Taking a cue from George W. Bush, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said of the Times Square bomber, “We will not be intimidated by those who hate the freedoms that make … this country so great.” This was the mantra after Sept. 11. We are hated not because of what we do in the Middle East, but because of who we are: people who love freedom and stand for women’s rights. And that is why they hate us — and why they come to kill us. In a way this is a comforting thought, because it absolves us of the need to think…

(Or) American’s toxic culture may be a reason devout Muslims detest us. It is not why they come here to kill us. Mohammed Atta’s friends did not target Hollywood, but centers and symbols of U.S. military and political power. U.S. Marines were not attacked by Hezbollah until we inserted those Marines into Lebanon’s civil war. No Iraqi committed an act of terror against us before we invaded Iraq. And if the Sept. 11 killers were motivated by hatred of the immorality of our society, what were they doing getting lap dances in Delray Beach?…

By Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. Looking at America’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Maj. Hasan, Abdulmutallab and Shahzad decided that what we call the war on terror was in reality a war on Islam.

All decided to use their access to exact retribution for our killing of their fellow Muslims. We are being attacked over here because we are over there. [Bolds mine—R]

This line of thought seems to be one of the more controversial in recent memory, which is probably why so few public people outside of academia voice it. I could leave my house this moment and easily round up a dozen or more people who realize this simple cause-and-effect relationship, but these are not people whose voices get airtime. No, public personalities who speak out loud this provable, painfully obvious sentiment get called “weird” or “radical” or “unpatriotic” (see Paul, Rand, and the Campaign for U.S. Senator from Kentucky, 2010).

Taking a hard look at American policies is simply uncool, for politician and pundit alike; whether it’s the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (patriots vs. anti-Semites), the abortion debate (respecters of women vs. intolerant chauvinists), or tax policy (Reaganomics/Clintonomics/Obamanomics vs. anyone who admits out loud that Social Security, Medicare and/or military spending will have to be drastically cut in the near future)… the question is never “what exactly is wrong,” but “which side is right?”

Wrong, wrong, wrong… all wrong. It’s why so many people are fed up with politics, and why I haven’t bothered to blog about it for so long. The conventional wisdom is what people are expected to discuss, from either the “conservative” perspective or the “liberal” one. Problem is, the conventional wisdom is rarely wisdom at all. It’s just so much bumper-sticker boilerplate, and the only one who benefits from it (aside from the bumper-sticker printers) are the politicians who rely on it to keep them from having to make any difficult decisions on anything of significance.

PS: Other anti-conventional-wisdom posts I’ve appreciated recently include the following: Ross Douthat’s “Myths of the Supply Side,” Daniel Larison’s “Questioning Our Assumptions About Iran,” and James Antle’s “Run, Ron, Run!”

Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will get only Sarah Palin.

I can play a kind of Alaskan roulette. Any random channel clicked on by the remote brings up that eager face, with its continuing assaults on the English Lang.

There she is with Larry and Matt and just about everyone else but Dr. Phil (so far). If she is not yet on “Judge Judy,” I suspect it can’t be for lack of trying. …

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

2.) Most astute analysis of the potential auto bailout: Many times in past months, I’ve directed your gaze to the wise words of Pat Buchanan, former Nixon speechwriter, Reagan adviser and fringe presidential candidate. There are plenty of places I part ways with him, but the man’s political instincts are usually keen — this post about “conservatives” and their strange opposition to a meager $25 million to bail out our auto industry is worthwhile reading, even if (like me) you aren’t sure you agree with it:

Understandably, Republicans are seething.

When Hank Paulson demanded $700 billion to haul away the trash in the dumpsters of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs — assuring us we could hold a garage sale of the junk — they rebelled. They acted as the nation, by 100 to one, demanded. They killed the Wall Street bailout.

The Dow quickly sank another 1,000 points, and, charged with criminal irresponsibility by the elites, the GOP buckled, reversed itself, rescued the bailout — and was wiped out on Nov. 4.

Now we hear from Paulson that the $700 billion Congress voted will not, after all, be used to buy up all that rotten paper on the books of the big banks. Some banks are using the cash to buy other banks.

So Republicans are right to be enraged. They are victims of the biggest bait-and-switch in political history. But they are now about to do something terminally stupid. With GM, Ford, and Chrysler teetering on the brink, they are turning a cold stone face to Detroit …

And to let the auto industry die is to write America out of much of the economic future of the planet. [Bolds mine-R]

Go read the whole thing. You’ll be a little smarter afterward.

3.) Funniest totally lame YouTube thing I just found: Thanks, Nick, for pointing me to this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J6S6mDyNvY[/youtube]

Before either a President Obama or McCain sends 10,000 more troops into Afghanistan, he should conduct a review as to whether this war is winnable, and at what cost in blood, money, and years.

Afghanistan is the longest war in U.S. history. Why have we not yet won? First, because we lack the forces. In World War I, we put 2 million men in France in 18 months. In World War II, 16 million served, with 12 million in uniform at war’s end. Today, we have 31,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Why so few troops? Because, despite what Americans say, few truly believe the survival of the Hamid Karzai regime is vital to our security or that we would be in mortal peril should the Taliban return. Indeed, Petraeus says we should seek “reconciliation,” presumably with the more moderate of the Taliban.

This really amuses me.

Now, how any objective person can look at the Israel-Palestinian situation of the past decades and come to the conclusion that it’s all the Palestinians’ fault is beyond me. But, that is part and parcel of the unwritten rule. Pat Buchanan — top advisor to Nixon, sometimes adviser to Reagan, and a hard-nosed defender of Republicans to this day in his common TV appearances — holds that Israel has done its share of bad, and that we as a nation have given too much help and gotten too little benefit.

That Buchanan is now posterboy in an anti-Obama ad probably amuses him too.

He’s given credit to the campaign when it’s made a good move, and lavished praise on Obama’s victory speech. Yet these are the sorts of comments he usually has for Obama — despite the fact that on foreign policy (which is a specialty of his, and with an eye toward history as a foundation), he’s far closer to Obama than McCain:

No candidate has ever been nominated by a major party with fewer credentials or a weaker claim to the presidency, or more doubts as to his core beliefs. If Obama wins, the country could be in real trouble.

… if, as Catholics believe, abortion is the killing of an unborn child, and participation in an abortion entails automatic excommunication, how can a good Catholic support a candidate who will appoint justices to make Roe v. Wade eternal … [the answer to that question is here, by the way--R]

After all, Barack did dump the flag pin. Michelle did say she had never been proud of her country before now. Barack did don that Ali Baba outfit in Somalia. His father and stepfather were Muslims. He does have a benefactor, Bill Ayers, who said after 9-11 he regrets not planting more bombs in the 1960s. He did have a pastor who lionizes Black Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan. Put glasses on him, and Barack could play Malcolm X in the movies.

Democrats, at least, are allowed to disagree on foreign policy, disagree on gay marriage, disagree on levels of abortion procedure (and, yes, abortion generally, though pro-life Dems don’t see as much TV time). But raise legitimate questions on America’s overseas overreaching, as Buchanan does and continues to do, and you’re not welcome at the GOP’s Hannukah party.

Even if you spend most of your time trying to help John McCain get elected president.

A similar meme popped up, briefly, a couple weeks ago when Buchanan mentioned on MSNBC that Palin has been a “Buchananite,” i.e. a supporter in his attempts to get the GOP nomination in the 90s and his third-party attempts when that was denied him. Well, the right-wing blogosphere went nuts, seeking ways to “defend Sarah” against that claim. Why? Because Buchanan is not staunchly pro-Israel, which is now part of the by-laws (and a major reason conservatives would have been somewhat OK with a Lieberman pick), and so maybe Palin wasn’t ultra-pro-Israel, too… is it really about conservative principles?

Go to wikipedia and search the term “neocon.” It will truly enhance your understanding of the real Republican power players, the ones behind the scenes, the ones who turned Bush’s “we won’t get into nation-building” into “we’re going to spread democracy across the globe.” It’s these people Buchanan’s pissed off, and nothing but full recantation will appease them.

P.S.: Buchanan’s latest is an interesting read for all you Palin fans out there (he’s one of you, by the way).

There’s a lot of talk right now on whether this is a good or bad move on McCain’s part. Personally, I think it’s a mixed bag.

Pros: She could help grab a piece of the Hillary vote, though her voting record on so-called “women’s rights” (mainly abortion, but also “equal pay) isn’t a strong suit. She’s young and fresh, possibly taking the edge off McCain’s self-proclaimed “oldness”. She’s seen by some (including herself) as a reformer who isn’t afraid to fight the big dogs. Most importantly, in my view, she’s nearly invincible in the vice presidential debate (but really, who votes on the basis of that?). I mean, do you recall how badly Obama came off when he attempted to rebuff Hillary on national TV? Well, Palin’s a lot more “likable enough” than Hillary, and an old fart like Biden had best watch his step.

Cons: She’s inexperienced — which takes away the central crux of McCain’s argument against Obama, which is pretty much the central crux of McCain’s campaign. She’s inexperienced — two years ago, she was mayor of a town of 9,000… that’s smaller than Shepherdsville, and by God I wouldn’t want my hometown’s mayor anywhere near the red phone. She’s inexperienced — she’s never been under national scrutiny, and two months isn’t ample time to work out the kinks.

Oh, and then there’s the fact that her relatively young record contains a number of things that directly clash with McCain and/or “the base”. She favors drilling in ANWAR (he opposes); she signed gay partner medical benefits into law in Alaska; she was one of the pitchfork carriers for Pat Buchanan’s 1996 bid.

That last is a plus in my book, but most GOPers have no use for the guy past his shilling for McCain on MSNBC, plus he’s widely held to be anti-Semetic, though there’s no basis for that. Buchanan himself today said this:

I think this is the biggest political gamble, just about, in all of American history.

Ultimately, the thing just doesn’t jibe. Politically, I guess, it makes as much sense as Romney. But does McCain really think it’s going to reinforce his constant assertion that he’s “ready to be commander-in-chief” that he — the oldest presidential candidate in history — is willing to put a first-term governor with no foreign policy purview a heart attack away from the Oval Office? You have got to be kidding.

Oh, and did I mention he’s a genuine war hero and that we honor his service?

P.S.: I found this from conservative stalwart David Frum AFTER I wrote the above.

If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?

There’s a lot of talk right now on whether this is a good or bad move on McCain’s part. Personally, I think it’s a mixed bag.

Pros: She could help grab a piece of the Hillary vote, though her voting record on so-called “women’s rights” (mainly abortion, but also “equal pay) isn’t a strong suit. She’s young and fresh, possibly taking the edge off McCain’s self-proclaimed “oldness”. She’s seen by some (including herself) as a reformer who isn’t afraid to fight the big dogs. Most importantly, in my view, she’s nearly invincible in the vice presidential debate (but really, who votes on the basis of that?). I mean, do you recall how badly Obama came off when he attempted to rebuff Hillary on national TV? Well, Palin’s a lot more “likable enough” than Hillary, and an old fart like Biden had best watch his step.

Cons: She’s inexperienced — which takes away the central crux of McCain’s argument against Obama, which is pretty much the central crux of McCain’s campaign. She’s inexperienced — two years ago, she was mayor of a town of 9,000… that’s smaller than Shepherdsville, and by God I wouldn’t want my hometown’s mayor anywhere near the red phone. She’s inexperienced — she’s never been under national scrutiny, and two months isn’t ample time to work out the kinks.

Oh, and then there’s the fact that her relatively young record contains a number of things that directly clash with McCain and/or “the base”. She favors drilling in ANWAR (he opposes); she signed gay partner medical benefits into law in Alaska; she was one of the pitchfork carriers for Pat Buchanan’s 1996 bid.

That last is a plus in my book, but most GOPers have no use for the guy past his shilling for McCain on MSNBC, plus he’s widely held to be anti-Semetic, though there’s no basis for that. Buchanan himself today said this:

I think this is the biggest political gamble, just about, in all of American history.

Ultimately, the thing just doesn’t jibe. Politically, I guess, it makes as much sense as Romney. But does McCain really think it’s going to reinforce his constant assertion that he’s “ready to be commander-in-chief” that he — the oldest presidential candidate in history — is willing to put a first-term governor with no foreign policy purview a heart attack away from the Oval Office? You have got to be kidding.

Oh, and did I mention he’s a genuine war hero and that we honor his service?

P.S.: I found this from conservative stalwart David Frum AFTER I wrote the above.

If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?