Hilarious piece by Kenneth Quinnel on how this has been the Week from Hell for the Grand Old Party, what with Rush Limbaugh double-whammied with drug and racism charges, Karl Rove and Lewis Libby more in the news than they want to be and Robert Novak exposed, finally, as the bullshitter most of us already knew he was. And there’s more, lots more.

Certainly the most disgusting Republican sin of the week was this (and be sure to click the link for the whole foul story):

We learned that a spokesman for Senator Kit Bond (R-Insensitivity) actually created an anti-Democratic Web site that incorporated the number N8354N in its title. That, of course, was the number on the tail of the plane that crashed and killed Democrat Mel Carnahan.

Take a deep breath and visualize this. A web site mocking the death of a human being, Democrat or otherwise — it’s just so….Republican.

A while ago it seemed they could get away with anything. I know I am many thousands of miles away, but even from Singapore I think I can hear the tables turning.

Maybe not. And that’s not idealistic windmill-chasing, it’s just what the latest numbers show:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Most Americans now believe the Iraq war was not worth it, according to CBS News/New York Times poll released on Thursday which showed a sharp fall in public confidence in President Bush’s ability to handle foreign and economic policy issues.

The poll found new lows for Bush’s foreign policy performance, which garnered just a 44 percent approval rating. Among respondents, 50 percent lacked confidence in his ability to handle an international crisis and 53 percent said they now believed the Iraq war was not worth it.

Bush’s overall job approval rating was just above 50 percent, almost back to the level before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and down sharply from his 89 percent approval rating after the attacks, the poll said.

It’s really sad it’s come to this, because I wondered at times whether getting rid of Saddam may — may — have been worth the effort, (a belief I discarded almost immediately after the war started), and at that moment when we were told “Mission Accomplished,” it really looked as though we were about to pull it off. But in light of how Bush has handled things since that infamous Top Gun landing, I can’t generate much sympathy for him. What’s followed the invasion ever since has been disappointment of startling proportions. (Not just the Iraqi quagmire, but the greed and the scandals and sweet deals for Bush friends.)

Meanwhile, Sully is running around like a chicken with his head cut off, trying to convince us all just how damning David Kay’s report really is. But note the change in his language; it’s all WMD “programs” now, not WMDs themselves. What a different tone from just 6 months ago, when he made it sound as though ready-to-launch Iraqi weapons (not future “programs”) posed an awful and imminent threat.

This sort of casuistry is so unconvincing, it’s almost embarrassing. Luckily, the public has caught on; I have, too. So have lots of others who felt the war was justified, like Josh Marshall and Mark Kleiman and Michael Kinsley. It’s heartening to see that the general public has woken up, if a little late.

A lot can happen between now and Election Day so predictions are pretty worthless. But it sure looks better for the Democrats now than it did the day Bush made his idiotic landing on the aircraft carrier. From the same Reuters article cited above:

Landing on the carrier, declaring the conflict over, this Romanesque sort of victory parade, certainly did raise the stakes,” historian James T. Smith told CBS News. “And now those expectations are falling because people are seeing that the Iraq situation is not going according to plan.”

The poll found most Americans are critical of Bush’s ability to handle both foreign and domestic problems, and a majority said the president does not share their priorities.

What a difference three months can make.

I really believe that Hu wants to improve things in China. I really believe there have been some encouraging signs. So why do some bloggers, like me, keep calling China on its iniquities instead of cheering on its reforms?

PRC News raises just this question:

My own experience of this country is that always pointing out how evil something or other is about China we always lose sight of the stories that actually have promise to make the kinds of changes that we so desire. No one is saying that fundamental changes and drastic reforms need to be made, but somewhere we need to find a kind of acceptance that China will never be a model for idealistic democracy, western models of justice, and probably never an open society in the way we know. To demand nothing less strikes me as being absurdly culturally arrogant.

That doesn’t mean we can’t express our anger and disappointment, but of far more interest will always be the emerging stories that threaten to change the very fabric of what we know to be the PRC, rather than just lambasting again and again the same faults of a country whose biggest domestic problem continues to be overpopulation rather than that often-cited evil: corruption.

Strong words. First, let me say that some of the reforms have been qenuine, but others (most?) have been on paper only. The actual deeds of the Party belie its intent to institute true reforms. More media freedom one day, crackdowns on Internet “abusers” the next. Greater freedom for the people to speak out, then this story today of exactly the opposite:

It [a human rights group] said some 85 Shanghai petitioners journeyed to the capital ahead of China’s October 1 National Day to press claims of compensation and unjust treatment that led to the downfall of Zhou Zhengyi, a flamboyant property tycoon under investigation for corruption.

Shanghai police detained the protesters at their Beijing hotel rooms and loaded them onto four buses early Tuesday and whisked them back to the eastern financial hub, Human Rights in China said in a statement seen by Reuters on Thursday.

The group quoted sources saying some of the detainees were physically abused and threatened. Police told them they would be held for 15 days and have to undergo ”training sessions” to reform their thinking, the U.S.-based group said.

As I’ve said before reform is as reform does. As long as this type of thing is still the norm, I can’t give a lot of credit to the CCP for its reforms.

And as far as lambasting them, all I can say is Why not? Lots of bloggers are lambasting Bush for his real or perceived iniquities. Why not the CCP? The fact that Bush may have done good things as well rarely comes into the conversation about Wilson – Plame, and really shouldn’t — those are separate conversations. Bush’s good leadership two years ago doesn’t take away from the apparent badness of the current scandals.

So when I see true reform I will praise it to the skies. But there are so many writers (and bloggers) already doing the praising, and not so many doing the criticizing. Believe it or not, I have actually read bloggers who say they are thrilled the CCP is in power. I’ve read some who would even point to Mao’s great achievements, with virtually no context or balance (like, um, 60 million dead bodies).

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to harvest the litany of the CCP’s sins, and balance it when appropriate with its achievements. It is something that for many reasons I feel passionate about; so do those blogging 24-7 about Bush’s evils in Iraq and elsewhere. Some do the same about Bill Clinton, which is their privilige (although to me they often seem deranged, going on about “body counts” and other nonsense).

Bottom line: Silence is what allows crimes to continue. It will only be noise — be it from half-million-man marches, human rights reports, news articles, people lighting themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square, and yes, bloggers — that will ultimately force the CCP to mend its ways. Silence equals death. So let’s keep up the volume on that which is blatantly evil.

Both the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web column and the WSJ editorial page today refer to the Wilson-Plame scandal as a “kerfuffle.” Both dismiss it with extreme arrogance and blame the left for all the noise about nothing.

Needless to say, there’s very little said about who committed the misdeed and why. Like Instapundit, they are bewildered and confused about it.

Kerfuffle is certainly an unusual word, and I would suggest that Best of the Web writer James Taranto is almost certainly working in tandem with the WSJ editorial writers to send out the same message — it’s just the pesky and irresponsible liberals trying to get attention. Nothing to take seriously. Taranto refers to it as a leftist “food fight.”

Looking at Taranto’s acerbic prose, I have to admire him. He knows how to make those he opposes look like utter idiots, no matter what they do. Similarly, he artfully makes Republicans look good, again no matter what they do. His ability to insult and sneer, yet at the same time retain a patina of civility and wit, is something I look at with a true sense of wonder. And fear. He is like an Ann Coulter with a functional brain. And that’s a lethal combination — brute, blind prejudice and the intelligence to pass it off as legitimate.

Have to run, but one day I’ll have more to say about the WSJ editorial board and what a peculiar and evil phenomenon it is.

Update, from a well-read reader:
Main Entry: ker·fuf·fle
Pronunciation: k&r-‘f&-f&l
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of carfuffle, from Scots car- (probably from
Scottish Gaelic cearr wrong, awkward) + fuffle to become disheveled
Date: 1946
chiefly British : DISTURBANCE; FUSS

Even as we speak, they are showing on CNN a new-born baby in Zambia with four legs, three hands and, the announcer says, three kidneys. (The third hand seems to protrude from straight out of the baby’s chest.)

And we think we’ve got problems.

Great overview of the Wilson-Plame scandal over at Open Source. Thanks, Mark.

When I recently visited Hong Kong, one of my old friends there asked why my blog always refers to Andrew Sullivan, whom he had never heard of. It’s a good question. Liberal friends of mine ask me why I even read Sully at all. They all hate him.

My interest in Sullivan is nothing new. Many years ago I was thrilled to learn he was going to become editor of the only magazine I subscribed to, The New Republic. He was young, brilliant, something of a wunderkind, Oxford-educated, and open about his sexuality — something that at the time was simply unprecedented for such a visible position.

I also rememer how my enthusiasm rapidly dwindled as I learned that the liberal prince I’d envisioned was conservative and outspoken in his love for the Republican Party. I felt betrayed, and I often felt like shouting back at his columns, I disagreed with him so vehemently. But whenever he wrote about social issues, I was always in total agreement. As much as he bothered me, I read him religiously.

I was also a daily reader of his site long before the word Blog became part of the popular parlance. It’s the first place I go whenever I turn my computer on. As usual, when he is on target he is the best commentator out there. When he goes into Republican attack-dog mode, which is sadly more the rule than the exception, I thoroughly loathe him.

I sometimes feel a twinge of guilt when I blast a Sullivan post, which is pretty often. He was the one who put me on the map by linking to one of my most heartfelt posts back in January. And it’s because of his touting the new medium called blogging that I started this site. But when he pisses me off, I can’t simply be quiet.

I guess I hope that if I say it loud enough, Sullivan will hear me and, eventually, renounce his Republicanism and see the light. I want to think it’s only a matter of time that he finally recognizes that oil and water won’t mix, that in the eyes of his beloved Republicans — as in the eyes of his beloved Church — he is The Enemy. (I know, it’s an uphill battle.)

After following him for all these years, he irritates, enthralls and fascinates me. So if it ever seems my site is top-heavy with mentions of AS, you know why.

This morning, my taxi driver could only talk about one thing, the Wilson-Plame scandal.

As I got into the taxi, the radio news announcer was finishing the latest story about the scandal, and the driver droned on and on for the next 15 minutes about how rotten things are in America and how this proves the war was waged on false pretenses and Bush is a monster and how could he expose his undercover agents to such danger and…..

This was very unusual. (Most taxi drivers here listen to Chinese pop music, not the news in English.) This guy knew all the names involved! It struck me how short a time it took for this thing to become a full-blown, major scandal that everyone in the world was chattering about.

And the Republicans are now being dragged along, for the scandal has taken on a life of its own. They can’t control it. The most they can do is try to manage how the public perceives it. So far, they are doing a terible job.

After fighting it with every denial conversation he could come up with, he finally gets it:

It’s getting clearer. Valerie Plame was undercover and her outing was apparently deliberate and coordinated. If this pans out, it really is an outrageous piece of political malice. I may have misjudged this one at first, because I couldn’t quite see the motive behind it.

I’m still not totally clear, and it seems an extremely dumb and self-defeating tactic to me. But whatever the motive, if this is the nub of the story, the leakers need to be found, fired and prosecuted. I’ve written that before. But, listening to the Newshour testimony, my outrage level just went up a notch.

Now he’s got to come around on the bigger issue — it’s not just about leaking. It is a larger story of an administration that bullies those who raise questions. It is about a thuggish mentality that takes us back to the days of Nixon’s dirty tricks. It is about a government out of control and allergic to the truth.

One country, two systems? Like hell it is.

Straits Times today warns that China plans to “mobilise its supporters to prevent those in the pro-democracy camp from gaining control of the legislative council” in the next elections. I’m shocked.

Sources say Beijing will not let democrats and others in the opposition camp dominate the 60-seat legislature as they can then pass laws inimical to its interests, including those enabling universal suffrage and direct election of the Chief Executive.

If that should come to pass, China will have no choice but to veto such legislation, exercising powers granted by Hong Kong’s mini-constitution.

That, in turn, is sure to set off an outcry not only among Hong Kong people but also people worldwide, outraged by the perceived denial of the expressed popular will.

The article outlines the headaches China faces, as the next elections will be the first in HK since the half-million-man march and voter turnout is certain to be high and impassioned.