THE BRUTAL AFGHAN WINTER: InstaPundit’s Afghanistan photo-correspondent, Major John Tammes, sends this report:

The end of the 10 year drought has been a boon to most here in Afghanistan. However, for some it has not been so great. We are helping the Afghan government with aid for those snowed in up at the higher elevations. Down here at 5000 feet above sea level, the roads have been taking a bit of punishment. On a patrol yesterday, we came across this truck mired in a section of “road”. A couple of minutes hooking up to a winch on one of our HMMVs and a quick pull got them out.

I guess this is that “silent genocide” that Noam Chomsky was talking about. Or maybe it was a transcription error, and instead of “genocide,” he said “roadside assistance” . . . .

UPDATE: Say, you know, for all the talk about blogs not featuring reporting, I’ll bet I’ve got more correspondents in Afghanistan than most U.S. newspapers. Which is to say, one . . . .

I DON’T BLOG MUCH on energy policy, leaving that to people like Lynn Kiesling. But a reader asks what I think about this column by Tom Friedman today. Excerpt:

As a geo-green, I believe that combining environmentalism and geopolitics is the most moral and realistic strategy the U.S. could pursue today. Imagine if President Bush used his bully pulpit and political capital to focus the nation on sharply lowering energy consumption and embracing a gasoline tax.

What would that buy? It would buy reform in some of the worst regimes in the world, from Tehran to Moscow. It would reduce the chances that the U.S. and China are going to have a global struggle over oil – which is where we are heading.

This is all fine with me — I’d like to see big honking nuclear plants (possibly of the much-touted pebble-bed design) producing hydrogen to run clean cars. On the other hand, Friedman’s own policy proposals are a bit less ambitious, involving a gas tax plus a bit of what looks like cultural warfare:

I would like to see every campus in America demand that its board of trustees disinvest from every U.S. auto company until they improve their mileage standards. Every college town needs to declare itself a “Hummer-free zone.” You want to drive a gas-guzzling Humvee? Go to Iraq, not our campus. And an idea from my wife, Ann: free parking anywhere in America for anyone driving a hybrid car.

This sort of moralistic-but-ineffective posturing — based more on dislike of SUVs and their owners than anything else — is the 21st Century equivalent of Jimmy Carter’s cardigan, and it’s why most Americans roll their eyes when people say the words “energy policy.” If Friedman wants to make a difference on this subject, he needs to look at technology — and at what people actually want and will tolerate — and try to put the two together. The “energy policy” discussion on The West Wing was better than this. OK, except maybe for the free-parking idea, which is actually not bad in a small-scale Clinton-initiative kind of way.

UPDATE: Ron Bailey notes that energy policy has been a presidential quagmire for decades.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Now this idea is a lot better than the free-parking one.

MORE: Speaking of nuclear power, I seem to remember Friedman endorsing it — a modestly brave action for an NYT columnist — a while back. But this article on nuclear energy is worth reading.

IT’S A SORT OF TRIBUTE TO MICKEY KAUS: Bill Quick’s Assignment Desk!

TARGETING JOURNALISTS — IN CANADA: But the tac-radio literary criticism has got to hurt the most.

GRANDMOTHERBLOGGING: Went out to visit my grandmother at the home Skilled Nursing Facility. I hadn’t been able to see her for a while — the flu epidemic meant that the place was closed to visitors for the past couple of weeks. And I was the only one who went today, as the Insta-Wife and Insta-Daughter, still somewhat sick, were a bit iffy. (Not me. Tamiflu rocks.)

She’s doing well, as the physical therapy has brought back most of the use of her arm already, though it’s still not strong enough to let her walk with a cane, which is key. But she’s pretty tired of being there, as you might imagine. She has some cronies that she enjoys, but it’s basically like living in a dorm without getting out for classes or weekend partying.

The secret to popularity there, though, is food. I took barbecue sandwiches for four, meaning that the cronies who eat with her got barbecue instead of the usual institutional food, which is, well, about as good as dorm food. I also took her a box of Godiva chocolates for Valentine’s day, and — on the “did you bring enough for everyone?” principle — I took small Godiva boxes for the cronies, too. One in particular, who doesn’t have much in the way of family, seemed especially pleased to be remembered.

Though, at 90, she’s one of the older people there, my grandmother is doing better than most. She’s grateful for that, but it’s still hard on her being there instead of being in her own home, where she’s lived for nearly fifty years. When people say “old age isn’t for sissies,” it’s not just a joke. I admire how she and her friends deal with it, but it’s still a lousy thing to have to deal with.

Is there a point to this? Not really, except that I really do think that aging is a disease, and I wish we could do something about it. Everybody in that place used to be healthy and strong; even the best of them now are sadly declined from their previous state. Yeah, it’s “natural” — but so is smallpox.

UPDATE: Reader Paul Havemann emails:

Do you talk to her about her life, her parents, her grandparents, and the times they lived in? I have no idea whether you are into genealogy, or even family history, but someone down the line would certainly love it if you preserved some of the memories your grandmother carries. That stuff is golden.

I regret not having done that with my grandparents (and my great- grandmother; she could have told me so much), but it didn’t occur to me until after they were gone. It would have meant a lot to them, too.

I’m not very much into genealogy — see the Heinlein piece about the lizard — but I do like to listen to the family stories.

CATS AND DOGS, LIVING TOGETHER: Patrick “Patterico” Frey has a column in the L.A. Times in which he explains how to correct errors.

IS A U.N. CLONING BAN DEAD? I hope so:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.N. diplomats, deadlocked for years over the drafting of treaty to ban the cloning of human beings worldwide, open negotiations on Monday on an alternative that would instead urge each government to adopt its own laws on human cloning. . . .

The U.N. project dates back to 2001, when France and Germany proposed a worldwide ban on human cloning by way of a binding global treaty.

That attempt failed after the George W. Bush administration fought to broaden the ban to all cloning of human embryos, a step many scientists and governments argued would block some promising avenues of medical research.

The U.S. campaign to persuade the 191-nation U.N. General Assembly to approve a broad anti-cloning treaty ran out of steam last November when the assembly’s treaty-writing legal committee, after years of debate, remained deeply divided on the issue.

This is one case where I’m glad the U.N. isn’t listening to the Bush Administration.

WATCHED JEFF JARVIS ON RELIABLE SOURCES a little while ago, and I thought the show’s treatment of the Eason Jordan / Jeff Gannon / Bloggers-as-journalists issues was quite good. Best Jeff quote: “Bloggers didn’t fire Jordan. CNN fired Jordan.” [LATER: Well, I was close. Transcript here.]

I’m speculating, here, but I wonder if part of the delay in responding wasn’t because CNN wanted to look at the tape, and if Jordan’s departure was a result of what they saw when they did. We’ll never know, unless somebody writes a tell-all, but if the tape is released we’ll probably be able to make a pretty shrewd guess.

I think I disagree with Jeff Jarvis about nothing being off the record any more, even though the line about “Wolf Blitzer in sheep’s clothing” is pretty good. Erving Goffman wrote about the importance of a “backstage,” and this sort of thing makes it impossible to have one. But on the other hand, the press has been denying that to everyone else for years.

The interesting part was that neither Howard Kurtz nor David Gergen thought there was much to the Gannon story, with both noting that White Houses usually try to seed press conferences with friendly journalists. I think that Bill Press was right that if this was a false-flag operation by the White House that’s a fairly big deal but there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of that. Personally, I never paid much attention to the Talon News site, even though people did send me links from time to time, because it seemed a bit amateurish and was rather obviously a partisan outfit. (No Maureen Dowd jokes here, please). It seems to me that a genuine effort to pass it off as a nonpartisan news agency would have been slicker, and lacked the obvious GOP connection. Another good question from Bill Press: If this guy was fake, how come none of the mainstream journalists in the press room ever said anything about him?

I also agree with Kurtz that it was the stuff about Gannon’s personal life that led to his resignation, and that there’s something rather sleazy about that. Backstage or not, targeting parts of people’s lives that don’t have to do with the story — like, say, Eason Jordan’s love life — seems inappropriate to me, and likely to lend support to the bloggers-as-lynch-mob caricature.

UPDATE: On the “targeting” question, The Mudville Gazette features a dialogue with journalist Jules Crittenden, whose work is often misquoted in support of the idea that journalists are being targeted. Excerpt:

GH: So you were there?

JC: I was about 100 yards or so from the Jumhuriyah Bridge, down at the intersection of Haifa and Jaffa, when Staff Sgt Shawn Gibson fired on the Palestine. All of us were highly concerned at the time about reports an Iraqi FO had eyes on our position from a tall building in the vicinity. After the big counterattack that morning was fought back, we continued to receive sporadic mortar fire and RPG fire all morning, taking and returning fire from several tall buildings. The tankers on the bridge reported that numerous RPG teams were operating up and down the opposite bank of the Tigris. Gibson saw what he thought was the spotter and fired. He was distraught when he learned his mistake.

GH: And following the events the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders also wrote up reports?

JC: Yes. I was quoted in the reports, selectively and/or inaccurately, and had RWB remove my remarks, which they reported inaccurately and without permission. CPJ, while casting aspersions on the soldiers based on speculation, neglected to include remarks I made on the character of Gibson and CO Capt. Phillip Wolford, whom I knew as professionals who went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. I lived with them, rode with them into a series of actions and have great respect for them. The Palestine was an accident by well-intentioned men who had been under fire, some of it intense, since dawn the day before.

Read the whole thing.

MORE: Interesting Gannon backstory here from Tom Maguire.

STILL MORE: Here’s more from Crittenden via Poynter and John Cole.

INTERESTING ROUNDUP on “extraordinary rendition.”

IRAQ ELECTION RESULTS:

BAGHDAD, Iraq Feb 13, 2005 — Iraq’s majority Shiite Muslims won nearly half the votes in the nation’s Jan. 30 election, giving the long-oppressed group significant power but not enough to form a government on their own.

The Shiites likely will have to form a coalition in the 275-member National Assembly with the other top vote-getters the Kurds and Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s list to push through their agenda and select a president and prime minister. The president and two vice presidents must be elected by a two-thirds majority.

This seems like good news. Turnout was also somewhat higher than previously estimated.

I’M PRETTY SURE that nobody would be interested in this idea.

ANN ALTHOUSE is blogging on Christo’s “The Gates,” and the reaction thereto.

HEH:

WASHINGTON, DC—A new videotape of Osama bin Laden broadcast on the Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera Monday beseeched Allah to grant all Americans a “crappy Valentine’s Day.” . . .

“Allah willing, embarrassment and tearful rejection shall rule this day,” bin Laden said. “Paper hearts shall be rent and trod upon, and dreams of love delivered stillborn. Body language shall be misinterpreted, crushes unrequited, and sincere expressions of affection mocked. Invitations to dinner will be rejected, just as Americans have rejected Allah, the one true God.”

During a speech before the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association, President Bush condemned the al-Qaeda leader’s remarks.

Pretty funny.

CONTRASTING VIEWS on the Eason Jordan story:

Some suggest that Jordan got a bum rap. Former CNN News Group Chairman Walter Isaacson wrote in an e-mail to the AJC that Jordan was dedicated to “the value of hard reporting by real journalists who braved going out into the field, like he so often did, rather than merely opining. It’s ironic that he was brought down partly by talk-show and blogging folks who represent the opposite approach and have seldom . . . ventured out to do . . . frontline reporting.”

But contrast that with this one:

Deborah Potter, a former CNN reporter who heads NewsLab, which does research on TV news, said even honest misstatements “are always exacerbated by delay and obfuscation, and I think both of those happened in this case.”

Online blogs “are becoming a force to be reckoned with,” she said. “The questions that were raised were good journalistic questions: ‘What exactly did he say?’ The way you deal with this kind of controversy is by being transparent, by being open.”

Indeed.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jonathan Singer emails:

“Walter Isaacson wrote in an e-mail to the AJC that Jordan was dedicated to “the value of hard reporting by real journalists who braved going out into the field, like he so often did, rather than merely opining… talk-show and blogging folks who represent the opposite approach and have seldom . . . ventured out to do . . . frontline reporting.”

The CJR Daily managing editor had a similar “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!” response — which I’m sure is a sincere reflection of how journalists see themselves.

What they seem to be oblivious to is that, as far as the rest of the US population is concerned, *they’re* the ones “merely opining” on the people who really “braved going out in the field”. Remember when a Marine exhausted from days of combat in Fallujah made a snap decision (and probably a correct, if tragic one) to shoot a man he thought was playing dead? And was made out to be the new Lieutenant Calley by all the journalists sitting in New York and Atlanta? Well, I have him in mind when I’m told to regard myself as unworthy to judge Eason Jordan.

Indeed. We’re not talking Perry White here. In fact, this quote at the end of the story is especially revealing:

But Bob Furnad, a former president of Headline News, said he considers Jordan “a very serious journalist in the purest form.”

“He never pulled any punches.”

But he did, of course, when — as he himself admitted — he refrained from reporting on Saddam’s atrocities in order to retain “access” in Baghdad. Why doesn’t that count, to this guy?

Tom Maguire notices, meanwhile, that the New York Times has finally gotten around to this story and observes:

A “journalistic tempest”? This is the first story to appear in the Times! Geez, fashionably late to a party is one thing, but fashionably late to a journalistic tempest?

Read the whole thing.

THE XBOX AND THE IRAQ WAR:

Today’s troops are from a generation that grew up with PCs and video games. They prefer to get their news off the Internet, and play cards via a web site, or on their laptop. Military psychologists are trying to figure out what, if anything, this all means. For example, for generations, troops spent hours playing cards with their buddies. Now, the favorite form of interaction is playing against another GI on a video game, or putting together a network and doing a multiplayer session of a violent video game. The army and marines even provide modified versions of commercial games for training purposes. The commercial games often depict incorrect combat procedures. The modified versions show how to do it right, and not make a mistake that could get you killed in combat. . . .

In fact, the armed forces are quite pleased with the new skills their PC savvy recruits have brought with them. Moreover, the military does not allow booze or prostitution for the troops in combat zones these days. So compelling electronic entertainment solves a potentially serious morale problem.

Video games: Is there anything they can’t do?

TIME REPORTS ON CHINESE ESPIONAGE:

Ning Wen and his wife were arrested last fall at their home office in Manitowoc, Wis., for allegedly sending their native China $500,000 worth of computer parts that could enhance missile systems. As these naturalized citizens await trial, similar episodes in Mount Pleasant, N.J., and Palo Alto, Calif., point only to the tip of the iceberg, according to FBI officials keeping tabs on more than 3,000 companies in the U.S. suspected of collecting information for China. A hotbed of activity is Silicon Valley, where the number of Chinese espionage cases handled by the bureau increases 20% to 30% annually. Says a senior FBI official: “China is trying to develop a military that can compete with the U.S., and they are willing to steal to get [it].”

Well, of course. I’d rank this as lower priority than rounding up people who are currently trying to blow up Americans, but it’s a significant issue.

THAT’S GOTTA HURT: A new book on RatherGate, entitled Rather Dumb: A Top Tabloid Reporter Tells CBS How to Do News, by a guy from the National Enquirer. I haven’t read it, but I’ll bet that CBS won’t like it.

SEEMS AS IF SOMEBODY SHOULD BE IN TROUBLE for this Energy Department screwup:

The admission by the Energy Department that two allegedly “missing” secret computer disks never existed — and the University of California’s penalty of $5.8 million — cap one of the biggest security shake-ups the U.S. nuclear weapons industry in post-World War II years that resulted in a temporary shutdown of all U.S. nuclear research facilities last year. . . .

Eventually, four were fired for security breaches , one chose to resign under the threat of termination and seven others received various formal reprimands.

Only by October were the scientists able to resume their full-scale work.

The confusion, it turns out, was created by inventory bar codes produced for computer disks that have never been written, a department official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Reportedly they did find some security holes, but at the cost of considerable disruption in what I assume is vital national security research.

MICHAEL BARONE:

So what hath the blogosphere wrought? The left blogosphere has moved the Democrats off to the left, and the right blogosphere has undermined the credibility of the Republicans’ adversaries in Old Media. Both changes help Bush and the Republicans.

It didn’t have to be that way, though.

I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS INTERVIEW OF NEAL STEPHENSON by Mike Godwin in Reason to go online, and now it has. Here’s what I think is a key bit:

Speaking as an observer who has many friends with libertarian instincts, I would point out that terrorism is a much more formidable opponent of political liberty than government. Government acts almost as a recruiting station for libertarians. Anyone who pays taxes or has to fill out government paperwork develops libertarian impulses almost as a knee-jerk reaction. But terrorism acts as a recruiting station for statists. So it looks to me as though we are headed for a triangular system in which libertarians and statists and terrorists interact with each other in a way that I’m afraid might turn out to be quite stable.

That, in fact, is why I see it as important to win the war. I think that the best thing for civil liberties in America is that we’ve gone over 3 years without another 9/11 style attack. (And note an example of Stephenson’s dynamic, here.)

I’VE NEVER KIPLED, MYSELF: But Gerard van der Leun has.

UPDATE: Some readers say that Gerard van der Leun is echoing Robert Service’s Law of the Yukon, rather than Kipling’s Law of the Jungle. But if I’m not mistaken, Service’s poem was inspired by Kipling’s.

STUART BUCK HAS QUESTIONS regarding Bruce Ackerman’s terminology.

I agree that calling Justices Scalia and Thomas “neo-conservatives” is incoherent, unless “neo-conservative” is simply a synonym for “people Ackerman doesn’t like.”

As Arthur Leff noted, all definitions are permitted the definer, so long as they are stated clearly. But I think that Ackerman could have done better at spelling this one out. I don’t think there’s much of anything “neo” about Scalia and Thomas’s conservatism.

DAVE KOPEL rounds up coverage of the Ward Churchill affair in the Colorado media.

UPDATE: Related thoughts on those “little Eichmanns” at the World Trade Center, from The Belmont Club.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Disagreement from Jeralyn Merritt.

TOUR THE INDIAN BLOGOSPHERE: This week’s Blog Mela is up!

ROSS TERRILL WRITES in The Boston Globe:

DEMOCRACY IS FRIEND to the common man and authoritarianism is a crutch for millionaires with a villa in Italy — right? Maybe no longer. Lady Liberty has acquired a new dancing partner. Politics in both Europe and the United States have unhitched the left from its trusted partner, democracy. American liberals now often spurn blue collar opinion that is democracy’s fuel. They mostly reject global idealism that is liberty’s post-communism vocation. This has allowed a Republican president to make democracy his cause. On the dance floor of the 21st century, the right embraces Lady Liberty. . . .

What a strange moment for the left to lose faith in democracy. The Soviet Union and other Leninist dictatorships are gone in a puff of smoke. Democracy is taking root in Latin America. South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Mongolia, and Thailand are all newly democratic. Throughout the 20th century, war and authoritarianism were inseparable. For 30 years, democracy and free markets have surged and no war has occurred anywhere on the scale ofKorea and Vietnam, let alone World War I and World War II.

Seymour Hersh recently told “Democracy Now!” radio that America was in a bad way because “eight or nine neoconservatives” have “grabbed the government.” Not mentioning that Bush was elected by 51 percent of the voters, Hersh did detect a ray of hope. One “salvation may be the economy,” Hersh said regrettably, “It’s going to go very bad, folks. You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick.”

A left that sees a lousy economy as political salvation and frets about stocks and a villa in Italy is not the idealistic, worker-respecting left anymore. Certainly it is not a believer in democracy.

Nope. And, as I keep repeating, this is no strategy for building a Democratic majority. Similarly, stuff like this is comforting to the true-believers, but it’s not likely to win votes. (Via Peg Kaplan.) And read this, too.

This is where I have to agree and disagree simultaneously with Hugh Hewitt, who writes about Peter Beinart:

Peter is without question the very best face of the Democratic Party. Folks love him because he is earnest and very committed to Harry Truman’s Democratic Party, which is a lot like being committed to the Edsel.

But the Edsel was a bomb from day one. No, more like the Nash Rambler — a good car, popular in its time, that’s no longer made. The Truman / FDR style of muscular Democratic thought has been supplanted by the ’68-ers in the Democratic party, and their ideological descendants at MoveOn, MediaMatters, etc. They lack the essential faith in America possessed by their predecessors, and by the voters they’d like to win over. Beinart’s views are marginal in the Democratic Party — heck, the kind of patriotism that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd demonstrated in Davos is indiscernible in the MoveOn / MediaMatters end of the Democratic Party — while the Seymour Hersh Vietnam-nostalgia strain runs strong. That’s bad for the Democrats, and bad for America, but it’s nonetheless the case.

UPDATE: Reader Mark Gunnion, on the other hand, emails:

Fuck you.

Your side is the Taliban side.

I hope all of you Bush-loving idiots wake up some day to how you have been hoodwinked into empowering 12th century religious fanatics – in OUR country.

But I doubt it will happen.

You got your $32,000 tax cut, so you’ll put up with a little preaching.

YOU are the American Taliban.

Nice to see that the Lefties are retaining their sense of perspective.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hmm. I think, actually, that the email from Gunnion above was inspired by this post from Ted Barlow that criticizes me for my post linking to this post by Nelson Ascher from Europundits on the Euro-left.

The problem is that Barlow seems to miss the Euro angle, and proceeds to suggest that I’m calling American liberals terrorists. (To be fair, there’s a brief reference to Americans in Ascher’s post, which I didn’t notice before, but Barlow doesn’t mention it, and it’s certainly not the main subject of Ascher’s argument.) I’m used to having my posts mischaracterized by Crooked Timber folks, but I do think that this is a bit much.

But maybe the emails I get from Oliver Willis, accusing me of thinking that everyone to the left of Joe Lieberman is a traitor, reflect a broader view rather than, as I assumed, just Oliver. So, in the interest of clarity: No, I don’t think that. I do think that it’s unfortunate that the Democrats decided to make the war their big issue for the election — I suspect that they do, too, now — and I think that it was unseemly and wrong for them to embrace Michael Moore, etc. That’s hardly the same as calling them terrorists.

The support for terrorism that Ascher describes on the part of the Euro-left is something different. I’m not the only one to note that France has been engaging in a “proxy war” with the United States using terrorists and dictators as surrogates — Tom Friedman has noted something similar. I think that this hostility is part wounded pride, but also partly the result of the attitudes that Nelson Ascher describes. That my comments on that subject (in a post with a later update [LATER: since Barlow’s post, I should note] also linking a British, not an American, journalist calling for our defeat in Iraq) would be seen as representative of the American left seems odd, and perhaps a bit overly defensive, to me. If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.

But as I thought things like my repeated praise of Barney Frank illustrate already, I certainly don’t think that there’s anything necessarily unpatriotic about being a leftist or liberal. I do think that those people who are rooting for our defeat, or showing a strange eagerness for a Vietnam rerun, and so on, are in fact unpatriotic, as surely rooting for your own country’s defeat in time of war counts as unpatriotic. (Those people aren’t entirely on the left, of course, as you can find some of them in the wackier theocon or isolationist or antisemitic paleoconservative movements, too. Indeed, the term “idiotarian” was coined with reference to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson among others.)

At any rate, to the extent that there’s genuine confusion, and not point-scoring, going on here, I hope that this clears things up. In the meantime, I wonder if people will stop calling me a Taliban or a Nazi. Probably not. In fact, one commenter at Rand Simberg’s is calling me a Nazi for not having open comments on my blog: “Some, like Instapundit , do not even allow comments for refutation. In that regard, they are like the mass rallies of the Nazis.”

Well, it’s true — there weren’t open blog comments at a single Nazi rally that I know of. It’s a fair cop!

MORE: Let’s cut to the real outrage — Michael Demmons emails: “You got a $32,000 tax cut????”

Er, no. I don’t know where he got that number. Nor was I aware that the Taliban were motivated by a desire for tax cuts. . . .

STILL MORE: Donald Sensing — who has been the recipient of the same “left of Joe Lieberman” charges — declares a Joe Lieberman meme war. And instead of an Edsel, above, perhaps the best automotive metaphor is the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado — union-made, still desired by a lot of people, but no longer available from the original source.

Meanwhile, the Progressive Policy Institute offers a diagnosis of the Democrats’ problems that isn’t so far from mine:

As Democrats, we are proud that our party led the way in crafting America’s resolute response to fascism and communism. Far-sighted Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John Kennedy fashioned a tough-minded internationalism that eventually won the Cold War and stimulated an unprecedented expansion of liberty and democracy throughout the world.

For too many Americans, however, all this is ancient history. In recent decades, the public has shown a consistent tendency to trust Republicans more on matters of defense and security. We believe the confidence gap on national security played a major, even decisive, role in the 2004 election, and now stands as a major obstacle to building a new Democratic majority.

To persuade the public to entrust us with national leadership, Democrats must offer a more compelling vision for making Americans safer. We believe such a vision must incorporate key pillars of the party’s internationalist tradition: the willingness to use force to defend our interests and values; support for open trade and a globalizing world economy; and active promotion of individual liberty and democracy around the world. We recognize that these are contentious issues and that some will want to paper over our internal differences to preserve a semblance of party unity. But we believe Democrats should not fear a vigorous, honest debate on national security — better to wrestle these issues now than on the eve of the 2008 election. . . .

America’s work in Iraq is not yet done. We, therefore, urge you to oppose calls to withdraw troops from Iraq prematurely, before the new Iraqi government is able to consolidate its authority and defend itself against Sunni insurgents and foreign terrorists. This is not the time for casting anxious glances toward the exits. Instead, Democrats should reaffirm our resolve not to leave behind a failed state in Iraq, because to do so would hand our Jihadist foes a strategic windfall, swelling terrorist ranks and lending credence to Osama bin Laden’s claim that the United States is a paper tiger with no stomach for a protracted fight. . . .

This new danger tests the mettle of the people and parties that aspire to lead America. No political party will gain or hold power — nor will it deserve to — if it cannot provide people with a basic sense of security.

The Jihadist creed, in its bigotry and intolerance, its sanctification of murder and its contempt for liberal democracy, bears a sinister resemblance to the totalitarian ideologies of 20th century Europe. Like fascism and communism, it poses a moral challenge to our liberal beliefs and values. Once again, our foes doubt that we will fight and sacrifice for the ideals we profess to live by. Once again, we must prove them wrong. Moral clarity in this fight is essential. The American people will not trust leaders who will not vigorously defend their ideals.

Indeed. But David Adesnik’s comment on this letter also points to the problem:

Does the Democratic party dare associate itself with a phrase such as “moral clarity”? Or will the invocation of a phrase associated with the White House simply persuade the Democratic left that the idealists who drafted this letter are closet Republicans? I hope not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.

One should also point out the significance of this letter’s suggestion that the American people actually prefer leaders who “vigorously defend their ideals.” I can’t really recall any instance during the campaign when either Democratic pols or media figures said that John Kerry was hurting himself by not talking about democracy promotion. Unsurprisingly, Kerry didn’t even try to insist that he was the real idealist and that Bush was just a poseur. Instead, Kerry simply let Bush take the pro-democracy high-ground.

Although both the pols and journalists knew that Kerry had to present himself as tough, they never seemed to think that American voters also cared about electing a president who is openly idealistic. Nor did the pols and journalists ever argue that being idealistic is part and parcel of being tough.

The bottom line is that there is a massive gulf of perception that separates tough, idealistic Truman-style Democrats from the party’s liberal establishment. This isn’t just about the war in Iraq or even the occupation.

No, it’s not.

STILL MORE: Or, people could just try to blackmail me, as Robert McClelland urges in the comments over at Oliver Willis’s. Yeah, that’ll solve the problem. Jeez. Perhaps they should start here . . . .

McClelland’s obviously one of Karl Rove’s provocateurs, implementing his demonically effective “blogpaper” strategy, in which lefty activism is drained off from constructive sources and into obsession with an obscure law professor’s personal website. Apparently, it’s working pretty well.

MORE: John Cole emails:

You missed the humor in the suggestion that you be blackmailed.

Robert McClelland is a Canadian, or at the very least a resident of Canada, who most recently described the United states as a ‘third world hellhole.’

So, to summarize: An America hating Canadian is so incensed by a post in which you assert that some lefties seem to hate America that he travels to a left wing site to recommend the outright blackmail of an American to stifle political speech.

That ought to play well in the heartland. I officially declare irony to be dead.

Heh. And buried. I wonder if that comment counts as “hate speech” in Canada? But, really, I think this kind of frothing — in response to a post whose actual point is, of course, that some lefties like Barney Frank are showing a spirit I’d like to see more of — is indicative of how some people have just lost it, and I really do think that it’s hurting the Democrats. Maybe we can get a Lieberman / Frank ticket in 2008 to restore some sanity. And though I’ve thought that by pointing out this problem I’d do some good, I suspect that in some cases the reaction to hearing it pointed out overwhelms any benefit. That’s unfortunate, as — unlike, say, Hugh Hewitt — I’d be quite happy to see the Democratic Party flourishing in the way that the Progressive Policy Institute, or Peter Beinart, want it to. (Aside from the war, I probably agree with Barney Frank on more issues than I agree with, say, Trent Lott on — and unlike some, Frank’s opposition to the war has been honorable, as his behavior regarding Davos illustrates.) And I think that all this hatred and bitterness and reflexive opposition is deeply damaging to the Democratic Party, and not good for America, either. Those people who engage in it are doing the Republicans a favor (at least short-term) and serving the Democratic Party very badly.

And to go full circle, read this post by Dr. Frank on more of the Euro-Left’s nostalgia for communism, along the lines described by Nelson Ascher. For a more sensible leftist perspective, on the other hand, read this piece from Harry’s Place.

But look, here’s the bottom line on the domestic side: I was a card-carrying Democrat for years. Unlike Hugh Hewitt, I don’t want to see Democratic power broken forever, I just want to see a more constructive attitude toward national security. I’d really like to see the party do better, but instead it seems to be trapped in a sort of 1972-style anger that can’t possibly be good for its future or for the country. I’ve hoped that calling attention to that would do some good, but I’m afraid that through a sort of reverse psychology it may actually be doing more harm than good — when I point it out, some people, at least, actually seem to become more hardened against the idea. Perhaps Hillary Clinton will be able to fix things.