CRAIG SCHAMP is an unrepentant warmonger.

A BUNCH OF PEOPLE have emailed me about “cryptic anti-semitic remarks” by Gary Hart (here’s a blog account with links). Well, maybe. “Cryptic” is key. But that’s certainly how they’re hitting a lot of people.

Me, I thought he was talking about Zogby. . . .

UPDATE: Bill Quick has a different quote that’s more notable for its idiocy than its antisemitism. I’ll have to check out the whole speech later, but if Hart’s going to run as a Gaullist, he’s going to have a short, inglorious race.

JUST OVER 120,000 PAGEVIEWS YESTERDAY. Jeez. In 1999 I would have been ready for an IPO.

It figures that I would get in on the one Internet boom that offers no prospect whatsoever of riches.

THE NASHVILLE SCENE IS COMPARING ME TO SIMON COWELL. Well, sort of.

SUMAN PALIT COMMENTS on pro-American sentiment among recent immigrants:

I did not spend a greater part of my life working my fingers to the bone to come to America, and then to build a new life for myself and my family, to enjoy and cherish the special freedoms that are the hallmark of this country, only to watch an intellectually effete elite barter it all away to appease the culture-gods of Europe.! A few reminders to the multi-culti “blame-America” crowd. I am unlikely to be swayed by your liberal, upper-middle-class guilt over whatever horrors lie in this country’s past. I respect the legacy of those sins. I hope to learn from them, but never at the point of rendering myself impotent. I am not impressed by your oh-so-mendacious comparisons of Bush to Saddam to Hitler. I am disgusted by your preference for “stability” in Iraq over the freedom and ultimate goal of safety and happiness of the Iraqi people. I am also, utterly unconvinced by those who wish to remake America in a hollow image of Europe. If I wanted that I would have immigrated to France.

I feel the same way, and my ancestors (the non-Cherokee ones, anyway)were thrown out of decided to leave Europe centuries ago.

PROFESSOR JEFF COOPER has a new bloghome, and it’s a handsome Movable Type-powered site. Drop by, say hello, and adjust your bookmarks.

NOW IT’S THE FRANCO-AMERICAN STREET SPEAKING:

Name: Chris Wyser-Pratte

Hometown: New Paltz, NY

Comments:

I’m a naturalized American born in France in 1944 of French parents. I served four years as a US Navy officer. I travel in France frequently. I love the French; it’s their government leaders I despise.

It was France’s government that surrendered a largely undefeated Army in WWII to Nazi prison camps. (After the Maginot Line was flanked and bypassed, there were no huge battles, no loss of hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen dying for la patrie. The government just waved the white flag and abandoned Britain to its lonely struggle.) It was France’s government under Petain that actively collaborated with Germany; it was France’s government that turned over that troublesome Jew, the Socialist leader Leon Blum, to Nazi overseers.

It was France’s government under deGaulle that pulled out of the NATO military alliance to try to establish a counter-weight to America with its “force de frappe.” It was France’s government which, during the cold war, played footsie with the Soviet Union so as to tweak the nose of American leadership. And it was France’s government that comfortably hid all those years behind the American military umbrella so they could spend all their money on social welfare.

As to the Germans, they don’t see the link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Quaeda anymore than their good burghers smelled the burning flesh from the ovens at the concentration camps that were so efficiently carrying out the “final solution.”

No more Munich Conferences and umbrella solutions of “peace in our time.” No more September 11ths. And no more “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

To hell with them.

I really do believe that Chirac, Schroeder, et al. are making a dreadful mistake here, and that they underestimate the depth — and the longevity — of the hostility they are creating.

POETS FOR THE WAR “has been created out of pure frustration at seeing a bunch of bad poets get publicity for being whiney wimps who do not understand human nature.”

Proof of Inspector Dupin’s observation that although all fools are poets, it does not follow that all poets are fools.

UPDATE: Justin Katz has some thoughts on poets and war.

ANOTHER UPDATE: There’s lots more pro-war poetry over at Best of the Web today.

IT’S NOT DEAD YET — but I think somebody may be about to hit it in the head with a hammer. I refer to the “Total Information Awareness” program, which looks likely to be blocked by legislation.

THERE’S A SERIOUS DEBATE GOING ON OVER AT THE BROTHERS JUDD — and it’s all by Tom Friedman.

I’VE POSTED SOME MORE THOUGHTS ON THE “AMERICAN STREET” — and some email therefrom — over at GlennReynolds.com but it occurs to me that I left out one interesting point in that post: a disproportionate (probably even a hugely disproportionate) share of the pro-American email that I got was from recent immigrants. There was also a lot from serving members of the military. I probably should have mentioned that, but, well, that’s the good thing about having InstaPundit.

A REPENTANT NADER VOTER WRITES:

In spite of his predictable hyperbole, Nader aptly criticized U.S. foreign policy, stating that we should stop our support for “oligarchs who brutalize their people.” I agree with him completely. Yet presently, Saddam Hussein has no greater friends in the United States than the anti-war movement. While hawks urge Saddam’s removal, it is the anti-war movement whose efforts aim to keep the tyrant in power. True, the United States has a questionable history with regard to propping up dictators around the world. But in the case of Iraq, Nader and the anti-war movement state that this policy should remain unchanged — for the sake of consistency I guess.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

SUSAN LEE WRITES THAT LIBERTARIANS HAVE MORE FUN: And they don’t mind gay marriage.

That would be me, on both counts.

PORPHYROGENITUS writes that the breaking of the old Atlantic Alliance is sad, but that it was also inevitable. I think he’s right about that. Josh Marshall is trying to spin this as a failure of American (i.e., Bush) diplomacy, but I think that this response is enough to undo the spin:

For all that people like to claim that this is a “Bush problem” and “we didn’t have this when Clinton was in office”, that’s not quite true. Sure, everyone was more jovial. But (again as I’ve mentioned before) while there was more good cheer and bonhomie on the surface when Clinton was in office, that didn’t stop them from designing treaties (rather deliberately) stacked against the United States. Clinton would say “hey, buddies. You know, if we could just get a clause in that treaty on land mines allowing us to have them along the Korean DMZ, I could get the Senate to pass it” and they would refuse to compromise. Clinton would say “you know I want a good Green record. I’d love to have this Kyoto pact ratified. Any chance we could negotiate for America some of the cozy deals you stuck in for yourselves?” and they would say “no”. They liked Clinton just fine as a person. But they weren’t about to do America any favors, and even during that period were (openly among themselves, reported in the European press if not given much notice in the American press) talking about building the EU so as to oppose the United States. So this isn’t really out of the blue, all the sudden.

It’s just that the disagreement over Iraq has precipitated a breach that is so public it cannot be ignored or minimized with the usual platitudes. It was bound to happen sometime, over something, and this is it, now.

I think, in fact, that it’s unfortunate that these problems were papered over during the Clinton years. Because if the rift had come then, the Franco-German behavior today wouldn’t be perceived as a betrayal — just as the less-than-supportive behavior of Russia isn’t perceived as a betrayal.

RUMOR-MONGERING: A former student reports that hospitals and other facilities in the DC area were told last night that terror alerts will be moved to Code Red later today in fear of a bio, chem, or radiological attack. Can’t find any confirmation on that, so make of it what you will. There’s certainly plenty of evidence that the authorities are worried about this scenario.

I hope that they’re wrong — or that, if they’re right, they catch ’em before anything happens.

UPDATE: Another reader emails:

I work in a congressional office in Washington, and we have a Secret Service detailee on our staff. I asked him about the plausibility of the Code Red rumor, and it doesn’t seem to hold up. According to our detailee, we would only go to Code Red if officials had specific knowledge of an imminent attack, such as “the bomb is in the trunk and on its way” or “the airplane has been hijacked.” What DC hospitals were probably told is to make certain preparations in case of Code Red, but to say “we’re going to Code Red” in the absence of an emergency doesn’t seem to be how the system works.

Hmm. Well, this makes sense. We’ll see. I suppose another possibility is that we do, in fact, know of an attack plan timed to coincide with the onset of war — and we expect the onset of war very soon. But that’s purest speculation, and should be treated as such.

MICHAEL LERNER WRITES ON ANTIWAR ANTI-SEMITISM:

The most painful thing has been watching other antiwar groups make unprincipled compromises with A.N.S.W.E.R. As a result, there is support on the left for self-determination for every group in the world except the Jewish people. Fellow progressive Jews, some anxious to speak at these rallies, have urged me to keep quiet about anti-Semitism on the left. After all, they say, stopping the war against Iraq is so much more important.

Why should we have to choose? Tikkun will be bringing thousands of our supporters to the demonstration Sunday. But just as we fought against the sexism and homophobia that once infected the left, we will challenge anti-Semitism and Israel-bashing on the left, even as we say “no” to a war with Iraq.

I’m glad to see this issue getting more attention. Howard Kurtz also mentions the issue, quoting David Corn’s piece from yesterday.

UPDATE: Here is, er, A.N.S.W.E.R.’s answer. I’m not impressed, but you may feel differently. And here’s a story from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Academics and leftist intellectuals have worried aloud for months about the primary-organization role of International Answer in the movement, given that its roots are in the Workers World Party, a socialist organization with a small constituency in the United States.

Marc Cooper, a contributing editor for the Nation magazine who has written about peace activism for 30 years, fears that the movement’s efforts to woo mainstream supporters will be marginalized by having International Answer participate in the leadership.

“To the degree that (Answer) controls the direction of the coalition, it’s not a good thing,” said Cooper, who is circulating an e-mail petition protesting Lerner’s absence from Sunday’s program.

I can’t help but feel that the decision to blackball speakers who had criticized coalition members was primarily designed to protect A.N.S.W.E.R.’s position by muting criticism of its positions.

A PACK, NOT A HERD — CONT’D: My TechCentralStation column is up. NASA is involved.

JOHN HAWKINS has an interview with Mark Steyn on his page. It’s a must-read. Excerpt:

The next step should be to quarantine the Saudis. The US has a moral distaste for imperialism, which is fair enough, but, on the other hand, when it scuppered the British and French over Suez in 1956, all it did was deliver the Middle East out of western influence and into the hands of what it thought were pliable strongmen. That’s no more morally superior than western imperialism and in practical terms it’s been a lot worse. We need to reform the entire region. To those cynical Europeans who say, “Oh, it’s absurd to think Arabs can ever be functioning members of a democratic state”, I’d say, in that case why are you allowing virtually unrestricted Muslim immigration into your own countries? So I’d say: after Iraq, Iran won’t be far behind; we then quarantine Saudi Arabia and explain the realities of life to Egypt and Syria.

Indeed.

AMILAND reports that Gerhard Schroeder is now setting things up to blame a war in Iraq if his economy doesn’t recover.

Maybe he should just blame those emerging American boycotts of German products. . . .

Meanwhile, Michael Kelly is examining Joschka Fischer’s terrorist past. And some Germans are calling on Schroeder to resign as it appears he’s the source of the leak concerning the Franco-German plan.

LAST REMINDER: The L.A. blogosphere event is Saturday, February 15.

I wish I had the money — and even more, the time — to just jet around from one blog event to another.

I MAKE A STINK, THEREFORE I AM: Michael Moran writes that Old Europe’s greatest fear isn’t American imperialism, or Islamic terrorism, but its own growing irrelevance.

CRICKET — SPORT OF HEROES? It was yesterday.

THE NEW YORK TIMES is being savaged by Donald Luskin, Mickey Kaus, and Robert Musil for getting the Ken Lay story seriously wrong.

THE AMERICAN STREET(WEAR) Heh.

IS ERIC ALTERMAN GUILTY OF HATE SPEECH? You were right the first time, Eric — you shouldn’t have said that.

UPDATE: Alterman agrees, and he’ll be posting a handsome apology for a thoughtless remark. Anyway, let James Lileks demonstrate how to put down Limbaugh without wishing that he be disabled for life:

I don’t listen to Limbaugh – a bomb could go off in New York on Sunday morning and come Monday, he’d talk about the last golf tournament he was in.

There you have it. Devastating, but not hateful.