Someone Googled "Kirstein Blog" (crap, I was #1 yesterday!) and then came over to leave a comment - on a post that is two and a half years old. The post is about a Professor Kirstein, of St. Xavier University, and the commenter leaves the name and other contact info for Professor Kirstein. The IP resolves to AOL, so who knows.

If it is Kirstein, wow - just wow. And if it isn't - wower.

Washington Post has an article today that essentially plays out a blogfight over Hillary between the Far Left and the Far Out Left.

The alliance between the elite media and the Democrat Party makes them a part of this silliness - they are part of the lead pipe system that Hugh Hewitt describes (if you haven't read that thing about the pipes, you really should.)

Drudge links with the following - "White House drops 'war on terror' slogan..." to a New York Times article (his link is actually to IHT) that begins:

The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, according to senior administration and military officials.

In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of "a global struggle against violent extremism" rather than "the global war on terror," which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.

The New York Times, they are important because they have research staffs and editors, right? This must be true, it is right there in the paper. (By the way, is "Global War on Terror" really a "slogan?")

Then again, maybe they are just making it up. The news peg here is that GEN Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made some comments to that effect in answers to questions after a speech at the National Press Club. He just said it, its news!

Except of course, it isn't news. The NYT says in recent speeches Rumsfeld has started using "global struggle against violent extremism." This isn't something recent - the Secretary of Defense has been using this terminology for over a year. Here's a hint for Eric Schmitt - go to Defenselink, click on the "Search" button, and enter "global struggle" in the box, and select the various types of media to search. You might find this speech to the National Press Club by Secretary Rumsfeld in which he uses the phrases "global struggle against extremists" and "struggle against extremism." And look at the top of that webpage:

Doesn't look like "War on Terror" has been dropped to me. This is an administration famed for staying on message - did DoD not get the memo?

And as flawed as the NYT is, it still drives agendas. The Heritage Foundation takes the article and tries to spin it as a good change for the administration, going so far as to say:

It is a clear-headed change of definition of America’s long-range strategic aims.

Wow - our long-range strategic aims are changing! Maybe the folks over at Heritage ought to pick up a copy of the National Security Strategy - from December, 2001, by the way - and see if there is a change in our strategic direction, or the definition of it.

Must not be anything else going on this summer in politics, to have to make up a story off of this.

Criticism of Tancredo has been sharp - even from, perhaps especially from, the Right. Patrick Ruffini's pithy reaction: "Stupid idiot." I pointed to Hugh Hewitt, who has perhaps been the most vocal about it. But there are lots more.

National Review Online (and NR is the Capital of the Right, if there is one) even joined in, with John Podhoretz adding an "idiot" as well. They pulled a New York Times on this, though, by briefly alluding to the fact that in March, 2002, Rich Lowry posed the following question in the Corner:

Had interesting discussion with fellow NRO-nik Andrew Stuttafford last night. Here's the question: How would the U.S. respond if al Qaeda succeeded in detonating a nuke in a major American city? This is the disturbing thing: I'm not really sure what we could do any differently from what we're doing now. What would we do? Nuke Riyadh? Baghdad? A real conundrum--let me know if you have any bright ideas about it...

And received answers to that question, from NROers and others:

Lots of sentiment for nuking Mecca. Moderates opt for something more along these lines: “Baghdad and Tehran would be the likeliest sites for a first strike. If we have clean enough bombs to assure a pinpoint damage area, Gaza City and Ramallah would also be on list. Damascus, Cairo, Algiers, Tripoli and Riyadh should be put on alert that any signs of support for the attacks in their cities will bring immediate annihilation.” Then there are those who think we really can't do too much differently than what were doing now (my original proposition).

Of course, we were much closer to 9/11 then, so most of the criticism of NRO came from the Left, though Lowry eventually apologized for asking the question.

Now I think that what Patrick (a true political maven) and Hewitt (trying vigorously to implant the idea of a "center-right" in US political culture) and Podhoretz are all saying is that is stupid of Tancredo to have said what he said. He is a sitting Congressman, not a magazine editor, after all. If heated rhetoric from the likes of Kennedy et al. can be damaging, then so can rhetoric from the Right.

But even if it is idiotic for Tancredo to have given voice to the idea, the truth is, it is a question that must be asked, and we need to think about. Not the "should we nuke Mecca" question, but the what will we do if there is a nuclear terrorist event in the United States? What response do we have, what response will we have? Tod Lindberg makes that point in the Washington Times. He writes (I'm paraphrasing here) that in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the US, a lot of people are not going to think that apologizing to CAIR about feelings is high up on the list of things to do.

We don't have a deterrent for WMD attack on the US. It was true when I wrote it in 2003, and that hasn't changed. Nuking Mecca probably isn't it, but we need to figure out something, and let it be known - otherwise, it isn't a deterrent. And if we don't have a retaliation plan in pocket, the aftermath of a nuclear attack is a bad time to figure one out. The whole "anger of the Arab street" thing has gone out of vogue, but there is such a thing as the American street. Here is something else I wrote:

Bring something big over here again. I think you'll find that our balance has shifted on what is acceptable to us. And a whole lot of us have guns, here. We're tired of this crap already - been tired. But give us a big ugly reason, and we'll take the lazy way out. Just kill you all, let Allah sort it out. You think WMD is cool? We invented them. You ever nuked anybody? We have. That's what happens when our patience just runs out on fanatics who want to kill us.

This, too, is just as true as when I wrote it a year ago.

EDIT:I made some minor grammar edits of my careless writing.

A lot of terrorist attacks, with 2 in London (though that was two of many planned) and Egypt and Iraq and Lebanon....

So of course, it leads to the quesiton, are we winning - they are still out there, they are still capable of terrorist attacks. The Washington Post cites intelligence officials who say that there is coordination evident in the attacks in London and Sharm al Sheikh. Perhaps - Pakistanis are implicated in both. But I don;t think it takes all that much coordination. I think that the word is out, do what you can, where you can, and Allah will smile on you.

I don't think it represents strength - the second London attack literally fizzled, and the first was a significant climbdown from "spectacular attacks." Everything else is down in their end of the field. Blowing up Muslims doesn't really show a lot of strength for a Muslim group.

We are still winning, but we'll see more attacks this summer. it's gonna be a hot one.

For those holdouts who think that there isn't such a thing, today in the Washington Post, an article, column, whatever from Dana Milbank, a "straight news" reporter, not an opinion journalist, and it is in the A section, not Style or Outlook. Check it out.

As I count it, we have talking points against the President's nominee for the Supreeme Court by 2 liberal pressure groups printed verbatim, another liberal pressure group spokesman quoted verbatim about how Democrats aren't being tough enough on Karen Hughes, and a story about the Rolling Stones being censored that the Rolling Stones deny, but a nice peg to hang a Bush bashing quote from some guy in the DLC. You would think that there aren't any Republicans in Washington for Milbank to write about. Oh, wait, there's something from Tom Tancredo, a guy who said something that even most on the right are critical of.

A post, on this site gone dark.

But first, a little maintenance. Thanks a lot, blog spammers. Nice little add-on, throwing in ascii to mess with MT-Blacklist.

And then the blogroll.

And then maybe some content.