The latest issue of Vanity Fair continues plenty that’s well worth reading, including an interesting piece on the Bushes and the Bin Laden family. There’s a touch of conspiracy mongering about it, to be sure, but the administration needs to understand that, so long as the US relationship with the Kingdom remains shrouded in so much secrecy (how about those 28 pages?), it is opening itself up to the worst of speculation.

The highlight of the issue, however, is a piece by Christopher Hitchens on his recent visit to Iraq. There’s plenty of scope for controversy about on how matters are progressing over there, but few, one would hope, should disagree with this:

Hitchens is discussing the US forces, and then takes a look at their opposition:

“Against this [the US presence] are ranged the absolute scum of the earth. First one finds the remnant of the so-called Fedayeen Saddam: a cruel militia which used to be employed filling in those mass graves and performing other lowly tasks and which has never lost a battle against civilians. Before the war its ranks had already been augmented by imported “jihad” fighters from other countries, who have assisted the Baath Party in its mutation from pseudo-secularist Fascism into full-fledged Islamic dogmatism. The fanatics of the sole party meet the fanatics of the sole deity: a recent Saddamist “resistance” leaflet in Baghdad spoke of “One Leader/One Nation/One God,” and the rhetoric generally is the drone of “martyrdom” and “the infidels...”

That is the way to talk about the enemy.

I'd advise you follow your conscience, which sounds like it's leaning toward McClintock. Imagine how much worse you'd feel if you voted for Arnold and he raised your taxes and damaged California Republicans even more. So far, all you're getting from Arnold are empty, pleasant-sounding platitudes. Would you really be happy with yourself by voting for THAT?

As wonderful as McClintock is, it ain't gonna happen. Don't be like those Ross Perot voters who gave us Clinton. (Although thank God for those Ralph Nader voters who gave us Bush.)

I was struck by a quote in Mike Potemra’s review of your book in NRODT. He refers to your quoting of Rev. Lorenzo Albacete:

“We all have to take reality as it comes to us--presidents popes, all of us. [The question is] what you choose to do with reality.” I was immediately struck by the close similarity to lines from The Lord of The Rings, spoken by Gandalf to Frodo:

FRODO: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened.

GANDALF: So do all that come to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

That Tolkien was a devout…Christian is not unrelated….I thought the many Corner readers who are also Lord of the Rings fans would appreciate the heads up.

I had to pause…for a moment [while reading your book] to pull out my old copy of Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Here’s an excerpt:

"Individuals who depart from the norms - heroes, saints, sages, artists, and poets, as well as madmen and criminals - look for different things in life than most others do. The existence of people like these shows that consciousness can be ordered in terms of different goals and intentions. Each of us has this freedom to control our subjective reality."

FYI, I'm writing occassionally for the Times of London now. My first piece is up, but I don't have time to go through all the registration stuff to get you a link (I'm running out of the house). It's a painfully short piece (a mere 700 words), but I thought I should let everyone know. Cheerios, or whatever those people say.

“Since the days immediately after 9/11, the Attorney General has pledged repeatedly to use every lawful tool at our disposal to protect innocent Americans from future terrorist attacks. Imagine our surprise, then, when we read on ABC’s ‘Nightline’ website last night the following promotion for their September 4, 2003 show on the USA PATRIOT Act: ‘Imagine a nation where police can search your home without a court order or a warrant. Don’t look too far, it’s already here.’

“Perhaps the ‘Nightline show should have been tagged, ‘Name that law.’ Could they be referring to the USA PATRIOT Act? What law allows this? Having never heard of such a law, Justice Department lawyers quickly consulted the books to see what ‘Nightline’ was referencing. But we came away empty-handed. We couldn’t find it in the USA PATRIOT Act. We couldn’t find it in the revised FBI investigative guidelines. We couldn’t find it in the laws that pre-date the war on terror. And we certainly couldn’t find it in the Constitution.

“We hope ‘Nightline’ will either support this claim or issue a retraction.”

It is with deep regret that I have decided that I can no longer serve as the media critic for The American Enterprise. It's a great magazine with a great staff and I'm sure I'll realize the folly of my ways. But my workload is too great with my book and all and I just had to do it. But I remain a big fan of the magazine.

Another incredibly immature site.

I could swear there was all sorts of tittering on the left when the first George Bush and others tried to compare Saddam Hussein to Hitler. This was a sign of "desperation" a "real stretch" etc. Somehow, it was silly fearmongering to call the head of a party (the Baath Party, not the GOP) which was modeled in part on the Nazi Party, who talks about Iraqis in exactly the same terms as the Germans used to talk about Aryans, who gassed his own people, slaughtered hundreds of thousands and launched wars for lebensraum, Hitler-like. But calling a president who said his favorite political philosopher was Jesus Christ, who talks about compassion constantly and won't stop calling Islam a religion of peace a new Hitler makes perfect sense.

HE: Why do you believe there has been almost no attention in the liberal press to Bustamante's association with MEChA?

McClintock: (Chuckles) I can't imagine why. (Laughter.)

I got this outrageous email from someone at PETA:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

I found your "Bush equals Hitler" article very interesting. While certain comparisons to the Holocaust and to Hitler are a bit far-fetched (to say the least), there are some which have strong historical backing and present-day significance. As a Jew, the most striking to me is perhaps the gross similarities between the Holocaust and modern-day meat production, both in methods and mindset. During the Holocaust, average people allowed the concentration camps to operate by turning away from cruelty. They separated themselves from the victims and used that as a justification to allow the abuse to go on. Today, people use the same justification to allow cruel factory farms to operate, and support them each time they sit down to eat. When people eat meat they are supporting a system that rips children away from their mothers, transports innocent beings over hundres of miles through all weather extremes, confines them in cramped, filthy conditions, and herds them to their deaths in assembly line fashion. This is the same system that was used to exterminate Jews and others during the Holocaust. Nobel Prize winning Yiddish author, Isaac Bashevis Singer noted that, "To animals, all people are Nazis." Theodor Adorno, another noteworthy survivor, said that "Aschwitz begins wherever ones sees a slaughterhouse and thinks: they're only animals."

I urge you to visit www.masskilling.com to find out more information about the link between the Holocaust and factory farming.

The debate was mostly on Iraq and the economy. Language issues (my specialty) came up just twice tonight.

North Carolina Senator John Edwards repeated his call for "a national translation center, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week" for Spanish speakers to receive medical translations. (He made a similar proposal to MALDEF last June.) Taxpayers would do well to ask themselves why Edwards, who made his fortune as a personal injury lawyer, seeks to expand a whole new category of malpractice litigation -- erroneous translation.

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean received the first question of the night and called for Iraq to be occupied "preferably with Muslim troops, Arabic-speaking troops." For Dean, respect for Iraq's national language and culture is paramount. No word yet on whether he applies the same principle to the United States.

The last topic of the night was (surprise) amnesty for illegal aliens. The responses to the question, "Do you support [amnesty]?", were as follows:

Kerry: "Absolutely."

Gephardt: "I'm proud of that [amnesty] bill [I introduced].

Graham: switched the topic to Puerto Rico's status. "We have not yet solved what relationship [Puerto Rico] has with the United States.

Kucinich: "Yes, I'm for amnesty."

Dean: switched the topic to racial profiling.

Edwards: "They have earned the right to citizenship."

Moseley-Braun: "I would agree with legalization."

Lieberman: "Mexicans are dying in the desert. That is no longer acceptable. . . . Bush has used 9/11 as an excuse. . . . lift the cap on family reunification.

Sharpton did not participate in the debate.

Both Lieberman and Kucinich attacked Dean directly. (Kucinich noted, pointedly, that Vermont did have a military to fund in budget Dean boasted of balancing.) This led Chris Suellentrop of Slate to comment:

The buzz among the press corps before the debate is that John Kerry is finally going to go toe to toe with Dean, in an attempt to close the double-digit lead that the former Vermont governor has opened over Kerry in New Hampshire. But it's wallflower Joe Lieberman who pummels Dean instead. Rocky showed up to fight Apollo Creed, but somehow he ended up in the ring with Paulie.

I've gotten a huge and overwhelmingly positive response to yesterday's G-File. However, among the critics the same two or three points keep coming up. The gist of my column, if you haven't read it, is that it's not only moronic to compare Bush to Hitler but it is also slanderous to the United States and a form of Holocaust denial to boot. See my syndicated column for more on the Holocaust denial part.

In response, a few lefty types have offered the following points. First, conservatives said outrageous things about Bill Clinton -- comparing him to Hitler, Hussein or Stalin -- and so we/I have no right to complain when liberals do the same to Bush now. "Payback is a bitch" quoth several. This is asinine on every level. First, if you are willing to concede that it was absurd to call Bill Clinton Hitler, you must concede that it's wrong to call Bush Hitler too. And if you concede that, but still insist on making the Nazi comparison, you are in effect knowingly lying simply out of spite, not conviction. Moreover, this is not about defending Bush, it is about defending the integrity of fundamental historical truths and moral categories. To willingly compare Bush to Hitler even though you know it is absurd, does very little damage to Bush but a great deal of damage to the truth.

Also, in my own defense, I made these exact same points many times during the impeachment madness. And this was at a time when Clintonites were literally siccing private detectives on my family and Clinton supporters were phoning me -- and emailing me -- with death threats. I made this point in speeches and in the nascent Goldberg File. I don't have time to scour the archives, but I did find two examples. Here and here .

Relatedly, several readers have made the point that conservatives call liberals "communists" all the time and isn't that just as bad? Well, yes and no. First of all, right or wrong there is cultural unanimity on the evilness of the Nazi regime. Sadly, the evils of Communism are more controversial, particularly because liberals and leftists refuse to concede the enormity of Stalin's and Mao's crimes. And yes it is true that conservatives correctly compare those monsters to Hitler, but people of left not only reject the comparison they also go to great lengths to make the fair point that not all people who call themselves communists are Stalinists or Maoists. There are certainly Communists or orthodox Marxists in every major univeristy faculty in this country. Nobody calls him or herself a Nazi.

And lastly, several readers and a few bloggers apparently think I'm a hypocrite because NRO sells Iraq-style playing cards with Hillary as the Ace of Spades. I have no problem with the cards, but I'm not in charge of advertising even if I did. More to the point, the cards are clearly a joke. I'm not opposed to all forms of humor. The problem with the buffoons who call Bush a Nazi is not that they are joking, it's that they're serious. That is why they should be ashamed.

Spain arrests Al-Jazeera correspondent, alleges al Qaeda links

From CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman

MADRID (CNN) -- Spanish police arrested Al-Jazeera TV correspondent Tayseer Allouni at his home in southern Spain Friday, using an arrest warrant that accuses him of having links to "important members" of al Qaeda and using his status as a journalist to get an interview with Osama bin Laden in October 2001, his wife told CNN in a phone interview.

"A group of police came with a judicial order at noon today and searched the home," for about three hours while Allouni was present, before taking him away, his wife, Fatima Hamed Layasi, told CNN from their home in Granada, in southern Spain.

She said the arrest warrant was from Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has been leading the investigation in Spain into alleged members of al Qaeda and other militant Islamic groups.

Asked if the charges were true, Hamed Layasi said, "Surely it is not so."

She said she would soon hire a lawyer to defend her husband.

She said the warrant says that Allouni "took advantage of his status as a journalist to get an interview on Oct. 7, 2001, with Osama bin Laden, where bin Laden called for a holy war."

Police took several books and newspapers in Arabic and two computers, one belonging to Allouni's son and another, a laptop, belonging to a production company that Hamed Layasi identified as Andalusia Directo, which she said provides programming to Al-Jazeera.

In case TaPpeD (I refuse to be a slave to unorthodox capital letter schemes) won't take Jon or the White House counsel's word for it, maybe they'll listen to the editorial board of the Washington Post. They take some shots at the Republicans too, but they agree that the Democrats acted shamefully.

Apparently, she's poisoned the name "Hillary" for a generation.

Not only is this a sad day for Miguel and Laurie Estrada, but we have all let something unfortunate occur in Washington. We allowed the U.S. Senate to erect a "glass ceiling" in our courts--you can do all the right things in America, but if you do not agree with Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, you need not apply as a federal judge. This is the message that Democrats hope minorities, in particular, get from their victory as they succeeded in repelling a talented man, who happens to be Hispanic, from public service. For the hard left, Miguel Estrada was not qualified to be a federal judge because he would not march to their drumbeat.

....each of us is partly responsible for Miguel's decision to withdraw his nomination. What did you and I do to discourage an honorable man who is mainstream and qualified from serving his country? It's not enough to look the other way as the left makes charges that go unanswered. Miguel Estrada is no extremist. It is the left that wants to capture the federal judiciary, as it claims is the goal of the right. I've seen this before--when those on the left accuse you of something they are guilty of themselves.

...the battle is whether there will be an independent judiciary or a liberal litmus test to transform our courts into another political branch. Miguel Estrada said yes to public service for 29 months; what did we do in that same time frame and what can we do now to help good people serve?

The hasty turn to the United Nations smells of panic, unwarranted panic at that, and even worse, the foolish subordination of Iraq policy to electoral concerns.

The administration may genuinely believe it isn't engaged in a humiliating climbdown, but that is inevitably going to be the perception, here and abroad.

The practical point of the move, to the extent it has any, is to obtain the U.N. fig leaf that will make politically possible the deployment of troops from India, Pakistan and Turkey.

But even if it were worth eating some humble pie to bring in three divisions from those countries — and that's debatable, given the horrifyingly brutal counter-insurgency records of all three militaries — the timing of the pie-eating could hardly be more dangerous.

To go crawling back to the United Nations, tail between our legs, only a week after the Najaf bombing, tells the world — and, more importantly, the people of Iraq — that the bombings and attacks on U.S. troops have succeeded. It signals that America is, if not exactly on the run, severely rattled.

According to Vicki Saporta of the pro-choice National Abortion Federation, violence against clinics typically increases in the months following an extremist's conviction....Until now, most had assumed that the abortion battle's bloodiest days had passed. After the 1998 killing of an abortion doctor (there have been seven abortion-related murders and 17 attempted ones so far, according to Saporta), Attorney General Janet Reno established a task force to combat such violence, and it abated.

FEDERICO de Jesus owes Victor David Hanson an apology.

De Jesus, a staffer for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., falsely accused Hanson, the distinguished author of the just-published book "Mexifornia" (Encounter, 2003), of racism and xenophobia at a recent Capitol Hill briefing.

During his introduction, Hanson, a scholar of ancient Rome and Greece, was aptly described as "a classicist." De Jesus somehow interpreted that to mean that the author had a white "classist" bias against immigrants. Pelosi's aide, who somehow earned a diploma without being able to make a distinction between a classicist and a classist, got ugly with Hanson and stormed out of the briefing in protest.

The first lesson of Estrada is that Schumer has won the battle within the Democratic Senate Caucus. Ideology is now on the table. Prediction is perilous, but now that the Democrats have opened the door to open ideological warfare, it does seem unlikely that Republicans will choose to remain on the stoop if and when the tables are turned and they find themselves able to block a qualified Democratic nominee of good character whose ideology they find objectionable. . . .

Couldn't the filibuster be broken if the Republicans forced the Democrats to go 24/7? No. Because the 24/7 option actually gives an advantage to the minority. Why? In order to force a 24/7 filibuster, the majority must maintain a quorum at all times, but the minority need only have one Senator present to maintain the filibuster. So 24/7 both exhausts and distracts the majority, while allowing the minority the opportunity to rest and carry on their ordinary business. No modern filibuster has been broken by the 24/7 option. . . .

[A] gaggle of conservative law professors, lead by Doug Kmiec, have argued that the constitution requires that a Senate majority be able to change the cloture rule. I'm not sure Kmiec is right, but I'm not the judge of this issue. And neither are the courts. When it comes to this issue, the highest constitutional court is the Senate itself. Here is the bottom line. Unless the Senate leadership pushes hard for a rule change, it looks like the filibuster of judicial nominees has been entrenched as consistent with the customs and rules of the Senate.

Maybe it's true. At any given time a significant number of Americans in a given time zone are heading into either breakfast, lunch or dinner. If we're talking about Americans who are not asleep, 30 million might be exactly right, or even a little low.

Another possibility is that 30 million sounds a little like FDR's "A Third of a Nation" mantra and that's why it sticks around.

Or maybe they're all just a bunch of liars. Who knows? I'm too hungry to think about it.

From a reader in response to today's G-File:

Don't be silly, Bush isn't Hitler. He's the man of perdition predicted in the Book of Revelation. 7 is the biblical number of perfection. 6 is the biblical number of deception. Jesus himself said that "many will come in my name to deceive the elect." Bush claims to be a Christian, but what are his fruits? War, strife, discord, greed, aravice, corruption, and death are his works. Despite his claims of Christianity, he embraces Islam, allows God's law to be removed from public view, displays arrogance and seeks to be worshipped. These are hardly works which would be considered the fruits of a humble, God-fearing man.

From a reader:

I see your column every once and while in the Boise Weekly, the alternative newspaper here in Boise. You are the token fascist and your column is usually placed next to Ted Rall's, whose work better reflects the opinions of most readers. Your appearance has generated a lot of angry letters, since they see you as contaminating an otherwise excellent newspaper. However, the Weekly generated a lot more mail when they briefly cancelled the x-rated personals.

Personally, I'd rather track your column down on the web.

By the way several new newspapers around the country have been running my syndicated column lately to test it out. The most prominent of them is the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. Also, the Dallas Morning News has just picked up my column. Anyway, if you ever see my biline in your hometown paper and you like seeing it there, please feel free to let the newspaper know. I'm not asking for any letter writing campaigns or anything like that, but newspapers do pay attention to the reaction they get from new columnists. And any positive response in my favor are greatly appreciated. Needless to say, you should do the same thing for Rich's syndicated column as well. Thanks.

WALLACE: But he chose not to travel to northern California where the top five candidates in the recall race squared off in the first debate. Most of the 90 minutes focused on taxes.

HOWARD DEAN (R), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I am the one candidate who has taken the no tax pledge. I will not raise taxes.

WALLACE: And the budget deficit.

Der Arnold wins--and raises taxes. At this point the leading Republican in the state would be pro-tax and pro-choice and pro-everything else that Reagan Republicans oppose. Maybe Arnold would be able to register a whole slew of new Republicans, which would put California senate republicans into a better position, possibly even pave the way for a non-RINO Republican to ascend to the governorship someday. All this is not to mention keeping...[out of office Bustamante,] who PROMISES to raise taxes by about 73 gajillion dollars (you might want to check that number).

I bet I could kill Alec Bldwin by making him die from laughter if only I could get this URL to him. Warning: This may be the most immature thing I've ever linked to.

Yes, I know it's preety insufferable of me to call attention to these guys again, but the folks at G-Philes have revamped their site and they're even talking about Joss Whedon and other geek things.

The Goldberg File is up.

Jonah also rebuts the civil rights argument that the denial of same-sex marriage is equivalent to the denial of inter-racial marriage. Why? Jonah argues that it's because no blacks back in the 1960s entertained radical notions about marriage and family life. Really? Has he read much cultural history? In 1967, when blacks first won the constitutional right to marry whom they pleased, you could also have had a front-page story in the New York Times citing many blacks who disapproved of inter-racial marriage. A hefty plurality still do. Would Jonah have written a column saying: "See? Those negroes don't even want to marry whites! Why should we debase this sacred institution for just a few of those people who don't represent most blacks anyway?"

As Stanley mentioned, my friend Andrew Sullivan is quite perturbed by my syndicated column on gay marriage, which is kind of cool because I get so much angry email from folks who say I’m in his thrall. Anyway, Andrew plays a bit of sleight of hand in describing what I wrote in order to rebut me.

In my column, I make what I think is a fairly reasonable point: If the goal is to undermine and/or rewrite the rules of marriage – a goal not shared by all gays to be sure -- then maybe marriage isn’t the right institution for same-sex couples (I favor civil unions of some kind). Indeed, what is usually so compelling about Andrew’s arguments for gay marriage is his deep understanding of the conservative and “conservatizing” power of the institution. If that aspect of marriage – in shorthand, monogamy – has to hit the cutting room floor for marriage to be “inclusive” for homosexuals, then why even bother calling it marriage anymore at all?

What so disturbed me about that article wasn’t that I “discovered” there are homosexual radicals out there, as Andrew suggests. No, what I found so disturbing about the prominent front page story in the paper of record was how clearly it signaled that many advocates of gay marriage simply cannot be trusted – Andrew not included. The Times has been waxing eloquent about how gays are just like everybody else and therefore it is a matter of basic decency to treat them thus. This argument is very compelling, obviously. But if the Times – never mind Hollywood, the professoriate, and cultural libertarians and libertines everywhere – is willing to sell out their avowed principles and arguments on the issue of gay marriage for the momentary frisson of siding with gays who want to challenge the bourgeois and boring notion that monogamy is the bedrock of marriage, then folks like Andrew are going to have to do a far better job persuading average Americans that the liberal side of the culture war can be believed when they say they want the same rules for gays as for everybody else. The issue is not that some “straights” oppose monogamy and some gays surely support it. No doubt that’s true. It’s that many pro-gay marriage advocates either want to redefine the institution twice over – marriage can be same-sex and it’s perfectly okay to introduce your husband to your date – or that they are liars saying they want the same rules for everybody, but really don’t mean it.

Tom McClintock’s performance reminded me of the old line that when you tell the truth, you don’t have to worry about keeping your stories straight. Whatever you might think of him and his ideas, it can’t be said that McClintock trims his sails to match his audience. This is a man who knows what he believes and isn’t going to be shaken from it. He also knows how to say it in 60 seconds if that is what you give him, or 30, or even 15. He distinguished himself as a conservative’s conservative, on everything from taxes to abortion, the death penalty, immigration and the environment. I still don’t think he’s in the mainstream of the electorate, but he has the look of a guy who is willing to wait for the rest of us to figure out what he’s known all along.