable about Clinton’s conduct is her relentlessly negative strategy. When someone criticizes occasionally, then it suggests a critical mind, but when they’re doing it constantly, it suggests a plan of using a tactic over and over rather than relying on speaking in a forthright way.

This is the same thing Democrats accuse Rove of - “going negative” in order to gouge at an opponent, rather than expose one’s own weaknesses. And Hillary does it all the time. Let’s review the major points she’s made in the last three months:

August 27 - Hillary goes negative about Bush’s “war on science”.

August 22 - Hillary goes negative about PM Maliki (though who could really blame her; see my blog).

August 16 - Hillary goes negative about others being so negative (which they’re not; see other posts below).

August 13 - Hillary goes negative about Obama for the upteenth time.

You may note that quite a few of these links are from FOX News, not seen as the most trusted news source by many, and for valid reasons. Nevertheless, you can do the search yourself - these were her big headlines; these, and numerous others that focus on her principal Democratic rival, on the “Right Wing Attack Machine”, on the Republicans, on Bush, on Rove - on anything but her own policies for their own sake. She is constantly in opposition to someone else’s failings and, as any who examine Obama’s comments knows, those failings are often fabricated simply for the purpose of attack.

So what, if she is trying to cast attention on others’ negatives, is Hillary concerned about concealing?

2. More Unambitious Establishment Policies.

The answer to that is that she is a thoroughly establishment candidate. She takes the largest amount of money from lobbyists, some of them with troublesome agendas, such as unrestricted trade with China. She supports civil unions, but also supports the states’ rights to deny gay couples the right to call themselves “married”. Her health care plan, far from being “socialized medicine”, is a large, unwieldy entitlement designed - due to lack of competitive bidding with drug companies - to benefit the medical industry and insurance companies at taxpayer expense, while not reforming the bureaucracy.

3. More Lack of Accountability

She also is secretive, managing the media with aggressive attacks on even potential detractors and closing off access. We cannot afford another Presidency without transparency in the Executive.

And as for one appeal she holds for many who embrace halcyon memories of the 90s, she will not be restoring Bill to office. I don’t mean to say she’s going to lock him in the Oval Office closet, but her Presidency will be her own. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, we don’t need Bill for the end of the ’00s. He was good for the 90s, an era of post-Cold War upheaval that needed a fluid, positive and easy-going steward. But these are no longer easy-going times, and we will need someone of progressive attitudes, not preservationist attitudes, to undo the damage of the last eight years.

We do not need someone opposed to reforming trade agreements, as Hillary is. We do not need big government that amounts to a non-competitive subsidy to badly performing companies, like Hillary’s plan suggests. We do not need someone who is, in terms of civil rights, neutral and accomodationist, as Hillary evasively is.

And most importantly, we do not need someone who will simply blame Republicans for the war she supported, as Hillary does. People of the left who opposed the war from the start should know better than anyone that her blaming faulty intelligence ring as false as any excuse Bush ever made. The right criticisms of intelligence, the right advocates for caution or for greater marshalling of forces and the right strategic attitude were present in that debate, but she was willfully ignorant of them and vocally supportive of the conflict.

It is sad to see such behavior and attitudes in a person of such talent and ambition, but there we have it. She is engaging in the worst, most divisive of politics. She is doing it for an agenda that is not fiercely progressive, but instead is a stalling sop to the defective powers of America. And she maintains very little integrity in the process.

Looking beyond the fog of war created by her absurd critics reveals that, for the left and for all Americans, Hillary Clinton is simply not worth fighting for.

A scholar I’ve written about on this weblog before, Victor Davis Hanson, recently published a superb assessment of the value of military historian to public knowledge. Anyone intrigued or averse to the study of warfare’s bloody brass tacks should read it. It is a cogent cry for some awareness of how major states’ most mortal matters are conducted, in the hopes of giving some shape to the urgent concerns we now - as we should - have about them.

Hanson’s rhetoric is stirring - for good or ill, given the reader’s perspective on the value of willful bloodshed - and his logic is infallible. At the core of his work is a brilliant quote by poet Margaret Atwood, which Hanson places in the following context:

…it’s hard to find many wars that result from miscommunication. Far more often they break out because of malevolent intent and the absence of deterrence. Margaret Atwood also wrote in her poem: “Wars happen because the ones who start them / think they can win.” Hitler did; so did Mussolini and Tojo — and their assumptions were logical, given the relative disarmament of the Western democracies at the time.

Despite utopian notions that a nation could strip itself of its military component and lead the world by a Christ-like example of peace, it is the principle Atwood and Hanson describe that actually holds sway over a globe that is resource-starved and rife with tribal rivalries. And even those that decry the many human rights violations that are perpetuated around the globe - in fact, especially those - need to recognize the fundamental dynamic that deterrence by threat of real violence foremost deters violence. Rwanda would not have happened had the perpetrators considered their genocidal gambit more costly to their lives than to their victims, and so with Darfur, so with Uganda, so with Nepal, and with the numerous other silent catastrophes that groups like Human Rights Watch hope to rally against. In some instances, diplomacy’s strong left arm of economic pressure is sufficient, but in each of the examples cited, it would not be adequate alone. Hanson’s article well illustrates that in order to protect the weak from the strong and depraved, one has to be willing to impose one’s strength.

Willing and capable - and it is here that Hanson’s primary argument takes flight into practicable and important policy conclusions that serve his ends, while undercutting one specific historical assertion he makes. He writes:

Military history reminds us of important anomalies and paradoxes. When Sparta invaded Attica in the first spring of the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides recounts, it expected the Athenians to surrender after a few short seasons of ravaging. They didn’t — but a plague that broke out unexpectedly did more damage than thousands of Spartan ravagers did…The 2003 removal of Saddam refuted doom-and-gloom critics who predicted thousands of deaths and millions of refugees, just as the subsequent messy four-year reconstruction hasn’t evolved as anticipated into a quiet, stable democracy — to say the least.

While it is true that there are anomalies and paradoxes to warfare - far many than most war planners would care to admit - the plague of the Peloponnesian war could be counted among them, whereas the evolution of the 2003 Iraq War need not be and should not be. And here is a lesson that future historians, politicians, warriors and the body politic should bear in mind when preparing to either engage or shy from the conflicts inevitably to come.

The Iraq campaign of 2003’s collapse was no more anomalous than the Iraq campaign of 1991’s victory was. That we attained a relatively inexpensive triumph over Saddam’s army in 1991 was the result of having the means to achieve the objective. Whether one considers that objective to have been too limited or too broad in its violence or aims, it was nevertheless a successful objective. Overwhelming international support, a massive troop build-up that met the requirements of even pessimistic planners and significant post-war security planning were the factors in this formula of success. Iraq in 2003 was hubristically conceived as an essentially unilateral venture cloaked in an emphemeral pretext of international interests, executed in ways that were inadequate to not only the barest requirements of critics but often in direct defiance to them and to conventional military wisdom, such as the three-part structure to an assault. And while the war planners were correct in estimating that Saddam’s military was so impoverished and fragile as to still be vulnerable to such a haphazard opponent, they were sorely mistaken that a last-minute, venal and idealistically naive post-war plan could hold together the maelstrom created after the infamous iron fist of Saddam that had contained it was cracked.

No, Iraq 2003 was not anomalous. It is the closest thing to deliberate disaster in foreign relations by our Executive. And this is particularly important for Americans staring down Iran, Afghanistan, Darfur and the future monstrosities it might prevent with its strength to consider: Not all military conflicts are malfunctions. The first casualty is, indeed, the plan, but so long as you have adequate contingencies, sufficient reserves and resilient support, you can achieve reasonable and even virtuous objectives. We lost sight of this after seeing the furious savagery of Somalis we thought we were helping visited on our troops, and so did not go into harm’s way a year later to prevent another African humanitarian crisis, Rwanda. We sneered at Clinton’s bombing of “an aspirin factory” in response to al-Qaeda’s first resolute, high-profile attack against us, dismissing it as a “Wag The Dog” scenario devised to distract from his impeachment woes, and so inculcated in our Executive a dangerous reluctance to respond asymmetrically to terrorists. In essence, when examining Iraq in 2003, we have to realize that war planning can be catastrophically flawed, and in turn realize it can be sufficient and just. We can indeed stop bad things from happening.

How we fight may not always be the same as why we fight. Moral constructions of aggressors and the “good men” poised to stop them are not only facile, but a dangerous premise to judge a war’s causes by. Yet any examination of how we fight is necessary to understand that, regardless of what “whys” history’s course inspires a nation’s heart to commit homicide and suicide for the sake of, “why” a nation should know how to fight and should be ready to do so should never be questions.

The ruling coalition in the Iraqi Parliament under Maliki’s leadership said that they reached consensus on a number of reconciliation political reforms. I would be surprised if that consensus was other than “promise big things; stall further”.

The issues they’ve resolved their position on include releases of detainees, oil revenue sharing, reversing de-Baathification and provincial governments. These are, indeed, the Big Four. If progress was to be made on them, it would be the biggest step towards an actual democracy in Iraq since someone draped an American flag over the face of a statue of Saddam. But that’s a big “if” - about the size of the raided and pilfered arms caches Shiite extremists have stacked up in virtually every city south of the Sunni Triangle. The practice of asking aid with an empty hand while robbing us of blood and treasure with the other has held true since the Islamic Dawah Party and its cohorts seized power, and Sunni Accordance Front official Adnan al-Dulaimi described this latest declaration of consensus in light of that:

…the accord included “good decisions that would serve the whole Iraqi people.”

“But we doubt that they will be implemented,” he said. “All our experience with al-Maliki indicates that this is another new set of delaying measures. They give you a glimmer of hope, but at the end of the day you get nothing but promises.”

Promises, a butcher’s bill that’s bleeding out our military manpower, and a debt hole in our treasury so deep that it leads all the way to Beijing’s coffers.

Now don’t get me wrong - reconciliation legislation is just what we want to happen. If Maliki and his coalition actually do draft, pass and implement the legislation, we’d be getting somewhere. But since the motivation for Maliki is to do only enough to string the US deeper into the briar patch, I’m not thinking this is a step that will take us where we want to go.

The news since Wednesday has been following a steady course. I felt at risk of beating the same tune out on the drumskin of the blog - treating you all to the old, dirgelike beat that has settled like a stretch mark into the flesh of our world’s history this long, indolent August.

So, rather that whip out the razor wit and cutting insight only to treat you to the same messy dish of dissected details, I thought we might do this nice and tidy. Consider the following a chicken nugget history of the past four days. Devour with whatever sauce of slant your partisan heart desires.

Hillary Clinton - Still as cloyingly negative as the Brewster sisters’ nightly tipple. Her comrades are finally beginning to catch on - or, more likely, smell blood in the water, since Obama weathered a rhetorical beating far better than she. She is also still sheet-white, knees-knocking afraid of hypotheticals:

It’s a horrible prospect to ask yourself, ‘What if? What if?’…

I’m sure if anyone informed Hillary that hypotheticals have been known to mutate into the larger, even more dangerous Hypotheses, she would flee with heel-snapping speed for the hills. Her quote was actually about how a terrorist attack in America between now and the election would “automatically hand” Republicans an advantage. And, indeed, that’s a scary thought - what will happen to the Democrats’ industrious crafting of a global utopia that they’ve been so glowingly successful at? It’ll be back to the dark ages, led by the flag-pin-wearing troupe of the 20-odd Republican Senators who still support the war, with people cheering for Bush’s third term on the grounds that he did such a bang-up job of protecting them this one.

Maliki - Still seeming like a shill for Iran. And, alright, I’ll be fair, we’ll stack up the chips and see who’s running his table. He’s a representative of the Islamic Dawa Party, which is not only wholly responsible for appointing and backing him, it could also be considered the godfather of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Funds that we give to him, not to mention heaps of arms, just seem to vanish. Could they possibly be going into the hands of Iraqi police and Army that, to account for the “counter-surge” of Iranian backed attacks, are blowing us into chunks with IEDs?

So let’s see…We drive al-Qaeda from Baghdad, by and large, and suddenly we’re being bombed by weapons known to have come from a government that is practically the same political party as the Prime Minister who rules Baghdad belongs to. Meanwhile, said Prime Minister sucks in aid money and weapons that are believed to be going to militias of the same nationality and religion as himself, his party, and Iran. He simultaneously blocks all efforts to shift power away from his federalist government, while lashing out at people who say he doesn’t want unity and should be replaced…hmmm.

To coin a phrase, “With friends like these, who needs Saddam?”

Petraeus - Still doing a terrific job. He’s politick, he’s powerful, he proves we’re unbeatable in the field. Now if only that was all that mattered, we’d have this thing sewn right up. But considering my perspective above about Maliki, it seems increasingly clear that Petraeus is, strategically speaking, just doing a terrific job killing off Iran’s rivals and earning more time to fund and arm Shiite militias masquerading as Interior Ministry troops and Army.

Those that turn their nose up at the Vietnam analogy are definitely right in one sense. In Vietnam, we didn’t fight the enemies of the Communists while a Communist regime squatted in Saigon, sucking up arms and aid, attacking us to keep us weak for the day when we’d leave and they could link hands with Uncle Ho to the North in an orgy of sectarian violence. That level of SNAFU and moral fracture is reserved for Iraq alone.

Iran - Still defiant. Why shouldn’t they be? They’ve got the region on a string and they’re sitting on Gravity’s Rainbow with their missile program. Sure, sanctions are stinging them, but the hardliners in government are happy to keep the people distracted with propaganda and soul-crumpling crackdowns on freedoms.

Darfur - Still dying. Just not quite so quickly.

Obama - Still tough and smart, gathering the backing from the right people while drawing gutless censure from the wrong.

His comments on Cuba, now controversial, are supported by Cuban-Americans who want to send money home, for it allows them to do just that and only that - it does not lift the trade embargo, but does open a dialogue to determine what human rights efforts would need to be made to do that.

“Until there’s justice in Cuba, there’s no justice anywhere,” Obama said. “We will talk to our enemies as well as our friends and both to our enemies and to our friends, we will tell them the truth and tell them what we stand for.”

Considering what half a century of silence with Cuba has done to the Castro regime relative to the people of Cuba, I think it’s not so much of a stretch that advocating a change of action has merit.

Bush - Still no sign of change of action.

Humanity - Still brutish, still weirdly tragic, still muddling on despite it all.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki recently took gentlemanly umbrage with the criticisms of him flying fast and free from his erstwhile ally, the United States.

Without naming any American official, al-Maliki said some of the criticism of him and his government was “discourteous.”

Courtesy goes a long way in diplomacy, but one must judge its value relatively speaking. In this case, I think it’s not just discourteous, but jaw-droppingly damn rude to funnel weapons to Shiite militias, steal billions in aid and generally let American lives and lucre buy you time to amass your forces for a sectarian civil war. So until Maliki actually takes the smallest shuffle towards passing some of the most basic power-sharing legislation that was imagined even before the invasion, it’s safe to ignore him as an authority on Emily Post.

Increasingly, people in Washington are getting the message that, at best, Maliki is a begrudging ally, and at worse a sectarian thug little better than al-Sadr. Carl Levin called for his summary dismissal and replacement, and while I don’t think it’s set anywhere in writing that this is within the powers of the US, I’m fairly sure we could pull it off without too much fuss. The question for this poll-driven political beast of a democracy that we have then becomes, “What’s the support for it?”

The answer is, quite vast.

The Biden plan does not envision the Iraq government in the shape that it is in, and that’s a plan with adherents across the political spectrum. Brownback and Richardson also propose alternatives to the current form of government. And one doesn’t get a better cross-section of America’s electorate than measuring between Brownback and Richardson.

The common consensus is accepting facts that are not unfamiliar to the strategic scholarship community, principal among them being that the political solution’s the stake in the heart of Iraq. What’s making this increasingly clear is the focus being put on the criminal lassitude of the Iraqi government; the more people see how little’s getting done, the more they realize that maybe, considering everyone else - from troops to terrorists - have been working hard, the Iraqi government is the problem. They want a change in leadership in Iraq to something less deadly and potentially traitorous. Believe me, the Iraqis agree with them.

The concern them becomes, can the one person who has the power to initiate this do so? Bush has shown no real will to that affect, or to affect any change beyond militarily supporting a general whose plan circumstantially coincides with Bush’s own interests by embedding us deeper in Iraq and raising the stakes. Then again, muttering about a coup is unbecoming of an ally. That truly would be discourteous.

But if Bush has something brewing up out of sight of the cameras and his chums in the Green Zone, this raises another concern. Not to be harsh, there has been no major policy decision about Iraq that has been handled well by the White House. The two positives in the Iraq war - General Franks’ drive to Baghdad and General Petraeus’ current campaign - have more to do with having the right leaders in the right place at the right time because they happen to support the White House’s policies, not about them being appointed or supported on the basis of their merit alone. When coupled with chin-stroking about a coup, dismissal or rigged ousting of Maliki, this raises another grim spectre from our past.

Bush recently equated the responsibility Americans bear in Iraq with consequences of the US’ withdrawal from Indochina over thirty years ago. What our actual moral duty in that instance was is debatable, but the analogy of responsibility is a sound one all the same. Yet it is the equivalence with another responsibility of ours - the facilitation and sanctioning of the murderous overthrow of the South Vietnamese government - that we must also consider.

That availed us nothing. It earned us fierce animosity of those that did not support the resulting military junta. And while it did serve to support some liberalization of South Vietnam, it ultimately only delayed the tragic chaos of our departure long enough to cost us around forty thousand more American lives and nearly a million more human lives. A coup is a delicate thing - heart surgery for a sick nation. One hopes that the hands and eyes of the Bush administration are up to the task.

The Democratic debate in Iowa was quite the event, at least for those who could shove aside repetition, tedium, and an “up with the chickens” start time to see it. It seems like the less publicity the debates get, the more reasoned the responses from the candidates. To get the truth, you have to get up early Sunday mornings. I know it sounds like Jerry Falwell said that, but in this case, it’s true. Either at the speartip of swinging opinion polls about the war, or only by virtue of good sense by osmosis, most of the Democrats seem to be coming around to the more measured stances Barack Obama and Joe Biden sensibly took. And at an hour of the morning when only a slim portion of the electorate will tune in to hear them say it, they’re not afraid to let the world know.

If only the moderator had been so reasoned. Every debate demands some assessment of its moderator’s performance. But the assessment in this case is whether it was meant to be a debate at all - as opposed to a poorly orchestrated dog fight with some very confused hounds - given the performance George Stephanopoulos presented. Given this, our assessment of the Democratic Debates in Iowa, August 19 2007, begins with an analysis of the man who, by virtue of his bias, should have been up on stage rather than trying to fool people that he was “moderating”.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: George Stephanopoulos fought well and hard for Clinton and Edwards, but at certain times I think he overdid it. The 16 solid minutes he spent on the question “Why is Obama not ready to be President?” seemed a bit biased without basis. This was especially true when, as was the case with Richardson and Edwards, the candidate didn’t seem to want to spend a solid two minutes Barack bashing, so George would just ask them again. Biden, whose comments had supposedly inspired the beating - I mean “question” - in the first place, seemed like he was getting genuinely steamed after George tried to rake him for yet more of Obama’s failings.

Hillary had no such compunctions, of course. The entire scenario - and I kid you not, it was 16 minutes, the first ten or so of which demanded Obama stand in stoic silence and take it on the chin - seemed geared to allow her to flay Obama while looking like she was defending him. Stephanopoulos would push for a direct answer as to, “Why is Obama not ready to be President?”, as if he were some hard-nosed reporter and not a brown-nosed weasel, and Hillary would resignedly “have” to answer.

He then followed with an inquiry into what Hillary meant when she first said she would not use nuclear weapons, and then said she would. He seemed satisfied that the difference between the questions that respectively ellicited those responses, “Would you potentially use nuclear weapons against Iran if they had a bomb?” and “Would you potentially use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan to hunt terrorists?” is that the first is not a hypothetical. How she thinks this is beyond me.

Given that the other half of the debate involved George kicking back, his good deed done for the Clinton campaign and his grin wide, I think we can move onto the analysis of the actual host of the debate.

CLINTON: Clinton had her regal bearing back in this debate, and it rapidly cracked, her expression souring swiftly as Obama survived the salvo of the Stephanopoulos set-up, and not improving as she was forced to take something approaching a reasoned, substantial position on uncomfortable subjects like her statements and Iraq. The excuse she used to get out of the tough spots her dissembling and distortion put her in - one spreading like a virus or a bad elementary school playground joke among the more deliberately insipid of the Democrats - was that she’s just so tired of all these “hypothetical” questions.

Given that it’s practically her mantra now, that it appears to be catchy and that it makes about as much sense as upside-down shoes, I’m going to breeze through the meat of her decisions in this debate and get right to the bone. In Iraq: She’s going to pull out and stay in, immediately for over a long time. This actually is about close to the truth of what’ll likely happen in Iraq, but anyway, moving right along. The Power of Prayer: Yes, she believes in the power of prayer, because to say anything else than she believes in an invisible, intangible Superman who prevents bad things from happening if you love Him enough would make the majority of the American electorate think there was something wrong with her. Trade Bills: Oh, oops, ran out of time…

So back to Hillary’s Hysterical Hypotheticals. She hates them. Really, is just so tired of them. One gets the impression that she sees them as just too juvenile, and will not allow them in her class, along with gum-chewing and drawing on your podium while she’s talking. And this would be alright, if not for the fact that the entire event - indeed, the entire concept of candidacy - is /based/ on hypotheticals.

Namely, “/If/ I was President, I would…”

I laud Hillary’s efforts to eliminate the known from the unknown - a new, purely empirical candidacy that never talks about what she’s going to do, but only what she has done. She would no longer spend two minutes, when asked about her own corruption and ineptitude in Congress, talking to the hypothetical corruption of the perfidious Bush Presidency - she can’t speak for Bush’s motives, or history’s take on it; those are hypotheticals; we’ll just stick to talking about all the lobbyist money she took, which I am sure she has receipts for every dime. She would no longer present hypotheticals about how world opinion is shifting, or talk about economic projections for America’s future, or talk about what is responsible for a President to do or not, for, after all, she just speaks for herself. We could spend the entire campaign talking about what she’s said in the past, or what she just did, right then, that we know and can prove, and will never once need to hear the term, “If elected President, I…”

That would be glorious.

KUCHINICH: Dennis was in fine fettle. His wife got more camera time than he did, but what camera time he had, he used to speak in reasoned - albeit lofty - terms about Health Care. Health Care, despite the average American’s aversion to “socialized medicine”, is actually his strongest suit, as the criticisms of his opponent’s positions present their plans - and I refer to most of the GOP in this as well - as just anemic, venal versions of socialized medicine anyway, which they are. He points out, and rightly, that we already have socialized medicine. Only now, it is basically just a subsidy to the drug and insurance companies that inconveniences most people.

He was neither sleepwalking nor wearing jetboots this time, and stuck to what he knew and thrives at - the deep and ardent concern for the common American - rather than speaking to the grandiose vision of world harmony and instant global peace. This made him seem what he is, a crusader for the rights of those who’re being victimized. Unfortunately for his candidacy, that is not what he is running for.

RICHARDSON and DODD: Yes, I know they’re two different people. And this time around, there was none of the Echo-Chamber-of-Chub thing they had going on in the past. However, I just could not tell you why Dodd is running except to help out Hillary by talking her up, jeering at Obama and going into elaborate explanations as to how federal legislating is complex.

Equally dismissable is Richardson. Bill is getting more comfortable, more confident than the soapbox stamper of yestermonth, but as soon as he lulls me into a false sense of security with his modulated voice and seemingly sensible Iraq plan, he does something like declaring that he could get all the troops out of Iraq by December of this year, and down goes the house of cards.

GRAVEL: Speaking of guys who beg the question, “Where’re the butterfly nets when you need ‘em?”, Mike Gravel showed up but spared us any serious growling. I almost missed that. About the time Gravel goes off like a car engine doing 120mph without a drop of oil in it, I’m feeling like running down one or more of the candidates myself. So he either lays down a vicarious tantrum or shames me back into a more reasoned mindset. This time around, he rolled out the standard line about everyone around him being bought and paid for - yes, Dennis Kuchinich, pawn of the rich - and then returned to fuming anonymity.

EDWARDS: Edwards didn’t act crazy - though he did look it, blinking explosively - but he continues to talk too little of himself. All of his positions came from other candidates, and he made little attempt to hide this, even talking about some policies - like Iraq - in light of others having crafted it. He’s really selling me on everyone else, but as I only have one vote, I’m not thinking this a wise strategy.

BIDEN: Joe gets less and less time it seems, but the time he gets is never ill-spent. He was direct about Iraq, about how he’s had a plan for some time now, and though it would be difficult - as any action in Iraq would be - it would work in the way the Balkans had. Though I’m not sold on the parallel environmentally, I think the similarities are successful enough that the plan might have merit. Other questions were answered in a straight-forward, intelligent way, sometimes with a bit of wry wit to break up the monotony. In short, I like Joe. It’s a shame only 2% of Iowans feel as I do, and are more fond of shameless distortion, spastic evasion and the magical teleportation powers of Brujah Bill Richardson.

OBAMA: Watching Obama’s performance was like watching a cross between an old episode of “Firing Line” with William F. Buckley and Rocky II. “Firing Line” because it was grade-A scholarship coupled with moral conviction, channeled through clear, articulate (yes, I said it) statement of policy. “Rocky II” because you go in there knowing he’s going to take an awful, awful beating before he so much as lands a solid punch, and he ends up standing strong in the end.

Truth be told, we heard nothing knew from him. He talked of common sense when it actually was common sense, rather than an excuse for why we “shouldn’t talk in hypotheticals”. And he talked of having to maintain a significant presence in Iraq and in the region thereof, rather than promising that headlong flight is going to have no serious negative consequences. These statements were certainly exceptional for any candidate, but they are customary for him.

What was truly extraordinary was that he endured a relentless, humiliating line of questioning from Hillary’s big-haired little goblin of a “moderator” and came out looking as poised as a royal portrait. This is not his usual way. He’s stumbled before, notoriously in his early debates and later at Soldier Field. But it seems like the trial by fire of the last two months - wherein he’s been accused of wanting to invade Pakistan, to never use nukes ever never ever, and all manner of immaturities that, in fact, if one looks at them, only make his accusers look like idiots - has done him well in terms of fortitude. In sum, he does not look inexperienced anymore, but like a politician who’s taken some bad knocks.

And unlike many of the politicians around him, he does not duck, does not shrink, does not strike back with low blows.

If anything, the debate that began as a backhanded message that Obama was not ready to be President was proof that, at last, he truly is.

The subject of the morality of warfare and the burden borne by those who have to suffer it has been a frequent trend in my discussions of late. This underscores the necessity to point out one of the important principles to keep in mind as civilians - or even inactive military personnel - sifting the chaos of a martial conflict for hard truths and lucid insights.

We can seek to understand. We can even draw lessons. But we cannot judge.

This is not to say we cannot hold people accountable. Instead, it’s to point out that, even when we apply the laws under which soldiers in combat are supposed to obey, we have to recognize the gulf of moral understanding that separates our experience from theirs and so recognize the inadequacy of measuring their experience by the standards of our own. Looking hard at demons is not the same as having to grapple with them, let them in, live them, and exorcise them.

An article that brings this to mind deals with the recent acquittal of a Marine NCO in the Haditha killings. It appeared in the OC Register under Gordon Dillow’s byline, and I reprint it here in its entirety for due consideration:

A few weeks ago I wrote about a court hearing I attended at Camp Pendleton for Marine Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, one of eight Marines initially charged in connection with the 2005 killing of 24 civilians, including some women and children, in Haditha, Iraq.

In the column I wrote about the difficulty of sitting in a clean, safe and orderly courtroom and trying to judge events in a dirty, dangerous and confusing place 8,000 miles away – and, to the anger and dismay of some readers, I said that based on what I knew of the Haditha case and of the war in Iraq, I hoped that the charges against the Marines would be dropped. I also said that I would revisit the case periodically.

Currently there are no court hearings underway in the Haditha case. Lance Cpl. Tatum, 26, whose attorneys argued that the civilians were tragically but accidentally killed while Marines were clearing houses hiding armed insurgents, is now awaiting a recommendation on whether he should face a full court-martial on unpremeditated murder charges.

However, last week there was a development in the Haditha story when Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis dismissed charges against two other Marines in the case – one of them Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, 22, who was charged with killing three Iraqi men.

But Lt. Gen. Mattis didn’t just quietly drop the charges and run for cover. An honorable, courageous and widely admired officer who isn’t afraid to forgo political correctness and speak his mind – two years ago he horrified many queasy civilians by publicly saying it was “fun” to shoot enemy fighters who “slap women around because they didn’t wear a veil” – Mattis also released a written statement explaining his action.

And to me, his statement is one of the most honest – and at times eloquent – things I’ve read about Americans at war in Iraq.

Although Mattis’ statement has bounced around on the Internet, it was largely ignored by the news media. For example, Time magazine, which broke the “Haditha Massacre” story and has featured it on its cover, didn’t even mention the dismissals in this week’s edition. (The Register ran a news brief.)

But if you can’t see it elsewhere, you can see it here. This is Lt. Gen. Mattis’ statement in its entirety.

“The events of November 19, 2005 have been exhaustively reviewed by Marine, Army, and Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigators. An independent Article 32 Investigating Officer has considered all the facts and determined that the evidence does not support a referral to court-martial for Lance Cpl Sharratt. Based on my review of all the evidence in this case and considering the recommendation of the Article 32 officer, I have dismissed the charges against Lance Cpl Sharratt.

“Lance Cpl Sharratt has served as a Marine infantryman in Iraq where our Nation is fighting a shadowy enemy who hides among the innocent people, does not comply with any aspect of the law of war, and routinely targets and intentionally draws fire toward civilians. The challenges of this combat environment put extreme pressures on our Marines. Notwithstanding, operational, moral, and legal imperatives demand that we Marines stay true to our own standards and maintain compliance with the law of war in this morally bruising environment.

“The experience of combat is difficult to understand intellectually and very difficult to appreciate emotionally. One of our Nation’s most articulate Supreme Court Justices, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., served as an infantryman during the Civil War and described war as an ‘incommunicable experience.’ He has also noted elsewhere that ‘detached reflection cannot be demanded in the face of an uplifted knife.’

“Marines have a well earned reputation for remaining cool in the face of enemies brandishing much more than knives. The brutal reality that Justice Holmes described is experienced each day in Iraq, where Marines willingly put themselves at great risk to protect innocent civilians. Where the enemy disregards any attempt to comply with ethical norms of warfare, we exercise discipline and restraint to protect the innocent caught on the battlefield. Our way is right, but it is also difficult.

“With the dismissal of these charges Lance Cpl. Sharratt may fairly conclude that he did his best to live up to the standards, followed by U.S. fighting men throughout our many wars, in the face of life or death decisions made in a matter of seconds in combat. And as he has always remained cloaked in the presumption of innocence, with this dismissal of charges, he remains in the eyes of the law — and in my eyes — innocent.”

And that’s it. Three Marines are still facing charges in the Haditha case, and Mattis eventually will have to review their cases as well. But whatever happens in those cases, I know this much.

Maj. Gen. James Mattis isn’t afraid to see the truth.

Or to speak it.

Gordon Dillow served as an Army sergeant in Vietnam and has been an embedded reporter with Marine infantry units in Iraq. Contact him at 714-796-7953 or GLDillow@aol.com

Hillary Clinton seems as unstoppable a westward force as Hurricane Dean, as a new Field Poll prominently featured on the Drudge Report indicates - thing is, it’s a false indicator. The polling method is shoddy at best, having only been a random sample of 418 households.

That may sound like a lot of phonecalls, but is some sad statistics work indeed, even by the standards of the pollsters who conducted it - California Field Poll. The review of their statistic collection methods recommends a much larger desired sample for accurate polling - 418 isn’t even as high as what they recommend for a county survey, let alone a state:

…the total number of listed telephone households in the data base for this county is 45,000 and that county is allocated 500 numbers…

That such a small sample be applied to a statewide poll is preposterous. Considering that the survey took nine days, it may seem that obtaining a larger sample would be difficult, but Zogby and other reputable polls have had no such difficulty, as a review of their surveys suggests. In a four day survey for instance, they managed to poll some 1,200 respondents.

Yet the impact that this little footprint has could be huge. They may be 418, but their opinions are taken as barometric truth and stated with conviction to the visitors of the Drudge Report - the lodestone of not just new media, but all media - that has enjoyed 14, 627, 094 visits within the last 24 hours as of this writing. Now the politically curious, the talking heads, the polls, the financiers, the media producers and the common voters that comprise that visitorship will carry the ripple of the 418 outwards, influencing the globe’s outlook.

It’s time to clip the wings of the butterfly effect. Substandard media statistics should be given due context and scrutiny - just as should be applied to the substance and tactics of the candidates themselves. The alternative is to be susceptible to pathetic propaganda - the kind of media that values a flashy story over a fact-based leadership, and so inevitably leads to leadership that values the same.

The Iraqi Parliament got a coalition together that could pass some democratic reforms - problem being that the coalition doesn’t include the largest, most contentious and most desperate ethnic group in the country.

The new Shiite-Kurdish coalition will retain a majority in parliament — 181 of the 275 seats — and apparently have a clear path to pass legislation demanded by the Bush administration, including a law on sharing Iraq’s oil wealth among Iraqi groups and returning some Saddam Hussein-era officials purged under earlier White House policies.

The benefits are distinct in theory, but difficult in practice. Yes, the coalition means legislation can be passed. The problem is that the legislation that needs to be passed is intended to benefit the very people excluded from crafting it. Right now there’s a lot of hand-wringing about whether the Sunni will accept measures manufactured by those they feel exclude and bully them.

The problem is far more serious. Even some measure of help will be of great assistance and appeal to the Sunni, but that’s assuming that the legislation that ordains it is enacted, funded and executed. This is the real demonstrated problem with the Iraqi parliament’s leadership - they talk of unity and reconciliation, but do little to practically achieve it. Arms are shunted to Shiite militias; aid is withheld from neighborhoods that need it most; oil revenue and foreign assets vanish.

Reconciliation leglislation stands to be passed, and bright promises writ into law. But lovely words are not lovely things by their mere nature. If backed by action, they’re the glint on real gold. If used to mask a perversion of justice, negligence or conspiracy, they’re shiny as cyanide.

Gen. David Petraeus has pulled off yet another brilliant coup in his conduct of the war in Iraq - he has gracefully placed both the US Congress and Iraq’s Prime Minister in positions where they would be hard pressed to oppose the progress of his strategy. The laureled Commander of MNF in Iraq overcame union stalling in getting his forces to Iraq, Pentagon-driven equipment deprivation while leading in Iraq, and of late turned the Sunni militas that were the country’s chief marauders into the skeleton of a formidable force for security and reconciliation. Now he appears to be preparing to oblige the legislators of two nations to join with his strategy or appear venal and reactionary.

In the case of the US Congress, Petraeus stated that he considered a troop reduction next year to be not only favorable, but necessary.

“We know that the surge has to come to an end, there’s no question about that. I think everyone understands that by about a year or so from now we’ve got to be a good bit smaller than we are right now.

“The question is how do you do that … so that you can retain the gains we have fought so hard to achieve and so you can keep going. Again we are not at all satisfied where we are right now. We have made some progress but again there’s still a lot of hard work to be done against the different extremist elements that do threaten the new Iraq.”

This makes him seem like he is, in fact, acknowledging the merits of their arguments - it makes him seem not only thoughtful, but allied. Yet at the same time he noted that in light of that necessity, the extra effort that the “Surge Strategy” represents must be continued. It clarifies his strategy’s objectives, addresses the reality of an increasingly exhausted America and, in doing so, makes his insistence on an extra effort seem realistic.

He made these comments while staging a political event that was tailored to harness the other critical legislature - Maliki’s frozen political bloc - and drag them towards progress. He was meeting with Abu Abed, a militaman who runs the Amariyah neighborhood of Baghdad, one of the most ravaged and conflict-ridden zones in the martial metropolis. With Iraq’s Deputy PM along, Petraeus exchaged oaths of aid for promises of security for Iraqis of all sectarian stripe to live under Abed’s protection.

The great significance of this deed is its location. Amariyah has been a wound in the side of the reconciliation process - promised much and given nothing, it has languished since the war’s beginning and became a haven for al-Qaeda and Shiite militias. Sunni cabinet members left Maliki’s government in protest this past spring over the seemingly willful neglect over the ailing neighborhood and others like it. When Baghdad erupted against al-Qaeda, Amariyah was the first to explode. The Deputy PM’s presence at the meeting suggests an end run around Maliki’s government to establish the provincial powers, balanced security networks and delivery of infrastructure aid that his policies inflict on them.

This is grounds for hope - not hope of swift results or an easy path, but at last hope that ulterior agendas and enforced ignorance will no longer be deciding the facts on the ground in Iraq. Petraeus’ only agenda is success, and he is not going to let circumstances born of the manipulations of ideologues decide whether he achieves it or not. This is the kind of leadership this war has always needed.

Let us hope it gets the support it deserves. What gains its winning are increasingly fragile with Iran’s counter-Surge of weapons and operatives raising the pressure in Baghdad’s fragile heart.

Few know where the Surge is going in strategic terms, but looking at the locations of the latest al-Qaeda attacks shows a definite geographical path.

What began in the outskirts of Baghdad three months ago and was dislodged from Baqouba, north of Baghdad, last month, continues to stream north. Kirkuk was where they hit earlier in the month. Now they are driven further on, to Mosul.

The consequences for communities in their path are predictably disastrous. This is scorched earth, suicide-bomber style, as is evidenced by the four bombings that struck an isolated rural village near Mosul today, killing over 175 people.

There is more than barbarity to read from this horrid act. The village that was struck was particularly remote. This demonstrates that al-Qaeda, in its discord and desperation, is having to look all the harder for vulnerable targets. And in the wake of their flight, thorough security operations and provincial militias are being employed to make sure they don’t return.

The hemorrhage in this otherwise robust system is still Baghdad. Immense, porous and ridden with corruption, Baghdad is nearly impossible to secure with the level of troops present. And into the power vaccuum left by al-Qaeda’s departure from the beleaguered capitol has stepped Iran’s agents - the Shiite militias. Now a full two-thirds of attacks in that zone are believed to be delivered by those well-armed proxies.

It seems that even as it is increasingly clear that al-Qaeda is being pushed to the margins, American must pay increasing attention to the menace at the core of the Iraqi state - both politically and military.

Karl Rove’s departure from the White House will likely have little effect on the policies of the Bush Administration, but its significance as a hallmark in the political soul of the nation is great. It gives us an occasion to reflect on what Rove and the adherents of his political strategies have contributed to how politics are conducted. And it lends itself to inspire us to wonder if the impact he made on that conduct is now rippling to an end.

Americans of any political stripe should hope so. This may sound like a profoundly partisan statement - a sneer at a man who has been a loyal streetfighter for the victory of the Conservative movement. In fact, as a political scientist, I tip my hat to Rove’s record of triumph. But as a citizen who believes in the virtue of both sides of America’s political discourse, I see Rove’s strategies as an insidious toxin in our political system - a chemical WMD that has reliably both won the field and poisoned it. For Rove’s victories were - like many of the policies they then allowed - pyrrhic victories. The reason for this is the principle objective of his strategy: relentless focus on wedge issues.

Wedge issues are issues that divide Americans into two distinct camps. It’s easiest to define what a wedge issue is by defining what it is not.

A “non-wedge” issue would be issues that most Americans differ on how to go about achieving success, but not whether such things should exist at all. The tax code is one issue; national defense is another. By contrast, wedge issues are the issues that divide sharply on whether they should exist or not, and usually have profound emotional associations: abortion, gay marriage, and “right to life” for instance. In all of Rove’s recent campaigns, from 1996 to 2006, he has always relied chiefly on negative statements about opponents coupled with pushing wedge issues into the media agenda.

In doing so, his wedge issues have chiseled away at the political bridge in American political dialogue and cut a Republican Party “base” that leaves many conservatives feeling like they’re in the dust. The advantage of defining a campaign with the emotionally-fierce wedge issues is that it riles up a zealous “base”. This base provides a dependable cadre of voters that will always mobilize in strong numbers for Republicans because of the side of the “wedge” they are on. Meanwhile, swing voters are influenced by the relentless negativity, usually to vote on the basis of a candidate’s sullied character, rather than on their opponent’s policy beneifts - or to not vote at all out of mutual disgust. Rove did not so much as get people to vote /for/ his candidate on issues like national defense as /against/ the other candidate.

The result? Apathy and disappointment among swing voters, and a base that is viciously active and powerfully organized around those wedge issues. As a result of the latter, Republicans - and, even, to the extent that vocal minorities influence the dialogue and thus the agenda - have to pander to the extreme on those wedge issues. That the wedge issues are not the “Reagan Republican” or “Goldwater Republican” priorities of the “western” Republican party, driven by a love of individualism and small government, but the priorities of the “southern” Republican, moralistic and dependent on government enforcement of values, leaves many Republicans stuck in the mud, and the “big tent” with them. Now issues that normally would not unite Republicans of the Goldwater stripe with those of Jerry Falwell’s - such as gays in the military and stem-cell research - embody the Republican base that all GOP candidates must cater to in order to win.

Just as this forces wedge issues to typify the Republican base, it vilifies it. Democrats who otherwise would and have met across the aisle on non-wedge issues are forced into positions of staunch opposition to their GOP counterparts. The result is a divided electorate - one that is increasingly suspicious of the other side even though cooperation is not only necessary, but entirely possible and comfortable. If the caustic, paranoid rhetoric in partisan political commentary that has risen since the mid-90s is not evidence of this enough, looking at the electoral results in Rove’s races shows that the victories he wins are always close calls, and always carried due to a staunch socially conservative base. In short, the wedges have driven us apart, demolishing consensus and leaving it with a feeling of angry void and impending collision.

This is not all Rove’s mantle to bear, but with his record of triumph and ruthlessness in achieving it, he has been its standard bearer. He has helped create an America that votes against, not for; mobilizes to react, not act; distrusts rather than hopes. To follow his example was to be successful; to attempt to resist it was to be seen as outdated or, at best, anomalous. Now that he is gone, will his adherents and their strategies leave with him?

No. Already Clinton and her campaign’s captain, Terry McAuliffe, have taken reflexive negativity to a blitzkrieg level. They mechanically follow Rove’s playbook, tossing the wry positive politics of the last milennium’s final decade out the window in favor of a cynical, manipulative means of sure success. What Rove matured from mere tactics into a full-fledged religion, candidates like Clinton, Edwards and Romney are waging holy war with.

Now America is faced with a dilemma that will not be solved with the departure of one man or the change of nameplates in the White House - it is a wear in the fabric of the nation’s soul. The aberration that was Rove’s strategy has become the rule. And if due censure is not stuck on those who fight and win by it, that rule may one day be synonymous with American politics.

After four years of watching the chaos in Iraq like a kid at a horror movie with his fingers fanned in front of his face, the UN is heading back into the maelstrom with new resolve. The Security Council passed a resolution that nearly doubles the UN’s staff present and sets some definite objectives for the UN’s mission there, most importantly aiding in reconciliation and enhancing the infrastructure.

And yet, is this really good news? UN resolutions have a somewhat shabby reputation these days. Though this is largely due to a misconception about how the UN works - and just who, exactly, pulls the teeth out of those resolutions - there is cause for concern that more blue helmets in country are just a larger dose of a placebo.

This is not so. The situation in Iraq needs all hands on deck. A greater role for the organization in bringing the basic human needs to an ailing population - the UN’s specialty - is most certainly welcome. It is unlikely that the UN will have the clout to affect reconciliation, it is likely that their attempts to do so will bring retaliation just as they did in 2003, but nevertheless, every bit of capable aid helps.

The sole concern about an increased UN presence is that liaison between the legitimate governing leadership - PM Maliki - and the UN might expose US attempts to put down the Iranian-backed Shiite militias that Maliki either actively or indirectly supports. A similar incident involving military being exposed to their target by the UN occurred in Somalia in 1993 under UNITAF, because both the UN and US considered the leading warlord there, Mohammed Farah Aideed, to be a faithful interlocutor. Aideed ended up merely waiting until the US scaled down its military presence, then launched attacks on the UN that culminated in the Battle of Mogadishu of “Black Hawk Down” infamy.

Bringing another party into an already complex and tense conflict is always a delicate matter. However, there is no doubt that Iraq needs all the basic humanitarian assistance it can get, and the same goes for pressure towards reconciliation.

Besides, its traditionally the UN that moves in to take over once a major western power has done most of the military heavy lifting. Its more cost-effective and less onerus for the US; it signals the shift of our burden, the coming of the end chapter of our involvement. In light of that, the US has less reason to be reluctant to include the UN, as the UN has to take over from the US.

The Democratic candidates for the Presidency attended a debate on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) Issues hosted by the Human Rights Campaign in Los Angeles, and ended up showing some significant differences. Surprising, no - but significant, yes. They’ll be broken down below.

KUCHINICH AND GRAVEL: Before getting to the way in which the others are different, we’ll handle the two that may as well be the same. Dennis and Mike both insist that so far as LGBT issues - all issues, actually - are concerned, love is the answer.

No, I’m serious. They said that.

And while they may have a point there on a certain humanist or Christian level, love as an effective governing policy or means of defense has yet to be conceived of. Love’s also pretty subjective in many cases - Do you love Israeli settlers more than Palestianians barely surviving on the land they want? If not, whose house are you going to deny them and call it love?

Metaphysics made policy aside, their positions on LGBT issues are all the most advanced in terms of social liberties. Their position is consistently, “whatever the community wants, with us, it gets.” That either of these men could convince the rest of Washington and the American public to march to that tune is highly unlikely.

RICHARDSON: Bill Richardson seemed as tired of the debate as I was of listening to it at that point. He was unenthusiastic, talked about legislation that he’d launched and seen fail, and sat on the fence about gay marriage in a big way.

Perhaps it was his reluctance to stand for a strong, federalized law ensuring civil unions, but somehow Richardson earned this panel’s Kiss of Death question. They asked him if he believed sexual orientation is a choice.

Or, in essence, “would you like to lose the vote of the gay community and their sympathizers, or most traditional religious groups?”

He at least took a stance - “It’s a choice” - which is not the one the gay community, who actually are gay, take. I suppose that’s better than others I’ve heard on this widely debated question that still has psychologists scratching their heads on some aspects, for instance “I know people who’ve chosen not to be gay” and “I think everyone’s at least a little gay.”

EDWARDS: Edwards showed why he’s always seemed a perpetual second-stringer to me. He’s reactionary and loves to divert. This is no knock to his expertise or anything, but it does not distinguish one was what many consider to be fit for a role of “First Citizen of the World”.

Rather than expand on his policy or how he’d get it enacted, Edwards talked about everybody but himself. He touched on his wife, Ann Coulter, “the Right”, Bush, and spun syrupy-sweet yarns to show that his heart runs raw. This is all very well and good for someone you want as your televangelist. As a President, anecdotes take a back seat to action.

Another defining Edwards moment was when he was asked about his statements that his wife, but not he, supported gay marriage, and that his lack of support came from “his faith.” He claimed that this was because he was “on a journey” with the issue, and I assume he meant in an internal sense, but it may’ve just meant from a red state to a blue state considering what he said last night.

Joe Solomone confronted him with his comments and asked, “Just what about your faith leads you to oppose gay marriage?”

Edwards responded that it had been “wrong” for him to say that; it was wrong to use faith to justify policy positions, there had been enough of that the last seven years. In fact, he supported gay marriage now! Praise Jesus!

Solomone’s answer to this would’ve been mine. “Considering you were ‘on a journey’ with this issue”, he asked, “where on that journey do you think you are now?” The end? Just stopping by, maybe?

OBAMA: Obama had a lot going for him in this debate. He went first, considering he responded positively to the invitation first. He has, as he said, made equal freedoms for all and speaking the truth even when especially difficult hallmarks of his career. And in what he said this night, he set himself apart from other candidates who support “civil unions”.

He summed up his position carefully, surely cautious about offending those who would feel their marriage’s “specialness” jeopardized by gay marriage. He said he wanted to “disentangle ‘marriage’ from the civil rights issue.” He intended to institute this federally - to make all marriage licensing a federal, civil union license.

This is a terrific notion. It allows religions to call the civil union that the state grants whatever they want - marriage, hand-fasting, what-have-you - and so lets churches stick to their faith. Gays can get married in churches that will marry them. They can call it marriage. They will have the same right to do so, and all the same legal rights as anyone else who calls themselves married, straight or gay.

It went over like a lead balloon. It’s tragic that the moderators and commentators didn’t see the potentials in this scheme of “marriage control”, that essentially liberates the term for private use while extending public rights to all.

Particularly considering that it was considered on parity with Hillary’s solution.

CLINTON: Clinton was a mass of excuses as to why things didn’t change during the 90s - “Republicans” - and why they won’t change quickly even today - “Republicans.” She explained that politics is a gradual process, and that it’s other people, not her, that are to blame for this. Once she’s in charge, there won’t be this problem, apparently.

Coverage of this debate have not distinguished her from Obama or Edwards, simply saying they were all against DOMA and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and in favor of anti-discrimination laws and civil unions. This is patently false. Saying Obama spoke in favor of the same concept of civil unions as Hillary is like saying Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke in favor of Jim Crow laws.

Clinton advocated that civil unions and gay marriage be a state issue. She would make sure that civil unions be mandated as having full equivalence with marriage rights, but the rest is up to the states to decide. How is this different from Obama’s?

Well, it’s different in that since gay marriage became an issue, some twenty-eight states have been coerced by fringe political activists to write into their Constitution that marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman. How this is not being contested as a violation of both the 1st and 14th Amendments, I do not know - it is, in essence, writing a law saying that one group can exercise a certain kind of speech and another group cannot. Hillary’s plan will explicitly allow this to continue. Leaving it to the states is just what happened under the era of “separate but equal”.

And yet she got a standing ovation.