Townhall: Home of the Cyber-McVeighs

At Townhall.com, "Peppermint" writes about assassinating US Attorney Johnnie Sutton in a bit of "fiction."

The rest of "Juliet's Diary" is equally perverse; it presents civil war and murdering one's political opponents as good old harmless fun.

This is why I'm not active at Townhall: I don't want to be on a Department of Homeland Security watch list.

Apparently, nobody at Townhall has flagged the post as offensive--and even if they did, Townhall doesn't seem to disapprove. I notified Townhall of this three days ago. It's still up there. I guess they're OK with it. And why shouldn't they be? Ann Coulter wrote "They Shot the Wrong Lincoln." My, my, that's not anything resembling incitement, is it, Annie, dear? I sent a couple of my Marines to the brig back in the day for much milder statements than that . . .

If Townhall wants to be the Official Website of Timothy McVeigh Wannabes, that's one thing. But it cannot simultaneously fill that role and be a serious participant in political debate. Unfortunately, they are joined at the hip with the Salem Radio Network, which hosts one of my ex-favorites, Hugh Hewitt. Looks like KCBQ (1170 AM) comes off my car radio's presets.

Memo for the management at Townhall: SET THY HOUSE IN ORDER. Assassination fantasies are off-limits, bigtime. Even if they're from your top-rated columnists.

Linda Chavez fights back...

Linda Chavez has been one of those conservatives who has favored comprehensive immigration reform. For that, she has taken a lot of abuse. For an example, see the comments to one of her columns about the wife and kids of one of the heroes defending us in the global war on terror. And, like President Bush, she's tired of the abuse, and she returned fire.

The first two paragraphs:

Some people just don't like Mexicans -- or anyone else from south of the border. They think Latinos are freeloaders and welfare cheats who are too lazy to learn English. They think Latinos have too many babies, and that Latino kids will dumb down our schools. They think Latinos are dirty, diseased, indolent and more prone to criminal behavior. They think Latinos are just too different from us ever to become real Americans.

No amount of hard, empirical evidence to the contrary, and no amount of reasoned argument or appeals to decency and fairness, will convince this small group of Americans -- fewer than 10 percent of the general population, at most -- otherwise. Unfortunately, among this group is a fair number of Republican members of Congress, almost all influential conservative talk radio hosts, some cable news anchors -- most prominently, Lou Dobbs -- and a handful of public policy "experts" at organizations such as the Center for Immigration Studies, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA, in addition to fringe groups like the Minuteman Project.

It's dead on target. Which is why there is a lot of howling going on. But the return fire is long, long overdue. I can go back over the past few years, and I can find where people who supported comprehensive immigration reform have been called quislings, traitors, and sellouts. I can find claims that they don't have principles as well.

Well, push someone often enough, and they will start swinging back. It's a lesson that every schoolyard bully learns at some point. Well, people like Michelle Malkin have been dishing it out for a while - and getting away with it. Now, that they have pushed people like President Bush and Linda Chavez hard enough and often enough, they are receiving some of their venom back.

I have no sympathy for them. Regrettably, there will be some broad-brush strokes dished out in this. I'm a little guilty of that, personally. But there comes a point where you just have to make it clear that you will not be pushed around any more. The return fire from Linda Chavez and George W. Bush is, if you ask me, overdue.

Jamil update...

Flopping Aces has more on Jamil. Seems he denies ever speaking to the AP. Oh, and he goes by Jamil Gulaim, not Jamil Hussein.

Add this to the air strike that the AP reported but MNF-I denied happening, it's obvious that there is something going on with their Baghdad bureau that needs to be dealt with.

Every answer leads to more questions.

Iraq and civil wars...

Eve Fairbanks discusses the situation in Iraq as well as Darfur.

I've discussed Darfur before. That is a situation where American intervention is best kept to a small force that trains the people there in the use of small arms and in small-unit tactics - as well as training instructors.

Iraq is another matter. Saddam's regime had to go. Austin Bay largely recaps the reasons for doing so. I will add that I believe that the ivestigative reporting of Stephen F. Hayes at the Weekly Standard has established enough of a connection to al-Qaeda to warrant taking down that regime. I also think the neoconservatives are offering perhaps our best chance - maybe our only chance - to deal with state sponsors of terror before things get to the point where we have to turn to what I call the "Omaha option." The short version is that the war on terror would be turned over to a major joint command headquartered near that city. The war would be over in three days, tops. The bad news is that we would have to deal with the fallout - both figuratively and literally.

With all that said, having taken out the old Iraqi government, we needed to replace it. That government is still trying to get its feet on solid ground. Do we need a change in strategy? Yes, we do - and Don Rumsfeld had some good ideas. Sadly, he was treated like crap by certain people looking to score political points rather than come up with alternatives to what had to be done.

It's a good article, and worth thinking about.