Why Cheney's Hunting Accident Story Has Legs

(White House photo by David Bohrer)
It's not just liberal media bias, and all the "I'd rather be hunting with Dick Cheney than driving with Ted Kennedy" bumper stickers in the world won't make this accident go away.

The reason is the icongraphic and symbolic resonance of Dick Cheney's accident. Yes, it was an accident, he didn't shoot his hunting buddy on purpose, it could have happened to anyone, and so forth.

Yet:

1. Dick Cheney appears to be careless.

A careful hunter simply wouldn't shoot his buddy. Maybe he got carried away, maybe he wasn't paying attention, maybe he just didn't see, but still--he was aiming at some quail and hit his buddy. That's careless, and it goes to the general impression of the Bush administration's handling of Katrina, Iraq, and the search for Bin Laden, among other things. They are careless. This impression is reinforced by Cheney's hunting accident.

2. Dick Cheney appears to be trigger-happy.

Again, the claim against the US in Iraq is reinforced by the accident. Shoot first, ask questions later, it seems, whether hunting or making foreign policy.

3. Dick Cheney appears to have missed his target.

Like the US going after Bin Laden, Dick Cheney created "collateral damage" but didn't bag his quail.

4. Dick Cheney appears to be secretive.

That the story leaked out through Kate Armstrong's phone call to a friendly reporter, rather than an announcement from the Vice-President's office parallels complaints about news management related to the Iraq war. Again, a simple hunting accident resonates with larger problems for the administration.

5. Dick Cheney appears to be incompetent.

The whole accident story raises the question--doesn't he have better things to do? How come the Vice President has time to go quail hunting while the US is involved in a showdown with Iran, a crisis in Palestine, a botched Saddam trial in Iraq, and the Danish Cartoon crisis.

The story won't go away, not because it isn't trivial in itself, but because this little accident reflects in microcosm the very big problems with the administration--including the wounding and injury of friends like Denmark and Israel by botched American foreign policy; and the wounding and injury of American citizens in New Orleans and the South Coast by botched handling of Hurricane Katrina.

It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.

Don't Piss On Michelle Malkin, Either...

Google Shares Slide 4.7% as Stock Decline Deepens

Mark Steyn: "A Falling Camel Attracts Many Knives"

Thanks to Ann Althouse for pointing out this Mark Steyn column:

And the good news is that that body's already on its way. The European Union's Justice and Security Commissioner, Franco Frattini, said on Thursday that the EU would set up a "media code" to encourage "prudence" in the way they cover, ah, certain sensitive subjects. As Signor Frattini explained it to the Daily Telegraph, "The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression. . . . We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right."

"Prudence"? "Self-regulate our free expression"? No, I'm afraid that's just giving the Muslim world the message: You've won, I surrender, please stop kicking me.

But they never do. Because, to use the Arabic proverb with which Robert Ferrigno opens his new novel, Prayers for the Assassin, set in an Islamic Republic of America, "A falling camel attracts many knives." In Denmark and France and the Netherlands and Britain, Islam senses the camel is falling and this is no time to stop knifing him.

The issue is not "freedom of speech" or "the responsibilities of the press" or "sensitivity to certain cultures." The issue, as it has been in all these loony tune controversies going back to the Salman Rushdie fatwa, is the point at which a free society musters the will to stand up to thugs. British Muslims march through the streets waving placards reading "BEHEAD THE ENEMIES OF ISLAM." If they mean that, bring it on. As my columnar confrere John O'Sullivan argued, we might as well fight in the first ditch as the last.

Uzbek Film Director Goes Hollywood

Nathan at Registan has the story of Timur Bekmambetov's Hollywood period. His Russian hit, Night Patrol, was the talk of Moscow when we lived there. Now the ethnic Uzbek, Russian director has a sequel, Day Patrol. And he's been picked by an American studio to do some English-language films. There's a link to the Night Patrol website, here. As they say in Tashkent, "Juda yaxshi!"

Don't Piss On Denmark!

Thanks to LGF, I found this very interesting article by Danish journalist Per Nyholm on Brussels Journal:

I feel that currently my beloved country is being pissed upon rather too much. Denmark has not been neglecting its duties on the international stage. We have supported poor people with acts and advice, we have worked for peace, we have sent soldiers, policemen and experts to all the far flung corners of the world. We have democracy, a rule of law and a welfare state. Not all is perfect, but we harbor no malice towards our fellow men.

And yet Denmark is being pissed upon. The spokesman of the US State Department is pissing on Denmark, the British Secretary of Foreign Affairs is pissing on Denmark, the President of Afghanistan is pissing on Denmark, the Government of Iraq is pissing on Denmark, other Muslim regimes are pissing on Denmark. In Gaza, where Danes for years have provided humanitarian aid, crazed Imams encourage people to cut off the hands and heads of the cartoonists who made the drawings of Mohammed for the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Excuse my choice of words, but all this pissing is pissing me off.

What is going on? I am not referring so much to the threats against Danish citizens and Danish commerce. Nor to the burnt down Embassies. I am thinking of a word that keeps popping up whenever the Mohammed cartoons are mentioned.

That word is BUT. A sneaky word. It is used to deny or qualify what one has just said.

How many times lately have we not heard people of power, the Opinion Makers and others say that of course we have freedom of speech, BUT.

They have said it, all of them, from Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, to our own Bendt Bendtsen [a Danish Politician]. Once we had to be sensitive to the easily hurt feelings of the Nazis, then came the Communists, now it is the Islamists. The reason I say ‘Islamists’ is that I do not for a moment believe all the world’s Muslims are pissing on us. I think we are dealing with thugs, fools and misled people. Those are the ones we have to deal with, and then the chickenshit politicians.

The cartoons are no longer something Jyllands-Posten can control. They have already been manipulated and misrepresented to the point that few know what is going on and fewer know how to stop it. This affair is artifically being kept buoyant in a sea of lies, suppressions of the truth, misconceptions, lunacy and hypocrisy, for which this newspaper bears no blame. The only thing Jyllands-Posten did was provide a pin-prick which has made a boil of nastiness erupt. This would have happened sooner or later. That it happened more than four months after the publication of the cartoons, raises a question of its own. Are we dealing with random events or with a staged clash of civilizations? One might hope for the former yet be prepared to expect the latter.

That is why I say: Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech. There is no but.

Read the whole thing here

Norman Shumway, Transplant Pioneer, 83

The San Jose Mercury News has a nice obituary of Dr. Norman Shumway, who died aged 83 from lung cancer. He operated on my father a long time ago to replace a bad valve. Shumway was such a good surgeon that his patient has now outlived him. According to this obituary, Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist studied cardiac surgery under Shumway at Stanford.

Torino's Mole Antonelliana

Wikipedia has the story behind the symbol of the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics, Torino's Mole Antonelliana. Don't tell the President of Iran, the King of Saudi Arabia, or any of the Danish Cartoon protesters, for they might turn against the Olympic movement next--construction of the Mole, intended as a synagogue, began in 1863, in celebration of the establishment of religious freedom in Turin. The tower is over 500 feet high, the tallest masonry building in the world at the time of construction. The project grew too expensive, and the Jewish community turned it over to the city of Turin. Today it is the Museum of Cinema. I went to the top almost a quarter of a century ago, when my film was shown at the Turin film festival, and it was the Museum of Italian Independence. Turin had been the center of the movement for Italian unification led by the Count de Cavour--the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed there in the Cariganano Palace on May 14, 1861.

A History of the Olympics

Ancient Greece was the model for today's games in Torino, Italy--the history of the original Olympics can be found on Perseue.

Time to Sell Google Stock?

I just saw the Google Video segment linked on Michelle Malkin's blog (someone at Google doesn't like me), and was surprised that the VJ personally attacked her in a malicious and unfair way. Hyscience has a response, here.

I think this may be a symptom of something wrong. If Google's business franchise is based on honest, objective information resulting from computer search formulas--what is this guy doing spouting nasty personal opinions based on nothing but ugly prejudice?

That's not objective, scientific, or empirical--it's political.

And if Google's results are seen as political rather than scientific and objective, the search engine's franchise will no doubt suffer. The China censorship issue is bad enough--but IMHO Google Current host Conor Knight's gratuitous insults were beyond offensive--they were evil.

And if Google's motto is "do no evil," then either he is violating company policy, or his shtick is a symptom of something gone very wrong in Google's management. Either one might be a "sell" signal...

If Google becomes known as a "PC" search engine, its value will sink in the same way network news ratings have.

My suggestion to Google: To save your business, stick with objective facts and drop the personal opinions on Google Video.

Victor Davis Hanson on the Danish Cartoon Crisis

From National Review Online:

Like the appeasement of the 1930s, we are in the great age now of ethical retrenchment. So much has been lost even since 1960; then the very idea that a Dutch cartoonist whose work had offended radical Muslims would be in hiding for fear of his life would have been dismissed as fanciful.

Insidiously, the censorship only accelerates. It is dressed up in multicultural gobbledygook about hurtfulness and insensitivity, when the real issue is whether we in the West are going to be blown up or beheaded if we dare come out and support the right of an artist or newspaper to be occasionally crass.

In the post-Osama bin Laden and suicide-belt world of our own, we shudder at these fanatical riots, convincing ourselves that perhaps the Salman Rushdies, Theo Van Goghs, and Danish cartoonists of the world had it coming. All the while, we think to ourselves about the fact that we do not threaten to kill Muslims when they promulgate daily streams of hate and racism in sermons and papers, and much less would we go about promising death to the creator of "Piss Christ" or the Da Vinci Code. How ironic that we now find politically-correct Westerners — those who formerly claimed they would defend to the last the right of an Andres Serrano or Dan Brown to offend Christians — turning on the far milder artists who rile Muslims.

The radical Islamists are our generation's book burners who search for secular Galileos and Newtons. They are the new Nazi censors who sniff out anything favorable to the Jews. These fundamentalists are akin to the Soviet commissars who once decreed all art must serve political struggle — or else.

If we give in to these 8th-century clerics, shortly we will be living in an 8th century ourselves, where we may say, hear, and do nothing that might offend a fundamentalist Muslim — and, to assuage our treachery to freedom and liberalism, we'll always be equipped with the new rationale of multiculturalism and cultural equivalence which so poorly cloaks our abject fear.

Mark Steyn v. Hugh Hewitt on Danish Cartoon Crisis

Hugh Hewitt had Mark Steyn on his radio show to talk about the Danish Cartoon crisis:

HH: ...Mark Steyn, now let's turn to the Danish cartoons. Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims turned out in Beirut today to protest the cartoons. The head of Hezbollah told George Bush to shut up over Syria and Iran fueling protests. And in Gaza, a quaint little story of entrepreneur Ahmed Abu Daya, who has laid in a hundred hard to find Danish and Norwegian flags for sale to flag burners.

MS: Yeah.

HH: What's going on?

MS: Well in a sense, that sums up the economic energy in the Muslim world, that they're actually great for...if you want to start a flag business for people to burn flags, that's a viable business in the Muslim world. Not a lot of other things are. That's one of the problems. You know, I disagree with the line you've taken on this, Hugh, and I do accept that in the simple politics of it, there's something actually quite useful in the United States detaching itself from Europe's position. But from Europe's point of view, the problem is that the basic narrative here in all these stories, the French riots, the murder of the Dutch filmmaker, the banning of Pooh and Piglet mugs in English municipal government offices, all these little nothing stories all basically derive their energy from the same point, that the fact that the Europeans are weak and elderly and fading, and their Muslims populations are young and surging. And in all these clashes, they're basically putting down markers for the way things are going to be the day after tomorrow, in the way that if you're a new owner, you may buy a house and have the kitchen remodeled before moving in. I mean, a lot of the things they're putting in place now, the Muslims are demanding, the Muslim lobby groups are demanding. They're basically putting in place the remodeled kitchen before they move in and take over.

HH: So I've not persuaded you with my analogy to Churchill's treatment of Franco during the War, that we've got to worry about Pakistan's stability, we don't really want Danish newspaper editors making these calls for the Pentagon. We would...I want our government to engage this world and these fanatics on their terms and their timing, not the timing of Danish out of touch cultural editors, which is what this all began with.

MS: Well, I wouldn't actually call those guys out of touch, because in some ways, they're living with far...in a far worse situation than people are in parts of the Muslim world. And again, I would slightly disagree with you there, because I think Muslims in the Muslim world are actually far more culturally reformable than Muslims in Europe are, because they're living in relatively homogenous societies that can be shifted culturally in significant ways. The problem in Europe is that Muslims feel alienated, because they regard Western culture as an abomination, it's all around them. They regard them as soft, decadent, narcissist fornicators and sodomites, and they loathe the society they're living in. And I think in a sense, that's a much more problematic thing. You know, whether there...I think there are moderate Muslims in Jordan. Whether there are moderate Muslims in the Netherlands is a much more problematic question.

HH: You know, I asked Dennis Prager this week. I don't know if you had a chance to read that interview with Prager, Medved and Joe Carter.

MS: Yeah, that was a great show, actually.

HH: Well, I thought so, too, but I was a little stunned when Dennis said he thought 20% of the Muslim world was radicalized, and that it would go to more than 50%. Do you agree with those numbers?

MS: Well, I think the thing is you have to distinguish between...the proportion of Muslims who are prepared to fly planes into skyscrapers is incredibly small. But when you take polls...they took a poll in Britain this week of British Muslims, and basically found that 2/5ths of British Muslims regard Jewish civilians as legitimate targets. Now that provides a huge comfort zone for Muslim terrorists to operate in.

HH: Yes.

MS: It means that they can go and set up in Manchester or Birmingham or Rotterdam or Copenhagen or Buffalo or Seattle, knowing that within those communities, there's a very huge comfort zone for them to be able to operate in. And in that sense, I think Dennis may be, in fact, underestimating the number a little.

HH: Now what do you make, though, of hundreds of thousands of Hezbollah followers in Lebanon? Is this conflict unavoidable with Hezbollah?

MS: Well, I think that is part of something that's slightly more calculated. Spontaneous demonstrations don't erupt in that part of the world.

HH: That's right.

MS: They're basically as stage managed as the opening ceremony at the Moscow Olympics. And what is happening is that Iran is putting pressure, because there's this parallel situation going on with Iran's nuclear program being referred to the U.N. Security Council, and Iran is basically calling some of its client groups out into the streets to remind some of the weaker members of that Security Council that in fact, if they want a clash of civilizations, bring it on, baby. That's the message these groups are making.

Church of England Apologizes for Slave Trade

From This 'n That:

It voted unanimously to apologise to the descendents of the slaves after an emotional debate in which the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, urged the Church to share the "shame and sinfulness of our predecessors".

The Church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Foreign Parts, owned the Codrington plantation in Barbados and slaves had the word "Society" branded on their chests with red-hot irons.

The Synod was told that the society's governing body included archbishops of Canterbury. Bishops of London and archbishops of York were involved in its management.

Islamic Jihad Demonstrates in Jerusalem

Haaretz reports:

In Jerusalem, about 2,000 women, young boys and older men chanted "Bin Laden, strike again" as they marched around the Dome of the Rock on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, trampling a homemade Danish flag.

Putin Hoisting Bush By "Democracy" Petard

RIA Novosti Russian news agency reports that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is using "democracy" against President Bush--and inviting Hamas leaders to Moscow for consultation:

"Today, [we] must recognize that Hamas came to power via legitimate, democratic elections in the Palestinian National Authority, which is why we must respect the choice of the Palestinian people," Putin said at a news conference in Madrid, where he is on official business.

This can't be a surprise to US officials, despite public claims to the contrary. Russians see the US as trying to weaken Russia, using "democracy" as a tool.

Russians are still angry over what they see as Western support for Chechen Islamist extremists--whom Russians believe are tied to Al Qaeda--support justified by calls for "self-determination." Likewise, Russians are angry about Western support for Islamic movements in the former Yugoslavia, and in the former Soviet Republics. No doubt, feeling that turnabout is fair play, the Russians have decided that two can play the "democracy" game. Hamas's victory gives Russia the opportunity to hassle President Bush. Putin can cause problems for the US, in the same way that Russians believe the US has been causing problems for Russia. And with Russian support for Syria, Venezuela, and now Hamas, Putin will be in a stronger position to get the West to back off any further moves to destablize Russia.

It has long been said that Russians play chess while Americans play poker. But it seems that the Hamas victory is an Ace in Putin's poker hand, which he intends to play with a poker face against President Bush.

One might also remember that the USSR was instrumental in the establishment of the PLO in the first place--as well as in the establishment of the State of Israel, funnelling arms through Czechoslovakia to the Jewish State in 1948. By embracing Hamas, Putin is re-inforcing Russia's role as a "player" in the Middle East, a Great Power whose national interests can no longer be ignored.

This is a natural consequence of an American two-track policy which encourages confrontation with Russia, rather than full partnership in the war on terror. Bush's mistakes have now given Putin leverage to veto any American initiatives in the Middle East. Which means that unless Bush makes nice to Putin, Ehud Olmert's Israeli government may need to shift its focus to the Kremlin--and Russia may find that its historical quest for a "warm water port" ends when the Russian Navy is based in Haifa...

Reflections on the Danish Cartoon Crisis

Here are some reasons I find the Danish Cartoon crisis interesting:

1. Denmark is a democracy.

Which means that any extremist rage or terrorist acts against Denmark can't be explained as a result of Denmark's autocratic rulers, secret police, or torture chambers.

2. Denmark is rich.

Again, poverty can't be the explanation for the movement we have seen. People actually immigrate to Denmark to find work. Those who can't work enjoy social benefits among the most generous in the world.

3. Denmark is peaceful.

Although Danish troops are in Afghanistan and Iraq, Denmark has been among the least warlike nations in recent history.

4. Denmark respects human rights.

Once more, Denmark is a world leader in this field.

5. Denmark is honest.

Every year, Scandanavian countries rank among the top in the world, in every anti-corruption index. So, this can't be seen as a protest against a corrupt government, either.

All of these facts make Denmark an interesting test case for the various theories on how to combat terrorism. For Denmark is clearly a target of terror. The Danish Cartoon crisis is a terrorist campaign, complete with riots, arson, mobs, and threats to bring a 9/11 to Denmark. Hizb-ut-Tahrir declared a jihad against Denmark even before the cxartoons were published.

My own belief is that the Danish case reveals the bankruptcy of President Bush's anti-terror strategy, based on false premises of "democracy deficit", corruption, poverty, and so forth. Likewise, it counteracts liberal theories that multi-culturalism and attempts at understanding the "Other" will bring about a reduction in tensions.

What the Danish case shows is that there is no alternative but to fight against Islamist extremists and fanatics, wherever they may be living--including Saudi Arabia. And to focus on this fight, in words spoken by former President Bill Clinton in relation to the US economy, "like a laser beam."

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan says:

I have to say I am ashamed that the West has not been more forthright in defending the Danes. That idiots like John Kerry and Bill Clinton would call standing up to Islamist intimidation bigotry appalls me. The West has a right to say that all its citizens have an inviolable right to free speech, and that all its female - and gay and Jewish - citizens have a right not to submit to medieval barbarism. Period.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali told the BBC:

Ms Hirsi Ali, speaking in Berlin, said that "today the open society is challenged by Islamism".

She added: "Within Islam exists a hardline Islamist movement that rejects democratic freedoms and wants to destroy them."

Ms Hirsi Ali criticised European leaders for not standing by Denmark and urged politicians to stop appeasing fundamentalists.

Jill Carroll Still Alive...

In a new video, she said: "I am here. I am fine. Please just do whatever they want, give them whatever they want as quickly as possible."

Bush's Ironic Meeting with King Abdullah

(White House Photo by Eric Draper)Writing in the International Herald Tribune, Mona Eltahawy takes President Bush to task for sitting next to King Abdullah while discussing the Danish Cartoons:

Two Jordanian editors and a Yemeni editor who dared to publish some of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad are under arrest, accused of insulting religion under their countries' press and publication laws. For them, it was not so much an issue of joining the chorus of European and then international newspapers that sang in defense of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons in September. Rather, it was a chance to challenge state-sanctioned religious rules....

...It is ironic that President George W. Bush is asking these same leaders to help calm Muslim anger when they were so instrumental in inflaming it in the first place. It is particularly telling that he made this call as he stood with King Abdullah of Jordan, while making no mention of the jailed editors [who published the cartoons in Arab countries].

Perhaps the ultimate double standard, though, is the repeated calls from Muslim dictators that the freedom of expression must be exercised with responsibility. Why isn't anyone telling them that an equally healthy dose of responsibility must accompany the enormous power they wield?

I am a Muslim who fully supports Jyllands-Posten's right to publish the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, as I defend the rights of Muslims to be offended. But I find the daily human rights violations by our dictators to be more offensive to the memory of the prophet's life than a few cartoons ever could be.

UPDATE: IMHO, The Bush administration's handling of this crisis has been so terrible that it poses a threat to American national security. It revealed a panicky administration that made public statements without even bothering to research the facts at issue. Any web-surfer who reads Michelle Malkin would know enough about what is going on to tell Bush one simple truth--the Danes were not irresponsible, the Danish press was not irresponsible, the Danish cartoonists were not irresponsible. Rather, the Danish imams, and their extremist supporters around the world who agitated for violence, were the irresponsible ones.

Which makes George Bush's statements on the Danish Cartoon crisis--"irresponsible."

Telegraph: Saudis Behind Danish Cartoon Crisis

Despite Condoleezza Rice's blaming Iran and Syria, Anton LaGuardia says Saudi Arabian agitation turned the publications of 12 Danish cartoons into an international crisis:

The uproar over the Danish cartoons has some intriguing parallels with the furious dispute over Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses almost exactly 17 years ago.

Then, as now, it took several months for isolated protests over the affront to the Prophet Mohammed to explode into an international fireball involving Islamic indignation, western outrage, death threats - and a good deal of political manipulation.

In 1989 it was Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini who sued a fatwa sentencing Salman Rushdie to death. Today it is Saudi Arabia, Iran’s rival for influence in the Islamic world, that has given force to the campaign against the Danish cartoons.

In the space of a few days at the end of January, Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador to Copenhagen, its top religious leader called for the Danish government to punish the Jyllands-Posten for the “ugly crime” and Saudi religious leaders instigated a boycott of Danish goods – all publicised by Saudi newspapers and satellite television stations...

...Mr Abu Laban himself appears to concede the point when he admits that Saudi-owned satellite stations such as al-Majd and Iqra had a "big influence" in fomenting the trade boycott.

Ann Coulter on the Danish Cartoon Crisis

Ann Coulter (who was fired from National Review after an "offensive" column) discusses the meaning of the Danish cartoons:

One showed Muhammad turning away suicide bombers from the gates of heaven, saying "Stop, stop — we ran out of virgins!" — which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. Another was a cartoon of Muhammad with horns, which I believe was a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence. The third showed Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb, which I believe was an expression of post-industrial ennui in a secular — oops, no, wait: It was more of a commentary on Muslims' predilection for violence.

In order to express their displeasure with the idea that Muslims are violent, thousands of Muslims around the world engaged in rioting, arson, mob savagery, flag-burning, murder and mayhem, among other peaceful acts of nonviolence.

Muslims are the only people who make feminists seem laid-back.

The little darlings brandish placards with typical Religion of Peace slogans, such as: "Behead Those Who Insult Islam," "Europe, you will pay, extermination is on the way" and "Butcher those who mock Islam." They warn Europe of their own impending 9/11 with signs that say: "Europe: Your 9/11 will come" — which is ironic, because they almost had me convinced the Jews were behind the 9/11 attack.

The rioting Muslims claim they are upset because Islam prohibits any depictions of Muhammad — though the text is ambiguous on beheadings, suicide bombings and flying planes into skyscrapers.

Bush Blows It--Again...

Watching President with King Abdullah on the TV news last night, spouting an "evenhanded" line regarding the Danish Cartoon crisis--about how violence must stop but that freedom also carries responsibility--someone I know turned to me and said: So, the President is on the side of the protesters?

That's how it looked to me, too--despite today's Washington Post story claiming there has been a shift in the White House position.

Today's page one story had a quote from an unnamed State Department source who said that Kurtis Cooper's first response, to condemn the cartoons outright, was motivated by a belief that it would help to calm things down.

Bush has made a calculated decision to focus on the violence in recent days, according to White House aides. The administration's initial reaction, delivered last Friday by the State Department, was to sharply criticize the drawings. "Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said at the time. Cooper was repeating talking points provided by higher-level officials when the controversy erupted. "We hoped it would be a calming influence," a State Department official said.

Bad call, I'd say. Very bad.

First, the Post should find out who made that call, then publish the name of the person responsible--Karen Hughes perhaps?

Since it didn't calm things down, as appeasement breeds agression (one of the few iron laws of international relations), the person who designed the US response to the Danish Cartoon crisis should then be asked to resign at once. Enough damage has been done.

Saying nothing would have been better than what the US has done so far. The US doesn't have to have an opinion on cartoons published in obscure regional Danish newspapers. If Bush couldn't bring himself to side with Denmark, he could have stayed out of it.

But to kowtow, as his administration has done, is just plain demoralizing. Every sign of weakness fans the flames of fanaticism. And the Bush administration looks very weak indeed--Bush actually sounded scared to me, his voice was trembling in the news clip with Abdullah.

Any rational person would ask: Why King Abdullah? What does Jordan have to do with this story? Why not the Danish ambassador?

Oh, where o where o where is Rudy Giuliani when we need him?