Iran Defies Buchanan

File this one under: I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Our conservative pundit, more trusting of Tehran than Jerusalem, wrote in Tell Israel: Cool the Jets! on July 31, 2009:

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who is wired into the cabinet of "Bibi" Netanyahu, warns that if Iran's nuclear program is not aborted by December, Israel will strike to obliterate it....

America's policy of patience is working....

Why does Israel insist that America has only five months to halt Iran's nuclear program, or Israel must attack?....

Now, Iran's nuclear "production facilities" may be "churning" out the low-enriched uranium of which it has produced enough for one test bomb.

But IAEA inspectors still have their eyes on this pile. None of the LEU has been diverted anywhere.

There is no evidence Iran has built the cascade to raise LEU to highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, or that the facilities even exist to do this. The Iranian regime has declared it has no intention of building nuclear weapons, indeed, that their possession would be a violation of Koranic law.

And the United States has not rescinded its own National Intelligence Estimate of 2007 that Iran, in 2003, abandoned its weapons program.

Israel has been saying for years an Iranian bomb is months away.

Where is the proof? Where is the evidence to justify a new U.S. war in the Middle East to destroy weapons of mass destruction that may not exist in Iran, as they did not exist in Iraq?

That's right. Iran does not want to build nuclear weapons- they said so themselves. And now the news that Patrick J. Buchanan figured he would never read:

The leaders of the United States, France and Britain announced Friday morning they have disclosed intelligence information to the IAEA that confirms an underground nuclear facility has been built into the side of a mountain near Qum and demanded an in-depth investigation.

Iran's decision to start building the nuclear facility years ago, without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the non-proliferation regime, U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday at the G20 meetings....

Iran did not disclose existence of the facility, 160 kilometres southwest of Tehran, to the IAEA until Monday after Tehran reportedly became aware that Western intelligence had already discovered it.

The size and configuration of the facility is inconsistent with a peaceful nuclear program and the IAEA must immediately investigate it, Obama said....

Iran's letter contains no details about the facility's location, whether operations have started or what type of centrifuges it will use, according to the IAEA.

Iranian officials had previously acknowledged having only one enrichment plant — which is under IAEA monitoring — and had denied allegations of undeclared nuclear activities.

A U.S. official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity said the facility has 3,000 centrifuges that could be operational by next year.

Given that 3,000 centrifuges is not enough to produce nuclear fuel to power a reactor but is enough to produce material used for a nuclear bomb, it is clear that Tehran's intentions are malevolent.

Darn those paranoid Israelis!

Also on July 31, Mr. Buchanan assured his readers "And when one looks to U.S. and Iranian interests, they coincide as much as they conflict." Someone must alert President Obama, who on Friday declared "Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on Oct. 1 they are going to have to come clean and they will have to make a choice," one of which is to “continue down a path that is going to lead to confrontation.”

The newly-revealed facility near Qom is not expected to be operational for approximately a year and the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon sometime between 2010 and 2015 (inclusive, I presume) holds. Today, though, Iran ominously tested a long-range missile, which could reach Russia, Israel, and U.S. bases in the Gulf. Even before the latest threat, the warning issued by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the United Nations on Thursday was self-evident: "The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”

It's not only the former Nixon speechwriter, though his constant attacks on Israel, and occasionally on Jews, harkens back to the 1991 statement of the late William F. Buckley Jr. regarding Buchanan's criticism of prominent supporters of Gulf War I. The National Review publisher wrote in his publication "I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism, whatever it was that drove him to say and do it: most probably, an iconoclastic temperament."

There have been, recently and over the years, plenty of individuals on the left- especially bloggers- reflexively hostile to Israel (and especially to Netanyahu), including the ever-consistent and misguided Juan Cole. Even now, as one administration official told The New York Times, the Iranians "have cheated three times. And they have now been caught three times,” these critics have at least one thing in common with Pat Buchanan: they were wrong- about Israel and about Benjamin Netanyahu. And another thing: they won't admit it.

Article Of The Week

Don't go to salon.com and read David Sirota's "Obama crushes Democratic dissent." Not that Salon isn't worth reading regularly and certainly not that Sirota's piece isn't worth reading. It's only that he links to it in his 9/27/09 post, "Denver Post: Obama Aide Messina Caught trying to But Off" Primary Challenger, on openleft.com. And then you can get two for one.

In Salon, Sirota notes the effort of the Obama administration to block primary challenges to: New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Hillary Clinton's replacement; Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, who became a Democrat when he realized he would not survive a primary challenge as a Republican; and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, supporter of a public option now that he faces a primary challenge from the left. Sirota recognizes

this Colorado example is a replica of that now-famous Illinois contest in 2004. Bennet, like one of Obama's toughest opponents back then, is a millionaire who has never run for public office. And as in 2004, that millionaire is being propped up by the establishment against an Obama-esque state legislator who has oodles of experience and grass-roots support. The hypocrisy, of course, is that Obama is now backing the tycoon instead of his former self.

No doubt, if I devoted this column to any of that history, presidential aides would respond (if at all) by saying Obama is only aiming to preserve Democratic Party strength. And then I would publish an even easier-to-write follow-up reminding those aides that last year, Obama said primaries like his 2008 presidential campaign have helped the Democratic Party because they have "engaged and involved people like never before."

But Sirota sees at work something more serious and damaging than standard hypocrisy:

At a moment when Obama's agenda is acutely threatened by congressional Democratic recalcitrance, the president's anti-primary posture tells all Democratic incumbents he will defend them, regardless of their position on issues. And that message blunts Obama's most powerful instrument of legislative leverage: fear of contested elections.

Without vigorous primaries forcing Democratic legislators to face Democratic voters, those legislators feel free to defy the president's Democratic agenda. Alternately, with primaries, Democratic lawmakers typically compete to show who is more committed to the Democratic agenda. As two examples, Sens. Specter and Bennet went from mealy-mouthed equivocation to strong support of the public healthcare option immediately after opponents announced primary challenges to them.

Hence, in trying to prevent or weaken primaries against incumbents, Obama is not merely signaling a royalist's disdain for local democracy. He is exposing a corrupted pol's willingness to prioritize country club etiquette over policy results. If his agenda ends up being killed, that cynical choice will be a key cause of death.

The Denver Post (to which Sirota links from the openleft post) suggests that "Jim Messina, President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop" dangled the possibility of a job in the administration to Andrew Romanoff, when rumors began that the latter was considering a primary challenge to Bennet. Romanoff reportedly declined, announced his candidacy, and the following day Obama endorsed Bennet.

Sirota accurately, if grammatically awkwardly, summarizes this as "the power-worshiping, incumbent-protecting country-club etiquette at work" and identifies the main culprit as "President Emanuel" (are the quote marks really necessary?). Sirota makes no excuses for the guy who technically is Emanuel's boss: Emanuel would not be throwing his weight around if it did not meet with Mr. Obama's approval, in a Washington version of good cop- bad cop. Which brings to mind a statement Howard Dean recently made at an appearance in Philadelphia, Pa. The physician and former governor, expressing optimism that meaningful bill health care reform will emerge from Congress, assured the sympathetic audience "Barack Obama is from Chicago." Unfortunately, Rahm Emanuel is from Chicago. Barack Obama is from Hawaii.

Torture Thrown Into Doubt, Again

Torture is illegal under international law and United States law; generally no more effective than conventional interrrogation techniques; a swell recruiting tool for Al Qaeda; and encourages subjects to lie. But at least sometimes the subject decides to spill the beans.

But wait. He may think he's giving out correct information but may be deluding himself. In newsweek.com, Sharon Begley summarizes a paper entitled "Torturing The Brain" written by neurobiologist Shane O'Mara of the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience in Dublin and appearing in the journal Trends in Cognitive Science. Here, she quotes O'Mara and explains:

"information presented by the captor to elicit responses during interrogation may inadvertently become part of the suspect's memory, especially since suspects are under extreme stress and are required to tell and retell the same events which may have happened over a period of years." As a result, information produced by the suspect may parrot or embellish suggestions from the interrogators rather than revealing something both truthful and unknown to the interrogators. Second, cortisol-induced damage to the prefrontal cortex can cause confabulation, or false memories. Because a person being tortured loses the ability to distinguish between true and false memories, as a 2008 study showed, further pain and stress does not cause him to tell the truth, but to retreat further into a fog where he cannot tell true from false.

O'Mara concludes

the use of such techniques appears motivated by a folk psychology that is demonstrably incorrect. Solid scientific evidence on how repeated and extreme stress and pain affect memory and executive functions (such as planning or forming intentions) suggests these techniques are unlikely to do anything other than the opposite of that intended by coercive or 'enhanced' interrogation.

Torture is necessary in the rare "ticking time bomb" scenario. But it is illegal, usually unnecessary, frequently counter-productive, and a gift to jihadists. Otherwise, it is a fine idea.

Those Leftists At It Again

It is really extraordinary. Johanna Neumann of the Los Angeles Times traces the "roots of our current political polarization date back decades, when a confluence of events turned Washington from a parochial Southern town where power was guarded zealously by those at the top into a media-savvy place where bit players like Wilson can captivate national attention." The major culprit is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R.-Ga.), who "encouraged lawmakers to spend more time in their districts. Roll-call votes -- that too was an innovation of the C-SPAN times -- would never take place on Mondays and only rarely on Fridays."

Buried, though, in this plausible and sensible thesis is the apparent presopposition, in which she implausibly asks

Why is it, I asked, that the extreme wings on the right and left are driving the nation's politics even as public opinion clings to the good common sense of the center?

Read that over- "the extreme wings on the right and the left." The extreme wings on the right and the left.

For months, the major controversy in Congress over health care has been the public option. The public option that, according to President Obama

....would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5 percent of Americans would sign up.

Mr. Obama obviously is "reassuring" listeners- and insurance companies- that fewer than 5% of Americans would be enrolled in a public plan. Literally- although it's hard to believe that he actually is this protective of insurance companies- the President is saying that less than 5% of Americans would be "impacted" (affected, to those of you who know English) by this plan. This, in turn, suggests that his public option wouldn't even give insurance companies much, if any, incentive to lower prices.

Meanwhile, the office of Senate Finance Committee chairmanMax Baucus (which reportedly has been in close contact all along with Obama Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel) has devloped a bill which, as summarized by AFSCME president Gerald McIntee, contains

no employer mandate, no public option, no help for retirees. The finance committee bill imposes substantial costs on the states, weakens state insurance regulation and taxes our health plan.

This wouldn't be "the extreme wing" on the left "driving the nation's politics" even if it reflected the desires of the American people. Which it doesn't. Throughout the health care debate, most polls have shown more Americans supporting a public option than opposing it; some have shown overwhelming support. Yet, all Republicans in the United States Senate oppose a "robust" public option, and clearly at least a few Democrats do also.

The mainstream media and the Obama administration have managed to cast a public option (for which few people would be eligible) rather than single payer as the one held by the left wing of the Democratic Party. This leaves Max Baucus, Rahm Emanuel, and other advocates in the "liberal" party dancing to the tune played by the insurance industry portrayed as holding the "moderate" position.

There are corollaries in other industries, of course, including our most critical and urgent domestic problem (assiduously ignored by almost everyone except the "extreme wing" on the left), operation of the financial system. Paul Krugman explains in his New York Times column

What’s wrong with financial-industry compensation? In a nutshell, bank executives are lavishly rewarded if they deliver big short-term profits — but aren’t correspondingly punished if they later suffer even bigger losses. This encourages excessive risk-taking: some of the men most responsible for the current crisis walked away immensely rich from the bonuses they earned in the good years, even though the high-risk strategies that led to those bonuses eventually decimated their companies, taking down a large part of the financial system in the process.

The Federal Reserve, now awakened from its Greenspan-era slumber, understands this problem — and proposes doing something about it. According to recent reports, the Fed’s board is considering imposing new rules on financial-firm compensation, requiring that banks “claw back” bonuses in the face of losses and link pay to long-term rather than short-term performance. The Fed argues that it has the authority to do this as part of its general mandate to oversee banks’ soundness.

But the industry — supported by nearly all Republicans and some Democrats — will fight bitterly against these changes. And while the administration will support some kind of compensation reform, it’s not clear whether it will fully support the Fed’s efforts.

I was startled last week when Mr. Obama, in an interview with Bloomberg News, questioned the case for limiting financial-sector pay: “Why is it,” he asked, “that we’re going to cap executive compensation for Wall Street bankers but not Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or N.F.L. football players?”

That’s an astonishing remark — and not just because the National Football League does, in fact, have pay caps. Tech firms don’t crash the whole world’s operating system when they go bankrupt; quarterbacks who make too many risky passes don’t have to be rescued with hundred-billion-dollar bailouts. Banking is a special case — and the president is surely smart enough to know that.

The extreme left wing may be controlling the Democratic Party. That would, obviously, prominently exclude the Senate Majority Leader, the Chief of Staff to the President, and President Barack Obama.

Rice, Delusional

She may have been an utter failure serving President George W. Bush as Director of the National Security Council and Secretary of State, but Condoleezza Rice is still sought for her opinions on foreign policy.

So there she was being interviewed by Fortune Magazine's Nina Easton and claiming, in a self-serving fashion,

But every day terrorists plot and plan to try to attack us. They only have to be right once. We have to be right 100% of the time.

Once a fear-monger, always a fear-monger, apparently. Still, Rice would deserve credit, if only her remark were true. Fortunately, it is not. Marc Rubin reviewed ("How Bush, Cheney policies killed 3,000 on 9/11") the record on the eighth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on United States soil. This may be a lot, but consider: Bush, Rove et al. exploited this disastrous crime (not tragedy- it was no accident or act of God) to gain carte blanche for its policies in the Gulf, and for getting elected re-elected.

During the transition period in January of 2001, Bush had a face to face meeting with then President Clinton in which Clinton told him that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. During the same transition period Bush and Rice met face to face with outgoing National Security Advisor Sandy Berger where Berger told both Bush and Rice that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world....

Continuing during the transition period in January of 2001, Bush was given the usual national security briefings at Blair House given to all presidents-elect by the CIA and FBI. At the CIA briefing, George Tenet and the CIA told Bush that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. And in the national security briefing from the FBI, Bush again was told that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the biggest threats to US national security in the world.

When Bush finally took office the first thing he did regarding terrorism was demote Richard Clarke the anti-terrorism czar who served for 20 years under four Presidents from a cabinet level position to a sub cabinet level position....

The next thing Bush did after taking office with regards to terrorism, according to Richard Clarke's testimony before the 911 Commission and stated in his book, was to disband what Clarke called the Principals Meeting. As Clarke described it, in the Clinton administration there was a daily meeting chaired by Clarke and attended by relevant cabinet heads who had a role in fighting terrorism: Janet Reno, the Attorney General, Bob Mueller, the director of the FBI, George Tenet at CIA, and directors of ATF,Immigration and other departments directly involved in anti-terrorism.

According to Clarke, the latest intelligence regarding terrorism collected by each agency in the previous 24 hours was shared among the heads of all the agencies present. ( The 911 Commission found during the Bush Administration there was a lack of sharing of intelligence -- but in keeping with their promise not to fix blame they never stated the obvious -- that Bush's discontinuing of the Principals Meeting was a major contributing factor ).

Clarke testified that after each of these meetings, the heads of these agencies would go back to their respective departments and in his words, "shake the trees" for the latest information on terrorism developed over the last 24 hours and then present it at the next meeting. If this had this been allowed to continue this alone could have prevented 911.

Further,

A year ago the media reported on George Tenet's statements that the intelligence coming to him in July 2001 pointing to a major Al-Qaeda attack was so disturbing he went to the White House for an emergency meeting with Rice. Rice was so dismissive at the time that when asked about the meeting in 2007 she said she couldn't even remember having it though White House logs show that in fact Tenet did have a meeting with her on the date in July that he claimed. Either she is lying or has a selective memory.

But the two most damning pieces of evidence against Bush, Rice and Cheney is the August 4th, 2001 PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing and declassified in 2004) entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Within the United States" and an August CIA translation of an Al-Qaeda intercept which, when translated, indicated that there was going to be an imminent major attack against the United States and in the words of the CIA memo it was going to be "spectacular."

The first piece of evidence supporting this is the famous Phoenix Memo. An FBI agent in Phoenix had been called by the owner of a Phoenix flying school who was suspicious of two new students. What made him suspicious was that the two flying students were both middle eastern men who wanted to learn how to fly jumbo jets but curiously didn't want to learn how to take off or land. They were also paying for their flying lessons with cash. One of those two men was Mohammed Atta.

The FBI agent agreed the activity was suspicious and wrote up a report. But the report was never sent up the ladder and never reached FBI Headquarters in Washington. Under the old process during the Clinton Administration where terrorism had the highest priority, that information would have been sent right to the top and would have been something Mueller would have shared with Clarke and the others at the Principles Meeting. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what Clarke, Reno and Mueller would have done with this information.

From that moment on, Atta and all of his associates wouldn't have been able to sneeze without the FBI knowing about it. They would have been under surveillance 24 hours a day. Their phones would have been tapped. The plot undeniably would have been discovered and 911 would have been prevented with this one piece of information alone.

And what of the day of the attack itself?

On the morning of September 11, Mohammed Atta and another of the 911 hijackers boarded a flight from the Portland Airport in Maine to Logan for the connecting flight to San Franciso. The ticket taker at the Maine airport was taken aback by the fact that the ticket was a $2500 one way ticket to San Francisco, the kind you get when you book your flight at the last minute. It immediately raised his eyebrows and his suspicions. As he told interviewers, "You dont see one of those ( a $2500 one way ticket) very often". And this was at the Maine airport, not a busy hub so Atta and the other hijacker stood out like sore thumbs to begin with. What would have happened if that clerk had gotten an FAA alert for a potential hijacking and to be aware of any suspicious activity by middle eastern men? What are the odds that an FAA alert, the fact that they were middle eastern and the $2500 ticket might have led to him making a call?

Let's review the Aministration's role:

- During the transition period: the president-elect is told separately by the outgoing president, (with Rice) the outgoing National Security Advisor, the CIA director, and the FBI that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were the greatest national security threats facing the U.S.A.

- Once in office: the President downgrades the office held by the veteran counter-terrorism expert, Richard Clarke from a cabinet-level, to a sub-cabinet level, position. He disbands the daily Principals meeting, in which heads of all agencies involved in intelligence gathering would discuss the latest intelligence any had collected; NSC director Rice is told by CIA director Tenet in July, 2001 of his fear of an impending major attack by Al Qaeda while and Clarke and Tenet feverishly (with their "hair on fire") try to get Rice to arrange a meeting with the President.

- The President departs on August 3 for vacation at his faux ranch, where he stays until September 3. The President receives on 8/6/01 the Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.," at a page-and-a-half disturbingly longer than the usual one-or-two page PDB.

Obviously, CIA Director Tenet- who later received a Congressional Medal of Honor from President Bush- cannot escape blame. When a Principals Committee meeting finally was held on September 4, Tenet neglected to mention that he had been told that Islamic jihadist Zacharias Moussaoui had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. President Bush and National Security Advisor Rice were not alone in neglecting the threat posed by Al Qaeda.

Incompetence throughout the government, highlighted by the President's apathy, merely demonstrates the outrageous dishonesty of Rice's comment that "They only have to be right once. We have to be right 100% of the time." The gang that left office on January 20, 2009 did not know exactly when and where and how the attacks of 9/11/01 would take place. But its negligence was striking, startling, and devastating. Failure to challenge Mrs. Rice about her role is emblematic of a conservative mainstream media that has ill-served our nation for decades.

Article Of The Week

There may be no more incisive a political analyst than the Philadelphia Inquirer's national political columnist Dick Polman, true to form on Sunday with "Suddenly, they're czar-struck." And he does it, impressively, without once using the word "hypocrite." Polman explains

Yes, the Republican right has suddenly discovered the word czar - roughly 36 years after it was first used by the press as a nickname for Republican Richard Nixon's in-house energy guy, a Republican named John Love. The word has been popular for decades, in part because, frankly, it fits snugly in a headline. The word actually makes no sense in the American context - after all, the real czars ordered pogroms - but it has become a thumbnail descriptive for the scores of policy mavens hired by virtually every president since Nixon.

Yes, this is one of the newest causes celebre of the right-wing media, though you'd hardly know it, given that the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity appear to be poster children for ADD as they seamlessly flit from issue to issue in their assiduous avoidance of fact or context.

And so it is difficult to pin down the number of czars in the Obama administration. Politifact took up the issue in June, when it counted 28. Now, however

conservatives complain that Obama has hired roughly 32 policy people who can be described as czars, largely because, according to the right's criteria, these White House officials were not confirmed by Congress, or because they supposedly lack formal titles, or because they answer only to Obama. (Beck admitted recently on his Web site that "the number is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.") Yet, by employing the same loose criteria, the roster of so-called czars in the George W. Bush administration totaled roughly 36.

Amnesia is sometimes rampant on the Republican right, so perhaps this partial list might spark some memories. President Bush hired - among many others - a science czar, cybersecurity czar, regulatory czar, weapons czar, bailout czar, bird-flu czar, AIDS czar, intelligence czar, Afghanistan czar, war czar, terrorism czar, drug czar, faith-based czar, food-safety czar, Mideast-peace czar, manufacturing czar, and Katrina-cleanup czar.

Polman cites the criticism of Obama's czars by two Repub senators, Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, whohas called them "an affront to the Constitution," and Utah's Robert Bennet, who claims they are "undermining the Constitution." Unfortunately, they have a record- Alexander as commending "Bush on the Senate floor for appointing an AIDS czar and a manufacturing czar" and Bennet as urging President Clinton to appoint "a Y2K czar." (Yep, we sure needed that one!)

If the tradition of referring to special advisors as "czars" traces to the days of Richard M. Nixon, the practice of actually appointing "their own policy loyalists," as Polman puts it, goes back to the Andrew Jackson administration. In reality, Polman notes, they rarely have the "major influence on public policy" claimed by GOP TV and invariably "lack the clout to force anyone to do anything." Quite a departure from a real tsar of czarist Russia, who was "a male monarch or emperor, especially one of the emperors who ruled Russia until the revolution of 1917." Rather, the very presence of numerous czars- 32, 27,000, an infinite number or whatever the opinion makers on the right are claiming today- precludes the possibility of any one of them having much power. (And one individual, such as a President or his chief of staff, may himself maintain control in part by preventing concentration of power elsewhere.)

Of course, czar-mania does have its particular propaganda value to the right, with the term raising visions of Russian communists, even if the Bolshevik Revolution did sweep those autocrats from power. But the irony doesn't stop there.

One of the abiding tenets of the conservative creed is hostility toward the media, which it consistently, if inaccurately, brands as "liberal." And as a "liberal" outpost, the media must be continually doubted, as reason gives way to a self-serving cynicism.

Yet, the right unflinchingly accepts the term "czar," when the Obama administration rarely has used the term and usually takes pains to avoid it. The moniker is one first used the press and has been kept alive by the press for decades. Still, consrvatives have latched on to it with a zeal which would be commendable if it were descriptive, accurate, or original. Which raises a question: with conservatives on the street characteristically force-fed false information by their heroes in the media, are the latter being manipulated by a mainstream media they disdain- or are they once again putting on a show?

Sifting Through Race- Jimmy Carter On Racism (Or Not), Part 3

At first read, it's somewhat of a case of dueling columns. Pulitzer Prize-winning Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post in "The Favor Jimmy Carter Did Us All" on September 18 writes

....there's a particularly nasty edge to the most vitriolic attacks -- a rejection not of Obama's programs but of his legitimacy as president. This denial of legitimacy is more pernicious than the abuse heaped upon George W. Bush by his critics (including me), and I can't find any explanation for it other than race.

I'm not talking about the majority of the citizens who went to town hall meetings to criticize Obama's plans for health-care reform or the majority of the "tea bag" demonstrators who complain that Obama is ushering in an era of big government. Those are, of course, legitimate points of view. Protest is part of our system. It's as American as apple pie.

I'm talking about the crazy "birthers." I'm talking about the nitwits who arrive at protest rallies bearing racially offensive caricatures -- Obama as a witch doctor, for example. I'm talking about the idiots who toss around words like "socialism" to make Obama seem alien and even dangerous -- who deny the fact that he, too, is as American as apple pie.

This whole discussion was kicked off by Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" outburst during Obama's address to a joint session of Congress. As the House members who voted to rebuke Wilson -- including seven fellow Republicans -- understand, calling the head of state a liar in such an official setting is way out of bounds. Grumbling and even booing come with the territory, but a flat accusation of mendacity is an impermissible sign of disrespect. Nobody ever called Bush a liar when he was speaking in the House chamber.

Why would Wilson think he was entitled to insult the president this way? Why would he refuse to offer a formal apology on the House floor, which would have ended the matter? I have no idea. Friends and colleagues say he is no racist, and they know the man a lot better than I do. But he does have a history.

Though not denying the role of race, in salon.com on September 17 Gene Lyons emphasizes economic insecurity and historic animus toward national Democrats. In "Obama gets the Clinton treatment," he deemphasizes the impact of race, explaining

From a political standpoint, the worst thing about blaming President Obama's perceived difficulties on racism is that there's not a damn thing anybody can do about it. Determined bigots can't be shamed, while many see invoking race as more an excuse than an explanation.
Democrats who cry racism risk looking like whiners fearful they're losing the argument....

Criticizing Colbert I. King of The Washington Post and referring to the proprietor of dailyhowler.com, Lyons notes

So where was King when Bill and Hillary Clinton were accused of murder by Rush Limbaugh and in videotapes peddled by the Rev. Jerry Falwell? The latter's sanctimonious mug nevertheless continued to appear constantly on network TV talk shows as an honored representative of America's devout Christians....

How about when Democratic nominee Al Gore was depicted as a fraud and serial liar through the use of phony allegations ("invented the Internet") and manufactured quotes on the front page of, yes, the Washington Post? Where was King then? Studiously polishing his fingernails, evidently.

The same is true of establishment pundits such as the New York Times' Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, who participated gleefully in sliming the previous several Democratic candidates. (Dowd and Rich invented the myth that Gore falsely claimed to be the inspiration for the novel and movie "Love Story.") So now they don the shining armor of multiculti(sic) liberalism? Please.

"King and the rest of his cohorts drank the Kool-Aid during (the 90s)," writes Somerby. "Now, they pretend that the era never occurred -- and they express their vast surprise when the same lunacy is aimed at Obama. They are amazed to see what's being said about this new Democratic president. And they diddle their cowardly brains: It must be his race, they proclaim."

But in a more fundamental sense, Robinson and Lyons both view things similarly, and accurately. While the former salutes the former president for raising the issue of race, the latter notes "Rep. Joe Wilson's, R-S.C., rude outburst during the president's speech to Congress.... along with his longtime support for flying the Rebel flag over South Carolina's capitol," and the futility of Democratic presidential nominees in the old confederacy.

And how has the conservative community responded? Not whether whether prominent Repubs or conservatives agree with Carter that race is the biggest factor in the most extreme attacks upon Obama (they apparently don't)- Carter probably was wrong and, anyway, it's never wise political strategy to label your base as racists.

But another theme has been developing. A few conservatives, including the African-American Derrell Bradford, and the second-generation Jamaican-American Michelle Bernard, have been vigorously trying to rewrite history. They claim, as Bernard put it, "White people put Barack Obama into office."

Uh, no. According to exit polls, among non-Hispanic whites, John McCain garnered 55% of the vote last November, Barack Obama only 33%- a bulge of 12%. If only white votes were counted, John McCain would have shellacked Barack Obama, both in the popular vote and in the electoral vote. John McCain would have been President, and Sarah Palin, Vice-President. And this is what individuals in exit polls reported. Human nature (learned, in this case) not having been abolished, whites still like to say they voted for the black candidate, especially in an election termed "historic."

But there is method behind the madness- no, behind the dishonesty. They are saying (albeit fallaciously), if a majority of Caucasians voted for the black candidate, well, the election put race behind us. And if it, if we have transcended race, why are Jimmy Carter and all those mean liberals bringing it up? Surely, the critics of the Democratic Party are right!

But in the midst of a serious recession, a very unpopular war, and a nominee who couldn't get out of his own way, Barack Obama, the nominee of the nation's majority party, won 43% of the white vote. So the real question is not, or should not be, whether former President Carter or his GOP critics are right- the truth lies somewhere in between the two extreme positions. It is a matter of passing, of transient concern, and as Robinson and probably Lyons both understand, one that should be secondary to the largely unexamined impact of race in American politics.