by JAMES TARANTO
Monday, December 19, 2005 2:03 P.M. EST

Dopes Get Roped
Watching President Bush's political recovery on Iraq, one is tempted to think that this has all been part of a rope-a-dope strategy. In recent weeks Democrats have taken a host of outrageous positions on Iraq: John Kerry* accuses our troops of "terrorizing kids and children." Howard Dean says victory is "just plain wrong." On Friday the House voted 279-109 in favor of a resolution "expressing the commitment of the House of Representatives to achieving victory in Iraq," which means that 108 Democrats and socialist Bernie Sanders are now on record opposing victory. (Fifty-nine Dems voted for victory, and 32 of them, along with two Republicans, voted "present.")

Most of the pro-surrender Dems--including last month's media darling, Jack Murtha--also voted against Murtha's proposal for immediate withdrawal, so it seems they want to turn tail and run, but not before taking some more casualties--a position they seem to have calibrated carefully with an eye toward completely discrediting themselves.

Meanwhile, Iraq held a successful election (or a "surprisingly successful election," as a New York Times news article calls it), and London's Daily Telegraph reports from Tal Afar, a Sunni area that was until recently a center of the terrorist insurgency, that "the approach of an American military convoy brings people out to wave and even clap."

The president last night addressed the nation, and he crystallized the issue:

We will continue to listen to honest criticism, and make every change that will help us complete the mission. Yet there is a difference between honest critics who recognize what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right.

Defeatism may have its partisan uses, but it is not justified by the facts. . . .

I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt. Yet now there are only two options before our country--victory or defeat. And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party, because the security of our people is in the balance.

All of which places Democrats in an untenable position. Do they continue insisting on defeat, or do they flip-flop and embrace victory? Either way they look silly, though less so in the latter case.

Was this the result of a brilliant administration strategy? Given the administration's genuine stumbles of late--the Harriet Miers nomination, abdicating control of the Valerie Plame kerfuffle--we're inclined to be a little stingy with the credit. But the Democrats are such extreme dopes, they can't help but get roped.

But they support the troops!

* Did we mention he's French-looking?

The Chappaquiddick-Tehran Axis
Sen. Ted Kennedy, the doyen of defeatism, responded to President Bush's speech by saying, "It's wrong for [the president] to attempt to silence his critics by calling them defeatists." Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment. Someone must have silenced her by calling her a defeatist.

Kennedy, of course, is repeating a familiar liberal trope: accusing the other side of trying to "silence dissent" by participating in the debate. Reuters reports on another example:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust is a matter for academic discussion and the West should be more tolerant of his views, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Sunday.

Ahmadinejad last week called the Holocaust a myth and suggested Israel be moved to Germany or Alaska, remarks that sparked international uproar and threaten diplomatic talks with Europe over Iran's nuclear programme.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi defended the president's remarks, which also drew a rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.

"What the president said is an academic issue. The West's reaction shows their continued support for Zionists," Asefi told a weekly news conference.

"Westerners are used to leading a monologue but they should learn to listen to different views," he added.

While America fights for freedom in the Middle East, brave Ted Kennedy and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whine about getting "Dixie Chicked."

Still Left Behind
It's worth noting that the American left's confusion over the war on terror long predates the liberation of Iraq. This is from an article by one Adam Shatz that appeared in the Sept. 23, 2002, issue of The Nation, and that we quoted on Sept. 11 of that year:

Curious whether others shared my own ambivalence, I undertook an informal investigation of left-wing opinion on American foreign policy since 9/11. . . . Some of the people I interviewed opposed going to war in October because they feared a bloody quagmire and didn't trust the Bush Administration, but changed their minds a month later when the Taliban unexpectedly fell. Others went in the opposite direction, coming out against the war only after US bombing began to inflict heavy civilian casualties. A few people supported targeted strikes against Al Qaeda training bases, but not the overthrow of the Taliban--not because of any sympathy for the regime but because the Bush Administration might be emboldened to overthrow other governments. Others argued, in contrast, that we shouldn't be bombing Afghanistan unless we were willing to send in ground troops. Some said that a struggle against radical Islam is necessary, but that we should be waging it in Saudi Arabia, not in Afghanistan. And many of the people who cautiously supported the Afghan intervention passionately assailed the war on terror as a new cold war, a danger to both American democracy and security.

A 2003 paper by Rutgers sociologist Ted Goertzel offers some interesting insight into the left-wing psyche:

In the 1970s, Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter administered Thematic Apperception Tests to a large sample of "new left" radicals (Roots of Radicalism, 1982). They found that activists were characterized by weakened self-esteem, injured narcissism and paranoid tendencies. They were preoccupied with power and attracted to radical ideologies that offered clear and unambiguous answers to their questions. . . .

The unwillingness to offer alternatives reveals a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem. If they offered their own policy ideas they would be vulnerable to criticism. They would run the risk that their ideas would fail, or would not seem persuasive to others. This is especially difficult for anti-capitalists after the fall of the Soviet Union. It has also been difficult in the war against terrorism because Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are such unsympathetic figures. Psychologically, it is easier to blame America for not finding a solution than it is to put one's own ideas on the line.

Hat tip: InstaWife.

Equal Opportunity Destroyer
Remember Katrina the racist hurricane? We argued back in September that this was a media myth, and the media are belatedly getting around to acknowledging that we were right. From yesterday's Los Angeles Times:

The bodies of New Orleans residents killed by Hurricane Katrina were almost as likely to be recovered from middle-class neighborhoods as from the city's poorer districts, such as the Lower 9th Ward, according to a Times analysis of data released by the state of Louisiana.

The analysis contradicts what swiftly became conventional wisdom in the days after the storm hit -- that it was the city's poorest African American residents who bore the brunt of the hurricane. Slightly more than half of the bodies were found in the city's poorer neighborhoods, with the remainder scattered throughout middle-class and even some richer districts.

And of course Katrina wrought devastation far beyond Orleans Parish, as Popular Mechanics notes:

To understand the full impact of Katrina, you have to make a distinction between New Orleans and the rest of the region. New Orleans suffered devastating inundation due to the various levee breaks, but wind damage was moderate. . . .

Outside the city you see a different story. We drove east out of the city on I-10, crossing over the famous twin-span bridge across Lake Pontchartrain. (Today it is a crowded single span as crews install temporary roadways across the destroyed portions of the northern span.) For the next eight hours we drove in a big loop through Slidell [La.], Biloxi [Miss.], Gulfport [Miss.] and Pass Christian [Miss.]. In all that time we never left a zone of hurricane destruction that ranged from moderate damage to total annihilation. And this is after three months of clean-up operations.

Why, then, did so much of the media coverage emphasize race? In part, we'd say, because of racist liberal stereotypes of blacks as helpless victims.

Homer Nods
In a footnote Friday, we noted that New Hampshire has a high concentration of French Canadians--this by way of explaining why a reader thought our occasional references to John Kerry** as "French-looking" helped Kerry win the Granite State. Of course, French Canadians cannot vote in U.S. elections, so we should have said French Canadian-Americans. Nous regrettons l'erreur.

* Fop cit.

Not as Stable as Arafat
"Medic: Sharon in Stable Condition"--headline, Reuters, Dec. 18

A HasteRt Judge Wouldn't Dawdle
"DeLay Judge to Wait for Court Ruling"--headline, Associated Press, Dec. 17

So Get Out of That Hospital Bed and Work!
"Peace Is Not Fostered by Lip Service but by Patient Labor"--headline, Georgie Anne Geyer column, Dec. 15

What Would We Do Without Woody Allen?
"Woody Allen Is Mediocre and Makes Miserable Films: Woody Allen"--headline, Agence France-Presse, Dec. 18

Shouldn't This Be a 'Health Tip'?
"Smart Holiday Shoppers Select Safe Toys"--headline, HealthDayNews, Dec. 19

Santa Clods
"A group of 40 people dressed in Santa Claus costumes, many of them drunk, rampaged through New Zealand's largest city, robbing stores and assaulting security guards, police said Sunday."--Associated Press, Dec. 17

'Reefer Magnets'
A hilarious follow-up on our item last week on the anti-Christian fish magnets that the Washington state Democratic Party was selling on its Web site comes from a local paper, the Skagit Valley Herald:

Allison Bigelow did not create the facetious fish, but her company, Reefer Magnets, owns the copyright and sells it on the Internet. . . .

She sees the media attention as a chance to talk about the real aim of Reefer Magnets and her efforts to educate and advocate for the decriminalizing [of] marijuana. "In my opinion, we wouldn't be such a warring people if we used more cannabis and used less alcohol," Bigelow said.

Bigelow has marched in anti-globalization and anti-war rallies in Seattle. She has written letters to editors and voted for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in 2004 if only to vote against President Bush.

"I've done everything I can, but I still feel I have blood on my hands," Bigelow said of the ongoing war in Iraq. . . . "We don't need to be in a war for oil because we have industrial hemp," Bigelow said. "If you look into all the little things that hemp can do, you'll understand. We wouldn't be killing people for oil."

This latest ichthys parody was created by a Seattle activist who wanted not to be named. He said he feared for the safety of his cats if the controversy grew out of control.

Sometimes stereotypes are true.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Husain Haqqani and Kenneth Ballen: Support for the U.S. is surging in some parts of the Muslim world.
• John Fund: California's political establishment has domesticated Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• John Guardiano: The U.S. military tells Iraqis the truth, and some call it a "scandal."